Chapter Fifteen

Social Media for B2B

Many business-to-business (B2B) companies are struggling with what their social media strategy should be. Unfortunately, executives often incorrectly believe that social media isn't applicable for their B2B company. Rather, they think it's something reserved for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.

This is flawed thinking. Many of the same social media principles we preach for B2C companies also apply to B2B companies. Some tactics and philosophies, however, need to be adjusted accordingly to address idiosyncrasies particular to the B2B space. One quick difference is that the volume of interaction is often less: 32 percent of B2B companies engage with social media on a daily basis, whereas 52 percent of B2C companies engage on a daily basis.¹

Here are a few social media B2B musings that will hopefully help clear things up and explain why we see that over 90 percent of B2B companies actively participate on Facebook.²

Phil Mershon of SocialMediaExaminer conducted an extensive survey that uncovered where B2B companies experience digital success:³

• Over 56 percent of B2B marketers acquired new business partnerships through social media (compared to 45 percent of B2C marketers).
• Nearly 60 percent of B2B marketers saw improved search rankings from their social efforts (compared to 50 percent of B2C marketers).
• B2B marketers are more able to gather marketplace insights from their social efforts (nearly 69 percent versus 60 percent of B2C marketers).
• The one area where B2B marketers significantly lag behind their B2C counterparts is in developing a loyal fan base; 63 percent of B2C marketers found social media helped them develop loyal fans, compared to only 53 percent of B2B marketers.
• B2B marketers are more likely to use search engine optimization (SEO) (67 percent versus 62 percent of B2C marketers).
• Event marketing is more used (68 percent of B2B versus 60 percent of B2C).
• B2B firms use webinars more than twice as much as B2C companies (28 percent versus 12 percent).

B2B Customer Relationships Are Often Fewer and Stronger Than B2C Relationships

The key word here is stronger. Social media tools like LinkedIn can only strengthen these relationships and complement—not replace—the necessary face-to-face, interpersonal communication.

B2C companies can have purely digital relationships with their customers and often have to do so as a result of the pure volume of customers. However, what social media has allowed for B2C companies (closer engagements and real-time digital conversations with customers) can also be leveraged in the B2B world.

While B2C companies can, and for practical purposes often must, have purely digital interaction with customers, it's still important for B2B companies to use social media tools as a complement and not a replacement for face-to-face interactions.

B2C Company Clients Often Aren't Competitors

I'm usually not in competition with my neighbors when they buy the same iPhone that I purchased (well, maybe a status symbol competition). However, the clients of B2B companies are often in competition with each other. Two local ice creams shops may buy their plastic spoons from the same supplier.

Because of this dynamic, a B2B company needs to be careful with respect to giving different clients different deals or offers. One needs to understand that this deal information has a better chance of getting out in this transparent world than it did in the past.

Social media doesn't have the same impact on every business. I've always said there is a scale of 1 to 10 on how much social and digital media can impact your business. If you are Starbucks, your potential is a 10; if your company sells stealth bombers to the government, your potential is probably a 1 or a 2. The key to remember is that it is never zero. So if your potential is a 4, you need to reach that potential.

If you supply stealth bombers to governments, then the likelihood of sales dramatically increasing as a result of social media is probably marginal and, due to security reasons, the amount of interesting content that can be disclosed to the public may be slim.

However, opinion groups potentially formed within social media around the government's decisions to purchase more or fewer stealth bombers, tweets on the subject, or flattering/unflattering information on Wikipedia could influence decisions. This is your potential, and even if it is only a 1 or a 2 you want to make sure you are achieving your potential.

Listen First

This is a major maxim for B2C companies in social media, and it's just as important in the B2B realm. Each B2B industry uses social media differently, so it's important to determine not only where the conversations are taking place, but what the conversations are about. Many tools can help a company collect this conversational data (including Radian6 and Filtrbox).

You will be able to better determine the needs of your most important clients by listening. Good B2B companies have always listened to their clients. Great B2B companies have always taken it one step further and listened to their competitors' clients.

The explosion of social media has made this downstream listening much more practical and real-time. If your company provides a component like the gorilla glass for an Android phone, it's important to listen to end users' likes and dislikes—that way you can stay ahead of the game and you aren't solely dependent on your buyer's secondhand information. You can even help provide some of this information to your buyer and become an even more valued partner. For example, on the original iPhones, women were having a more difficult time typing on the screen because their fingers are generally colder than men's. This is biologically based. Women generally store their body temperature in the core, which is great for babies. However, the extremities, like toes and fingers, receive less warmth. Since the iPhone is heat sensitive to the touch, women were having a more difficult time than men getting the touchscreen to work. Hence, moving forward, it may behoove Apple and its B2B partners to have more engineers on the team who are female (probably a good blanket statement for all technology companies).

Once you're close to mastering this type of social media listening skill, the next step is to listen to your competitors' clients. Discerning noticeable customer gaps will ultimately put you in a position to fill these gaps and win new business as a result.

Tips for B2B Social Success

Here are 15 tips for B2B social success:

So B2B can learn from B2C and B2C can learn from B2B. Let's take a closer look at some social media case studies in the next chapter.

¹ Alexander Hotz and Lisa Waananen, Mashable.com infographic, www.socialnomics.net/2011/01/27/social-media-on-the-rise-for-b2b-marketing/. Source: March 2010 White Horse marketing survey.

² Jeffrey Cohen, “12 Revealing Stats about B2B Social Media Marketing,” socialmediab2b.com, January 26, 2012. Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2012/01/b2b-social-media-marketing-statistics-revealing/#ixzz1xK6pbQmS http://socialmediab2b.com/2012/01/b2b-social-media-marketing-statistics-revealing/ (original source: Penton Marketing Services).

³ Phil Merson, “How B2B Marketers Use Social Media: New Research,” SocialMediaExaminer, April 24, 2012, www.socialmediaexaminer.com/b2b-social-media-marketing-research/.

⁴ Not sure of the originator of the term flawsome. I first became aware of it when being interviewed by Ann Hadley; by showing our flaws as an individual or a company and owning up to them, this shows our awesomeness.

⁵ Rajesh Kadam, “B2B Social Media Best Practices for the Integrated Age,” Business2Community, June 8, 2012, www.business2community.com/b2b-perspective/b2b-social-media-best-practices-for-the-integrated-age-0189092.