There’s No Such Thing as B2B Social Media

A group of us here in the office have been having some discussions lately about our digital and social media capabilities in the B2B social media space.  If you work in an agency, you know how it goes – the big, splashy, sexy B2C stuff tends to get all the attention. After all, they have Ashton Kutcher. We have engineers, analysts and ROI models. We had a diverse group of pros in the room – a former technology analyst, several people from our financial services practice group, one from our tech practice group (me) and the head of our digital and social media team here – and so it’s not surprising that we started talking about what we even meant by B2B social media.

I came upon a realization that I think was shared by others there, that the concept is so broad as to be all but

meaningless. Maybe that’s self-evident but there are some consequences borne out of that realization.

What might come to mind when I say, “B2B social media”? Customer service? Social CRM? (social BPM, Social BI, etc. yikes!) Online lead generation? Online crisis management? Customer community development? Thought leadership? Brand building?  Influencer relations?  Corporate social responsibility?

You see where I’m going. If all of these areas indeed fall under the rubrick of B2B social media, then it doesn’t mean a whole lot. It also means it’s going to be difficult to avoid Tower of Babel misunderstandings, turf wars, ineffectiveness, and of course expert consultants with expertise in entirely the wrong areas for many B2B social media “initiatives.” After all, any B2B social media expert is unlikely to have deep expertise in more than 40% of those areas given their diversity.

Eventually, we will stop talking about social media and just go back to talking about media channels and communication programs that use a varying mix of them according to the business objectives to be achieved. In the meantime, two recommendations come immediately to mind as you sort out your B2B social media strategies.

Prioritize: We recommend as a best practice the formation of a social media council formed with a balance of people from across the organization with a stake in your company’s social media success. The first question that group should be asking itself is, “What really brought us together?” And you need to go deeper than, “We have to get our social media house in order.”  Agree on what you mean by that – what threat-oriented and growth oriented issues brought you here. Don’t “boil the ocean.”

Don’t Hire B2B Social Media Experts: You may then decide you need outside help, in the form of hires or relationships with consultants or agencies. You are not looking for a B2B social media expert. You are looking for something more specific: someone with expertise in one or more critical areas such as online crisis management, community building, blogger relations, search engine optimization and lead generation, community relations, etc.

You can all tell me if I’m off base. I’m interested in what you all think here.