As with all things in the world of advertising, it’s about the timing. As businesses struggle, year after year, they turn to the latest marketing trend to help them remain relevant.

While the pace of change quickens, it’s more critical than ever to stay on the cutting edge of communicating with your customers. Every week, a new threat to the survival of your company seems to emerge. Business owners lie in bed, staring at the ceiling when they should be sleeping. They worry about the threats: Threats that take the form of new competitors — domestic, overseas, and on-line; rising overhead costs for materials and salaries; government regulations in the form of taxes and insurance requirements; and labor concerns from minimum wage to finding skilled workers.

When it comes to marketing, there is more to worry about than ever. For B2B marketers, the danger is clear — embrace change or become irrelevant. Social media is that change.

If you have been in business long enough, you have seen a long list of marketing innovations come and go. It all started when someone decided that “word of mouth” wasn’t good enough to precipitate business growth. So they turned to printed advertising: posters and leaflets promoting their wares. That gave way to print advertising in early newspapers and then fast-forwarded through radio, magazines, direct mail, outdoor, television, trade shows, cable TV, sponsorships, Internet ads, email, internet radio, and countless other innovations along the way where money was invested to reach larger and larger numbers of potential clients, way beyond what “word of mouth” could ever accomplish.

Now, Social Media has its turn. According to eMarketer.com:

In August 2013, social marketing spending accounted for an average of about 6.6% of marketer budgets. Within the next year, that share was expected to rise to 9.1%, and in the next five years, marketers expected social to account for 15.8% of spending.

It seems like only yesterday that those same numbers were being applied to the growth of online marketing spending for banner ads. And while the percentages are small, I suspect they will rise rapidly for B2B marketers. Social Media is where the buyers are. This very blog space, Insights, and countless others, are identifying the tactics and strategies for Social Media marketing. The first step for companies is to embrace the concept. Accept the reality, jump into the pool, and get an edge on your competitors while you still can.

If you still cling to the “word of mouth” myth, consider Social Media as the biggest mouth you will ever know.