Always a super useful report and survey results. Looking forward to reviewing this new edition!

Glad you find it helpful Rachel

This is why I find myself coming back to Social Media Examiner. An endless amount of value and knowledge provided by some of the greatest minds ever. Cheers!

Thanks Shai!

Do you have the previous reports available to download? It would be super useful for me to compare! :)

Hey Kimberly - We identify all the relevant changes in this report from last year. But you can Google and find the old ones rather easily.

Awesome thanks, Michael. Don't know why a google search wasn't the first thing I tried! :P Doh!

As we can see from the featured study, when marketers were asked to select the single most important form of content for their business, responses varied greatly depending upon the type of company he or she is representing. For instance, blogging is more
important for business-to-business (B2B) marketers, with 57% claiming that it
is the most important form, than to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, with
only 39% saying that it is most significant. Essentially, how a company determines which marketing tool to use is typically based upon the demographic it’s
trying to reach, the type of products and/or services offered, the goal of
communication, and respective corporate culture. While blogging is not optimal
for all companies, according to the 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry
Report, the written word is still important overall for marketers. In fact, a substantial
69% plan on increasing their use of blogs this year.

Blogging, like all social media practices, is best determined by the company, culture and resources. With more than half of the marketers surveyed intending to expand their blog presence, it is important that it is done correctly and aligned with strategic
business priorities.

A company blog should be loosely based on the company itself, as it is unnecessary to talk about a product or service to sell it. For all blogs, it is most effective to have a
broad range of topics. Effective areas of focus includes, but is not limited
to, customers, the industry, and current trends, as well as proving readers with
exclusive content that cannot be obtained anywhere else. Ultimately, through simply
educating or entertaining audiences, a company has a greater propensity to increase sales through cultivating trustworthy relationships.

I agree that blogs are still very important Diana :)

82% of marketers have no intention of incorporating Snapchat into their marketing efforts. Can't say I'm surprised.

I'm sure over the years that stat will change Andrew

Thanks, again for this important report. Congratulations, Michael, in making Social Media Examine must reading. I learn so much for your daily newsletters.

Thanks so much Jeannette!

Great report, I guess this report is going to be very helpful to African Businesses. I am very thankful to Michael for always enabling us achieve the best out of Social Media

Thanks Fred

Is there any way i can get this in like a book format? Not something I particularly want to read from a computer. Thanks a lot for all the great content.

Hey Dan - You can always print it out. There will not be a print copy you can purchase.

Have another look as there is both a link above to the PDF file and an embedded copy.

Very unusual.

Michael, Thanks, that's a very informative report/survey and with 3700 participants-statistically strong (imho) (ie self employed, SMB, B2C, mid-large firms, many industries,etc. Question- re LinkedIN. Company profiles have not increased for over 18 months. ie for the US market there are approx 410,000 LinkedIN company profiles for companies between 10- 1000 employees versus about a total of 1.8Million companies in this cohort. This has not grown at all. Survey says B2B marketeers will increase use of LinkedIN for ads, recruiting, sales leads etc. Curious to know why LinkedIN company profiles in the SMB- mid-market space have not grown while personal profiles are heading to 350 million. regards, and thanks,

Hey Stuart - I guess it depends on how you look at it. If by growth you mean the number of new businesses that have company profiles then you could say that this is a problem. However I think that is a bad metric. I would say that simply setting up a LinkedIn Company Page has zero correlation to increasing LinkedIn activities. There are obviously a very finite number of businesses that would have a page and a much bigger pool of employees who do not own a business.

Michael, thanks for reply. Agreed, overall not a "problem" for LinkedIN (I'll take their problems any day). LinkedIN has so many other social collaboration tools, groups etc in addition to the "company profile page" but since I have been active since 2006 I was puzzled to notice little growth last 18 months. However having 410K companies from 10-1000 employees out of a total US cohort of approx. 1.9MM is pretty damm good (95% with accurate data, etc.). Perhaps companies who do provide profiles and the employees linked to them are being bombarded with sales/marketing messages etc., and maybe we are killing our collective golden goose. regards, SA

Is it fair to say that the respondents to the survey include both brand side marketers and independent marketers (i.e. agencies, consultants, etc.)? And if so, any idea what the split is?

Hal - We actually asked agencies to not answer on behalf of their clients but instead their own business. If you look at the end of the report you will see the breakdown on size of businesses and industries.

Thanks, Michael. I see that now. Don't know how I missed it earlier.

Amazing stuff yet again from SME, I find it very interesting that so many are planning on increasing their video marketing efforts and want to learn more about it.

Thanks Anton - I agree that is interesting

Thank you Michael and the rest of the SME staff for putting this together. I'll be using it in my business but it's also excellent timing for me because I will be making this required reading for the summer school social media marketing class I'm teaching. Class starts June 1st. Can't wait to introduce a new crop of students to SME! #OnWisconsin

Wow cool Don :)

All my best to you and your students

Amazing and important stuff from SME, I find it very interesting that so many are planning on increasing their Online marketing efforts and want to learn more about it. more grace and Wisdom to you all @ SME.

Thanks Taiwo - It doesn't surprise me that people want to increase their social media marketing efforts

Awesome Share

The best platform to get insights about social media... I really appreciate your reports,news ! Greeting from Turkey

I'm already registered to receive updates. How can I get this report? When I filled out your form, it states that I am already registered. Inquiry minds want to know. :)

Hello Rita, If you put your name and email in the "Download Now" form above, you will be taken to a screen that allows you to download the report to your computer or device. Hope this helps :-)

Rita - You can hit reply on any of our newsletters and someone on my team will provide you the report

Hope to get some insights for Indian market in next reports.

Some useful data here, although not surprising, especially the split between FB and Li, B2C vs. B2B. Social can increase website traffic, but what I'm wondering about is how your respondents measure exposure?

Good question Robbin, not sure

Hi Michael, excellent report! Great insight into the ways businesses are using social media and content marketing. I would like to use this report as a source on a piece I'm working on about the B2B sector and wondered what percentage of B2B marketers surveyed answered the question of what single form of content is most important for their business with video and podcasting (page 44). The data is given for blogging and visual, but not these choices. Hope you can help me with this! Thanks, Karla

Hey Karla - It's because there was not a statistically significant difference in B2B and B2C on those segments. Hope this helps.

I am using parts of your report in my dissertation! Did you conduct any reliability or validity tests for your surveys? Thank you for this great information!

Thanks for compiling such a comprehensive book on the industry. It can be quite difficult to figure out which SM platform to spend your time and money on. This certainly cuts through the clutter.

Hi, I couldn't see how global or local this report is, I find it very helpful but I'm not sure if this data expresses my local (country-region) targets behavior.

wish i could harness all this information for internet radio

how much of your research is ad based versus post based?

Hi, have anyone an idea for research question for my master Thesis in Social Media (Corporate Communication) Thank you in advance
##

Hey Michael. I'm already signed up with social media examiner. How can I get a copy of this report?