Business-to-Business Marketing has long been seen as the poor relation to B2C Marketing, however, research suggests it’s the B2Bers who are leading the charge when it comes to embracing social media. Earnest Agency has sought to capture the key trends in a new video: “Vital Statistics for B2B Marketing”.

Inspired in part by Socialnomics, the video draws on a mass of facts and figures – occasionally contradictory, but always interesting – providing a compelling commentary on what’s going on out there.

The video highlights that while

81% of B2B organisations maintain company-related accounts or profiles on social media sites, this compares to 67% of B2C players.

And the distance is even greater when it comes to the likes of Twitter usage, with 75% of B2Bers participating in micro-blogging versus 49% of their B2C counterparts.Dispute the statistics at your leisure. But one thing is certain, social media and search marketing is fundamentally changing the playing field for B2B Marketers. More and more of the B2B buy cycle is shifting online – even for the most complex of offerings. The video will be reassuring for those B2B Marketers who have leapt at the opportunities social media has presented to date. But for those who have yet to take the plunge, it may prove a much needed wake up call.

For the latest in B2B social media check on the SWMF Europe event on the 29/30th March, 2011