5 Cases When Social Media Isn’t Right For B2B
Tue, Sep 15, 2009
Everyone gets caught up in the trends, the shiny applications, and all that social media has to offer, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Today is the day to talk about those times. Social media isn’t some kind of communications cure all that can fix any problem. I have spent my time making the case for how social media is applicable in the B2B space; however, today I am going to outline five situations when social media doesn’t work for B2B.
In these situations sure some aspects of social media will work and help support other inbound marketing objectives like search and branding, but the truth is, when it come to driving transactions, there are better options.
1. Your product has less than 5 customers – In the B2B space some companies exist that are extremely niche. They fill a need by providing a product or service for only a handful of customers. When your customer base is so targeted, you have to be direct with your limited marketing budget. Regular face-to-face meetings, customer events and other tactics would be a better fit for this niche. Social media helps individuals and companies scale their social interaction, but when your scale is small you have less dependence on the scale that social media can provide.
2. Your decision makers spend all of their time behind a highly secure firewall – In situations where you provide products or services to the military, electrical power grid maintainers and many others, key purchasing decision makers spend their time in a work environment that is secure and locked down from access to most or all of the information made available online. If this is the case for your customer-base then using the web probably won’t be a successful spend of your marketing budget. The success and engagement of social media depends on the ability to reach and connect with customers digitally and in person. For companies in this environment the digital option is off the table.
3. You don’t have an internal advocate for social media – Sometimes it is not about your customers, rather about your organization. One thing that successful organizations have in common when it comes to leveraging social media and word-of-mouth effectively is that they have buy-in from key advocates within the company. At many companies it is the CEO, but at least it is a key decision maker within the organization that can supply the needed resources and leadership to allow the organization to be successful. If you don’t have this, then spend your time finding someone within your organization who can fit this role instead of rolling out an social media effort prematurely.
4. You need to generate a high volume of short-term sales – Can social media drive sales? Yes. Can it drive targeted short-term high-volume sales? In most cases it can not. If you have a charge to sell X number units of a product over the next 3-4 weeks, then social media isn’t the right choice for you. As Chris Brogran, co-author of the book Trust Agents says, creating transactional opportunities on the web takes trust, but trust takes time to establish. If you don’t have time then you must go a different route, most likely direct mail, pricing incentives, and enhanced sales support.
5. If you don’t have the resources to be successful – A major issue with social media regardless if it is for B2B or not, is that most people think that since most online platforms are free that it should be cheap to add social media to their marketing or communications mix. It isn’t cheap. Social media marketing done properly takes a lot of time and the support of staff that understand the business of the their customers. Many organizations now are simply letting social media happen as an experiment. The problem with this is that most of the time these experiments are drastically under-resourced and handicapped from the beginning. Understanding the resources that you need and having them in place is a critical factor for success.
I am not saying that companies in the situations outlined above, can’t use social media for their business-to-business organizations. Instead I am suggesting that for these opportunities there are better ways to leverage a limited pool of resources available.
Do you agree with the situations I have outlined?
Do you think you are in a situation in which social media won’t work for your B2B business? If so, what is it?
Kipp Bodnar is publisher of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Kipp on Twitter @kippbodnar or Google+.
Tags: B2B, direct marketing, marketing, sales
Subscribe in your favorite Reader
Thanks for your informative post. I agree with 4.5 of your points–I do think that carefully engaging in discussion can be helpful to some B2B companies that sell to the military.
I can’t imagine those companies’ employees being active on Twitter, for example. But I think that conversations with bloggers who are interested not so much in how, precisely, the companies’ products are being used, but in the underlying technology or materials, can be beneficial if those businesses want to begin to work with other industries. In those cases, I don’t think the B2B company should opt entirely out of online discussion.
Thanks in particular for making point #5–working thoughtfully with social media is time-intensive. Many companies don’t appreciate this fact.
