B2B Marketing News: Rising B2B MarTech Spend, 10th Annual Data Never Sleeps Report, & LinkedIn Tops B2B Ad Spending

US B2B MarTech Spend Set for ~15% Rise This Year In 2022 marketing technology spending is set to top $20 billion for the first time, with the B2B-specific segment growing by some 14.6 percent — slightly higher than overall combined B2C and B2B spending, according to newly-released survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts [bctt tweet="“An important part of a modern martech stack has to be a unified profile that spans identities, understands behavioral information at an individual level, but also on the B2B side at an account level.” — Stephen Streich @sstreich" username="toprank"] LinkedIn will capture nearly 25% of US B2B ad spending by 2024 By the end of 2022 B2B display advertising revenues on the LinkedIn professional social media platform are expected to account for 21 percent of U.S. B2B digital ad spend, a share that will rise to nearly 50 percent by 2024, according to recently-released U.S. B2B digital ad spending forecast data. Insider Intelligence TikTok Increases Length Of Video Descriptions Short-form video creation firm TikTok has rolled out a change that will see a jump from the previous maximum of 300 characters to describe content on the platform to 2,200, a move that has given marketers using the growing platform greatly-expanded room for search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Search Engine Journal Instagram Stories under 60 seconds are no longer broken up into clips Meta-owned Instagram has begun to roll out a change that will no longer require Instagram Story content less than a minute in length to be broken into 15-second segments, instead allowing a single uninterrupted user experience — a change that will likely affect how B2B marketers use the feature for short-form content. TechCrunch At Dreamforce, a new data platform and enhancements to Slack Salesforce’ Dreamforce event saw the announcement of coming changes to its popular Slack video conferencing program, that will bring organized resource curation in a new Slack Canvas feature and multi-person screen sharing in Slack Huddles, along with a new real-time customer data platform, 360 Audiences. MarTech Carbon Emerges As Key Ad Performance Indicator: Clients/Agencies Split On Cost When it comes to carbon emissions generated by digital advertising campaigns, 87 percent of U.S. and U.K. advertiser and agency executives have said that the digital ad industry has a responsibility to lower carbon emissions, while a new carbon performance indicator (CPI) metric has begun to take shape, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost Why is accessibility an afterthought for marketers? With some 26 percent of the U.S. population living with a disability, a scant 36 percent of firms possess a top-down commitment to building accessible digital experiences, according to recently-published Forrester survey data, and Campaign US shows how Apple, Accenture, and IBM have worked to make inroads in digital accessibility. Campaign US These Are the Areas Marketers Think Will Be Most Important Over the Next 2 Years 37 percent of marketers have said that a shift to decision making that is more data-driven will be their most important marketing area over the next two years, with 35 percent pointing to improved customer experiences and managing those journeys — two of several statistics of interest contained in newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts How Patagonia’s shakeup challenges marketers to act on sustainability With some 94 percent of consumers saying that they are seeking to lead more sustainable lifestyles, Patagonia's recent move shifting 98 percent of its non-voting stock to environmental nonprofit Holdfast Collective, marketers are seeing new opportunities that cross the divide between B2C and B2B, and Marketing Dive takes a look. Marketing Dive What Happens on the Internet Every Minute (2022 Version) [Infographic] What happens during each digital minute online in 2022 is the focus of the tenth-annual “Data Never Sleeps” report in infographic form, showing Internet population and social platform use growth and other insights of interest to digital marketers, including some 97 zetabytes of data that is expected to be generated in 2022, Domo recently announced. Social Media Today ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “Returning to the Office” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Vanessa Fox On The Early Days Of Google Search Console, Webmaster Tools & Sitemaps — Search Engine Roundtable A history of ARM, part 1: Building the first chip — Ars Technica TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Joshua Nite — This Week in Marketing: Almost Famous — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Procurement and Partnership — Marketoonist
• TopRank Marketing — Who sees your B2B content? — TalkCMO

Have you found your own top B2B marketing news item this week that we haven't yet mentioned? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. We thank you for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and hope you will return again next Friday for another array of the most up-to-date and pertinent 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.

