"I've had a great opportunity recently to learn what B2B customers want in content by—shock of shocks—asking them," writes Bob Scheier in a recent post at the What Works, What Doesn't blog. As part of a competitive analysis he's conducting for a client, Scheier has asked a variety of readers of B2B content "what they read, how they get it (print or online) ... [and] how they use content to do their jobs better."

Among his findings:

Paper is not dead. "While most of the readers I surveyed just want the daily email update with links to a website, a stubborn significant minority still want that hard copy—particularly for 'airplane reading' or for reading longer stories," he says.

Social is not a shoe-in. Quite a few B2B readers actually panned sites like Facebook and Twitter as "unprofessional and amateurish," Scheier notes. "Times are tough and nobody has time to waste. If you're going to roll out a social-media app, make sure it's worth the reader's time," he advises.

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