Social media not only influences IT purchase decisions, it drives many of them, according to UBM Tech‘s annual Social Media @Work research. The study found that social media now plays a critical role in the business technology market.

Study highlights include:

• Social media influences and drives IT purchase decisions: 66% of tech professionals say that they have used social networking sites to obtain information for a technology purchase.
• 92% of IT respondents have taken one or more actions as a result of using social media, including visiting a vendor web site, or contacting a vendor directly for more information, and registering to download content such as research or a white paper.
• Social media is gaining credibility among IT professionals:  42% of respondents say that social media is “productive” — an increase from 36% two years ago. The percentage of respondents who describe it as simply “fun” decreased by 6 points.
• Social media has also gained credibility with tech marketers – the majority of tech marketers surveyed now have a business presence on all four of the major social networking platforms, with close to 90% maintaining a business presence on Twitter and Facebook, 84% who have a business presence on LinkedIn, and about three-quarters on YouTube.

“Social media is now completely ingrained into the workflow of business technology decision makers,” said Scott Vaughan , UBM Tech’s Chief Marketing Officer. “This poses challenges for tech marketers who lack resources to develop and execute effective, cohesive social media strategies. Our report incorporates practical tips to help even the most time-strapped tech marketers leverage social media as part of their overall marketing strategies.”

The full report, including strategies that marketers can use to maximize social media to engage IT decision makers, can be downloaded from CreateYourNextCustomer.com, an online resource for technology marketing best practices, research and solutions.  Access the free report at http://bit.ly/WzkiMy; registration is required.

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Tags: business technology, buying decisions, facebook, IT, LinkedIn, social media, Social Media@work, twitter, UBM Tech report, YouTube