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Semrush on How to Create B2B Content for Generation Z

While many B2B marketers are focused on Boomer and Millennial age senior marketing executives, what are B2B brands doing to connect with the next Generation of buyers? You know, those junior marketing pros born after 1997 aka Gen Z? Content Director at Semrush, @LenoxPowell, shared useful insights about connecting this up and coming group of customers that includes buyers of B2B products and services. First, you should know that GenZ is a large cohort - 32% of the global population, with massive spending power. Second, you should know that GenZ are definitely not Millennials 2.0. While Millennials are aspirational, idealistic and adapted to tech, their brand expectations are about storytelling On the other hand, Gen Z are authentic, pragmatic, and visual first about technology with brand expectations are about storyliving. Don't worry, I had to look up "storyliving" too. Jeff Fromm describes it as, "StoryLiving™ is about what companies do, not just what they say. It is not just being unique, but also meaningful and acting in the interests of many stakeholders." Ahh, that makes sense. However, don't I think GenZ has the market cornered on a trend towards consumers caring more about companies acting authentically and meaningfully in the interests of their customers. So, what's the marketing opportunity for Gen Z?  1. A whole new mindset 2. New opportunity to be creative 3. New loyal customer 4. New advocates for your brand There are important shifts in social platforms with Gen Z : they are not on Facebook or Pinterest. For Gen Z, TikTok is the new Facebook. TikTok is about fun, unpolished content which Gen Z loves. TikTok is expected to be the 3rd most popular social network by the end of 2022 and potentially displace Facebook and Twitter. Some forward thinking businesses are starting to take Gen Z opportunities seriously and doing things like hiring Chief TikTok Officers. (Personally I think that's just a gimmick - no one hired Chief Facebook Officers or Chief LinkedIn Officers - why should they do that with TikTok?) How do you go viral on TikTok?

• Speak right away. 1 in 3 viral TikTok videos focused on a person speaking within the first 3 seconds.
• Let the music play - More than half of viral TikTok videos used music as their primary background sound in the first 3 seconds.
• One to one - 60% of viral videos featured one person visible on the screen
• Keep it real - Create videos that portray real people with real lives

Is TikTok the new search? Younger users search on TikTok more than Google. TikTok surpassed Google as the most visited domain in 2021. "Gen Z "hates searching Google because crappy SEO blogs bury the answers they are looking for underneath keyword stuffed garbage". A study by Fractl found that Gen Z loves long tail search. The length of their search queries are much longer than Millennials and other generations. Words to consider in your content for Gen Z include - "best", "cheap", "how to", "top". Content doesn't always need to be literal and how to do this or that. Some of the most popular content amongst Gen Z is ASMR or other entertaining content that then opens the door to point to more practical content. Research from Clover Letter found that brands should not talk down to Gen Z. 52% want to be informed. 35% say media talks down to them, 37% hate clickbait. Tone of voice is important for Gen Z. They tend to lean towards informal, friendly types of communications. Marketing disruptors that are shaking things up. Web 3.0 is influencing how we are online and engaging. Gen Z will likely adopt these elements and marketers need to be prepared:

• Blockchain
• Crypto
• NFT
• Metaverse

Web 1 was disorganized and overwhelming Web 2 Was the rise of Facebook, Amazon, Google and amased a lot of power Web 3 is about taking some of that power back Think about this shift as you are planning your content topically and from a distribution standpoint. Gen Z is all about taking power back from corporations.

The emergence of Web 3 is fueled by Gen Z to decentralize apps and financial components to "take the power back".

Where does Metaverse play with Millennials? Parallel to the physical world, metaverse is a place where people can experience life digitally but can also include augmented reality as a hybrid of virtual and real world. What does this look like? Gucci has a store where users can buy products for their avatar. Lowes has an augmented reality option to try out power tools virtually. Adidas has a NFT community with limited access to merchandise. What does this mean to us as marketers? There's still a lot to be figured out. A lot of it is theoretical and experimental but it's taking off with Gen Z. If your team can experiment and test things out you'll be ahead of the game. Big brands are doing it and so should you. For a related post that digs even deeper into how to prepare for future B2B customers, be sure to read my coverage of LinkedIn’s Allyson Hugley on What’s Next: Connecting with Future Buyers.

