I'm a big fan of the work of CB Whittemore (@CBWhittemore), who I have previously interviewed on this blog. When I was building my presentation "Hate Selling? Build Profile Instead", she kindly provided me with some compelling examples, and this wonderful quote:
LinkedIn is for your professional network; Facebook is for your personal network; Twitter is where you find kindred spirits"
Obviously, this is not the whole story, and she would be the first to tell you that Facebook can be a fantastic marketing resource for consumer-oriented businesses. Today, I'm talking B2B however, and just found proof for this.
HubSpot has data to back this up, which I discovered via David Meerman Scott's excellent blog, WebInkNow.
The chart shows how many visits were converted to leads based on a 2011 study of more than 3,000 B2B companies.
My take: if you are selling to business people (even if the service you are selling is only quasi-business, like personal training, for example), you absolutely must be on LinkedIn. And be there in a thoughtful way.
Resources
A Social Media Case Study: Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog
January 2009
Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old January 2009
LinkedIn 4x better for B2B leads than Facebook or Twitter says HubSpot study April 2012
