Social Media B2B

The transparency that the Internet provides can be a double-edged sword. Companies have to be mindful not to disclose too much information about product timelines and other important business planning information. The flip side of that means that many organizations are now testing business models and strategy in a public forum for anyone to observe.

So why not examine what some of the most successful businesses are doing and see how those strategies apply to your business? If someone else has invested a lot in proving these strategies, it seems worth spending a little time thinking about further applications of them.

When it comes to online marketing Google has been a major success story for monetizing and marketing successfully on the web. Let’s look at some of the elements that has made Google so successful and discuss how they apply to B2B online marketing.

1. Context – If you don’t read any other ideas on this list, I hope you will read and remember this one. Context, the ability to serve advertising related to what a person is search for or to a message in their Gmail, has been one of Google’s key success factors. Context is also the fuel that helps power the social web. Context should be at the core of all B2B online marketing discussions.

Thinking about context forces you to think about your customers through the right lens. It forces you to thinking about how customers need different information in different situations. Context is critically important wen thinking about B2B social media, because often you are engaging different audiences through one type of media. When this happens it is important to have a strategy to provide context to each of them.

2. Convenience – When thinking about convenience and B2B online marketing, relate it to a concept that organizations are familiar with: upselling. In B2B sales, taking an existing customer and then selling them new and additional product lines has been a staple of growing B2B business. Think of convenience as the online marketing equivalent of upselling.

Google has provided their customers with added convenience: Google Maps, Google Local, Google Documents, etc. In doing this, they also drive revenue growth. Convenience should carry through the entire B2B online marketing experience. From opt-in direct marketing, to engagement, to e-commerce, it is critical that every step is thought of with convenience in mind. Something as simple as allowing a customer to easily contact an employee with questions can make a major difference in sales conversions.

3. Experimentation – Over the past few years Google has been out to prove that the old adage “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained” is true. They have experimented with new products like Google Wave and have acquired a wide set of companies. I am not suggesting that you go buy another company. Instead I am suggesting that you a allot a part of your marketing budget to experimentation. This doesn’t mean waste money, instead it means try something that you have thought about doing, but were to scared to see fail.

Read all of the reviews of Google Wave. Most people don’t like it. That hasn’t stopped Google from continuing development. You can do this on your own scale. Be smart in how you experiment. Traditionally it seems not to be the experiment, but more the criticism that is the issue. Remember that most great innovations fought through heavy criticism before they eventually succeeded. This goes for marketing as well.

4. Admit What You Don’t Have – Google buys companies. Actually Google buys a lot of companies. Even an organization as large as Google realizes that it doesn’t have it all. This same self-awareness is critical to success in B2B social media marketing. Understanding when you don’t have things like good customer databases, landing pages, and other elements that are important in supporting your overall campaign. It is easy to get stubborn and think that “my campaign is so good, that it will be ok that I don’t have the right landing page.” The truth is that in a highly competitive online marketing place every little experience improvement matters. Use this as a reminder to examine and admit what your campaign is lacking and fix it.

5. Make It Simple – Our final lesson is taken directly from the Google homepage. I like to think of the Google homepage as an example of the perfect B2B call to action. The page is clean and simple. When you arrive you are clearly prompted to do one thing: search. Are your calls to action this simple? Is your overall user experience of your external and internal web tools this simple? In B2B we love to over complicate things and squeeze 100 product benefits on a page. The next time you are thinking about doing this, remember the Google homepage and the success that it has had. That should help you keep it simple.

Are their other lessons we should be learning from Google? Do you spend time looking at models that have been successful on the web to see if they apply to your business?

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