The trust factor as you described is indeed the cornerstone to any potential future dealings with either B2B or B2C marketing. In my opinion it isn’t a process that can be rushed and therefore if your primary objective in using social media is to immediately sell your products niche or otherwise you will more than likely be dissatisfied. Social media is an opportunity to meet,engage and appreciate the opportunities to serve others who may in turn become customers when and if they choose to. I thoroughly enjoyed your post,and now have some additional food for thought going forward.
I think you make valid points, the one I like the most, is point # 3. You don’t have an internal advocate for social media. A lot of companies take a throw it at the wall and see what sticks approach. That can be the beginning of the end for a company, especially in the eyes of those who know and understand Social Media. You really do need an advocate someone who understands what’s going on and how to deal with the vast number of places Social Media is read, reviewed, and talked about. Great read thanks Kipp
I think these are great points.
Done properly, social media can transform the way companies operate in all areas – customer service, product development, hiring, market research, etc. If you aren’t ready be open/honest with your partners and customers and aren’t willing to listen to them or involve them in your business, social media might not be the right thing for you. It doesn’t have to happen overnight, but there does need to be a desire to do things the right way, and find out what that is if you don’t know. Thoughts?
-Jason Peck
eWayDirect
@ewaydirect or @jasonpeck
You make some very good points. Its more important to have a clear strategy than to use technology/social media for the sake of it.
Just because a community works in a secure environment does not mean they lack engagement in social networks and online communities.
Take the military community as an example. There is rampant adoption of social media across all levels of the Defense Department through blogs, Twitter feeds, social networks, etc.
My firm — Strategic Communications Group — worked with management consultancy BearingPoint to create a directory of government agencies (including military) and their social media activity. Here’s a link: http://govtwit.com/
B2Bs have been slow to adopt social media for good reasons, some of which you outlined. Others — they needed to see how it would work for them first. They stand by and watch the B2Consumers use it, learning what works and doesn’t work. Then they have to strategize how they can make SM part of their sales cycle because they can’t use the same approach as B2C.
But they’re starting to see the value. A b2b client was not into blogging and SM for the longest time. Now he loves it and I am helping him learn how to use it while he provides the b2b expertise.
I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to make social media work for our services which have very few customers. Your point makes me realize I need to be thinking afresh on this front. With other services where we have a lot more customers (who are also keen technology users) a direction is clearer to see. Different efforts for different products may be in order.
Cranky Pressman
I agree with your list, Kipp. I would also add that there are some business models that just don’t adapt well to utilizing social media. I answered a question the other day for a frustrated LinkedIn user who just didn’t see the benefit to being on there. Well, his business was a regional offering of a home decorative product. His website was an information provider and lead generator, not an online sales portal.
I realize I am taking a side road from your original point; this was not a B2B business. But I think it illustrates what you are trying to say: Social Media isn’t a viable answer for every type of business. Thankfully, where it is a viable answer, it can be a very powerful medium when used correctly.
Even companies with a limited prospect pool may have good cause to pay attention to social media. Boeing, for example, may have a small enough hit list to target customers individually, but they also have investors. This much larger audience could be strongly influenced by conversations among bloggers, journalists, analysts, employees, or even hobbyists. In fact, those same opinionistas could influence a key decision maker – and when one deal is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a rational investment in social media monitoring and participation is a cheap insurance policy.
Wow loving the comments here. Thanks for the great feedback. Sorry for my delay in responding, I have been on the road.
Laura – Thanks for your feedback. You make some great points. I will start looking for some military case studies to help uncover the value for that market.
Robert – Completely agreed that trust is a critical success factor for social media success.
Jayson – you rock man. thanks for your comment. Agreed I have seen a lot fail because they didn’t have an internal champion.
Jason – Tell it man! It takes time remember that the Long Tail of web content is its true value.
Masey – Agreed technology/social media isn’t a silver bullet it doesn’t solve all problems.
