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Social Media Drives Procurement

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The inexorable rise of social media and social networking sites continues apace, affecting purchasing decisions even within the disciplined confines of IT departments, according to a new report from IT Toolbox.

The report found that IT professionals said social media sites such as blogs, sites with reader-contributed reviews, wikis and open forums were the most trustworthy source of information online when it came to making purchasing decisions. Such sites ranked ahead of editorially driven sites.

In addition, the report found:

• • Executive decision-makers spend nearly 3½ hours per week consuming or participating in social media
• • Nearly two-thirds of IT professionals who were surveyed believe that social media content and user-generated tools have made for a more informed purchasing decision
• • IT decision-makers and influencers trust user-generated content more than traditional content sources
• • IT audiences now spend as much or more time consuming or participating in social media as they do consuming editorial media or vendor content.

Vendor websites remain the most-used source of information regarding purchases, with 61.5% of respondents using such sites as part of their research. User-generated content was is referenced often or very often by 42.5% of IT professionals, while editorial websites and trade magazines were used often or very often by 40.7% of respondents.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said that social media sites had made for a more informed purchasing decision. Only 11% disagreed with this statement.

However, such sites don’t necessarily make purchasing decisions any faster or more efficient. Only 40% felt that it did, and 25% said that it had not.

Reasons for using social media sites to research buying decisions

The results were compiled from 2104 email responses to the survey. Sceptics about social media, journalists and editors might find some hope in the fact that all of the respondents were members of the IT Toolbox social network site, arguably making them unrepresentative of the IT profession as a whole.