Should B2B companies be using social media?

Crisis in the concept house

I recently had a conversation with a prospective client regarding possible topics for a workshop at their up and coming annual conference. The conference was for a network of business partners from all over the world. My initial idea was to bring up the case for social media in a B2B environment. To my surprise the client thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that social media really didn’t have any relevance to a B2B audience. I didn’t pursue the matter, but it did leave me questioning myself.

I knew that social media already formed an important part of many B2C companies marketing programs aimed at reaching a consumer market but I really had to go off and do a bit of research to convince myself that my idea was indeed a valid one in a B2B environment.

Paradise regained

It turned out that I didn’t have to dig too deep or Google too hard to come across plenty of musings, blogs, news articles, forum posts and industry journals confirming my assumption that Social Media was already in the hearts and minds of B2B marketers.

I confess a mental sigh of relief, however this was immediately replaced by thoughts about why the client had been so quick to dismiss this topic.

In my initial findings one statistic that was quite revealing was that in a recent B2B industry survey, 46% of the respondents reported that the perception that social media was irrelevant was an important internal obstacle in getting social media initiatives approved.

Have you checked in?

Perhaps the perceived view of social media in certain industries is limited to the recreational aspects of Facebook, Myspace and Foursquare. I acknowledge that having your Facebook page ‘liked’ or your YouTube video viewed thousands of times doesn’t necessarily translate to increase sales and will never convince company bean counters to part with their marketing cash. The metrics for measuring the success of a social media campaign have always been a contentious point (a MacDonalds Foursquare campaign that ran in 2010 is a contender for this dubious award), with increased web traffic being the most commonly used metric. But like most marketing fields there are dozens of social media tools at our disposal and I would never recommend that a client use all of them.

This seems familiar

I knew that if I had ever got to present this workshop, the first thing I would have needed to explain to the delegates was simply what the hell all this social media talk was all about. The first thing I would point out is that social media extends well beyond their teenage kids updating their Facebook statuses. Here’s how the very ‘social media’ online encyclopaedia wiki puts it:

“Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.”

The fact that these delegates from all around the world were gathered together to meet, compare industry experiences, foster new relationships and reinforce relationships with existing partners was without doubt simply a real life social media event happening in the first person. Social media is all about con­ver­sa­tional mar­ket­ing and so in essence it’s not new to them at all, they have been doing it most of their working lives.

I would have asked them why they were there and what they hoped to achieve whilst at the conference or what they would like to take back with them when they returned to their companies. I would try to convince them that these are the same values and business commodities that the modern digitised social media platform is able to deliver only in a much wider, quicker and efficient way.

People buy Expertise

Each of the delegates would have been there as a representative of the expertise their company offers in a specific field, and that after all is what people buy. People buy expertise. This is probably the main difference between how B2B business operates as apposed to B2C companies. On a consumer level you might buy an object because of its features or taste, but B2B sales tend to be driven by demonstrating some type of expertise in a particular field, service or industry sector you are in. With this in mind it becomes clearer why using social media effectively is a real asset to boosting B2B sales. If you can demonstrate your expertise through social media, you can have a measurable impact on your sales efforts.

One of the main benefits of social media is its high visibility and its ability to make your expertise widely available to your audience.

Don’t I know you?

The relationships that are fostered and forged through social media networks are already more familiar to a B2B company than they are to a B2C company. B2B businesses have had these relationships for years and understand them more fully. Whereas B2C companies are forever chasing the relationship, trying to coax new levels of interaction and brand trust from their mercurial target markets.

With Google now spidering and referencing sites like Twitter and LinkedIn (a perfect example of a truly B2B social networking site) and creative link building via online PR and social media having grown increasingly more important as a part of SEO optimization, the science of search marketing is increasingly becoming more reliant on social media. And although it appears that B2B companies have been slower to get on board the social media train, perhaps it is because they have been more cautious in their approach, more selective about their social media tools, and rightly so. After all social media in this context is all about the critical few rather than the masses.

To be or not B2B?

I’m not sure I have made a cast iron case for Social Media in the B2B workplace where my client is concerned and perhaps those particular delegates would have just stared back at me blankly, but perhaps I have opened a few doors of possibilities. But next time you doubt whether social media is right for B2B com­pa­nies, think about what B2B strat­egy is all about: It is about the rela­tion­ships and part­ner­ships you build with your colleagues, and there’s no easier way to do this today than through social media.

Did I mention it’s cheap too?

Social media in B2B is all about the ‘know’ rather than the ‘sell’. People are getting jaded by the generic marketing push and are becoming increasingly attracted to the personalized approach. It’s already a far more social activity than B2C commerce as it is built entirely around relationships, trust, passion and knowledge. So if you are a B2B company, get out there share your knowledge and demonstrate your expertise.

Finally here are a couple of throwaway stats you can impress social media naysayers with:
Intel has 220,000 Facebook fans and they don't sell chips to consumers. IBM has 139 official Twitter accounts and they don't sell to consumers either.