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If you haven’t heard by now, LinkedIn has quickly become the go-to social platform for business development and referral generation. Since going live in 2003, the networking site has become a big player in the social media game, boasting more than 145 million members worldwide and averaging over 100 million users per month.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word email? If you said Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan (à la the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail), good effort! But this isn’t the ’90s. In 2013, email marketing is an essential part of not only romance, but also referral marketing strategies.

A lot of the attention surrounding the provision of customer service via social media tends to focus on B2C brands: How can I resolve shipping issues? Can I book tickets online? Et cetera. However, B2B customers are people too. Despite a longer and more complex lead-to-sale time, they also expect a strong customer service infrastructure from B2B brands.

Using Social Media to Generate and Nurture Leads

If you’re looking for a way to reach more customers, there’s no doubt about it. Social media is the way to go. Digital marketing giant eMarketer estimates that social media platforms boast over 1.73 billion users worldwide. A number that’s expected to climb to 2.55 billion by the year 2017.

Great product, winning team and strong revenue growth. Your B2B company is crushing it, so you don’t need a referral strategy, right? Wrong.

Referrals Are the Most Cost-Effective—and Trustworthy—Ad Strategy

Your customers may trust your product, but your advertising strategy may be a different story.

With more and more businesses recognizing the value of online referrals, it’s easy to overlook why the advertising technique is so effective in the first place—it’s social! Every day friends and colleagues interact with each other on social media sites in ways that weren’t possible even two years ago. But guess what? They’re interacting with your brand as well.