CAMRI | Using Product Variables of Business- to-Business (B2B) Media to Assess the Impacts of Social Media

Using Product Variables of Business- to-Business (B2B) Media to Assess the Impacts of Social Media

A Research Paper by Dan Zhang, published by Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture

An original approach uses the three variables of timeliness, confidentiality, and utility of business-to-business (B2B) media products to study the impacts of social media. Interviews with B2B media practitioners in the UK reveal that social media have partially and weakly influenced the timeliness and confidentiality variables but have no effect on the basic utility of B2B media. Social media formats are therefore not so much in competition with B2B media, more a useful tool. B2B media practitioners attempt to control and adjust these variables to make their products more attractive. A social media optimisation publishing cycle was identified as a response to the impacts of social media in particular. But other adjustments mostly responded to competition forces greater than social media. This is one of the first studies of B2B media to examine their full product ranges. It proposes future directions of research in this under-examined media sector.

Keywords: business-to-business (B2B) media, impacts of social media, media product strategy, trade press and journalism, social media competition and disruption.

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How to Cite: Zhang, D., (2016). Using Product Variables of Business- to-Business (B2B) Media to Assess the Impacts of Social Media. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 11(1), pp.31–48. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.222

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About Dan Zhang

I was awarded PhD degree in December 2016 . My research interest is in B2B publishing, which has been drastically transformed from its old profile of trade magazines. Presently I study how B2B publishing in the U.K. experiences the impacts of social media and what strategies publishers may take to respond to the impacts. B2B publishing has become an unique media business sector featuring the variety of product and service offerings (data, digital and print publishing, live events, customised reports, advertising and marketing, etc.) unrivalled by most of other media. My research attempts to identify and measure several key variables that underline this complex media sector so as to build a typology of B2B publishing industry. The central argument of my research is that different types of B2B publishers may be affected by social media differently. Therefore their responses may also be different.