COMMENTS
Social media is one of the most interesting personal and business phenomena in the last 100 years. If you choose to ignore the converstation, you do so at your own peril. I just don't understand the mindset of people talking about your industry, your company, your products and how to address them and people not wanting to join that conversation, but lots of people are waking up fast and using it to their competitive advantage.
While I agree with much of what has been said about judicious and informed use of social media, it is like any other marketing medium, it will only be as successful as the strategy that drives its use, the continuous evaluation and adjustment of its application. Another very interesting medium that marketers need to understand and apply intelligently to their own challenges and objectives.
All are some great point for utilizing social media. We have to know what our customer want and should have to take feed back from them. After knowing their wish we should treat our business according to their interest.
The Web was supposed to disrupt (if not kill) existing service-based businesses – from travel to real estate agents. Yes, Trulia.com, Zillow.com are still around today. But so are Realtors who are suddenly part of the dot-com disruptors' business plans!
As it turns out “all that data” the newbies provide home buyers and sellers with isn't so terribly valuable by itself.
The interpreters are. Further, the “wisdom of crowds” (opinions, knowledge sharing) is helpful but not always wise or valued. Buyers and sellers still value working with knowledgeable, credentialed people. Trust and critical thinking matters more.
In this context, who better to pioneer “social media” than Realtors? They should be teaching the digital experts! Given their expertise in facilitating conversations that lead to consumer trust they clearly do “get it.” They simply need to understand how to best choose and apply new digital marketing tools. Yet Realtors and brokers – like so many other business segments – are largely convinced they “don't get it” and “it's too technical.”
Why? You can thank the "social media experts!" and, yes, the outdated, inappropriate
QUALITATIVELY focused ("reach and frequency) traditional marketing mindset.
I think social media can be marketed if used for choosing a certain Demo-graphic customer but not good for mass advertising.
This is a great article. I think that each time someone in the B2B space screens a call or dumps an email that they should think of karma and then think about being more active on social media sites, both as a thought leader and as a potential client...social media could present a great media exchange.
In my experience, business-to-business companies, both large and small, tend to be aversive to change across the board, and have been so for generations. I've find them to be resistant to advertising, PR, direct mail and anythings else that they have not done for years. In general, I don't know that their skepticism over pursuing social media would be any more acute than it would be toward the idea of adding an additional trade show.
www.media-proinc.com
I think the right approach is to blend social media into your overall marketing approach.
Social media is just a tool. Businesses need to find out what works for them and for their customers, and social media can be a great way to get that feedback.
I completely agree that those who try to use social media the same way they would traditional B2B marketing will struggle -- most people would consider joining social media only to broadcast 1-way marketing messages to be the definition of spam.
There definitely are businesses who are resisting social media and social networking. But those that are willing to give it a try and are open-minded about how they use it will be miles ahead of their competition who are resisting.
Hi all, the article is great and i agree with much of it has been said. I would like to point that it is very important to integrate this new way of communication with customers with the other channels of communication. For exemple, in my industry is very important to keep the Call Center because in many times the client wants to someone to talk a to solve the problem. In the other hand, you all will agree that there is a sort of information that could not stay in any social media. After saying that, the clue question is to make a good redefinition of the mix channels. I hope my words would give a bit of light to other collegues.
See you.
This is a great article!
A lot of "traditional business" owners have been asking me why social media hasn't worked for them, and I hadn't had an intelligent response.
I'm going to be sending this out to a lot of people today. :)
The excuse: "We're a B2B operation! We don't have social-savvy customers like B2C companies" is especially lame considering that hundreds of B2C businesses are on the social web marketing and interacting with consumers. This means that B2B companies looking at where their target market "hangs out" is right here in the social media world. Social media is certainly not only for B2C business!
Keep up the good work.
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Social media is the inbound
internet marketing field.They had given the different approach to the readers.The article is nice.
Great post. But I believe failure of B2B traditionalists at social media can be attributed to a deeper fundamental flaw of "silo" organizations and finance.
We get budget for social media in many different places but the main source is marketing and sales. If your funding is from marketing and sales then your conversations will be skewed to bring ROI rather than nurturing.
Customer service budgets are under so much pressure and reductions that they have become short-sighted. So don't expect help there.
Nimble firms like Zappos figured this out very quickly and did not "silo" social media within marketing. As more larger B2B firms "get it" they will be more successful.