B2Bs should get Serious about Social

Posted by Ambal Balakrishnan April 26th 10

"Social" is here to stay and marketers should design strategies and programs to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity. To survive marketers must participate in conversations. We asked "What are key marketing trends and predictions for 2010? What actions should marketers take in 2010?". Parker Trewin is currently the Director of Marcom at Genius.com and has over twenty years of experience in marketing communications, social media and product management.

Parker Trewin

Blog Connected Marketer Twitter ParkerTrewin

"Time to ‘get social'. B2B organizations that fail to embrace Social Marketing will fall dangerously behind."

Parker Trewin's Marketing Prediction for 2010

Marketing Automation is hot but Sirius Decisions research says that adoption is hovering at just 30%. This should increase as B2B marketers look to gain productivity while keeping their campaign costs to a minimum. Metrics-driven solutions that validate the return of these efforts will be held at a premium. Forward-thinking marketers will get serious about “Social Marketing Automation”. They will wring out more opportunities by targeting above the funnel and injecting themselves into the conversation --to ensure that no lead is left behind. Not surprisingly, marketers will demand reporting to track the success of these social initiatives.

Parker Trewin's Marketing Action for 2010

While success has driven adoption in the B2C world, social media is still an unquantified promise that is in its infancy in B2B. Yet social is here to stay and marketers should design strategies and programs to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity. There are more than 275 million blogs, more than 250 million Facebook users, 43 million LinkedIn members and 6 million followers on Twitter. To survive marketers must participate in these conversations. To succeed, especially in B2B, they must look for solutions that measure ROI.

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6 Comments

Lisa Valentine said:

Agreed.

And then there is the problem with companies that are "solving" the problem by simply blocking employee access to social media apps. For those of you in that category, I offer a helpful resource. It's a whitepaper called “To Block or Not. Is that the question?”

http://bit.ly/9f8WOT

It has lots of insightful and useful information about identifying and controlling Enterprise 2.0 apps (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, SharePoint, etc.)

Share it with the IT Dept.

Jeff Ogden said:

Good post and you are so right. B2B sellers need to create great content and "fish where the fish are." Prospective buyers are not going to trade shows, but they are on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

Sellers need to talk to prospective buyers and see where they go, so they can put the 'bait' -- their great content -- where the 'fish' are.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor
President
Find New Customers "Lead Generation Made Simple"

Paul Mosenson said:

Social Media is of upmost importance to the b2b community. You can't build trust unless you connect to the buyers with valuable content, and that means taking advantage of the tools, and doing ample research on the habits of those buyers.

Develop a strategy, then determine the tactics.

Paul Mosenson

President

www.nusparkmarketing.com

Richard Brasser said:

Good post and great resource materials. B2B will really start to heat up when organizations understand that social technologies are not a tactic; they are a better way to communicate and represent a true paradigm shift that transforms our ability to relate in a human way both internally and externally. Real strategies exist that are bringing social CRM aggregation to the forefront and helping to create tangible ROI metrics. Check out @Jowyang's work on Social CRM. There is a vibrant G-Docs group discussing this topic.

Richard Brasser - @socmedia365

www.thetargetedgroup.com

Ambal Balakrishnan said:

Lisa, Jeff, Paul, Richard: Thanx for stopping by and adding your thoughts.

Jono said:

Interesting article I think b2b's should deffiantly start to look at Social media in a serious manner becuase if they neglect it. It can have a very negative image on their business.