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B2B Marketers on the Move: An Autumn Celebration of B2B Industry Marketing Leaders

2023 will be here before we know it, and with the swiftly changing B2B marketing landscape inevitably comes growth that can happen so fast that it's difficult to fully appreciate without taking a moment to reflect on and enjoy the colorful leaves. For more than two decades, TopRank Marketing has been honored to help a wide variety of the world's top B2B marketers and major global brands elevate and go beyond merely being competitive, to standing out from the crowd with creative and award-winning successes. In this spirit, we like to regularly take the time to congratulate and honor business marketing leaders who have recently seen career advancement. When B2B marketers take on new roles in leadership, it's only natural to look for trusted resources that will help professionals in new positions hit the ground running, and TopRank Marketing is happy to have been a go-to B2B content and influencer marketing agency for so many top marketers in new leadership roles. We are also always seeking out B2B technology industry influencers advancing in their careers to partner with on unique content collaborations. We offer hearty congratulations to the B2B marketing leaders featured in this sixth edition of B2B Marketers on the Move and our thanks for their sharing of B2B marketing advice.

B2B Marketers on the Move: Celebrating Autumn Movers and Marketing Leaders

Vasudha Badri-Paul is now Head of Global Marketing & Sales at Connectr Jonathan Beaton is now Senior Vice President of Marketing at BlueVoyant Meghan Keaney Anderson is now Vice President of Marketing at Jasper Tequia Burt has been promoted to editor in chief, LinkedIn Ads blog, at LinkedIn*.

B2B Career Advice: "At a high level, the most valuable thing you can do to future-proof your career as a marketer is to build and strengthen digital skills."

Lyndi Thompson is now Head of Demand Generation for B2B  at Calm Campbell Foster is now Vice President Marketing at Synthesis AI Courtney Bosch-Tanguy is now Account Based Marketing Director at OwnBackup Jim Rudden is now Chief Marketing Officer at Ontic Imelda Khoo has taken a new position as vice president of marketing at Code Ocean.

B2B Career Advice: "When looking for your next move, don’t make compromises when it comes to the role, the people, or the company. Find a role where you can make the biggest difference. Work with people who share your values. Choose a company that’s doing good in the world."

Tim Bourgeois is now Head of Demand Generation at Inrupt Katrina Neal is now Campaign Strategy Manager, EMEA at Adobe Andrew Moravick is now Senior Marketing Manager at MarketingProfs Cindy Heidebluth is now Senior Marketing Manager at Icon Solutions Claire Luinstra has been promoted to associate director, client accounts, at TopRank Marketing.

B2B Career Advice: "Don’t be afraid to set big goals for your career. Talk to leaders in the future roles you want and research what it takes to get there and be successful. Once you have the data, you can engineer a path to reach your goals. Along the way, empower yourself to revisit your plan and update it as needed."

Michelle Herman is now VP of Marketing at Conviva Jacob Pomplun is now Chief Growth Officer Nerdery Graeme McKee is now VP of Marketing at Systal Technology Solutions Lauren Margrave has been promoted to Director, Programs and Executive Marketing, Americas, at VMware.

B2B Career Advice "I have three key philosophies to my career growth: One — Take risks and be bold. Your peers and your leaders notice individuals who step-up for the greater good; they also notice who does not. Be the one for the greater good. Two — Remember to set healthy boundaries – your career can flourish – be smart on where you invest your time. Three — Reach back to help those that follow you."

Caitlin Orosz is now Marketing Director at Bungee Tech Chris Moody is now Head of GTM Thought Leadership at Demandbase Greg Tucker is now Vice President of Growth Marketing at FreightWaves Sarah Leitz is now Chief Marketing Officer at SkySpecs Ramon Ray has taken a new position as publisher at ZoneofGenius.com.

