Business.com recently published their 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study which shows that the use of social media is no longer a question of adoption but of utilization.  Below are some interesting statistics that should interest those using social media for business.

Use of social media as a business information resource by Company Size

Companies with 10 employees or less tend to use social media the most as a business information resource, followed by mid size companies (100-499 employees), Small businesses (11-99 employees) and large corporations (500+ employees).

Most popular social media resources for information

Out of the 2,393 participants, the top five resources for information included:

1. Attending webinars or listening to podcasts – 69.1%
2. Read user ratings and reviews for business products or services – 62.2%
3. Visit company or product profile pages on social media sites – 62.1%
4. Visit company blogs – 55.1%
5. Conduct searches for information on social media sites – 54.5%

Usefulness of different social media for business information

It was interesting to see that the five most popular resources were not also all the five most useful.  Those ended up being:

1. Attending webinars or listening to podcasts
2. Read user ratings and reviews for business products or services
3. Subscribe to RSS Feeds of business related news or information sites
4. Read or download business related content on 3^rd party content sharing sites
5. Participate in online business communities or forums

Number of social media sites used to find business information

Surprisingly 63.8% of respondents use five or more social media sites to get information and resources.  14.4% use ten or more.