21 Dec 2011: – Eloqua, the leading provider of on-demand revenue performance management solutions, has released the Eloqua Social Suite, a set of applications created to make it simpler for B2B marketers to use social media to drive leads and revenue.

Seamless integration between Eloqua’s marketing automation platform and the major social networks including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter means demand generation marketers can now tap into social to measurably improve campaign performance.

The launch is designed to help the B2B sector leverage social media in a way that it has struggled to do so far, with most social media activity restricted to simply brand building.

According to Eloqua, its customers can now make demand generation campaigns more social in four simple steps: building awareness of content, engaging buyers through social channels, enriching profiles with prospects’ social identities and activities, and measuring the impact of social media on digital marketing campaigns. Eloqua Social Suite makes this process possible by using three types of social media apps:

1.      Social sharing and content apps – Using a drag-and-drop interface, usrs can enable prospects to: share content across the leading social networks; search and embed YouTube videos directly onto landing pages; let buyers see who in their peer networks has interacted with customers’ content; and allow prospects to skip complicated forms with social sign-on, or “signing on” using their social media accounts.

2.      Social data apps – Users can pull in buyers’ social data from social sites as well as segment messaging based on influence using Klout and Twitter integration. Additionally, marketers can tie prospects’ social identities to the existing contacts in their database.

3.      Social reports and dashboards – Eloqua users can also track and measure their campaigns with intuitive reports, giving marketers the ability to see what social channels are delivering inbound traffic to their campaigns.

“There’s no doubt that social media has dramatically reshaped the marketing landscape,” said Paul Teshima, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Eloqua. “But for marketers focused on driving demand, social has been a bit like shaking the Magic 8 Ball. With Eloqua Social Suite, those marketers can finally realise the potential of social for identifying influencers and tapping into prospects’ trusted peer network, lowering the common barriers to driving higher conversion rates and getting a full view of buyers’ digital behavior. With that level of insight, our customers can at last see how social can truly drive revenue performance.”

The Eloqua Social Suite is available today for current Eloqua customers. See Eloqua’s product page for more details and a demo.