Just a few months ago, we posed this question in our blog: “Should Business-to-Business Marketers Use Social Media?”.

Just as it was then, the answer now is “yes”, and a newly published B2B Social Media Report, adds further depth to the affirmative.  Brandwatch, a social media monitoring and analytics firm, just released a study exhibiting that B2B companies miss more than 70,000 sales opportunities every year.

70,000.

This is from a survey of 200 of the top B2B companies in the US and the UK that also determined that nearly 25% of leading B2B brands do not have a social media account of any type.

So, 70,000 is an understatement.  The Brandwatch study points to 72,756 “mentions” in social media that reflected an “intent to purchase” with language such as:

• “I’m thinking of buying…”
• “I’m looking to buy….”
• “I want to get…”

Through extensive research , Brandwatch learned that less than 1% of such mentions were engaged by companies that could fulfill the order.

The primary reason is that generally, B2B marketers have not been tuning in to conversations taking place through social channels.  The solution, however, is not solely in “being” in social media.

As our earlier post counseled, social media communications need to follow a disciplined strategic plan that integrates with and supports the overall marketing strategy.

The Brandwatch study reinforces this, cautioning that many B2B brands rely almost exclusively on Twitter and Facebook, when their customers are active on news sites, forums, blogs and even video and image sites.

Extraordinary opportunity is out there.  Has your organization given deep consideration to a strategic plan to capture it?