New social media developments seem to be leaning towards a trend of real-time information gathering. Maxine-Laurie Marshall discovers the implications for B2B marketers
In the spotlight today and forgotten tomorrow, this has been the unfortunate fate for many social media platforms. As those techie bods work late into the night developing the newest social media platforms, we are just getting to grips with last year’s offering.
So will the launch of enterprise social media platform Tibbr, commenting tool Pushnote and the recent interest in Q&A site Quora herald the new social media trend of real-time information gathering and push out thought-leadership platforms such as blogging and Facebook?
The most common social media platforms have become useful customer service tools for many businesses. They act as a personal point of contact with the customer as Connie Benson, director of social media strategy at Alterian says, “Businesses are engaging in two-way conversations on social media with their customers and are responding to customer service issues.”
So while big social media networks remain popular, B2B marketers may wonder where they stand in light of new developments in the social media field.
New offerings explained
Due to the popularity of existing social media sites, upcoming real-time platforms and networks must incorporate existing sites into their platforms. Tibbr, created by software company Tibco, is built for enterprises and offers employees the chance to follow in-house events, systems, machines and processes giving them the opportunity to let the information they need come to them.
While it is aimed at large corporates and designed to make employees more productive, Tibbr also has the ability to connect with Facebook, Twitter etc, so employees can keep up to date with in-house business developments, as well as external developments on their competition or customers.
Pushnote is a browser add-on that enables users to comment on any website. It also allows you to copy in your Twitter or Facebook account so your comment will be visible to users from other networks. The big concern by industry experts is the inability for businesses to remove comments.
The lack of control in social media is alarming enough; Pushnote adds a new degree of concern.
Less controversial, the Q&A site Quora allows users to follow topics and post questions. It could be an easy-to-use crowd sourcing tool, the whole point of the site is to ask and answer questions – gathering opinion and information. Jon Holloway, chief digital officer at Hurricane, comments, “The question is not really whether Quora is going to be a valuable tool, it is whether crowd knowledge is going to be valuable to the B2B world, and the answer to that is a resounding yes.” However, he points out, “The platform is, as always, irrelevant.”
The potential power of the real-time social media trend that is emerging in light of the new platform developments doesn’t appeal to everyone.
Benson says, “Real-time conversation does offer insight for the B2B marketer and sales person, however it lacks the longevity of blogs and should be used more as a barometer of your prospective market than as an influencer. It is also worth noting that as yet, real-time does not build SEO, which is important for any business.”
Enterprise platforms
Social media means more than just external platforms like Twitter and Quora, as Tibbr demonstrates. Nick Jones, director of interactive services at COI, believes, “There is a place for social functionality in internal systems to help collaboration but not an external community.” He continues, “If your customers are on LinkedIn already and you think you will get them to come to your community, you are wrong.”
Using this premise, Tibbr has it right. Allowing staff to integrate it with external platforms such as Facebook means they can see updates from their customers’ chosen social media platforms without requiring the customers to adapt to a different site. However it is not alone, Salesforce’s Chatter has been around for nearly a year and also boasts to be a secure enterprise application that allows companies to collaborate in real-time through profiles and ‘follow’ documents, people, business processes and application data.
Other businesses disagree with Jones’ view on business communities and have found customer communities incredibly useful. Psion created its online community IngenuityWorking.com because it felt there was no clear way of using existing social media platforms for B2B. Philip Letts, founder of Blur Group, says, “Niche networks are more valuable than the likes of Facebook for some.”
Coping with social media overload
With the launch of more internal social media functionalities and community platforms there is a danger of the social media market becoming over saturated. If marketing teams are struggling to keep up with the fast-paced world of Twitter, how can they expect to keep up with every single network and functionality?
Letts insists you can’t do a little bit of social media, “You either do it or you don’t.” He suggests you just focus on the main three or four. “Until you’ve nailed at least three of the top five networks don’t touch any others, just lend an ear.” He names the top five as blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
Enterprise social media functionalities are not as ubiquitous as social media platforms. Both Tibbr and Salesforce’s Chatter are aimed at large corporate companies. For many businesses, email is a sufficient way for employees to communicate with each other.
Understandably, as businesses increase in size and go global, a network would make internal comms easier. The benefit of being able to follow systems, events and internal data is a huge advantage over email. But again this is not worth the implementation and running costs to small businesses.
Social media isn’t going away; it is evolving everyday. While new developments will not push out any of the current big names or well-known practices, such as blogging, they do have many benefits, so ignore them at your peril.
New platforms at a glance
Tibbr – www.tibbr.com
Aimed at large corporates, this social media platform for the workplace is designed to allow employees, customers and partners to interact with each other. Prices start at $12 (approx £7) per user per month.
Quora – www.quora.com
This Q&A site is aimed at anyone but B2B marketers are using it for crowd sourcing and research. It’s free to become a user and is rumoured to have over 500,000 members.
Pushnote – www.pushnote.com
A free browser add-on that enables users to leave notes about websites for other users to see. Initially thought to be a consumer tool, B2B marketers should be aware of its potential to cause brand damage.