Social Media – is it really mainstream in B2B Marketing? | Buzz Marketing for Technology
I don’t know how you feel but I certainly feel like everything I read about Social Media is the same old thing just a rehash of something else I read before. There doesn’t seem to be anything really new. Sure Facebook changes its platform every Tuesday but I mean something more like groundbreaking ideas using social. Maybe that’s because we are entering a stage where we are all including social in everything we do. It’s no longer a social science experiment by a bunch of early adopters – it’s just part of our everyday approach!
Also I am not seeing anyone really “killing it” with or in social media (sans Mark Zuckerberg of course). There seems to be tons of Social Media consultants and Directors of Social Media but will that party last? (see my post on Fire your Director of Social Media).
Furthermore everyone seems to have a book out on Social Media – heck I have 3 books on social media (2 out there and 1 on the way!) It’s amazing to see so much written on this topic which leads me to believe the party is over.
So where do we go from here?
I guess we head back to the core of what we do as B2B Marketers and take these lessons learned in Social Media back with us and see if we can innovate. I once heard that innovation happens when people get bored with a technology – perhaps we are at that point now in social.
Paul sounds a lot like a 2.0 Hippie :)
Best Buy Prediction Market Videos
“Big companies are like communist countries – we all know how well communist countries worked. At some point they fell apart, not because the leaders were dumb, but because nobody would tell the leaders at the top, who had to make decisions, what decisions to make.”
Jeff Severts, EVP, Best Buy
Think of the possibilities! Tapping into the wisdom of the crowd is the new way of predicting future outcomes.
Mindset change critical to ensure social success -
But, some still buck this trend, said Ebenezer Heng, a spokesperson for social media marketing agency, Kumeiti.
He told ZDNet Asia that it is a "fallacy" when businesses choose to ignore social media totally to avoid problems and challenges that may arise from adopting such platforms, such as security and negative branding.
Noting the growing influence of social networks, Heng said: "Consumers always talk about their experiences with businesses they patronize. Everyone is a publisher in the social media world, from blogs to forums. Content now drives awareness, not advertising."
To best tap the power of social media platforms, he said business should adopt "the right mindset and technique", and not simply the medium itself. "Social media means allowing the company to become human, to react to its consumers, to reach out, ask them [questions] and then actually listen to the answers," he added.
Carlyn Law, consultant and director of PR agency Sixth Sense Communications, said businesses should not blindly use "a blanket strategy" but look instead at carving out a mix of online tools and content that suits their concepts and brand values.
As GetIT Comms' Nair described: "It's about being social. So get your feet wet and start interacting."
You have to change your beliefs before you can change your mind :)
EatMedia.com: VRM - Vendor Resource Management
Yes, another acronym to share - VRM - Vendor Relationship Management. This one captures the value of the efficiencies of the Internet... making relationships easier. Particularly with the companies that you want.VRM combines a customer-centered philosophy about industry guidelines and the technology platforms for making interactions more efficient and effective. Our clients have asked us to assess the "best practices" being developed from this initiative.
Last week Doc Searls led the CRM = VRM 2010 conference at the Berkman Center at Harvard. Here are notes from the event by Trust Fabric.
On Great Websites, Information is Craft, not Commodity
The same principle applies to the websites that are distinctive because their authors combine content and packaging into a beautiful product that others aspire to recreate. Mega-sites like Facebook, Yahoo!, CNN, and many others designed to keep you moving through content like merchandise racks in a department store will never define the web, because they don’t push it forward. They have the biggest, brightest signs, but can’t match the experience and quality of sites that are the product of craftsmanship and dedication.
Doc Searls Weblog · Beyond caveat emptor
Talk about asymmetry. You are no longer just a client to a server. You are a target with crosshairs on your wallet.
Trying to make advertising more helpful is a good thing. Within a trusted relationship, it can be a better thing. The problem with all this tracking is that it does not involve trusted relationships. Advertisers and site owners may assume or infer some degree of conscious assent by users. But, as the Journal series makes clear, most of us have no idea how much unwelcome tracking is really going on. (Hell, they didn’t know until they started digging.)
So let’s say we can construct trusted relationships with sellers. By we I mean you and me, as individuals. How about if we have our own terms of engagement with sellers—ones that express our intentions, and not just theirs? What might we say? How about,
- You will put nothing on my computer or browser other than what we need for our relationship.
- Any data you collect in the course of our relationship can be shared with me.
- You can combine my data with other data and share it outside our relatinship, provided it is not PII (Personally Identifiable Information).
- If we cease our relationship, you can keep my data but not associate any PII with that data.
