Can social media work for B2B enterprises?

18 Jan

Cross posted from the Superchooha blog

Though social media is about getting masses / going viral into a community, the end effort by any strategist should be to find the evangelists, use them to influence entry level users in doubt and hence convert these to sales leads.

From a B2B perspective

The enterprises don’t usually spend so much in advertising. Their services spread via good WOM and reputation. And what is the first communications channel that comes to your mind when you talk of WOM? Social media of course. And of course using your customers as evangelists is much more common sense when you sell a INR 3 lakhs tractor engine than a INR 300 engine oil.

On a more basic level, whether its B2B or B2C, in the end it boils down to good networking online i.e. showing your human side and helping out; while keeping your reputation and professionalism intact.

Think of this as a conference you might attend where you shake hands with your potential customers. Taking an analogy, in B2B your audience is already very focused, and it’s not a crowd that you need to influence!

One good example of using social media by a B2B enterprise that I can recall:

ArcelorMittal merger. They needed to inform everyone that everything’s cool with the merger and the two different cultured companies will come together and kick ass. So they came up with a webinar of 15 episodes where employees talked about the merger and meeting people from the other company etc. etc. This gave them millions of eyeballs and hence they gained trust in the eyes of their B2B customers.

I Googled and found out these brands that are using even a very personal community like Facebook to get leads and spread their corporate communications socially:

Salesforce.com

Cisco

To sum it all tactics and execution might differ but social media strategy is always the same for every organisation.

Dos:

  • Start a dynamic blog. Populate with quality content. Make it the one stop destination for everyone interested in that topic. Hence, gain trust and eyeballs >> more leads
  • Linkedin is a very professionals based network and many companies start from there
  • Generate a community to connect your developers (employees) to end users (hardware guys) to collaborate and create solutions.

Do nots

Do not start off by using the ‘coolest’ tool Twitter. I think that Twitter is not really the network for a B2B company. The platform should be LinkedIn. Twitter can also be used but after an intensive research on finding where exactly your potential customers are [influential CIOs and CTOs)

  • I do agree for B2B organizations the strategy and tactics are different. The blog is the easiest and quickest way to at least give your customers, prospects, partners and industry analysts a mechanism to give you feedback directly. Most organizations concern is what if they say something negative about my company or product. My response is they already are so why not find a way to have the conversation. Obviously some of this requires some moderation if profanity or consistent abuse happens.

    LinkedIn groups and Q&A also provide an opportunity for the sales and marketing team to do one on one outreach as well, but much more targeted and relationship based. Better to get involved and learn how the tools work and be ahead of your competitors. Don't focus on the platform but how the company sees content as a way to drive awareness and a voice for the company.

    @mikedmerrill
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