Social Media on Planet B2B

• Tweet
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  Pin It
  

• Tweet
• 
  

Some of our musings have been included in PR Week UK’s annual digital communications report this week, with an essay we penned that focuses on a topic very close to our heart – social media in a business-to-business context.

The full article can be found at the link here, but in summary, while social media and digital comms has gone mainstream, we find many B2B companies are still grappling with how best to take advantage of the fact their all their key audiences are online and how to grow communities around their brands.  Which is somewhat ironic, as it within b2b that digital comms can actually have the greatest impact.

Around 18 months ago we hosted a discussion on this very topic with the PRCA and heard from some B2B trailblazers – the likes of Premier Farnell and element14, Sage and Legal & General. Since then there has been wider appreciation of the benefits, and roadblocks that related to concerns such as control are being overcome with less resistance.  It almost becomes more surprising now if a company doesn’t have a twitter handle, facebook page or linkedin group rather than those that do.

The reality is that while all eyes (and fingers) point to the comms and marketing teams as soon as social media gets mentioned, the benefits that can be realised are much wider and compelling.  Just a few examples are work that we are doing to help HR teams attract and retain the very best talent, sales teams we are helping to identify the next big opportunity and understand their prospects interests and needs better, and customer service teams who are looking to integrate digital comms into their business process.

Looking back, an awful lot has happened over the last 18 months, and it will be fascinating to see how things continue to shake out moving forward.  What we can guarantee is that digital comms certainly isn’t going anywhere, and the companies that spot the opportunities, move fastest and rethink their business around social are the ones that will reap the greatest benefit.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.