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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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

  1. 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.
  2. Public Information – Thumbnail profiles of Facebook users are available to the general public and can be found via search engines.
  3. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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]
  3. 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