B2B SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The second approach to consider for your B2B social media approach is a branded B2B social media site. This is the approach most businesses are taking today. Using a branded B2B social media site for your B2B social media approach is relatively straightforward. Just build a site, either within your current URL or under a new url, add some simple blogging functions, and begin creating valuable content.
There are some examples of companies who have successfully built a branded B2B social media site. American Express OPENforum (aimed at small businesses) is perhaps the most often cited example of a successful branded B2B social media site.
Most of the cases however involving a branded B2B social media site do not seem to be so successful and there are several reasons for this.
First a branded B2B social media site has one key thing going against it…credibility. A branded B2B social media site is…well…a branded B2B social media site. Brands sell things and everyone, of course, knows this. A website tied tightly to a brand is automatically viewed with some suspicion and is automatically viewed to some degree as a location that “may be trying to sell me something”.
Users come into a branded B2B social media site automatically and naturally, to some degree, sensing “red flags” – hardly the feeling you are trying to generate. Then if you make any mistake or are seen to be over promoting your products or services or seen to be unbiased in any way – these mistake are amplified by the somewhat suspicious audience who may even create a negative backlash against a simple mistake that in other purely neutral forums would probably just be overlooked.
The second problem of a branded B2B social media site for medium-sized companies is scale and achieving a "large enough" user-base. If you are a $US1-billion-sized company or smaller, you may face this problem. If you cannot generate a large enough user base you may have trouble justifying the cost and you may face challenges generating enough utility for the user for the site to grow – remember much of the user-utility comes from the users interacting with other users – not just one-way reading your content.
The second major drawback of a branded B2B social media site is financial risk. If you build a basic site, it will have a limited set of functions, limited utility and may not draw a large enough audience. So you have to invest in a high-function site – which is of course expensive. And of course, since you have never done this you have no idea if it will really work - so it can feel risky.
A branded B2B social media site can feel like a real gamble. Only the most adventurous companies are doing this today, and frankly we have seen too many branded B2B social media sites that are just not working all that well for the reasons mentioned above.
But there is a better approach – the Neutral B2B Social Media Site. Read more in Neutral B2B Social Media Site to see what we believe is the best approach to improve B2B social currency.
