Everyone in the B2B world is trying their utmost to figure out just how to make social media work for them and with good reason. Recent research by Forrester puts the percentage of IT B2B technology decision-makers reading social media content (e.g. reading reviews, comments, blogs) as high as 90-91 per cent, with 24-29 per cent actively contributing to the content that’s people participating in reviews, ratings and discussions.
But there is indeed a growing trend, and while a lot of the focus on social media is about harnessing the key sites out there Twitter and LinkedIn for example B2B marketers would benefit more from bringing this chatter and discussion into their own websites. Here are some reasons why:
- It gives your advocates a platform to talk about you.
- It helps you reach out to more potential customers.
- It gives you competitive advantage.
- It builds a community and boosts loyalty.
- It shows transparency and authenticity.
A rainbow of ideas
A very radical example of social media use in the B2C world is Skittles. If you go to www.skittles.com the very first thing you may wonder is if they actually have a site at all. In fact, it would appear that they control very little of their site. It is just a small control panel with six options. Clicking on most of these takes you to pages on social media sites that provide the content:
Homepage: in fact a Twitter page with a list of twitters about Skittles
Videos: the YouTube channel
Photos: the Flickr group page
Friends: the Skittles Facebook group.
You will notice that they have in effect handed over their website (and their brand) to the consumers whose comments and input drive the content. It’s pretty brave if you think about it, but also very engaging. It says the message colourfully and clearly to anyone who’s a fan of the primary-hued chews: get involved, you are very much part of the brand, we want to hear from you.
Back to B2B
By now we all know that the rules of marketing are changing, that the balance of power is shifting from the marketers to the prospects and customers.
The ‘old’ word-of-mouth (WOM) strategy has always been the most trusted form of marketing, and social media is taking it to another level by increasing its influence a hundred fold. Your company’s digital presence now needs to be about facilitating conversations between your customers and harnessing WOM exactly what Skittles has done. The Skittles site is an extreme example, and while I’d really love to see a B2B site do something as creative as this, there are still other means of getting WOM onto your own site that are a little less drastic, but nonetheless effective.
If you consider many of the ecommerce sites you use, you’ll recall how many post user reviews of their products on the site. This can work for B2B: let your users rate your services and products, or post stories about their experiences. By encouraging your advocates to talk directly about their experience as a customer, it creates a feeling of authenticity for the audience.
It also shows them your desire for transparency and confidence, and prompts dialogue. And lastly, it provides a reason to communicate with customers regularly by asking them for ratings and stories it shows you care what they think. From this you will also find that reviews and stories can be used in your wider marketing campaigns.
This can be good for you the ratings received from this can boost your SEO presence as analysis of long tail search phrases shows a prevalence of terms such as ‘ratings’ and ‘reviews’ (e.g. the search phrase could be: ‘accountancy software reviews’).
Exploring two-way dialogue
A further area to explore is providing the ability for users to post questions on your site. These pave the way for a form of dialogue, and can help you gain greater insight into what your customers are interested in, allowing for a constant improvement of your content.
It makes many marketers uncomfortable to relinquish control of the content that appears on their site, but by monitoring contributions you can deal with any negative comments quickly.
You need content moderators, but partners will often provide this service for you with trained staff, setting rules up on what’s acceptable (e.g. you should allow negative comments, but mentioning a competitor can be ruled out).
The Skittles marketing team should now set its sights on monitoring the chatter, following up where needed with tweets, blog posts and comments. After all, their advocates are doing most of the marketing work. Sweet, isn’t it?
