As a major league Facebook user — currently 801 friends counting Pete the Cat — I don’t find it surprising that social media is quickly rising to the top of corporate PR spending. Just the name public relations defines the essence of how social media works.

Now, the numbers back up my belief that social media is a key component of any PR plan.

In the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, compiled by Webmarketing123, a California-based online marketing agency, 60 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012.

Matt McGee, writing for the Search Engine Land web site, says those increases in social media spending are likely fed by other statistics from the survey: 68 percent say they’ve generated leads from either Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, while 55 percent have closed deals from social media leads.

Although the focus of McGee’s post was on search engine optimization (SEO), for his B2B marketing audience, the numbers about social media reveal the magnitude of social media and its importance to business.

Of the Business to Consumer (B2C) companies who responded to the survey, 75 percent are the most active on Facebook, followed by 8 percent on Twitter and 6 percent on LinkedIn.

Business to business (B2B) companies surveyed said they are active more evenly across all three leading networks: 34 percent Facebook, 26 percent Twitter, and 25 percent LinkedIn.

Both B2B and B2C marketers say that website traffic is the primary way they measure the success of online marketing efforts.

My Facebook friendship with Pete the Cat (the character in paintings and children’s books by Decatur artist James Dean), may not directly lead to sales of Dean’s work, but it does help Dean’s brand recognition. Plus, Pete the Cat makes me smile every time I see one of his posts.

For the State of Digital Marketing Report, (you’ll have to register to download), go to:

http://go.webmarketing123.com/seland-state-of-digital-marketing-report.html

For McGee’s post on Search Engine Land, go to:

http://searchengineland.com/seo-beats-ppc-social-media-for-generating-leads-99064?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=feed-main

— Alice Murray