The stoic whitepaper is dying a losing favour as an effective format for communicating messages to BSB audiences. At least, that’s according to insights from a survey of B2B content marketing methods.

The ‘B2B Content Marketing Report‘, authored by Holger Schulze, the manager of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn, sheds light on the challenges, goals, tactics and social media effectiveness going forward.

As a B2B content marketing format, those surveyed believe whitepapers to be declining due to alternatives coming through – alternatives that are more interactive and easily digestible such as video.

The survey also reveals that overall, B2B content marketing is seen as a progressively efficient strategy with a game-high 82% of survey respondents planning to increase their content production over the next 12 months.

Other key findings note the rise of YouTube and the loss of ground of Facebook as a medium of reaching and engaging B2B audiences.

61% of marketers use marketing automation platforms, up from 43% last year and 93% of B2B marketers are actually creating content from scratch. Meanwhile 34% are syndicating or curating content, and just 30% are encouraging user-generated content.

Some of the top challenges facing B2B Content Marketers include 55% of respondents battling enough time and bandwidth to create content. While the next hurdle is producing engaging content (49%), followed by producing enough content variety to cater for the assorted marketing programs (39%)

Let’s take a look at some more of the numbers and trends in Schulze’s report.

The most effective tactics

Top goals of content marketing

Marketing automation

Social media platforms

Here’s the full slideshow by Shulze: