If social media was a highway, the automobiles would be the applications (Ning, Second Life, Vimeo, Facebook, Posterous , Digg, Yelp.com, Blogger, Flickr, etc.) developed to maneuver the channel. The number and types of applications depend on the ever-changing likes and dislikes of the target audience as well as the desire to standout from the rest and try something new. Just like automobiles in real life, some applications peak and fall in popularity quickly (i.e., the fads). On the contrary what doesn’t disappear, even with improvements and refilling of potholes along the way, is the highway or communication channel (i.e., social media.)
Do you agree or disagree? Don’t just stop there. Tell why you feel one way or another in comments.
You can also click on older posts to read my thoughts on Social Media, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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7 comments:
Social Media is not a fad...
Social Media helps sales staff merchandise information to potential customers – A battle that I have long witnessed in the B2B world is ensuring that communication with sales staff and the marketing team are open. Taking that a step further, many marketers have a difficult time providing their sales staff with materials that the sales team can leverage to close a sale. A big part of this problem has always been relevancy. The tactic in the past has been to get a case study or feature article published in an important trade publication and then provide the sales team with reprints to discuss and leave behind with potential customers. This is a good thing to do, but it leaves a lot holes unfilled: How does the sales staff stay current on industry trends? How do they get customized information that is relevant to their customers?
Social media can begin to fill in these gaps. An organization should set up a Google Reader account for each sale team member and include industry news, as well as a shared feed where the marketing team can instantly share new articles with the sales team.
To fill in the other hole I want to provide you with an example. Let’s say that you are a food service distributor that supplies hotels and restaurants with food products. How can social media help you? How about the next time you go into a sales meeting you have a graph that you made for free on Trendrr that shows that positive blog posts and Twitter messages have increased for a new hotel customer of yours once you started supplying the food. That is valuable, actionable information that can help close a sale...
Luseni Dassama i-Tense Research UK
Luseni,
Thank you so much for commenting. This is a wonderful example of B2B use of social media. I'm a huge fan of using social media as a listen post before and after the work is done.
Social media is an excellent word of mouth tool, but long-term it will provide a platform for virtual enterprise where a team of people from around the globe can join forces and achieve a business goal sans brick & mortar.
Absolutely Jim! I believe this to be true as well.
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