Business.com recently published the results of a social media study that surveyed about 3,000 North American business professionals to see how social media is used and how it impacts their working lives. Below is a summary of the findings, as well as areas of opportunities based on the results.

Result #1: Webinars and podcasts are used by 69% of the business professionals surveyed.

What this means for you: Since webinars and podcasts were cited as the top social media resource for business professionals, if you’re a B2B maybe you should think about incorporating some tutorials onto your site. Offer something useful and interesting that your audience can digest visually (videos), audibly (podcasts), or interactively (GoToMeetings, webinars, etc).

Result #2: Facebook is dominant for B2C companies (83% of the respondents use it compared to 45% for Twitter), while B2B companies seem to use both fairly equally (77% have a profile on Facebook and 73% have a Twitter account).

What this means for you: More and more companies are using social networking sites to reach out to their customers. You need to decide if maintaining a presence across multiple sites is ideal for your company. See what your competitors are doing and note how successful their efforts are. At the very least, register your brand names and hold onto them — you don’t necessarily have to set anything up, especially if you don’t have time to properly manage your social presence, but you should at least nab your profiles before someone else does.

Result #3: Of the people who use social media for business purposes during work, 62% visit company/brand profiles on social networking sites, and 55% search for business information related to these sites. From the survey results: “Consultants and marketing communications professionals are the most active users of social media as a resource for business information, particularly in micro (<10 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees).”

What this means for you: Companies should think twice before blocking social media sites at work, as there’s clearly considerable business value in allowing employees to use social networks for research, competitive intelligence, marketing, etc.

Result #4: The average company surveyed was in the process of planning or executing at least 7 different social media campaigns; however, over half of the respondents working on the campaigns have less than 2 years of experience using social media for business purposes.

What this means for you: The learning curve for social media marketing has gotten pretty massive and steep in just a short period of time. A lot of businesses are starting to understand the value in social media marketing but are ill-equipped and ill-staffed to get started. This presents a huge opportunity for knowledgeable consultants who are experienced in Internet and social media marketing to pick up some clients and spread their wealth of knowledge across different companies.

Result #5: Two essential social media success metrics identified in the survey are building brand awareness and improving brand reputation. However, nearly 66% of the companies that stress the importance of these metrics aren’t sure how to measure them or interpret standard/easily accessible performance reports.

What this means for you: Social media ROI can be tough to measure but is still a top concern for business who are engaging in social media marketing. Come up with regular reporting metrics (like referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter, track/chart positive vs. negative mentions over time) for your business or your clients and be consistent with your tracking and your reports. The changes may be subtle, but every little effort counts in the grand scheme of things, especially when your goal is to make money.

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