Social Marketing and Social Networking are quickly becoming important areas that B2B companies have to consider. In an effort to help business marketers get started, we have compiled a list of some of the top social networking sites for business to business marketers.  Before we get to the list it is important to understand more about social media marketing.

The key to effective social marketing is to actively participate in communities that are relevant to your product or service. B2B marketers should engage the vertical social networks, forums and blogs that surround their industries.  Here are some benefits that can be gained from participating in these networks and communities.

·    Gain visibility with customers and business partners
·    Develop new sales prospects
·    Research companies and individuals you want to do business with
·    Research competitors
·    Generate sales leads
·    Recruit employees or consultants
·    Raise investment capital
·    Gain feedback from customers and colleagues
·    Ask advice and gain knowledge
·    Establish yourself as an authority in your area
·    Manage your brand and company reputation

To quickly find out about relevant blogs in your industry perform a search in Technorati or Google Blog Search, or look in this business blogs directory http://www.iblogbusiness.com/. Another good idea would be to set up several Google Alerts for your company, competitors, and relevant industry keywords; this will allow you to track industry news and blogs.  

With that, here is a list and summary of a few of the top social networking sites that can be leveraged by business to business marketers.

LinkedIn   - http://www.linkedin.com/ 

LinkedIn is by far the most popular social networking site targeted to business users with more than 9 million registered users in more than 130 industries.  Of those registered members nearly half a million are C-suite level executives. When you sign up for LinkedIn, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments.  Customers, former colleagues, and partners can find you by searching for your name and profile details. You can invite trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you, thus expanding your network.LinkedIn allows the user to find potential clients, industry experts, and service providers that come recommended.  Users can also find and post job opportunities. LinkedIn Answers allows you to post industry specific questions to your network and to the full LinkedIn network. LinkedIn Experts is a new site that began testing in December that connects industry experts to users and then sets up hour long telephone consultations for a fee. LinkedIn is free to join, but also offers paid accounts which provide more advanced tools for finding contacts in the network.

Ryze - http://www.ryze.com

Ryze has a similar model to LinkedIn, but may encourage more social interaction on a broader range of topics beyond business. Ryze claims to have more than 450,000 members in 200 different countries, with over 1000 external organizations hosting sub networks on the site.  Members get a free networking home page where they post information about themselves, their career, and an optional picture.  Ryze also offers the opportunity to join special networks related to their industry, interests or location.  Ryze also offers a paid account which offers more search functionality.

ITtoolbox - http://www.ittoolbox.com

ITtoolbox is an online community of professionals targeted to the information technology industry.  ITtoolbox prides itself at being an open community geared towards sharing knowledge and practical information about the rapidly changing IT world.  The website has several tools designed to accomplish this task.  ITToolbox maintains Knowledge Bases which allow members to interact with each other based upon topics of interest.  Members can use Blogs, Wikis and question and answer Groups as tools to interact with the knowledge base.  ITtoolbox also has a Professional Network that allows professionals to maintain their own homepages and interact with each other in a similar fashion to LinkedIn and Ryze.  ITtoolbox also offers targeted advertising opportunities for businesses based upon a contextual matching engine.

Plaxo  - http://www.plaxo.com

Plaxo is an online address book site that allows for automatic updating of your contact information.  Users and their contacts store their information on Plaxo’s servers.  When a contact edits their information, the changes are automatically updated in the address books of those who selected the account changer option. Since the contact information is stored in a central location users can access it remotely from anywhere. Plaxo can integrate with most of the major address books (Outlook, etc.), and can also operate as an online version.

InnerSell – http://www.innersell.com

InnerSell is an online lead exchange network where sales professionals and businesses can exchange qualified leads. The network is based upon the premise that sales professionals often discover leads for products and services that they cannot fulfill.  By passing on the lead to a qualified vendor the original sales person can help out their customer and strengthen their relationship.  Sales people can earn finders fees on leads that they provide only when the lead turns into a sale. Vendors can set the finders fee amount and only the two vendors can see the details of the sales lead.

Go BIG Network - http://www.gobignetwork.com

The Go BIG Network is a social networking site for small business startup companies. The network connects small businesses, investors, job seekers, and service providers.  Like other social networking sites Go BIG Network allows members to maintain a free profile, and search out other contacts. Go BIG Groups allow users to join a network setup to discuss particular topics of interest. The Requests function is a classified ads section which allows members to post requests to the community like “looking for funding”.  Users have to pay fees when they post a request or when they wish to contact members they don’t currently have a relationship with.

Ecademy - http://www.ecademy.com

Ecademy is subscription based social networking site focusing on business. It has a two tiered membership structure with a basic option (free) and a full service subscription option. When a new user signs up they get full access to the network for a two or four week trial period. Full users get to create a profile, join clubs, create their own clubs and participate fully in weblog discussions. These blogs are registered with Google and many subscribers profiles show up in Google searches. Basic subscribers have limited discussion, limited search privileges, and limited visibility for Google searches. Ecademy has over 100,000 users throughout the world, with a large concentration in the UK.

Spoke - http://www.spoke.com

Spoke is a business to business online directory of contact information. The directory is formatted to provide information about individuals at all levels of a company and show the relationships between them. Sales professionals and marketers can then identify prospects, research companies, and contact the right people in an account. Spoke’s directory has information on 35 million people at more than 900,000 companies. Members can access the database for free as long as they provide and validate their own contact information. Users can access the database for a fee if they don’t wish to validate ($50 per month or $500 per year).

These are but a few of the social network communities that B2B marketers should consider when trying to promote their business and solution offering in the online space.