Is B2B Sociable?

As with the snack cracker whose name is similar to a word in this post's title (Sociables) social marketing should be served up in very specific business-to-business situations, when at all. There's a good article on the TargetMarketing.com website that deals with this issue head on.

I agree with the author that Facebook is fundamentally useless for a company whose target is primarily B2B. The exception would be the weekend get-together syndrome, as when someone as an individual mentions they need help with marketing their business and another individual says I know this cool guy Larry Bassani who provides affordable, effective marketing support and gives personalized service too (you can simply cut and past that phrase into your Facebook stream and thank you in advance). However, if your audience is primarily business and you're thinking of standing up a Facebook fan page you're pretty much wasting your time.

Now LinkedIn is a primarily a "professional" social space, but it's dominated by people who are looking for action and who want to burnish their reputations by linking or getting recommendations from other people looking for action. The exception would be recruiters, who are of course looking for people who are looking for action.

If you're a business who has tried to build a following on Twitter beyond the follows that come through your website, you know that most of the followers you get are like-minded people looking to sell you something. Of course, if you're a B2B company, that might not be such a bad thing.

The writer of the Target Marketing piece makes a lot of very good points on how to get people to interact with you on your primary website, instead of spinning your wheels with social. Also, I would say that YouTube and Google + are also good bets for search engine visibility, at least partially because they are owned and promoted by a search engine company.

And besides, if you have a really important potential client, you might want to serve something other than crackers.

Want Someone to Like You? Give Them a Reason

Too often, people put social links on their website or say like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter and then wonder why they don't get any likes or follows besides their friends and relatives. As I often say to my clients, just like in real life, if you want someone to like you give them a reason.

I recently got an email from Staples that dealt with this issue as directly as I've ever seen. The subject line? "Join us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's why."

The email goes on to talk about the exclusive offers, giveaways and special extras available to followers. And that's it in a nutshell. If you want likes on Facebook, followers on Twitter or if you want to get into people's circles on Google +, you have to give them something that can't get on your general website, whether that's deeper information, a chance to get questions answered, coupons, discounts, contests or special offers. Otherwise, there's no motivation for people to take action and getting people to take action is what marketing is all about.

You can view the Staples email here. By the way, the Like button at the top of this post is for illustration purposes only, but thanks for the thought!