B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine

Social Networks – Not just for Marketing

July 3rd, 2008 Posted by: Bill Gadless

A joint survey by BtoB and the Association of National Advertisers last year revealed a gap we’ve gotten used to seeing:  whereas only 10% of B2B marketers surveyed viewed social networking as effective, 36% of B2C marketers saw it as effective.  The B2B respondents said they used social networks, blogs and virtual spaces such as Second Life primarily for brand-building, rather than generating new leads.

While B2B marketers grapple with how best to utilize social media – and we passed along some pointers on the topic in a recent blogpost – their companies are charging ahead with implementing other uses beyond marketing.  So reports Rebekah Tsadik in her worthy BtoBonline piece, “Social networks starting to click”.

Much of this activity is aimed at setting up intra-company, unbranded or “white label” social networks, which have the potential to do for internal affinity groups what extranets have done for B2B e-commerce and partner programs.  Such affinity groups might be…

• employees – all of them;  just new hires;  just the “under-30s”;  or skills-based functional groups like engineers or salespeople
• task-defined groups – e.g., “the Omega Project team” or “the global Exxon account team”
• groups with a need to share new information and feedback quickly, such as a new-product release team and its beta-test site administrators

Tools ease task, enable targeting
“We actually see social networks getting smaller and more focused,” said Shaun Priest, Senior VP of Sales at Omnifuse, a white-label social network company.  “Instead of saying we want to be all things to all people, how can we [reach] a targeted group?”

Clearly, this wouldn’t be happening if every company had to repeat Facebook’s IT-development effort.  Fortunately, vendors such as Omnifuse and SelectMinds have jumped into the fray, making it about as simple to set up a social net as it is to start a blog these days.

Benefits
Nearly half of workers age 20-29 rated the availability of support/networking programs for employees with common interests as a very important factor in their decision to join or remain with an employer.  For younger workers especially, social networks help maintain connections to family, friends, fellow alumni and business contacts.

Still more compelling:  SelectMinds’ clients say that corporate social networking helped increase productivity on average 10%, new business an average of 12%, and retention an average 5% …clearly results worth departing from your comfort zone to obtain.

Your Web marketing consultants should be able to help you capitalize on social networks in your particular business context.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy