Influencer Marketing A Top B2B Strategy, B2B Event Industry Rebounds, Top Posting Times, & Marketers Overwhelmed By MarTech

B2B & B2C Instagram Marketing Trends of 2022 [Data from 500 Marketers]
More than twice as many B2B marketers than B2C have said that influencer marketing will be their top strategy in 2022, with 70 percent of B2B marketers having said that partnering with influencers offered a high return on investment (ROI) — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-released HubSpot survey data detailing Instagram marketing trends. HubSpot

“Don’t see influencer marketing as 1-way transactional relationships that only benefit the brand. Focus on developing long-term mutually beneficial relationships that benefit both the brand & the influencers that you work with.” @justinlevy Click To Tweet

Marketers Are Overwhelmed By Martech, Study Finds
Half of senior marketers said they were overwhelmed by marketing technology, with some 40 percent of the tools available to them going unused, while 30 percent have said that they are not able to fully utilize their marketing technology platforms — three of the statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released survey data. MediaPost

IAB: US digital ad revenue skyrocketed in 2021 despite mounting challenges
When it comes to digital advertising in the U.S., growth of 35.4 percent year-over-year in 2021 contributed to $189.3 billion in revenue, an increase that was the fastest since 2006, led by digital video, which climbed 58.8 percent to $39.5 billion, according to newly-released report data. Marketing Dive

Companies Are Set to Spend Billions on the Metaverse in the Next Decade. These Are the Groups They Should Target [Survey]
36 percent adults in the U.S. have said that they are interested in the metaverse, with 56 percent of millennials and 51 percent of Gen Z expressing interest, while 46 percent of men and 28 percent of women expressed interest, according to recently-released survey data. Morning Consult

8 in 10 Marketers Plan Changes to Their MarTech Stack This Year
64 percent of marketers have said that their marketing budgets are up from last year, with 82 percent noting that they want updated marketing technologies, while 37 percent pointed to customer data platform (CDP) technology as the top marketing solution they plan to invest in during 2022, according to newly-released report data. MarketingCharts

Most Brands Are Turning To Zero-Party Data, Study Finds
90 percent of digital marketing decision makers have said by the end of 2022 their firms will be collecting zero-party data shared directly by customers, however only some 42 percent said they know how to effectively use that which they already have access to — two of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in recent report data from Forrester. MediaPost

New Report Highlights That Instagram Hashtags Don’t Significantly Increase Post Engagement
Posts on Instagram that used three or four hashtags achieved the highest rates of engagement when it came to impressions, with generally more hashtags leading to slightly lower rates, especially for accounts with between 50 thousand and a million followers, according to newly-released Socialinsider survey data. Social Media Today

The best times to engage on social media [Sprout Social Report]
Mornings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were the top times for achieving the highest levels of social media engagement, with mid-mornings during the middle of the week leading the way when it comes to the LinkedIn platform — two of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released Sprout Social survey data. MarTech

Video Aids 95% Of Enterprise B2B Buyers In Conversion [Survey Results]
88 percent of B2B buyers said that during the past 90 days they have viewed videos to learn about a company’s products or services, with 70 percent having pinpointed video as the top content format when it came to increasing awareness of business-related problems — two of numerous statistics of interest to digital marketers released in new B2B buyer report data. Search Engine Journal

The B2B Exhibition Industry Improved Again in Q4 as 7 in 8 In-Person Events Went Ahead as Planned
Just 12.5 percent of events were canceled during the final quarter of 2021, representing a continued and marked improvement since the final quarter of 2020 — when nearly 98 percent had been canceled — according to recently-released B2B exhibition survey daya. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “the future of the metaverse” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

The Most Commonly Tattooed Brands [Infographic] — MarketingProfs

April Fools’ Day 2022 Pranks: Butterfinger Mayo, Invisible Earbuds, 7-Eleven Tiny Gulp — CNET

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• TopRank Marketing — The 15 Best Podcasts for Modern Marketers — LinkedIn (client)
• LinkedIn — How to Become a Trusted Voice in the Sustainability Conversation: Purna Virji on Marketing Smarts [Podcast] — MarketingProfs
• Lee Odden — Cross-GTM alignment, job changes, and collaboration – Cronycle’s weekly wrap up for April 18, 2022 — Cronycle

If you’ve found your own top B2B marketing news for the week, please don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for taking the time to join us for this week’s edition of the TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you’ll return again next Friday for another array of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.