Two things we always stress to our clients at Locker Partner: building community, achieving transparency.

Whether your business model is built on transactions with customers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), social media can be a powerful tool in achieving both of these aims, and more.

But there are still many businesses leaders in the B2B realm who are reluctant to engage in social media. This may be because they doubt it’s useful to spend time and resources cultivating a presence on networking sites populated by individuals looking to engage in “social” interactions.

Taking it a step further, many businesses are worried about compromising their brand security, losing their reputation as “respectable” companies by playing around on silly sites like Twitter.

No B2B company (or any B2C, for that matter) should jump into social media marketing without a plan. No one should do it just because. But it is an undeniable fact that B2B companies that have engaged in social media effectively have reaped tangible rewards.

In “Crushing the Myth of B2B Social Media” Jay Baer writes:

Yes, social media applies to B2B. In fact, social media can be MORE transformative for a B2B company than a B2C company. This is because B2B has a smaller potential customer base, a higher average price point, and a customer decision funnel that is more influenced by word of mouth and reputation. Turning your customers into advocates and marketers on behalf of your brand pays off a lot more when you’re selling $10,000 pieces of manufacturing equipment, than it does when you’re selling $3 cans of Pringles.

Baer goes on to cite MarketingProfs’ State of Social Media Marketing report, which shows in number-crunching charts and graphs that B2B companies who use social media marketing do see returns. That’s both regardless of the platform (whether Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) and regardless of the size of company.

This is all because B2B, just like B2C, is all about cultivating relationships (community) and communicating well  (transparency).

In the very near future, it won’t be a question of whether B2B marketers use social media. In fact, we’re betting that the phrase “social media” will rarely be heard in casual business talk. Facebook, Twitter and their future descendants will be so commonly adopted in marketing plans, that B2B businesses won’t even think twice about using them.

No more than they think twice about picking up the phone.

Further reading: 10 Things a B2B Company Can Do to Be Social Now

The consumer-trend researchers at TrendSpotting asked 30 social media pros to predict what’s coming around the bend in 2010. The researchers found that the predictions fell under six main categories: Mobile, Location, Transparency, Measurement, ROI and Privacy.

Peruse the report, which is phrased in Twitterlike 140-character statements, in the slideshow below. (Brevity, you see, is already de rigeur.)

A few predictions that stood out:

@PeterKim: Advertising infiltrates public social sites on a widespread level, souring experiences for many.
Now that would be a shame. It’s the challenge of all advertisers to find a way to raise awareness of their brand(s) without intruding. The answer: Build community. Bring people into your world; don’t barge into theirs.

@DanZarella: Small Business Social Media – small business will discover the bang-for-buck accountability of social media marketing.
Yes! YES! Even mom-and-pop businesses need to be engaging their customers online.

@JasonFalls: Conversational marketing will be the prevailing success tactic for brands.
Perhaps this is how you infiltrate.

@CharleneLi: Social media in 2010 will cease being the shiny new object and instead become part of the everyday lexicon of business.
And, other experts in the report say, larger companies will attempt to regulate their employees’ use of it.

@GauravMishra: Brand marketers will create compelling micro-content to seed these communities, then run contests to invite customers to interpret their brand, create their own content.
The content remix!

@DMScott: The term “social media” wanes as people realize we’re just talking about communicating.
Now that’s what we’re talking about!

@AdamBroitman: Consumers will un-friend all brands that don’t add value.
Don’t just shout your message at people — give ‘em stuff they can use.

@MikeArauz: We’re moving into an age of transparency.
You can’t have conversation without it.