Did you know that 61 percent of U.S. marketers use social media to increase their lead generation?

While the business to consumer (B2C) side of social media is both proven and well established, business to business (B2B) social marketing has been a harder sell. But the effort is paying off. A recent Business.com study showed that 55 percent of B2B survey respondents search for information using social media, and IBM reported an incredible 400 percent increase in sales in a single quarter after implementing a pilot program of social selling.

Some 53 percent of B2B companies actively use Twitter in their marketing efforts, but this is dwarfed by Facebook (90 percent), which generates about twice as many monthly leads overall. However, and as you might expect, it’s LinkedIn that rules the roost – while less than half of businesses actively use the platform, LinkedIn returns more leads than Facebook, Twitter or blogging for B2B marketers.

This infographic from Inside View takes a closer look at the benefits of using social media for B2B marketing.

(Source: Inside View. B2B image via Shutterstock.)