Marc – Would love to hear more about you military work. Happy to feature a case study here on the site. Feel free to send me some info at contactATsocialmediab2bDOTcom
Meryl – Thanks for your insights very helpful!
Jamie – Go where the customers are, not where the cool tools are.
Todd – You are on it, social media isn’t a replacement for a great and sound strategy.
Diane – I agree. I think on some level social media is relevant to all B2B companies. When resources are limited though, sometimes it might have to get lower on the priority list, if it can’t drive value as well as other methods.
Thanks for all of your feedback
Kipp
Some interesting thoughts – you may be interested in the site http://www.b2bsocialmedia.co.uk which has links to various resources and you can put the question to other like-minded people on it.
I’m so glad you posted this list. I couldn’t agree more – social media is definitely a shiny object that has invited all types of soundbites about the end of anything that isn’t social media. While I’m a huge proponent of social media, I’m a little skeptical to accept that all other media channels are dead as a result.
So I completely agree with your post, especially the points about the need for a high-level advocate in the company as well as recognizing whether or not social media will meet your objectives (the sales point). These are definitely things I’m tackling as I continue to learn more about social media.
Great post!
I wrote this about retailers, but its views really apply to any business. Including B2B.
http://weplayintraffic.com/2009/09/12/how-a-retailer-should-budget-for-social-media/
We agree with your list except the high volume sales portion. Dell is proving that high volume of short term sales is not only viable, but profitable.
Great post, Kipp. I’m a supporter of B2B social media use, but you make some good points. However, if done right, long-term social media use will be more beneficial than simply ignoring the medium. It definitely can’t hurt your business if done right. You don’t need to develop a full-blown campaign that jumps up, spins around and explodes – because it’s about relationships, which like you (and Chris Brogan) mention, takes time. A little bit of quality time on Twitter or LinkedIn can go a long way.
This is a great post Kipp, it drew my attention because you rarely see social media advocates write anything saying it isn’t useful, but you make valid points. There are specific situations and I think your best point here is #3. Social media used well requires time, interaction, research and follow up so if you don’t have someone to invest all of those then it’s hard to have successful social media applications. Thanks for sharing!
Kipp, excellently thought out points here. I have a personal experience with “Your decision makers spend all of their time behind a highly secure firewall:. A friend of mine works for a company which manufactures high-end military-grade equipment. These equipments are meant only for governmental organizations, and sold over years of conversation and negotiation.
This friend of mine has almost never used the social media to track his prospects. That’s because there’s nothing on them, anywhere.
You’re right when you say that one needs to understand the goal they’re trying to achieve with their SM strategy. If it’s a quick buck one is trying to make, SM doesn’t cut it.
We at InsideView use SM more to create awareness and drive traffic than leading to direct sales. A sales lead coming through this medium would at best be a coincidence.
In line with what most other experts like yourself are talking about how B2B is actually good for businesses, I share some of my thoughts in my blog: http://bit.ly/cLwKjZ
I also wrote another post recently on how Social CRM is becoming the new buzzword around town. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/c8lvma
Kipp,
Thank you for the post. You have given us a much needed dose of common sense for the hype surrounding SM. The term B2B is far too general to include all companies selling to companies. There are many, many subsets of B2B companies to which SM does not make any sense.
This is the first time I’ve read your blog. I’ll be sure to visit this site more often.
Thank you
John Doble
John:
Thanks for your comments. Glad you liked the post and the site. Please let us know if there are particular insights you are looking for.
wow, it seems I have missed the golden time, the lastest comments was put two years ago, oh,jesus,China is absolutely out of Internet time. Anyway ,let’s get back to this topic, what I think of Social media in B2B business is different. Social Media can do a lot of things,like spread brand values or corporate vision and mission to the public , it can do good for the corporation PR and CSR Strategy ,help build the brand and marketing it into human spirit which could add value in other areas of the company, not the direct business revenue, like Talents Recruiting.