Written on 19 April 2010 at 13:23 by Allan Schoenberg

Be Original

Filed under Uncategorized {2 comments}

One of the things I like most about doing B2B communications over B2C is the challenge to be original and unique. Unlike the thousands of coffee shops that operate on the millions of corners around the globe, most B2B companies offer very specialized products/services for very targeted audiences. This is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy the challenge of doing social media for the exchange — we need to be even more creative to capture the attention of our audiences.

One thing we’ve done that has worked for us is live Twitter interviews. Cindy King has a great post about how to conduct these. We’ve been doing our live interviews – Exchange Talk – for more than year and you can view the archive of these interviews on the StockTwits’ web site.

I like several things about doing these interviews, including:

  1. They are unique to CME Group among our competitors on Twitter.
  2. They provide a further sense of community since they are conducted in the public stream and anyone can interact with us or the person being interviewed.
  3. We can expand our list of followers and forge new relationships with people in our industry.
  4. I can archive them at StockTwits.com.
  5. Twitter has allowed me to create a specific for Exchange Talk so anyone can follow all of the individuals we’ve interviewed.

Creativity is one of the drivers of our social media activity, which helped us win this BtoB Magazine award last week. And as I read through the list of other recipients it is obvious that creativity helped their efforts as well (Hopefully, though, you’ll vote for our entry for the People’s Choice Award).

What ideas drive your B2B creativity? How do you help your company/clients stand out? And any thoughts on whom we should consider interviewing on Twitter?

  • http://marketbridge.tumblr.com Brittany

    I recently wrote a blog post on B2B marketing and communications – specifically tackling the stigma that B2B marketing is ::yawn:: boring. I think part of the attraction for many of us in this field is, in fact, the challenge of marketing narrow products/services to such specified audiences.

    I am always interested in seeing how other companies find ways to think outside the B2B box – selling everything from bar code scanners to rolling bearings. I list several of the most creative B2B campaigns I've seen in my post here – http://bit.ly/b0AdSV.

    I'd be particularly interested in using Twitter interviews as another form of building our online presence and connecting with other thought leaders in the industry, but we are still in the process of “finding our audience” on Twitter. Maybe one of these days we'll stop by to listen and learn!

  • http://marketbridge.tumblr.com Brittany

    I recently wrote a blog post on B2B marketing and communications – specifically tackling the stigma that B2B marketing is ::yawn:: boring. I think part of the attraction for many of us in this field is, in fact, the challenge of marketing narrow products/services to such specified audiences.

    I am always interested in seeing how other companies find ways to think outside the B2B box – selling everything from bar code scanners to rolling bearings. I list several of the most creative B2B campaigns I've seen in my post here – http://bit.ly/b0AdSV.

    I'd be particularly interested in using Twitter interviews as another form of building our online presence and connecting with other thought leaders in the industry, but we are still in the process of “finding our audience” on Twitter. Maybe one of these days we'll stop by to listen and learn!

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