(MENAFN- The Peninsula) About 94 percent of Middle East IT buyers rely on social media to aid purchase decision, revealed a study that seeks to uncover the decision-making and purchase process around IT buying within organisations in the Middle East.
As per the LinkedIn's study, brands that post educational content around their key offerings and differentiators are viewed more favourably by the IT Committee (67 percent).
"We have long believed that the sales-led approach is losing its appeal to IT purchase decision-makers, and now this is very evident among the IT Committee in an organisation. The Educate-First approach by some of the leading IT brands on social media channels is driving their conversion rates upwards," said Jacob Thomas (pictured), Head, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Mena. "The percentage of buyers in the Mena region who use social media platforms to gather information is higher than the EMEA and global averages of 85 per cent," said Thomas.
As per the study, nine out of 10 respondents are in the market for an IT solution in the next 12 months and 94 percent use social media for IT news and information every month. About 60 percent find LinkedIn to be a trustworthy source of content (higher than online trade and news websites). Around 92 percent of IT Committee require education to sustain or make a change to their IT ecosystem.
Part of a global study, the regional responses were collected from 309 respondents who play a role in the 'IT Committee', a multi-discipline group that comes together to identify IT vendors, evaluate offerings and finalise purchase decisions. Regionally, 64 percent of the members of the Committee are from other functions apart from IT, and this is close to the global average of 74 percent.
This study has also uncovered some valuable information to aid businesses in their selling process. The IT Committee also looks to 'experts' for content, but the study found that the perception of the expert is not driven by seniority and job-title but by relevance of content. Only 15 percent reported that they would expect an expert to have VP-level title or higher.
With a rise in avenues to get quality content in front of audiences, content creators have also found ways to capture data from those who engage with the content.
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