Amanda Maksymiw kicks off a new multi-week series from OpenView on how to effectively leverage social media for your B2B Business.

It’s been a pretty incredible decade for social media. Think back to 2002: Friendster was a social networking pioneer with what was considered (at the time) to be a colossal user base of 3 million. Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t started classes at Harvard yet.

MySpace and LinkedIn were still a year away from officially being launched. Meanwhile, the mobile revolution was kicked-off in earnest that year when RIM released its first BlackBerry, creating a smartphone industry that’s played a central role in fueling social media’s amazing growth.

Now, fast-forward to today.

Facebook has more than 800 million active users worldwide, Twitter publishes nearly 300 million tweets every day, and YouTube sees one hour of video uploaded every second. Since its launch in June of 2011, Google+ has acquired more than 100 million users, while influential blogs like The Huffington Post, Mashable, TechCrunch, and BuzzFeed see more than 100 million collective unique visitors every month. Anyone who doubts the real value of those numbers need look no further than Facebook’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram for a reality check.

It’s hard to think of an industry that’s undergone such an unbelievable transformation in such a short period of time. But here’s the really amazing thing about the social landscape: The last decade may have simply scratched the surface of its long-term potential.

According to a B2B marketing study published by Penton Marketing Services in January 2012, 60 percent of B2B marketers have implemented a social media strategy or plan to in the next year. Meanwhile, a recent survey by social media marketing software company Wildfire suggests that 75 percent of marketers plan to increase their spending on social media this year.

The bottom line: If you’re a growing B2B technology company, you can’t afford to stand on the social media sidelines anymore.

That’s why OpenView is launching a weekly series on social media’s evolving influence in modern B2B marketing. Over the coming weeks, OpenView Labs and a collection of guest experts will dive into:

• Why social media is a critical piece of the modern B2B marketer’s arsenal
• Which networks are most effective in creating and sustaining customer relationships and brand engagement
• How to best use tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and blogging to improve awareness, acquire more leads, and close more sales

Some of the guest posters for this series will include Tim Washer, a social media manager for Cisco Systems and self-described “Corporate Comedian,” Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist for Intel and in-demand speaker, and Nate Riggs, a social media and content marketing expert whose blog sees 12,000 unique monthly visitors.

Use the links below to navigate posts covering everything from social media’s real impact on B2B marketing to specific best practices for leveraging each network.

Nate Riggs on How to Build a Ground Swell for Your Startup Using Twitter

Jesse Stay on 3 Reasons Smaller B2B Brands Should Take Google+ Seriously

Mike Sansone on 7 Steps to Successful YouTube Marketing

Kevin Cain on The 411 on Corporate Blogging

Jay Baer on Turning Your B2B Facebook Page into a Beacon for Your Brand

Tim Washer on Why B2B Brands Shouldn’t Be So Scared of Comedic Content

Nate Riggs on 3 Ways to Take Advantage of LinkedIn’s Time-Saving Features

Ekaterina Walter on Exploring Social Media’s Future: 3 Key Trends that Will Define the Social Evolution

 

Have questions or feedback? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.