B2B Marketing News: Top B2B Demand Gen Content Study, LinkedIn’s Record Engagement, Key Social Media Trends, & Google’s My Ad Center

Fifth of B2B marketers say proving effectiveness is their ‘biggest challenge’
56 percent of marketers have said that creativity is the most important skill required for navigating uncertain times, with 48.4 percent identifying return on investment (ROI) as the key metric to demonstrate marketing’s impact, while 30 percent noted that their organization doesn’t understand B2B marketing ROI — three of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released survey data. Marketing Week

Beware of sales calls, young B2B buyers say
74 percent of millennials and Gen Z will avoid more sales calls and outreach efforts than older B2B buyers, while 72 percent of overall buyers and prospects have indicated that they plan to consume more digital content along the purchasing journey — two of the statistics of interest to digital marketers found among newly-published report findings. Digital Commerce 360

Microsoft FY23 Q1: LinkedIn up 17%, search and news revenue up 11%
Microsoft’s latest performance report revealed that for the 16th consecutive quarter its LinkedIn (client) professional social network has seen record levels of engagement, with the number of user sessions expanding by 24 percent, accompanied by revenue that grew by 17 percent during the most recent quarter year-over-year, and LinkedIn newsletter subscriptions topping the 150 million mark, Microsoft recently announced. Search Engine Land

The Public’s Perception of the Advertising and PR Industry Has Plummeted to a New Low
The public’s perception and trust of the advertising and public relations industry has fallen to new lows according to one recent Gallup poll. A scant 26 percent of U.S. adults said that they see PR and advertising in a somewhat or very position light, bottoming out even more than the previous low of 27 percent in 2008, with net-positive ratings now even lower than during 2003’s previous record low, according to the newly-published poll data. MarketingCharts

Instagram Tests In-App Feature Allowing Creators To Schedule Posts
Meta-owned Instagram has placed the social platform’s Reels and post scheduling front and center in its latest public test of new features, which could make it easier for B2B marketers who publish on the platform, Instagram recently announced. MediaPost

Shutterstock partners with OpenAI to sell AI-generated artwork, compensate artists
Stock photography service Shutterstock recently announced an expanded partnership with OpenAI — the artificial intelligence (AI) research organization founded in part by Elon Musk — that will see Shutterstock offering AI image generation from natural language text prompts. The expanded partnership will use the DALL-E application programming interface (API), and allow its users to manipulate certain existing images within its database, while also implementing a new framework to provide compensation to those photographers and artists who have played a part in helping develop the AI models, Shutterstock recently announced. Ars Technica