A recent Webmarketing 123 report found that while social media marketing makes up an average of just 9.5 percent of B2B budgets, 60 percent of companies plan to increase their social media budgets in 2012.

This is a noteworthy because a 2010 Frost & Sullivan Sales Leadership Priorities Survey revealed that social media remains an largely untapped resource for B2B sellers.

The 2011 State of the Digital Marketing Report found that using social media for lead generation has been proven effective despite its slow adoption among B2B marketers. Specifically, social media (19 percent) trailed SEO (53 percent) and pay-per-click (28 percent) as the tactic that makes the biggest impact on led generation.

Companies without a solid social media foundation may want to attend an upcoming conference from Gerhard Gschwandtner, publisher of sales magazine Selling Power, to discuss social media business strategies for B2B marketing. Among the businesses attending the event is one company that receives 20 percent of its leads from its social business strategy.

According to Gschwandtner, a solid social business strategy should rely on content, conversation and collaboration across an organization. 

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