Social media is too powerful for B2B companies to ignore, but there’s certainly no need to feel left behind if you don’t have a Facebook group, Twitter account and Youtube channel.

Re your points:
1. It’s true that social media sources show up more and more in search results, but that depends a lot on what you search for. A B2B company should do a search on their own keywords – and may find very few social media resources.
2. Google reader is a great tool – but your example is all about how you internally distribute relevant information. It does very little to encourage a company’s clients to engage in conversation.
3. On sharing information – a fundamental difference between the clients of a B2B company and a B2C company, is that end consumers rarely compete with each other. B2B clients often do. B2B clients are thus much less likely to want to share information. And your examples of researching what goes on locally is something any tourist might also use.
4. You business contacts may be on Facebook and Twitter, but that doesn’t mean they’re there to discuss business. Before launching into social media, make sure to check what your contacts are doing there.
5. The Talent War – again, I miss the relevant examples. Being able to handle e-mail and allowing access to Facebook and Youtube does not a social media strategy make.

I think they the difference isn’t so much between services and products as between what function the service or product performs. If part of your competitive advantage is derived from the service/product, then you are less likely to want to share information on how you use it.

The challenge here is of course that you’ll be less passionate about products/services that aren’t “mission critical”. And it takes a bit of passion to spend time on discussing it.

I’m not saying there’s a formula for B2C social media strategy, but the benefits for B2C companies are much more obvious. B2B social media will take a lot more thought and a lot more effort on the company’s part. It will be very interesting to see this field evolve though.

Thanks for the comment. I agree with you that companies must prioritize relationships and communities. Regardless if it is a service or product based business the priority should be determining how to create a valuable experience for the customer. Social media is simply the vehicle to accomplish this in some cases.

Thank you!
Kipp

Point #3 – very good point. A B2B strategy will need to look to see where a community will have the biggest impact and where sharing is beneficial.

For some businesses, it may be a single B2B relationship – meaning a collaborative effort between two partners instead of all partners leveraging the social media capabilities. I think that this is more directed to those businesses providing a service – where as a product is standardized and all those using the product would benefit from sharing knowledge about the product.

Thoughts?

Social media is too powerful for B2B companies to ignore, but there’s certainly no need to feel left behind if you don’t have a Facebook group, Twitter account and Youtube channel.

Re your points:
1. It’s true that social media sources show up more and more in search results, but that depends a lot on what you search for. A B2B company should do a search on their own keywords – and may find very few social media resources.
2. Google reader is a great tool – but your example is all about how you internally distribute relevant information. It does very little to encourage a company’s clients to engage in conversation.
3. On sharing information – a fundamental difference between the clients of a B2B company and a B2C company, is that end consumers rarely compete with each other. B2B clients often do. B2B clients are thus much less likely to want to share information. And your examples of researching what goes on locally is something any tourist might also use.
4. You business contacts may be on Facebook and Twitter, but that doesn’t mean they’re there to discuss business. Before launching into social media, make sure to check what your contacts are doing there.
5. The Talent War – again, I miss the relevant examples. Being able to handle e-mail and allowing access to Facebook and Youtube does not a social media strategy make.

I’ve long been of the mind that social media has immense potential in the B2B space. We have to break free of the mindset that it’s “a business” that we’re trying to connect with, and realize that there are humans on the other end of our communications, regardless of whether or not they represent a corporate entity.

Social media strips down so many barriers between businesses, and provides immensely powerful tools that we never had before to showcase not only our capabilities, but the people behind them. As a veteran of B2B companies, I can say without doubt that it is NOT a fad, and it’s changing the way companies do business. For good.

Cheers,
Amber Naslund
Director of Community | Radian6
@AmberCadabra