The title of our post, to a large extent, is the opposite of a recently published SocialNewsDaily article entitled, 36% of B2B Companies Not Investing in Social Media Marketing.

Despite the awkward title, the article does provide a good overview of a recent Eloqua study on how B2B companies use social media. The study reveals how companies in the B2B space are investing their time and money to promote, interact, and sell their products and services through popular social media platforms.

According to the study, the majority of companies use social media to increase brand awareness, encourage social sharing, and gain followers to build trust. Half of the companies in the study, however, do not use social media marketing as part of their lead generation and lead nurturing activities

For the B2B companies that use social media for demand generation activities, Facebook and Twitter greatly outrank LinkedIn as the primary platform to share content, even though LinkedIn is almost three times more effective in generating leads.

Overall, what’s clear from the study is that most companies in the B2B space use social media, yet the majority lack strategic guidance in their approach to drive results with demand generation activities. Companies appear to place a greater importance on social media activities that push their message out to a large, untargeted crowd rather than promoting content in a community where target prospects exist.

As with any strategy, social media marketing activities in the B2B space should directly support marketing and sales desired outcomes. For example, if marketing and sales are trying to reach a specific prospect, then social media activities should focus on identifying where the prospect spends their time online, how they interact on social channels, and how to most appropriately place targeted content in front of the prospect. Using this intelligence, companies can then formulate a target-rich strategy that directs social media marketing efforts toward a prospect without spamming.

In today’s dynamic business environment, companies that operate in the B2B space can use social media marketing to effectively market their products and services to a target audience. It just takes a little due diligence to develop a strategy that can identify prospects and their behaviors online, and use the intelligence to deliver the right message to the right person through the right channel.