More and more people are turning to social media to find relevant business information. Research studies on how we use social media professionally are now also starting to turn up.

One such study is the 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study, at business.com. This study was carried out among 2393 North American professionals within B2B. This is to date the largest study of its kind.

Among the participants 69.1 per cent prefer to attend webinars or listen to podcasts. 62.2 per cent visits sites and forums that feature user ratings and reviews for business products. Almost as many, 62.1 per cent, visit company or product profile pages on social media sites.

Many also choose to visit company blogs (55.1 per cent), conduct searches on social media sites (54.5 per cent) and participate in online business communities or forums (51.1 per cent).