Social Video Most Trusted for B2B Tech Buyers

Social video is the most “compelling and trusted format” influencing B2B buyers in the technology market, according to a new survey by LinkedIn.

Of the over 1,700 B2B technology buyers in the US, UK and India it surveyed, 63% say short-form social video content from industry experts “helps inform buying decisions”. The data is based on the subset of people who already engage with industry influencers during the purchasing process, which is 91% of the overall sample.

Looking at the split across the three countries, short-form social video content is most influential for buyers in India, with 66% saying it helps to inform their buying decisions. It is lower for US and UK buyers, at 59% and 49% respectively.

Drilling further into the specifics, a large majority of buyers (80%) who consume video content say that videos including industry influencers are one of the most trusted formats. Again, this is higher for buyers in India (83%) and slightly lower for US (71%) and UK (79%) buyers.

Of the buyers who consume B2B influencer content, 67% say that it helps to build brand trust and creates “awareness of different products and solutions”. As with the previous figures, this is higher for those in India (72%) than in the US (54%) and UK (52%). 

After a recent LinkedIn study revealed that 81% of B2B video adverts fail to gain ‘adequate attention or drive recall’, it seems that influencer-led social video is a better way to catch the attention of B2B buyers.

Diving deeper

Looking more closely at the demographic split, Gen Z buyers engage with B2B influencer content more than any other generation of buyers. A significant majority (90%) of Gen Z buyers who are aware of influencer marketing, engage with B2B influencer content on a monthly basis. This is 11% higher than all other buyers, suggesting that as more Gen Z buyers join the buying group, influencer content will become increasingly important.

Diving into the industry split, more than two-thirds (67%) of B2B buyers in the IT sector who are aware of influencer marketing, say that an industry expert plays a “critical” role in the consideration stage of the buying process. In the tech buying process, nearly 50% of all respondents say their use of B2B subject matter experts “will increase over the next three years”.

It has become increasingly apparent that influencers are an important part of marketing in the B2B space. The global market for B2B influencers has grown 20-fold since 2016, according to Influencing Business – a report on the sector from Ogilvy released at the beginning of this year. Three quarters of B2B marketers have used influencers, and more than half (53%) of the remaining companies surveyed for the report were considering them.