B2B Career Advice: "The best marketers realize that we are not 'marketers' we are humans, communicating with humans. When we do our best to convey the human emotion, need, desire and connection that our products are about, we will win. Human to Human connections is what marketing is all about."

Christine Nurnberger is now Chief Marketing Officer at ExtraHop Lisa Marcyes has taken a new position as head of social media at Cohesity. Ed Keller has taken a new position as senior advisor at Focaldata. Debbie Friez has been promoted to senior manager, social and influencer marketing, at TopRank Marketing.

B2B Career Advice: "Always be looking for opportunities and networking (virtual networking is great, too). Share you career hopes and ideas with the leadership at your organization, so you are not overlooked because you were shy. I recently saw a post on social media suggesting women (and really everyone) should write down their wins and milestones all year long. Then, when it comes to your review time, you have a wealth of great information to share and not just the last two weeks of accomplishments."

Todd Friesen has been promoted to vice president of SEO, marketing operations and digital experience, at Vimeo. Clare Carr has taken a new position as vice president of enterprise marketing at Chief. David Fisher has taken a new position as global social selling lead, senior sales enablement specialist, at SAS. Maureen Jann has taken a new position as senior content manager, financial services and healthcare, at Twilio.

B2B Career Advice: "Quitting can be a gift. My burnout adventure helped me see that I have the opportunity to build my career with more magic and joy at the root of it. Give yourself the opportunity to intentionally redesign the way you want work to fit into your life."

Alison J. Herzog has been promoted to head of global corporate marketing, acceptance solutions, at Visa. Tiffany Duncan has taken a new position as senior director of corporate marketing at Solera, Inc. Christopher White has been promoted to director, head of new to credit marketing, at Capital One.

B2B Career Advice: "Focus on driving real, measurable business results (not vanity metrics) and follow-up with clear storytelling on how you did it. Titles and higher salaries will follow."

Tim Schmoyer has taken a new position as chief creator coach at vidIQ. Jessica Martin has taken a new position as senior manager, growth marketing, at Honeycomb.io.

B2B Career Advice: "There’s never been a better time for marketers to have their cake and eat it too. In this job market, you can be picky, find your people, and get the paycheck you deserve. Don’t settle!"

Joy Katz has taken a new position as partner manager, North America cloud and technology, alliances and channels, at Oracle. Kaelin McGill has been promoted to account director, Creative Studio, at LinkedIn*. Bob Sparkins has been promoted to manager of partnerships and education at Leadpages. Monica Wright has taken a new position as director of global demand generation at StreamSets Inc.

B2B Career Advice: "Culture can make or break an opportunity - it attracts people and business. Trusting and valuing the teams you work with is everything, so be transparent. Surround yourself with people much smarter than you, and not only will you rise to the challenge, you'll always be learning."

Thanks To Each of These Inspiring Leaders For Helping Elevate the B2B Marketing Industry

We extend many thanks to each of the talented B2B marketing professionals we've featured here, who have all recently been promoted or taken on new industry positions. We're certain that you'll elevate and reach new heights when it comes to the performance and success you'll deliver in your new roles. You can find our previous edition of B2B Marketers on the Move here. If you're looking for a new change of your own, take a moment to check out our own list of current job openings at TopRank Marketing on our careers page. *LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

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How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Uses Blogging to Power Its Growth Engine

It was with great pleasure for me to wrap up my 2022 Content Marketing World experience with a session featuring two exceptional marketers that I've known for many years*: Steve Kearns (LinkedIn Senior Manager, Content Marketing and Social Media) and Tequia Burt (Editor in Chief LinkedIn Ads Blog) with a topic that is near and dear: How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is Using the Blog to Power its Growth Engine In an age of social media with Instagram, TikTok and even LinkedIn, does blogging still matter? For LinkedIn, the answer is absolutely yes. The LinkedIn Marketing Blog acts as the external 'voice' of the Marketing Solutions business and is a critical education and conversion vehicle for B2B marketers looking to excel with LinkedIn advertising. Publishing content five times a week, the blog comprises more than 175,000 global subscribers and 2.5 million annual page views. It also serves as a key campaign activation tool for LMS marketing, sales and product organizations, spotlighting business news, LinkedIn advertising best practices and more.

