By Danny Sullivan
Supported by the recent news of AOL’s acquisition of popular social networking site Bebo for $850 million, it is clear that the phenomenon continues to be considered an influential and valuable market segment.
And there is little doubt that social networking represents a significant new marketing channel for consumer-oriented products companies. Indeed, there are already many strategies and approaches out there advising on just such a topic, and viral marketing has never been so popular as a result.
But what does it mean for the B2B sector? Are social networking strategies an important PR component for companies selling enterprise software solutions or new server technology?
Well, we’re probably not talking Facebook or Bebo here. As far as I’m aware, these sites don’t yet host large groups of CIOs swapping tales of ROI and disaster recovery strategies.
But social networking extends beyond the realm of those well-known sites, and there are networks catering to members holding virtually every job description known to humankind.
Still, although such networks do present opportunities for PR professionals, any strategy to target them should be carefully considered. You can’t join a networking group and then start spamming everyone with your news releases… well, I suppose you can, but you won’t be in the group for very long!
A consumer product company will seek to generate excitement and interest for its products among social networkers in its target demographic, and a B2B vendor must seek to do the same. And in doing so to a (usually) well-educated and (almost always) sceptical audience, the approach and method must be well thought out.
As with contributions to conventional media outlets, companies seeking to influence such networks must present value to the audience and should not embark on blatant pitches for business. Providing relevant, interesting and thought provoking content is key.
Social networking is all about sharing – and this philosophy must be upheld by those seeking to take advantage of it.
Technorati Tags: social networking, social networks, public relations, PR, B2B public relations, B2b PR
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Nice piece Danny! The deeper I’ve gone into examining the role of ‘social marketing’ for PR and Marcom in general, the more I’ve come to realize that B2B has been doing this for quite some time. Indeed all this time that we’ve been involved in marketing or communication both to and via things like Associations, User Groups, general interest groups we’ve been doing social marketing. The big difference now, as with so many other aspects of communicating, is the influence of the Internet.
From an agency perspective, the added challenge is that social marketing (SM) has become the strategy du jour and as such is more catch-phrase than fully formulated strategy. We are being required to do a lot of educating just so that our clients can understand what it means… and if it will even work!
There is a great group on Facebook called ‘Facebook for business’ that serves as a perfect example of the pitfalls of not doing SM correctly. This is a group with open membership and a ‘code of conduct’ that say no ‘blatant advertising (spam) or self promotion’ will be tolerated and that offending posts would be removed. In a 12 hour span the entire ‘wall’ was filled with spam messages. I envy the moderators and don’t suggest they aren’t doing their job, but it’s something that has to be monitored 24/7.
Facebook (and others of its ilk) as a means to reach a wide and diverse audience is fantastic. However, as a vehicle to both control content and to engage in interactive discussions, it is severely lacking unless one is willing to invest a lot of time. And that isn’t even bringing into the equation the problem of ‘knowing your audience’. As an un-audited venue are efforts (and therefore $$) spent there truly being focused wisely and how can one be truly accountable for that?
Conversely, there are many other discussion areas (forums, blogs, etc) where membership is monitored, content is reviewed and abusers are ‘banned’. In these cases only those that truly want to partake in sharing ideas and information are involved. It is here where, with due caution and care, we will find opportunities to present and exchange information and to learn about the needs of our audiences.
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