Some B2B Brands doing very well from using social media?
Today I am having a look at the questions of B2B brands and their approach to social media.
Gartner predicts that in 2010 more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will engage in some form of social media. As social media touch the majority of the population on a daily basis, it is natural enough that consumer brands now embrace these to connect with their consumers or fans. What about B2B brands?
Because of the fear of seeing industrial know-how escape them and strategic market information being leaked to the competition, many B2B brands are still risk-averse to giving up control to user-generated content, and to openly connecting with the wider public. In fact, many B2B brands have so far denied themselves the opportunity to fully realise the potential offered by social media.
To date B2B corporations that venture into social media marketing are in the majority from the IT and telecoms sector. Software vendors, computer manufacturers, ISP’s and the like form the bulk of social media marketing B2B users. This was confirmed by the Forrester Groundswell 2009 Awards.
However I hope the 3 examples which I will be looking at in this article show that there are some very obvious areas in which B2B brands can engage in social media, which ever sector they may be operating in.
#1 Supporting recruitment and developing employee loyalty
Deloitte, one of the big 4 consultancies, annually recruit over 1000 new people.
They know that in their industry recruitment is king, as human resources are their main asset, and they use Social Media to recruit as well as retain employees.
Through a heavy presence on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/deloitte), they are able to connect their employees together, and identify students from the best universities, whom they target specific recruitment campaigns at. Twitter is used to push quick links to their recruitment pages hosted on their website. Deloitte also use LinkedIn to publish their job adverts in various interest groups.
To get their staff to reflect on Deloitte’s business culture and values, this year Deloitte has launched a Deloitte Film Festival competition in which workers in their US offices were invited to submit short videos answering the question: “What’s your Deloitte?” Altogether the videos posted on YouTube received 400,000 views. The number of views and the way the project was received showed that it was very successful and reached its goals.
#2 Information sharing and community fostering around a high tech product
Dassaults Systemes, world leader in 3D design technologies, and owner of the famous CATIA 3D software, has an official blog (http://perspectives.3ds.com/) which is an information hub for developers, partners etc.. A page identifies the team of contributors; each one has a profile highlighting personal traits as well as their personal area of expertise. Cleverly they mix a team of engineers and marketers. The blog invites commenting.
Through their twitter profile @3dperspectives they push the content of their blog. 3D engages in real conversations with their followers and the posts aren’t only concerning their products or technologies, but also more general topics of 3D design. This is an intelligent a way to broaden the potential pool of followers. 3D perspectives currently have over 1000 followers.
3dperspectives have also a YouTube channel demonstrating interactive experiences using their technologies. One of these videos totalises over 3000 views.
#3 promoting the brand and connecting with users via an all encompassing social media strategy
Scania Group, the Swedish trucks and buses manufacturer, have created a separate website, which is a hub for all their social media presence, scanianewsroom.com (http://www.scanianewsroom.com/).
This site hosts their blog and gives links to their social media profiles on twitter, YouTube, etc.. The choice of categories is interesting as it covers not only the brand and its technologies but also environmental information as well as content specific to trucks and buses drivers. Scania have created a Facebook fan page targeted at drivers which currently has just under 1000 fans, and this small community seems very active.
Scania have made a special effort on their video content that looks like it is paying off . There is a Scaniagroup’s channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/ScaniaGroup) on YouTube on which over 40 videos are hosted, altogether these were downloaded more than 350 000 times. They cover diverse subject areas such as working at Scania (in Swedish), corporate messages on hot topics like the environment, and Scania’s trucks and technologies.
Certainly, Scania have the means to produce numerous and very professional videos. However, I looked for one of Scania’s competitors (Renault Vehicules Industriels) on YouTube (RenaultTrucksCom). RVI adopted the channel just a little after Scania did, but there are considerably fewer videos available, and their channel has received 5 times fewer downloads. Scania have not only adopted video marketing earlier, but their investment in the channel makes a real difference. Renault Trucks haven’t an equivalent of Scanianewsroom, and that possibly explains their lesser social media reach.
There is a strong case for B2B brands to join in the social media revolution:
1. B2B brands can successfully make use of user generated content and engage with their customers and employees.
2. B2B brands, in particular brands with a technological culture, can develop communities around their products to deliver important customer care and brand loyalty.
3. Brands that sell their expertise as a service have large scopes of using social media to share their expertise and raise their profile, through podcasts, webcast, blogs and videos.
4. The power of Social media to connect people is an asset that they should be using to strengthen their own corporate community, develop grass-root advocacy, and grow a positive reputation online.
Links:
http://mashable.com/2009/11/25/social-media-b2b/
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=770914
http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2009/10/winners-of-the-2009-forrester-groundswell-awards.html
http://socialmediab2b.com/
