Sloan Management and B2B Social Media Use

Some time ago Ross wrote about the significance and implications of social media not just in end-user markets, but also in B2B markets.

A paper Ross wrote on this topic is discussed by the famous Sloan Management Review: B2Bs Can Be Social Too

Guest Post: Being a Marketer - Alan Stevenson

Michael asked me some time ago to provide a blog article in an area that you (his readers) might be interested in. A challenge I gratefully accepted and one which has taken me a bit longer than I first anticipated to deliver (sorry Mike). In part this is down to work commitments but also because I wanted to deliver an article that was reflective in nature (looking at the changes that have taken place over the last few years within my particular space).       

For over 12 years now I have been involved in both Internet technology and marketing (advising companies and public sector organisations in the best practice application of both). In all of my time in this role, what is most stimulating to me is the continuing ability of new technologies to disrupt, to change our view of what is possible and to challenge the status quo or the traditional way of doing things.

Being so close to this area I often forget just how impactful new technology has become, consider the following current examples:

- We think nothing of carrying our "music collection" around in our pockets (using an iPod or MP3 player). I grew up in the age of vinyl and then CD. A music collection for me was a very physical thing and I remember vividly those sceptics (as I explained how my new Version 2 ipod worked) telling me why they will never give up the CD. Their predecessors said the same of the vinyl. 

 

- Many of us regularly sit at a PC or smartphone to watch a must see "TV programme". Channel programming through a TV was all about the event (tune in at 9pm tonight..) but through an internet device it becomes a repository of content which can be accessed at a time that suits you. 

- Increasingly, we catch up with our friends and family anywhere in the world in 'real-time' using services like MSN, Google Chat or Skype. I remember the days of the crackly long-distance phonecall. Now I can catch up with a friend in Australia and see them "live".   

- 640 million of us now spend much of our online time catching up with our friends or family through Facebook and Facebook is for a growing number of people the access point for all of our news and the rest of the internet. We discover new information through our friends, or click a link posted on Facebook or place importance on a new product because our friends have also liked it. Facebook is already dominant, in fact it is the 3rd largest country on the world. 

- When we need to know what is happening anywhere in the world, rather than switching on the TV or going to CNN online, the BBC or Reuters, many of us get our news first on Twitter. The uprisings in North Afirca and the middle East and the most recent Tsunami in Japan are all testiment to the power of this technology to break and spread news quickly.

- When we ask the question, "is there a better way of doing this" many of us also search our mobile app marketplace to see if "there is an app for that". We may also check if there is "opensource" software (software that is created by the community for the community) that is free for us to use. All the community asks in return is that if we change it, we share it. 

I could go on. The point is that in the last few years, the traditional way of doing things has been reordered and redesigned through technology. Technology is becoming an increasing part of our everyday lives. Technology is also becoming more accessible to more of us - our PCs and smartphones are becoming cheaper and more powerful and our internet connections faster. In one sense the future is very bright indeed. 

Whilst technology provides enormous benefit, for every 'winning' technology or associated practice there is always an incumbent or competing solution that falls by the wayside or goes the way of the do-do.

The way of the do-do

For those unaware, the do-do was a large, flightless bird living on the island of Mauritius. Within a few hundred years of European traders arriving on its island it was extinct.

The analogy to technology Market Leaders is probably a good one:

- Market leaders often feel invincible (the do-do lived on an island and had no known predators);

- Market leaders become complacent (the do-do was flightless, complacent in an evolutionary sense);

- Market leaders rarely see the threat until it is too late (the do-do was wiped out by man, it couldn't have predicted the navigation and shipbuilding innovation needed to make this happen)

- Market leaders can disappear quickly particurly in a technology context where companies operate in "internet time"  (the do-do evolved for many thousands of years but disappeared in less than two centuries from the first Dutch trader arriving in Mauritius)

To illustrate this point, Facebook may seem to have an unassailable position in terms of its Social Platform but remember   MySpace had a similar lead over Facebook just a few years ago. The Encyclopedia Brittanica probably never saw the CD Rom as a threat and yet Encarta had a devastating effect on its sales. I'll bet Encarta never envisaged a free web encyclopedia like Wikipedia doing the same to it. The Music industry saw little threat in MP3s as they continued to make huge profits on their CDs. Could they imagine the powerful position that Apple would now hold in music distribution through iTunes? The list goes on.  

