Social Media for B2B?
We were looking at our web site statistics from the past 2 months. We haven’t seen many comments on the new blog, so I was surprised to find out it's one of our most visited pages! Encouraged by this news, I've decided to add another entry, and I hope you like the content. When thinking about a topic, it occurred to me that the dozens of articles passing my desk on social networking might be telling me something.
Panini doesn't have a company Facebook site…or a Twitter account. As the person heading up the team responsible for marketing, that worries me. What worries me even more is that I'm not exactly sure how much I should worry. Is social networking an integral element of overall marcomm strategy in a B2B context? If so, how do you go about using it effectively and what kind of results should you expect? I don't know.
In a recent study by eMarketer, the number of US social network users is expected to grow from approximately 80MM in 2008 to over 130MM in 2014. Are these boomers flirting with high school sweethearts, or is there actual commerce being transacted? I don't know.
I was looking at a report from Digital Brand Expressions noting the top 5 strategies used by businesses to support social media plans. They include allocation of resources, registration of key brand names on targeted social media sites, researching how competitors and key stakeholders are using social media, careful specification of account settings, and measuring ROI. It's the last item that really puzzles me. What does the ROI look like for the use of social media in a B2B context, and how should you measure it? Again, I don't know.
Given our high level of traffic to the blog page, I thought I'd ask the experts - that's you - about this topic. Are you using social media for B2B? How's it going? What's worked (and has not worked)? Are you measuring ROI? How? What results have you seen? As always, thanks for visiting and for sharing your insights!
Author Bio
Michael has more than 20 years of senior executive experience in both sales and marketing. He is responsible for the management of Panini’s Global marketing team and the future direction of the company via product development, strategic planning and market definition. Pratt has spoken at trade events and authored white papers on many industry topics including remote deposit capture, global payments, marketing, branch capture, and more and is excited to share his insights and expertise via the Panini blog.
Comments
Re: Social Media / Blogging
Thanks Ray! It's hard for me to argue with any of your points. At a recent conference, I saw a major US FI showcase the mkt videos they deployed on YouTube, and they admitted their own employees could not check out the videos due to the very restrictions you've mentioned. That said, it's a topic that warrants some exploration. As customer communications migrate more to electronic channels, and social media emerges as a key category among those channels, I'd like to make sure we know how to leverage the opportunity effectively.
Social Media/Blogging
Frankly, I'm surprised that my browser let met post this message. Generally social media and/or blogs are strictly VERBOTEN by our network administrator. Social media outlets for B2B communication do not seem to be necessary and certainly not preferred over e-mail, especially with all of the cautions regarding lack of privacy of any and all messages posted on those sites. Who wants business related communication with your partner blasted throughout cyberspace when revealing content could be exploited?? The very "social" aspect of social media seems to preclude its use as a legitimate means of B2B communication. There isn't any advantage to it over already established methods. Why change? Far more suited to B2C.
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