Social Media B2B

Today, I have an important question for you. A question so important that it could change the future of your business, or better transform the path of your industry. This post isn’t as much about marketing as it is about opportunity, though both are closely related.

What is your platform?

This simple question likely holds the answer you need to position your business effectively in this changing economy. Look at some of the most successful companies today, like Apple, Google and Amazon. They don’t succeed because they sell products. They are successful because they provide an infrastructure that supports the work of others. Apple’s gives developers an easy way to make money off their work by making it easy to sell software in their App Store. Google makes it easy for publishers to make money from their content with Ad Sense.

The Social Web Will Commoditize Industries

Today many B2B companies and industries exist because of vacuums. Think about it, most distributors exist because their pricing, service and organizational structure exist in a vacuum that customers and manufacturers can’t completely see and understand.

The Internet and the social web eliminate vacuums.

Think about what your industry would look like if all of the pricing, practices and product/service quality was all public and every potential customer could know it before they made a purchase decision. This is the future. The social web is becoming a catalyst that will force commoditization.

How To Survive In A Commoditized Marketplace

If I could pick one word to describe how the Internet has changed sales, marketing and business in general, it would be: platform. Think about all of the services you use frequently on the web: YouTube, Facebook, eBay, Amazon. These businesses have one thing in common. They are platforms. They serve to enable and create a sustainable economic infrastructure each community they serve. Looking at B2C companies you can see how many of them have begun adopting platforms for marketing and advertising.

In B2B platforms are less evolved, which means the opportunity for success is now. So many organizations are considering how to sell B2B products online that they are missing the bigger opportunity to create a platform.

The way to thrive in a commoditized marketplace is to own the platform.

Marketing As A Platform

Platforms are for more than selling products. Platforms are the next step in marketing on the web. Most B2B companies in their social media marketing are focusing on using platforms created by other people, which include Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The challenge for B2B companies will be to determine what their online marketing platform should be. When I talk about a marketing platform, I am not talking about a way to publish and push information, as much as I am referring to a way that current and potential customers can engage with the business as well as each other.

Questions That Will Guide The Platform Process
When discussing possible platforms for B2B marketing these questions may help to serve as a guide:

What ways do your customers communicate?

What topics drive customer engagement online?

What would help your customers improve their businesses?

What solutions can you provide customers that could generate interest in your products/service?

Platforms are here and they are not going to go away. Can you be successful without them? Maybe. Can you be great without leveraging platforms? No.

Kipp Bodnar is publisher of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Kipp on Twitter @kippbodnar.