B2B: Social networks are increasingly influencing sales

B2B: Social networks are increasingly influencing sales

The corporate world seems to succumb to the siren calls of Social Selling: according to a study,
the impact of social networks on the BtoB act of purchasing would have more than tripled in a
year …
According to the 2nd edition of the Social Selling Barometer conducted by La Poste Business
Solutions and the digital agency Intuiti, social networks have never played their role of influence
as much as today, even in BtoB.
According to this study, the number of decision-makers who bought a product or service
following a solicitation on social networks has multiplied by 3 this year and more than half of
BtoB decision-makers acknowledge having already been influenced by an article or an article
post on social networks when buying …

A real impact on the act of purchase

In 2018, 6% of respondents said they were buying a product or service following a solicitation
via social networks, they are 21% in 2019.
Indirect means, such as reading blog posts and posts, are even more influential: 57% of
decision-makers say they have already been pushed to the act of buying BtoB, by an article or a
post on the networks social (+ 1pt vs 2018).

Surprisingly, the perception of this impact remains quite relative, since it has only increased by 2
points: social networks are indeed so anchored in the day-to-day life of BtoB decision-makers
that they do not perceive the influence that these channels exercise indirectly. Certainly,
because they associate the passage to the act of purchase with a conversation with a service
provider.

Social networks are a particularly effective lever for salespeople: 71% of the decision-makers
interviewed for this function believe that social networks help them in their business.
Presently, purchases made after contacts on the networks mainly concern service activities.
They represent 2/3 of them.

The software and hardware products arrive then. In terms of amounts, 88% of sales still amount
to less than 10K €.

Social networks grow strongly in BtoB

Regardless of the objective pursued (publicizing your company, doing the business intelligence,
discovering potential partners or suppliers), the use of social networks in the workplace has greatly increased.This channel is also considered to be more “business-oriented” than before: while 74% of
decision-makers considered social networks “less commercial than other media” in 2018, they
are now only 70%.

This finding does not interfere with the connections, quite the contrary. 64% of decision-makers
have already responded to a commercial solicitation from someone they did not know (+11 pts
vs 2018).