Many – perhaps most, by now – B2B marketers are making some attempt to utilize Twitter to advance their business.  Most of them would probably confess to some level of confusion or even feelings of inferiority about how best to use this vehicle.

To the rescue rides Karlie Justus;  in her recent post over on the authoritative Social Media B2B blog, she outlines five ways for B2B marketers to more effectively engage with [Read more...]

OK, this post is officially declared to be a judgment-free, preach-free zone.  Instead, we’ll present a batch of data points from recent research on B2B social media use, thoughtfully compiled in a recent post by Adam Holden-Bache over on Social Media B2B …and just let you reach your own conclusions.

Usage:

• 86% of B2B firms are using social media, compared to 82% of B2C.  OK, that one’s a bit of a shocker;  however…
• B2B firms aren’t as active in social, with only [Read more...]

Most of what’s been written about B2B social media has tended to focus on its use by Marketing (for instant “focus-group” research, brand-building, making evangelists of “friends”) and secondarily by Customer Service, as a means to more quickly solve customer problems and douse fires that otherwise might consume your brand equity.

Posting on Social Media B2B, Umberto Milleti points out that one of its biggest beneficiaries may actually be Sales – once they get used to its particular techniques and customs – and he discusses just three of the most valuable ways that [Read more...]

In our most recent post, “Are you maximizing what your B2B customers can do for you?”, we talked about how B2Bs need to focus more on their existing customers …and especially, on forming them into communities which can be readily interacted with using social media.

So it was pretty incredible karma to come across a SherpaBlog posting by Adam Sutton, reporting on his interview of Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction (a social application provider).  Wendy goes beyond supporting the idea of social-media-driven customer communities by voicing [Read more...]

I saw a very brief opinion-type post, “B2B Mktg needs to curate a vibrant community”, by Paul Dunay over on his Buzz Marketing for Technology blog, which set me thinking.  His point is that we as B2B marketers spend too much time and effort on finding and getting new customers, and not nearly enough on leveraging our existing customers.

In the post’s first comment, Rob Leavitt cites a recent report from CSO Insights which says that new customer acquisition is a top priority for 91% of marketers, while cross-selling and up-selling is a distant third priority.  Actually, for SMB B2Bs, I’m surprised that [Read more...]