Plans for the Dell B2b Social Media Huddle, taking place on December 7, are almost complete.

My co-organizer Kerry Bridge and I are expecting over 70 people to take part in this one-day mixed conference and unconference at Dell’s UK headquarters in Bracknell.

As part of our overall prep, we asked participants to take a short survey that will provide all of us with some useful metrics on a range of social media-related topics and what people are doing and thinking from the business-to-business point of view.

Some interesting but not surprising results from those who have responded so far:

• 92% answered ‘yes’ to the question “Do you think these online channels [public websites, social networks and Twitter] are effective?”
• 84% said an official Twitter presence is very important to their business
• 92% said overall social media monitoring is also very important to their business.
• Over 30% didn’t think much of doing display advertising within social networks or blog networks.
• Everyone (100%) so far says that their primary use of social media for business is to find out what consumers are saying about their organizations. (To me, that means listening.)

Just a sampler, and these results may well change as more people take the survey. We’ll be presenting the full results at the event. If you’re  registered as coming on Monday and haven’t done the survey yet, please check your email again for the note from Kerry with a link to the survey that she sent out on November 30. We’d be very grateful if you would add your views as well, before Monday.

The survey results will be useful, a snapshot on what some people are doing with social media from a B2B perspective. Think of it as highly complementary to credible depth research on social media and communication in the UK such as the report from Econsultancy last week (and they’ll be there on Monday to talk about their research report).

The sign-up and ticket list is closed. But if you would like to join over 70 other business participants – there’s no monetary cost to take part – please email either Kerry or me and we’ll see if we can squeeze you in.