Facts about Business 2 Business - LinkedIn 2 Social Media

Facts about power, reach and importance of Social Media for Business: 

1. More than 86% of B2B Companies use social media. 32% use Social Media, daily (1)
2. LinkedIn has over 277 Million users, 47% of which check in daily. (4)
3. Brand Awareness and Followers: 9 of the top 10 Business brands with most followers have at least 60% of their employees represented on LinkedIn (3)
4. LinkedIN has over 3 Million Business Pages, over 1.2 Million products and services showcased, and over 2.1 Million LinkedIn Business Network Groups, with 8,000 new groups created weekly.   (4)
5. More than 45% of Businesses surveyed acquired new customers from LinkedIn.  (1)
6.  LinkedIn refers 64% of all visits from all social media channels to corporate websites. Facebook refers 17% and Twitter refers 14%.  (5)
7. Top 3 industries represented on LinkedIn are: (6) 
• IT 4 Million
• Financial Services 2.3 Million
• Higher Education 1.9 Million
8. The preferred channels for Business marketing are: 
• LinkedIn 65%  (1)
• Blogging 63%  (1)
• Twitter 53%  (1)
• Facebook and YouTube tied at 47%  (1)

What to use Social Media For? 

1. Build Relationships with existing clients, business networking, keeping in touch. Over 50% of people use LinkedIn to fortify new relationships that they believe may positively influence business (6) 
• TOP EXECUTIVES: Industry Networking makes up 22% of use.  20% also use LinkedIn to promote their business.  
• MIDDLE MANAGEMENT: 24% of Middle Management uses it to keep in touch with others, for industry networking 20%.  
• ENTRY LEVEL EMPLOYEES:  24% of Entry Level Employees us it for Job searches and 23% use it for CoWorker Networking. (5) 
2. Gain referrals, and attract new Business Clients  (2)
• 49% trust LinkedIn as a word of mouth referral for services (6) 
• uTest, the largest global marketplace for software testing services reports that 50% of its paid inbound leads come from LinkedIn, making it their most cost-effective online marketing channel.  (5) 
3. Fortify Brand and Accelerate Go To Market Opportunities. 87% trust LinkedIn as a trusted source of information affecting decision making  (6) 
• Google has the largest presence on LinkedIn, with 1.7 million followers 
• IBM is second with 1.5 million followers
• Hewlett-Packard is third with a little more than 1.4 million followers 
4. Reduce Sales Cycles and Source Sales Prospect Pipelines  (2)
5. Market Intelligence and Industry Best Practices  (2)
• 77% use LinkedIn to Research Companies and 65% of journalists use it for research material (6)
6. Prepare for more effective meetings and interviews.  
• 44% feel the use of LinkedIn increases their face to face meeting effectiveness. (6)

  

Dawn C Khan:      LinkedIn  | Twitter

Footnotes: 
1) Starting Your Career As a Social Media Manager by Mark Story  Allworth Press ISBN 10-1-5811-925-0
2) Linked Strategies: 11 Reasons you should use LinkedIn for Your Business by Nate Kievman
3) Forbes: Why Every Employee At Your Company Should Use LinkedIn by William Arruda 
4) February 2014 By The Numbers, 70 Amazing LinkedIn Statistics by Craig Smith 02/0914
5) Adobe: 15 Mind Blowing Stats about LinkedIn by Giselle Abramovich
6) Punch Media: LinkedIn Statistics 2013