Mobile and social go hand-in-hand for business-to-business marketers, according to a new study from Forrester Research.

In Forrester?s ?Combine social and mobile to build business-to-business customer relationships? study, the research company looked at how social media and mobile can be used together to cultivate a relationship with customers. The report also looked at how business-to-business professionals expect their marketing budgets to be used in 2012. 

?The main takeaway is that while most of these business-to-business marketers are looking at these channels to generate leads, the most successful companies are using them to deliver a one-on-one conversation,? said Michael Greene, New York-based senior analyst at Forrester Research.

?Business-to-business marketers need to realize that mobile and social come together to let consumers have access to their company and connect with them all the time,? he said.

In addition to business owners, Forrester found that 42 percent of healthcare professionals surveyed in the report said that they had accessed social media on their devices.

Combined, 87 percent of business owners and healthcare professionals use social media on a monthly basis. 

In order to best take advantage of mobile social media behavior, brands should think about ways to include both platforms into their initiatives. For example, pharmaceutical company Novartis combines a social media element in its mobile VaxTrax application to let doctors and patients manage vaccine schedules. 

Additionally, Cisco claims to save $400,000 a year in customer service costs by using its mobile and Web-based social media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to report technical issues.

L?Oreal Paris is yet another example of a business that uses social media to its advantage by helping its salons across the United States create Facebook pages.

Mobile is affecting more than just social media though, per the findings. Fifty-nine percent of business professionals and 55 percent of healthcare professionals used their mobile devices to access the Internet.  

SMS is also a large channel for business-to-business professionals with 73 percent of business owners and 79 percent of healthcare professionals saying that they had either sent or received an SMS message.

When asked about how they believe their marketing budget will be allocated in 2012, 12 percent of high-tech product companies believe their budgets will be used for lead generation and 19 percent believe that it will be used towards marketing operations.

Twenty percent of finance and insurance business-to-business companies believe that mobile will be used for marketing operations, and 10 percent will be set aside for leads. 

Pharmaceutical, medical devices and biotech companies also believe that marketing operations will be more impacted by marketing operations at 16 percent versus lead origination at 11 percent.

The report also gives business-to-business organizations a few best practice tips to leverage mobile and social to communicate better with consumers.

As a simple start to mobile, businesses can look at incorporating mobile search and social sharing into their digital initiatives. 

Additionally, it is important to promote mobile initiatives on other channels including Web and email to help spread the word.

Keeping in mind mobile users short attention spans is also a great way for business-to-business companies to approach mobile. A lengthy whitepaper might not be best suited for mobile, but by dividing up content into manageable, short pieces of content such as a video, organizations such as financial institutions can take advantage of mobile.

?Going forward, the most successful business-to-business marketers will look at how all of these channels can be used to enrich existing programs and build them from there,? Mr. Greene said.