B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine

Best of the social media sites for small B2Bs

August 14th, 2008 Posted by: Bill Gadless

“(OK, so you) walk into a coffee shop and notice one of your best customers sitting at a table with several people you don’t know.  You walk over to say ‘hi’ and your customer invites you to join them, and introduces you to the others.  They are talking about your industry, and you quickly realize that some of those you’ve just met are potential future customers.  How you handle the next step is crucial:  immediately launching into a sales pitch is likely to alienate the group.  On the other hand, displaying your industry knowledge and providing insightful input to the conversation will make those at the table want to learn more from you.

Social media and social networks are simply an online version of that table at the coffee shop. They give you the opportunity to start, or join, conversations that can ultimately be beneficial to your business, if managed properly.”

(For that delightfully spot-on analogy, we’re indebted to Tom Pick in his “Best of 2007: News Articles on Social Media Marketing” posting on his WebMarketCentral blog.)

B2B marketers are finally starting to become more comfortable with social media sites, realizing that they’re no longer relegated only to teens and college students.  In fact, some are finding that social networking serves as a great equalizer for small businesses, because anyone with an Internet connection can now launch a successful global marketing campaign.  (Oh, btw:  even though you may be venture-funded and don’t plan to stay a small business for long… you still are one at present, which makes it pretty tough to get heard.)

So many sites… so little time
With numerous sites to choose from, however, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.  There’s just way more “out there” than any small business has the time or manpower to track.  But a nifty built-in characteristic of the medium is that one can strongly focus on a few sites, and then let the viral nature of social media take over and eventually reach the others.

Which of course begs the question of which “few sites” are best to focus on …but fortunately we discovered Heather Johnson’s post for WebMarketCentral, “The 5 Best Social Media Sites for Small Businesses”.  We can’t treat them all here;  you really should click over to Heather’s post for that.  But here’s just a bit on several of them:

StumbleUpon – currently the reigning champ for promoting many types of websites.  Not only it is easier to gain attention via this site, but you can also give your site a boost via a StumbleUpon ad campaign …currently for a mere 5 cents a click.  In his interesting post summarizing a year’s worth of data from both his corporate website and blog, Tom Pick says flatly, ““StumbleUpon is the most valuable single social media network overall for driving B2B web traffic.”

Twitter is a great way for business owners to network at their own convenience.  People on your Twitter friends list will see each of your posts (aka “tweets”), which can be used to promote new ideas and features for your business.  But don’t promote your site with every tweet, lest you be labeled a spammer.  Point out other sites that interest you or some thought you’ve had that day… and within those tweets, you can sprinkle a link to your latest blog entry or a special feature offered by your company.

Wikipedia – It’s a boon to your small business to be mentioned on Wikipedia;  its many entries are highly ranked by Google and read by millions each day.  Just be prudent:  start an account with the site, become active for a few weeks and educate yourself on how to contribute to Wikipedia before attempting to start your own page.  This will increase your chances of remaining on the site.

These sites can help you create long-term business contacts and continuous traffic for little or no money, and can enlist others to help spread your gospel …all of which helps to level the playing field for smaller companies.  Your Web marketing consultants can no doubt help you with the finer points of social-media leverage.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy, Driving Traffic, Internet Marketing