So who are the next winners and losers? Where are the next do-dos to be found?

"The Fool Predicts The Future, Criticizes The Present And Recounts The Past"

- Shakespeare within King Lear  

As the quote above suggests, it can be foolish to attempt to devine what will come and the future is not necessarily determined by the present nor the past. Putting this aside it can also be a bit of fun. Just don't bet your house on any of these events coming true!

I have provided my top 5 potential do-dos below - why not give me your list or do the same in the comments provided?

 

1. Stamps and the Postal Service

- Scandanavians are already testing paid SMS alternatives where unique codes are provided and written on the letter. Will courier companies be better placed to fill the role of national postage services like the Royal Mail as the numbers of letters sent continues to fall.

2. Books & Libraries

- if MP3s and iPods can do for physical music surely eBooks and Kindles can have the same effect on eBooks. If we continue to use digital book formats could libraries be replaced by subsidised group discount schemes for e-Books

3. Newspapers and Magazines

- News is "freely" available online, thank you Twitter and RSS feeds and newspaper circulation is down. Is the writing on the wall, pardon the pun

4. TV broadcasting

- Broadcasters are realising that anytime, anywhere content is a necessary component of their service. Viewing figures are also down, few programmes achieve more than 10m viewers (in the UK)

5. Print and TV advertising

- If traditional print and broadcast TV are in trouble then advertising revenue must be similarly threatened

I would be interested in your views on the mainstream technologies and practices that you think will win in the next few years (foursquare, Facebook Places anyone?) and those technologies, services and practices that will go the way of the do-do.

Perhaps the following quote will provide some much needed insight:

"The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed."

Attributed to William Gibson (Science Fiction Author)

  

I look forward to your comments

Alan

Alan Stevenson

Director - Energise2-0

About Alan Stevenson

Alan is co-Director with Dr. Jim Hamill, of Energise2-0 (www.energise2-0.com), a Social Media Marketing Agency. As a visiting lecturer in the Department of Marketing, Alan works closely with Michael Harker to provide engaging and thought provoking e-marketing and customer management courses that combine their respective practical and theoretical backgrounds.  

Social Media - for Business to Business Marketing as well as Consumer Marketing

I've been spending a little time recently thinking about how useful social media are for business-to-business marketing (B2B). A few weeks ago I attended an excellent training event, organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, with the rather melodramatic title of 'Digital Marketing Bootcamp'. Mostly this was concerned with B2C, rather than B2B. I think most marketers would recognise the relevance of social media to consumer marketing. But what about B2B? This I had to check out for myself.

Now, the ever helpful Dr. Harker has already assisted me in my embryonic stabs at using Facebook, while some time ago, more or less in complete ignorance, I signed up to something called LinkedIn. At the same time, I have one or two extremely up-to-date colleagues who are never without their iPhones and iPads, and whose every movement I can follow through foursquare, twitter and Facebook. I reckon this means that I am probably a little ahead of the social media curve compared to most people in their sixth decade of life.

It turns out that Facebook is already used to some extent for B2B - meaning, you can find quite a few B2B Facebook fan pages. (Although, in a recent development, you don't become a 'fan' any more, you just 'like' them. But I guess they're still called fan pages.) Two interesting, and contrasting, ones to look at are www.facebook.com/sodexocareers and www.facebook.com/cisco. The Sodexo Facebook page has lots of interesting exchanges between people who work in the catering business, with advice provided by Sodexo on how to register your c.v., how to apply for jobs with Sodexo, what jobs are coming up, and so on. So it's basically a recruitment site. The Cisco page is a different matter, and has a great deal more going on. There are clearly aspects of 'soft' corporate marketing - like nice, friendly posts from senior execs. But there is also genuine mutual cooperation going on to exchange useful information - it looks like a useful user community for techies who like to play with Cisco systems. So, there is some 'co-creation of value' going on here, as we marketing academics like to call it.

LinkedIn is clearly the social network that is designed for business professionals. You can use the search facility at LinkedIn, for example, to look for purchasing professionals in the environmental services industry (I just did). Then, potentially, you have the makings of a B2B marketing list. However, compared to Facebook, LinkedIn is a midget. One question doing the rounds at social media blogs is whether Facebook could just wipe LinkedIn out if it chose to.

Right now, the use of social media in B2B marketing is embryonic and evolving rapidly. No doubt there will be plenty of opportunities for bright marketing graduates over the next few years!