Social Media B2B

It’s another Friday and I’m thinking about B2B customer service and social media again. If social media facilitates two-way communication between B2B companies and their customers, then it makes sense to use social tools and the opportunities they present to serve customers. The following articles all relate to customer service and new ways to think about serving customers in the age of influence. Have you considered a quicker response to someone with a larger online following, or gasp, a higher Klout score? Those types of decisions should be strategically based, not as a reactionary response.

If you have thoughts on customer service for your B2B company, or other recent articles about it, please let us know in the comments below.

Gartner Predicts that Social Media will be a Support Tool Among 40% of Top 1,000 Companies
from Zen Desk Blog
By now, most companies have gotten the memo about brand management via social media. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, you know the drill. As corporate social media strategy matures, what’s on the horizon? It’s customer service.
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The Social Customer Service Elite: All Customers Are Equal But Some Are More Equal than Others
from Conversionation
Last week George Orwell’s famous “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others” line from “Animal Farm”, his anti-totalitarianism novella, came to mind in an unusual context: customer service in a “social media world”.
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Doing Business as Unusual: Customer Service
from Social Marketing Forum
I’ve just been reading an excellent whitepaper authored by Dr. Nicola J. Millard, Customer Experience Futurologist with BT, titled “Clouds, Crowds and Customers: Doing Business as Unusual.” While many of the points the doctor makes in the whitepaper resonate with me, one or two stand out. She states that it’s not important what technology does, but what people do with it. And she also says that companies can’t simply use new technology to prop up the status quo – they have to change the way they think and operate – it’s no longer business as usual.
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6 Ways to Screw Up Your Social Media Strategy
from Hubspot
We all make mistakes when we’re learning something new. That philosophy stands true for business people and school children alike. So what separates those who learn and succeed from those who learn and fail? Why, it’s the correction of one’s mistakes and seeking improvement, of course!
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Ten marketing lessons from DemandCon
from Matt on Marketing
Two packed days of great content, sharing, networking and learning just wrapped up in San Francisco at the first DemandCon. Impressive quality of people and thinking here focused on B2B demand generation, marketing automation and sales funnel improvement. You know a good conference when the word “firehose” is used often.
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Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen.