Our Harrisburg Social Media Club has been active for two years now, and we have a diverse membership of entrepreneurs, media, academics, B2C, B2B, and the public sector.
Why would business people, joined by the principle of If you get it, share it, want to spend time after work tweeting, Instagramming, and Facebooking with strangers? Is there any business value to this stuff? Isn’t Twitter inane chatter?
With Facebook’s user base surpassing 1 billion, it’s inane to waste time discussing the communications heft of social media. New media has collided with traditional media at such force that entire industries and careers have been born—Content Creator, Content Curator, Social Media Manager, Digital Strategist. It’s hard to find a news channel that isn’t running a Twitter hashtag at the bottom of the screen directing the viewer to integrated information. Even The Wall Street Journal cites tweets as sources. So to “get it,” puts you at a business advantage.
B2B customers have become more independent buyers in the procurement process as a result of their increasing access to information, research and peer-recommendations. In fact, this modern buyer is something of an enigma to B2B vendors. Traditional lead generation efforts such as trade show and publication advertising, direct mail, email, etc. are decreasing in effectiveness. Lead generation through social marketing has received much hype yet case studies demonstrating real bottom-line impact are still few and far between. How does one capture their attention (and wallet-share) in an environment where competition has surpassed competitive vendors to include the increasing availability of information and perception driven by customers and non-customers alike?