About a month ago, I had the pleasure of participating in an interview for Internet Evolution’s Web radio broadcast. Among the topics generating considerable conversation was the use of social media in a B2B context.
Though much has been said and written about the commercial use of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare) to connect directly with consumers, it seems to me that substantially less useful information is published about social media’s potential in the B2B space.
As a distributor of wines and spirits, our customers are strictly limited (by law) to retail establishments like liquor stores, bars, and restaurants. Because they have obtained their alcoholic beverage licenses from the state, we know exactly who our customers are. Frequently, we know them even before they know who we are and realize they are highly likely to do business with us. (We distribute some very popular brands exclusively.) Therefore, end consumer marketing and outreach is the province of our customers and/or our suppliers.
Given these circumstances and market conditions, my company’s senior marketing and sales executives and I spent the better part of a year attempting to determine what place and value social media had for our organization.
Embarking on an effort to discover our place in the social media world, we sought the advice of “expert” industry, technology, and marketing consultants, as well as college students savvy in the use of the technology. We kept our Facebook posts fresh with lively, sometimes provocative, content. We attempted to engage page visitors with opportunities to participate, using invitations to fun events like tastings and recipe contests. We designated product specialists (e.g., tequila, wine), wrote blogs, and equipped them with Twitter accounts with which to develop followings.
Over time, we experienced steady increases in friends, likes, and followers. When we analyzed just who these people were, however, we discovered that they were predominantly employees, their families, and friends. Although our product specialists did gain some traction, their followings were on the lighter side, measuring in the low hundreds. Though some customers and their friends and families did participate, we instinctively realized that building a community took time, and that we would need some patience to determine the efficacy of our efforts.
We even went so far as to seriously discuss and contemplate the development and distribution of mobile apps for the iOS, Droid, and BlackBerry platforms as a means of driving customers to our portal. Again, given the limited target audience, the introduction of a mobile app would do little more for us than provide some oblique business intelligence and demonstrate our technology prowess.
It has been more than a year since we implemented our program, and we’ve seen little discernible effect on sales, demand, brand awareness, usable business intelligence, or even facilitation of community. In the end, we had little choice but to conclude that our participation in the social media space is of limited direct benefit.
Despite our experience, many continue to believe, and some even insist (including several of the listeners to the IE Radio interview), that B2B social media is relevant and beneficial.
If this is indeed the case, then several questions come to mind: Have we missed something in our approach or not given the program sufficient time to evolve? Have we overlooked something obvious, or is our target community already too defined? We continue to maintain our social media presence and would drive it further -- if there were a B2B destination.
I would agree with jwallace's comment about B2B participants looking at social media for leads. In fact we were looking more at the propects of community building and engagement. Leads in our marketplace is not even a topic of discussion...we know exactly who they are.
b2b looks at social media in terms of "leads" and not in terms of the INTERACTION driven from hosting an enterprise wide or public event (online AND offline) and assess the value before and after the event.
To simplify, b2b still need horns on the vehicles driving their business.
anything else will be proven improper.
Oh my stars!! I didn't realize it was Brian who wrote this blog!! :))
Hi, Brian. Welcome to the IE blogger roll! Thanks for sharing your company's experiences here.
I'm assuming your questions are genuinely soliciting insights and are not rhetorical, so here are my thoughts:
Speaking as a communications and social media consultant myself, I would not discount social media as an effective B2B tool, but you have to use it like a B2B tool -- something many B2B companies have difficulty with. It seems to me from your description that there was a disconnect between knowing who your customers are and actually trying to reach them via social media. Rather, it seemed more like B2C-type social media practices -- and perhaps not even optimally effective ones at that.
(You wisely acknowledged, of course, that a mobile app for the sake of a mobile app was probably not a good idea.)
I took a peek at (what I think is) your company's Facebook page. It appears that content has been posted/shared inconsistently (which, aside from being a negative in and of itself, strongly suggests the lack of a dedicated social media manager (a must-have role, as I've written previously for IE and discussed in an Internet Evolution lecture on establishing social media policies)). Additionally, most of the content would be of appeal, it seems to me, to a consumer market (particularly the many, many photos of people out having a good time).
You know you're B2B, and you want retailers to buy from you, so I'm not sure how some of the approaches you described would have helped or encouraged retailers to make that decision (e.g., recipe contests, tastings, spirit expert blog posts, etc.). It sounds like you had some nifty engagement perhaps because you provided a lot of B2C content to add value for consumers, but you may have provided little to nothing to add value for retailers. Bartending tips, display giveaways, data studies on buying habits/trends -- those sorts of things would have more value for your direct customers.
You could also host weekly Google+ Hangouts addressing a topic of interest to liquor-selling professionals (and broadcast the Hangout over Livestream or a similar tool for the people who can't get into the Hangout). Perhaps it's a moderated group discussion on liquor retail topics. Perhaps you include moderated interviews with customers who have interesting businesses and/or sell your product in unique ways. Or you can use your imagination to think of something even better and more effective (some examples here).
Another potential marketing idea w/ social media tie-in: Invite bartending teams from bars and restaurants to submit YouTube videos of them mixing a drink with one of your exclusive brands (and using plenty of impressive-looking bartending tricks in the process). The team with the best performing style (and best drink recipe) wins some prize such as some sort of world class bartending training plus a free supply of your product of some quantity.
That said, you did mention that you have to do some end consumer marketing, particularly given that you are an exclusive distributor of some brands. Are you involved with the marketing of these individual brands? If so (or if you can be), and you're not already doing it, I would advise separate brand accounts -- and separate social media strategies -- for each of your exclusively distributed brands. These, then, you can take a B2C approach with (and therefore be able to realize greater value from "traditional" social media approaches).
I'd also caution that one of the major things that marketers get wrong about social media is that it's about Likes and Follows. The actual number of Likes and Follows you have is mostly meaningless when you take the long view; the truly meaningful metrics are things like amplification and engagement.
The fact that most of your Likes and Followers were employees and their friends and family is highly symptomatic of your marketing team evangelizing (and very possibly pressuring) your employees to go out and get X number of people they know to Like/follow your brand page(s). (It's fairly often that I see a plea from some Facebook friend of mine to "Like" their company's page.) As you recognize, this adds no real value to you.
My overall input to the social media powers-that-be at your company would be to 1) know who you're trying to reach, 2) identify what you want them to do (i.e., what the "call to action" is), and 3) constantly add value for those people/entities -- rather than just talking at them.
I've written extensively on the subject of #3, including a three-part blog series that you can read here.
These are just a few of my thoughts, but this comment has gotten long enough. In any case, pease keep us posted on your company's progress.
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