Like anything else, social media marketing is easier, more efficient and more effective if the marketer has the right set of tools. While hundreds (if not thousands) of tools and services exist for social media marketing, many are still primarily aimed at either consumers or B2C marketers. Fear not B2B marketers -- there are still plenty of great tools out there than can best address the unique needs of the B2B space.

We've raided our own toolkits to come up with some of the best tools and services for B2B marketers that want to get the most out of social media.

1. Salesforce.com

Social media is now the rule rather than the exception. It certainly didn't take long for that to happen, but a significant number of restaurant operators are still trying to figure out its true value.

According to Shon Christy, founder of Eat Drink Promote, that value is simple: If a brand wants to be relevant five years from now, it needs to have a prevalent presence on social networking sites. Sixty-seven percent of people who use the Internet have a social media profile. The fastest-growing age bracket for such use is the big-spending 30 to 49 year olds.

As operators continue to navigate the growing social space, they now have much more to learn than just Facebook and Twitter. Christy, who spoke on "The Four Pillars of Social Media" at this week's North American Pizza & Ice Cream Show in Columbus, Ohio, said Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Yelp, Foursquare, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn are all viable marketing platforms.

Half of marketers are enthusiastic about the role of Big Data in marketing, and another 31% are cautiously optimistic, according to a recent report from Infogroup Targeting Solutions.

Many social media sites started out as personal sites but social media marketing has become one of the most powerful online strategies for businesses, online and offline.

In 2002, Friendster was launched in the U.S and then in 2003 MySpace began.

Next to be launched was Facebook in 2004. Facebook was originally started for students but quickly spread to be much more. Twitter was born two years later in 2006. Pinterest, said to be the fastest growing site ever, was launched in 2010. 

ZMOT – whether you’ve heard this or not you’re probably thinking: not another term to add to the tedious marketing literature! Fondness of acronyms notwithstanding, ZMOT may represent the most important change to marketing in the past decade.