Below are a collection of B2B social media statistics collected from various sources covering a wide range of topics. We Usage : 86% of B2B firms are using social, compared to 82% of B2C. B2B firms aren’t as active in their social media activity with only 32% engaging on a daily basis compared with 52% of B2C firms. More than half (53.5%) of marketers surveyed said they currently use social media as part of their marketing strategy. This is up from 2009, when 45.0% of marketers said they used social media for marketing. MORE >>

Whether you need data to back up a proposal for investing in social media marketing for CFO, want to understand which online tactics work best for engaging with customers and prospects, or are just an analytics data junky, you’ll find a treasure trove of key insights and happy hour trivia in this collection of the best articles and blog posts on social media and other marketing research of the past year. Which industry segments are most actively discussed in social media? Who’s really using which social media networks? to 14.9% MORE >>

Social media is on the tip of most every B2B marketer’s tongue these days. Of course, it’s no surprise that Forrester finds social media to be the hot new marketing tool. Looking at B2B social media efforts in 2009, the study shows: 68% have set up group pages on social networking sites. 49% are active with corporate blogging (up from 32% in 2008). In fact, she says that, on average, fewer than one in five say social media has been highly effective for branding and lead generation. Should we be blogging and tweeting?” MORE >>

Summary: Alterian's purchase of Techrigy marks the first integration of serious social media management with marketing automation. Marketing automation vendor Alterian yesterday announced its acquisition of social media monitoring company Techrigy. Even though the Techgrity deal is the first direct acquisition I recall of a social media monitoring system by a marketing automation vendor, it strikes me as an obvious step. Previous acquisitions include Web content management (MediaSurface, 2008), contact optimisation (Campaign Calculus 2.0, MORE >>

Summary: Here are links to about twenty studies with statistics on online media consumption and advertising spend. Many are contradictory, but it's clear that marketers need to invest in social media, which might eventually replace search as the primary way that customers find them. And, in particular, are social media as important as industry gurus claim they are? Probably the most comprehensive study along these lines was Global Faces and Networked Places , released by Neilsen in March 2009. What is the share of ad spending for different media? MORE >>