Facing limited budgets, and audiences with even more limited attention spans, more marketers are turning to social media. While sites like Facebook and MySpace are obvious choices for reaching young consumers, b2b marketers have been slower to embrace---or see the proven value in---social networking sites for reaching business-to-business audiences. Purely social sites might not be right, but community sites that provide valuable content are a viable vehicle for reaching btob targets--if approached with discipline.

The prospect of adding social media to your marketing mix may seem daunting. For some companies, it’s difficult to accept the loss of control, relinquishing the ability to manage how information is disseminated. But the control is already gone. In the blogsphere, in forums and communities, your business users are already talking. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to listen and talk back.

By participating in social media, the opportunity to grab your audience is much more powerful than traditional advertising. In these environments, there’s a higher level of engagement---unlike with a banner ad or your last e-newsletter. You have the opportunity to have a conversation. And if you’re lucky, word-of-mouth will help pass on what you’re saying.

But b2b marketers who charge blindly into social media, like just starting a blog or online forum on a whim, won’t find success. Embracing communities requires practice and commitment. Credibility and enlisting the audience is key. It requires a dedicated effort and time. Focus on your audience and objectives first before using social technologies as just another marketing tool. Otherwise, you’ve just created another thing for audiences to avoid. As always, valuable content is critical.

Many tech firms have been leveraging social media for some time and big corporate cutbacks have them looking to allocate even more funds in 2009. Dell turned around its reputation and solicited ideas for new products by monitoring, participating, and creating blogs and forums. Most recently, the company reported to have produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half using Twitter for sales alerts on discounted merchandise.

As budgets continue to dwindle, more b2b marketers may take the opportunity to invest more time, and less money, and try social media. This week, B2B Magazine reported that b2b marketers cite social media, viral video, and mobile marketing as the top ad trends for 2009. Emarketer predicted that as the number of business users of social networks increases, advertising expenditures will increase as well, reaching an estimated $210 million in 2012.

How can you use social media as part of your b-to-b marketing plan? What should you do to make your message stronger? Don’t guess. Ask your audiences, and they’ll tell you.