Do You Use the Tools 91% of B2B Buyers Use?

Yesterday Forrester Research reported that 91% of B2B buyers are using a single class of business tools -- and often using them to research and execute purchases.

What type of tools are we talking about?

Social media tools.

You heard right. Social media is no longer some fluffy domain for folks who can't read a spreadsheet. It's now one of the most widely used and cost-effective ways to reach new customers.

Forrester isn't the only one coming to this conclusion. HubSpot's State of Inbound Marketing report , released last month, showed that leads from inbound marketing campaigns (which include social media campaigns) are 61% less expensive than leads that come from outbound marketing campaigns.

If you've been holding off on social media "until it becomes mainstream," your time is up. More than 90% of your customers are already using social media, and, as Josh Bernoff pointed out yesterday , you're late .

Here's a table that summarizes the Forrester report, published by Laura Ramos and Oliver Young .

The left column lists B2B buyers' different uses of social media, while the right lists the percent of respondents who used social media in that way. The remarkable row here is the bottom one -- only 5% of B2B buyers are inactive on social media.

If you're interested in more on this research, check out Forrester's free webinar on the topic here . If you're interested in getting started with Twitter, one of the most popular social media tools, check out HubSpot's free Twitter webinar .