A new study has revealed that while Facebook is the premier source of social media-originated traffic, Twitter is far and away the leading source of social leads for small and medium-sized business to business (B2B) brands.

Some 82 percent of social media B2B leads come from Twitter, compared to just 9 percent for Facebook and LinkedIn equally.

Conversely (and paradoxically), Facebook accounts for 54 percent of all social visits to B2B websites, compared to 32 percent for Twitter, which further underlines Facebook’s ineffectiveness for these types of businesses as a source of leads.

Surprisingly, LinkedIn accounts for just 14 percent of visits for B2B firms.

Overall, social media as a whole accounts for 5 percent of all SMB B2B leads, some way behind direct website visits, paid search and email.

(Source: eMarketer.)