A lot of people are asking me about the value of social media for business to business opportunities. They hear all the hype about SM, but they are having a hard time seeing the benefit of it, especially in that B2B setting.

Here is another great video featuring some very interesting stats on Social Media in business by author Erik Qualman. It also has a cool groove – enjoy!

A recent report published by the Pew Researchers Internet and American Life project has found that now nearly 20% of Americans who are online are using a status updating service such as Twitter. This is almost a doubling over the numbers that previous research has shown as recently as April 2009.

It can’t be denied that internet use is increasing moving towards social media. In fact, it has become the #1 activity on the internet outranking both porn (the previous #1 use of the internet) and search engine use. If you haven’t started thinking about your strategy for reaching your customers through this medium you need to start now. Even if yours is a smaller business, your customers are online using sites like Twitter and Facebook and you could be there engaging with them. In a recent survey 48% of marketing professionals said that social media would be the most influential channel and where they plan on putting the most investment in the coming year. And Twitter users are some of the most responsive of all with one study showing that they are nearly twice as likely to click on ads, visit company profiles and write reviews online.