Sitting at the center of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions content marketing operations, the blog has sourced millions of dollars in bookings in FY21, up 80% over FY20.

Reaching mostly senior marketing executives, the LinkedIn Marketing Blog has experienced phenomenal growth over the past 5 years. Six years ago LinkedIn had about 100k followers on overall social channels and 1,000 on the blog. Today LinkedIn has 4.7m followers and 175k on the blog. With Steve and Tequia coming from the media world, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions runs their team like a media company. Steve is the publisher making sure business objectives are achieved, Tequia is the Editor in Chief making sure the content is top quality. And Alex Morales is the Distribution Lead making sure blog reach is achieved. Each of those responsibilities creates a point of tension, but they work together to create a really productive growth engine. As part of their customer-centric strategy, LinkedIn decided to get content that was helpful and non-promotional to their audience and an effective way to do that was through the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog. The key to success for the blog has been a focus on data-driven insights. An example is a jobs report to help the LinkedIn community with questions as well as making sure that content was inclusive. The ads industry took note of the approach and the report achieved 2X page views compared to other content. So, what's the secret to LinkedIn Marketing Solutions' blog success? The LinkedIn Marketing Blog strives to be a good B2B marketing resource for people with content that is rooted in data insights and prioritizes inclusivity. After they launched the first data insights report, they launched others including one on Gen Z to help them feel included in the conversation. While LinkedIn has substantial resources, this approach is relevant for businesses of any size. If you have something you really stand for, you can double down on it and focus, lean-in. Inclusivity is key - make sure the content you're producing is going to resonate with the people that represent your business. Make it easy for people to see themselves in the content.

Pro tip: If you're going to publish content for a particular audience, like people of color, it's useful to run that content by someone that represents that audience first or even have someone on your staff that represents that audience.

So what's next? Building upon the success of the blog, the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions team received additional investment to expand production of insights driven content. LinkedIn is reimagining how they turn up in the marketplace with their customers, their partners, their agencies and to the industry more broadly by leaning into their core differentiator - data.

All B2B marketers need to consider: What can we offer that nobody else can?

For the objective of growing LinkedIn's own presence on the Linkedin platform, they asked themselves that question: What can we offer that no one else can? In the case of LinkedIn it was data and insights. A big part of this data- informed effort for LinkedIn has been the launch of Linkedin Collective, which is a content franchise featuring insights into what being a great B2B marketer can be with the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog serving as a blueprint. LinkedIn Collective is a place for the B2B marketing community - to move the industry forward. It features big data reports and contributors to talk about issues that are important to the B2B marketing community. Quarterly themes drive narratives. Most recently it's about creativity and B2B. Most B2B brands are about performance marketing and not brand. The reality is, creativity can drive great results. With this theme, LinkedIn has invited industry experts and CMOs to share their perspective on creativity in B2B. To be sure, LinkedIn Collective is not a sales pitch, but about how marketing is connected to the bottom line and focused on helping B2B brands be more successful on linkedin, broadly in B2B and how to make decisions that connect to value that buyers appreciate. As a complement to the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog and the LinkedIn Collective, social messaging helps connect the dots in their overall narrative story. If you want to know what works on LinkedIn for marketing and advertising, you can find out through the LinkedIn Collective . While the blog has been a success story for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, every business has an opportunity to uplevel their marketing on LinkedIn and there is no doubt that the B2B marketing category is ripe for innovation. For more LinkedIn Marketing resources, be sure to check out LinkedIn Ads, Linkedin Marketing Ads Blog, Linkedin Collective and The B2B Institute. Also, be sure to find and follow Steve and Tequia on Linkedin. *LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a client of TopRank Marketing.

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