- You will also not follow my behavior or accumulate data about me for the purposes of promotion or advertising unless I opt into that. Nor will your affiliates or partners.
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not saying any of the points above are either legal or in legal language. But they are the kinds of things we might like to say within a relationship that is symmetrical in nature yet includes the kind of asymmetry-by-choice that Joe talks about: the kind based on real trust and real agreement and not just passive assent.
Influential Leaders: The People Person - destinationCRM.com
It’s no secret we hold Doc Searls in high regard around here. Just glance at our May 2010 issue, dedicated to the notion of vendor relationship management (VRM) he helped establish when he cowrote The Cluetrain Manifesto in 1999.
“He could have retired on the merits of Cluetrain alone,” says Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal at CRM consultancy Beagle Research Group, who laments the Berkman Center fellow is “largely unheralded for his work.” But Searls is still at it, and the effects are beginning to take root. “Doc continues to influence…business leaders and continues to break new ground with ProjectVRM,” says Christopher Carfi, vice president of Edelman Digital. “He’s a true visionary in understanding how customers and companies will work together over the next 10 years.” Altimeter Group partner Ray Wang agrees. “Doc’s a visionary about what’s next in relationship management,” he says. “Groundbreaking work on VRM will hit in three to five years—and he’ll be working on the next thing.”
And Doc should also be on the cover of Time as the Person of the Year :)
Use Value Network maps to understand how your organization works | Conversational Currency
We usually look at organizational networks at three levels. The first (described as a knowledge factory) is at a strategic level, built on the high-level inventory of an organization’s intangible capital. Today, I’ll talk about the next takes the perspective of the knowledge factory down one more level of detail (third perspective, personal networks comes tomorrow).
This perspective looks at the roles people play in your organization. This is the Value Network methodology described by Verna Allee in
The Future of Knowledge (still one of my favorite books on the knowledge economy and why I pursued certification in this methodology*).
This approach involves mapping a network where a specific task or process occurs. The nodes in this network are “roles.” A role speaks to the specific function that a person is playing. This is not their title on an org chart—it is usually more descriptive—such as advisor, buyer, designer, marketer, mentor, partner, problem solver. It is common for a person to serve in more than one role.
Once you identify the roles, then all the different “exchanges” between roles are catalogued and mapped. An effort is made to identify both tangible and intangible exchanges. Delivery of a product, document or money is a tangible exchange. An intangible exchange is something like the sharing of knowledge, an introduction to someone else or personal support. Generally, the tangible exchanges are more formal. The intangible, while less structured, can be critical in creating trust and facilitating better communication in an organization.
Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project; SXSW
The Ingenesist Project has submitted the following presentation to the South By Southwest Conference in Austin Texas on March 2011. We sincerely encourage our readers to vote for this presentation. It promises to be hugely compelling, deeply controversial, and boldly disruptive. This is for a 60 minute solo presentation to the Advanced Technical Track – the competition is impressive. Voting ends Friday August 27, 2010
Please select the following link to vote
Thank you very much for your support
The Ingenesist Project
Description:
Today, we have one of the most extraordinary opportunities in human history playing out before our eyes. Social Capitalism is no longer merely a band-aid for an amoral Market Capitalism, it is a new form of Capitalism in it’s own right.
In the age of social media, many entrepreneurs no longer allocate land, labor, and financial capital as a primary means of production. Rather, they deploy social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital to the production of a vast amount of “value” that is stored and exchanged in communities. The objective of The Ingenesist Project is to make this value tangible outside the constructs of government and corporate interaction.
This presentation identifies the five essential components of Market Capitalism and demonstrates similar elements emerging in social media. It then specifies how these elements can be integrated to perform the essential analogous functions of financial institutions. Next, we specify three relatively simple social media applications that may create a new class of business plans enabling millions of social entrepreneurs worldwide. Finally, a new financial instrument is described which can be capitalized and securitized to form the basis of a fungible social currency to hedge the dollar.
The net result could create a condition where Wall Street priorities are subservient to social priorities rather than social priorities being subservient to Wall Street priorities.
Questions Answered
What can replace market capitalism when it finally runs out of steam?
What exactly are people producing when they engage in Social Media and why does it create value?
What characteristics must a social currency have in order to be fully convertible or even a replacement for the dollar?
What is a knowledge inventory, how should it be formed, and why should every community have one?
What would be a powerful strategic plan for the Internet in the absence of one today?
[Level Advanced Category Entrepreneurism / Monetization Tags monetization, Social Capitalism, Social Currency Type Solo Event Interactive 2011]The presentation will mirror some content found in the following video series
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