Social Media B2B Value: Sceptic turned convert!
So the question circling of late, over the past weeks for me but arguably it probably goes back months for some, is whether there is true business, or more specifically marketing value for B2B within social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. “It’s about tapping into the network, it’s about building brand, it’s about SEO”, - I’ve read it all. Facebook is more social, LinkedIn is for the business professional, and well Twitter … a fad!
As an executive in a SaaS based start-up in B2B marketing automation for SMB’s, I’m looking into how to capitalize on these mediums and so I have been exploring and evaluating all of them. And for me it came down to - Can you make money on your investment, albeit in this case the big investment is time. That being said, isn’t that what all business decisions come down to?
So in cutting to the chase and as the title proclaims, I’m a sceptic turned convert. My first experiences were frustrating to say the least. How could this possibly add business value through marketing, it’s noisy -I didn’t care what people were eating at that moment (albeit amusing at times), physically doing, etc.- and it consumed way too much time and I wasn’t getting any immediate return. But with time and invested effort (ie don’t follow those Twitter’ers that post what they’re doing, literally), it started to fall in line. As they say, patience is a virtue.
The decision for me was about going back to the fundamentals of marketing.
The definition on Wikipedia states: Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Seems straight forward and obvious. Social media clearly presents a medium for communicating, delivering and exchanging of offers, the question is whether you can identify YOUR customers, clients and partners within the membership. Hey, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it … the opportunity lies for those able to “crack the hard nut” and find the customers in the communtity.
So again, it comes back to Generate, Manage and Convert – generate your leads through inbound marketing activities through the social media groups. Manage and nurture the leads with an automated marketing solution. And in the end you identify qualified leads ready to convert to sales. An investment with a measurable return – Business value!
So I began the process as a sceptic and now confess I’m a convert. And who wouldn’t be …. A large community, green fields, many challenges, but apparent opportunity and a clear demonstrated value for a start-up business like ours by using Social Media to drive our inbound marketing. An apparent ground swell there for the taking. So we’re currently using social media to raise awareness, build brand and grow the top line through new customer acquisitions.
We’ll see where this adventure takes us ……..
You can find me on;
Twitter - www.Twitter.com/tsydoryk
FaceBook - http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry-Sydoryk/884015014
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/028/648
