Greetings, friends and fellow industry peers. As spring raises its leery head in Central Pennsylvania, I’m reminded of all the pleasant changes that accompany this time of year – shorts, sandals, outdoor basketball, barbecues, no longer having to scrape the ice off your windshield and so much more; it’s beautiful, really.

Our industry is no stranger to change, too. Just this week, in fact, five large things happened within the business community that are likely to shape our professional horizons for the foreseeable future:

1. LinkedIn agrees to partner with Ipreo, a global provider of financial services intelligence, thus giving the world’s largest professional network a steroid shot of investor relations possibilities.
2. Apple ends Google’s four-year reign as the world’s most valuable brand, according to Millward Brown's 2011 BrandZ study of the most valuable global brands.
3. RIM (BlackBerry) surrenders more market share of their mobile platform to competitors Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) at an incredible rate – a 4.5% loss in the first calendar quarter of 2011.
4. Microsoft suddenly buys the popular video and messaging company, Skype, for $8.5B, making the acquisition the largest cash deal in Microsoft’s history.
5. The Financial Times reports Facebook will become the world’s largest online display advertising company by revenue this year, overtaking the comparable businesses of Google and Yahoo!.

Whew.

While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about Facebook for a moment.

I’ve been knee-deep in some serious discussions with many industry colleagues on the topic of “Is Facebook relevant for B2B?” for the past three months or so. Though the feelings vary, the dissenting opinion seems to stem from one general idea, that “Facebook is largely inappropriate to the nature of my business.” I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, I am a 30-something who grew up with Mark Zuckerberg’s company when he only targeted students within Ivy League universities. Yes, I update my status approximately 4-12 times per day. Still, no matter what industry you’re in, no matter the nature of your business, Facebook is relevant for B2B.

Let me repeat that – Facebook is relevant for B2B. Three takeaways (with supporting arguments for each) as to why this statement is true:

1. Even if the Apple brand now ranks atop the global list, does anyone care to venture a guess as to whom the fastest growth in brand value belongs to? That’s right. Facebook. With a jaw-dropping 246% increase, nearly three times that of Apple, Facebook is on a tear to the top. The fact that Facebook now has over 500 million registered users and growing, making it the 3rd largest country in the world if it were one, probably has something to do with this achievement.

   Takeaway – Your target audience, whether internal, external or both, is likely already on Facebook or will likely be there soon. Take advantage of the trend. Communicate with them. Or, perhaps you’d rather your competitors do that in your stead?

2. Convergence isn’t only blurring the line between “work” and “play;” it’s also affecting the most popular social media channels, too. Consider the B2B favorite medium, LinkedIn, for example. In early 2008, LinkedIn added the Facebook-like functionality of “status updates” to their site. In late 2009, LinkedIn partnered with Twitter to sync these status updates across the two platforms. A few months later, a small Canadian company called “Hootsuite” found a way to integrate the updates across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Finally, in March 2011 LinkedIn unveiled “LinkedIn Today,” giving users a valid reason to visit the website several times throughout the day for the first time in the company’s history. Very interesting, indeed.

   Takeaway – Convergence further validates that Facebook is relevant for B2B. Just as users are changing their expectations with LinkedIn being a purely professional site, so too are users’ expectations with Facebook being a purely personal one. Expect the mix of both personal and professional to continue. Do you think the rapid increase of B2B “Pages” within Facebook is an accident?

3. Activity on Facebook is explosive, at worst. According to the company’s statistics, more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month. Further, there are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). There isn’t a social media channel on Earth that can compete with these kinds of engagement metrics, not even Renren, the Facebook equivalent in China (with one-third the membership size of its American counterpart).

   Takeaway – Facebook offers the most engagement tools and reach of any other social media site in existence today. Ask your audience a question. Have them participate in a poll. Post pictures of your engineers hard at work. Upload videos of a customer service representative actually helping a customer. Whatever you decide, the point is universal – to develop a more personal connection with your business. Considering that all business decisions require some level of trust and relationship, why wouldn’t you take advantage of a medium that uniquely allows you to build upon these two critical factors?

So, yes, even you should be Facebook. We are. Won’t you consider it, too?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to update my status.