www.kickstartall.com
Get Ready! Social Media for B2B Companies
by
Mary Sullivan
KickStart works with B2B clients, and until now, we have been silent
on the subject of social media. Why? Because we were straining
to find effective uses of social media by businesses that
sell to businesses. For the most part, social networks were associated
with a demographic that may be attractive to consumer businesses, but
business customers weren't going there. We believe that is changing,
and so this is the first of a series of articles on Social Media for
B2B Companies. This first one is a primer. If you already know your
way around social media, please tune in next month for "KickStarting
Your B2B Social Media Initiative."
Starting at the Beginning with a Definition
Media is defined as a means of communication; so literally,
media has been around for centuries in one form or
another. In the 20th century, the word "media" became
associated with newspapers, radio and TV. With the Internet's
interactive design, media no longer has to be one way and has become
"social." It is multi-path, multi-party. Despite the
openness of the Internet, social media is not random. It self-organizes
into social groups or communities, and the members
interact with each other. Why
are people organizing into social networks now? Because
they can. And because they want to!
Why B2B Tech Business Didn't Embrace Social Media
The idea of the public—customers and non-customers—interacting
and publicly talking about a company's products and services
has been unsettling to B2B technology companies. They
consider themselves the technical experts and believe they need to
tell prospects and customers what they need to know. Few of them
realized that customers might be interested in organizing into groups.
Oh, yes, there are the XYZ Company User Groups, but the predominant
feeling was that customers attended to hear what the company has
to say; the company-customer relationship was hierarchal, with the
company defining the terms of the dialog. The companies made sure
that they were in charge of the meetings, agendas and conversations.
As long as this relationship was true, the promise of social media
was not relevant. But times have changed, and customers now require
a balanced and equal role in a two-way customer-company dialog.
The Evolution of Business Communities
In the beginning there were trade shows and business
mixers, with elevator pitches and business cards being exchanged.
And there were B2B company user groups. In the last 10 years since
social media came into view, B2Bers joined LinkedIn, because
it's a good career network and helps the hiring process,
both for recruiting and searching.
Discussion forums have been around for a while, with most
of the participation in the technology community – developers
and IT types.
Next came blogs, and independent bloggers, not beholden to
any company, sometimes took public issue with a company's
products or customer service. Smart businesses woke up
and started tracking and monitoring what was said about them in the
blogosphere using tools like Technorati and Google Alerts.
Some started following their competitors' blogs using RSS feeds.
To defend themselves and be able to talk back, some gutsy
companies created their own corporate blogs. These are
one-to-many communications from a platform that optionally allows
comments back to the authors; however many businesses hold comments
for publication until reviewed and approved by the company. Most
companies control the agenda and the list of authors on their own
blogs.
A few companies created online user groups for their customers,
still again monitoring and managing the conversations.
Using technology with rights management, such as Microsoft's Sharepoint,
the companies control who has access to which customer
communities.
Aside from these uses, social networks just didn't apply in
the business-to-business world. They were out there, but social media
sites were associated with students and with consumer-product businesses.
The press has been mourning that media is dead or dying. It is neither;
it is simply evolving. But with the evolution of social media, the "control
factor" has slipped away from companies. B2B businesses are
slowly coming to terms with a social media environment where anyone
can communicate with anyone about anything.
A Brief Look at the Most Popular Social Media Channels
Increasingly, people of all ages are joining social networks,
including employees of your company and those of your competition.
The sites are extremely popular. Google the names of some of your
key people and chances are you will find they have a LinkedIn page
and perhaps a Facebook page. But these sites present a different
world for companies that have little or no control over content
on them.
The largest social network today is still Facebook. Rising
fast is Twitter, a platform often called a micro-blog because
individual posts cannot exceed 140 characters. While LinkedIn remains
the largest professional social network, Twitter has a significant
business and professional component to it. All these "Big
3" networks are free or have basic memberships that are
no-cost. All encourage posting a bio and thumbnail photo or "avatar"
that personalizes the member profile. Briefly, let's look at these
popular channels and what distinguishes them.
LinkedIn
- Relationships – People establish "connections" with
others that they know. The invited party can reject the invitation
if it is someone they don't know or with whom they choose
not to be associated. LinkedIn Groups create communities of interest.
- Public Information – Some portions of LinkedIn data
are public, i.e., a name can be found on LinkedIn via a Google
search. But the searcher must be logged in to LinkedIn to read
the full profile.
- Uses – Business people use LinkedIn as a form of
online resume to find jobs or job candidates, and they can also
get introductions to potential business contacts for sales or information-sharing
purposes. LinkedIn users can get introductions to 2nd and 3rd degree
connections through the people they know in between. Group members
can ask questions and share information within the group.
Facebook
- Relationships – People ask people that they know
to be "friends." The person invited has to confirm
that they want to be friends. Facebook Groups, like
LinkedIn Groups, enable forming communities of interest.
- Public Information – Thumbnail profiles of Facebook
users are available to the general public and can be found via
search engines.
- Uses – Although Facebook was originally created
for students to connect online with friends, it now
includes people of all ages and backgrounds. It still
is primarily a friend-to-friend network. Users write information
about themselves and post photos on their own "pages." A Facebook
user can post messages and photos on the "wall" of a friend. Facebook
is evolving business features: Users can be fans of each other
or create special fan groups. Users can see which groups
their friends belong to and can choose to join them. Although Facebook
is still personal and social in nature, some major
corporations (Cisco and Intel among them) are experimenting with
Facebook Groups. Group members can ask questions and share information
with group members-only.
Twitter
- Relationships – Twitter users choose to "follow" others,
and often they are people they don't know. Many follow
thought leaders who they have never met. They use Twitter's Find
People and Search features to choose people to follow.
Upon finding matches, the user can view the person's bio and updates
("tweets" – remember,
these are <140 characters long) and can then choose to Follow
that person. Some users choose to protect themselves,
approving followers first. The followed person is notified and
has the option to follow back.
- Public Information – Twitter membership is not displayed
on search engines; however a person can type "twitter.com/username" if
they know the username, and see the person's bio and
tweets. So while it isn't fully searchable, it is fully
public. Non-users just can't reply. [Full disclosure: my Twitter
handle is @morecontrary]
- Uses – "Following" means you receive
tweets from people you follow on the device of your
choice – cell phone,
computer browser, or a Twitter client application.
Tweets can include shortened URLs (via tinyurl.com and others)
that link the reader to a website or blog post. People
use it to publish their thoughts, notify others of
events and blog posts, and to ask others for information.
KickStart's Social Media Future
KickStart has just launched the KickStart blog. We are
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn users and are actively using social
media ourselves. In future newsletter articles and blog posts,
we will discuss alternatives to the popular "big 3" social
media sites – what they do and ways B2B companies might use
them. And we will explore B2B uses of other social platforms such
as blogs and wikis. Stay tuned!
About the Author
Mary Sullivan is a co-founder of KickStart Alliance, delivering
customer-focused product marketing to clients in a variety of technology
sectors, including clean tech. Mary is a convert to social media
use within B2B companies for publicity and marketing purposes.
She is a long-time blogger and LinkedIn member, a relatively new
Facebook member, and an active Twitterer. To learn more about social
media, contact Mary
Sullivan.
March 2009