Vermilion Blog » 40+ Networks for B-to-B Social Media

Posted by
Josh Hill
Internet Marketing Manager

40+ Networks for B-to-B Social Media

May 4, 2010

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This is the first post in a series on B-to-B social media that grew out of Vermilion’s participation in a social media event hosted by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. In this post I’ll explore a variety of social networks that can be used for B-to-B social media. In the next post I’ll provide a few examples of how B-to-B companies are successfully integrating these networks into their marketing strategies.

B-to-B (business to business) social media is inherently more limited and difficult than B-to-C (business to consumer) social media. After all, consumers are the ones creating and viewing the majority of content on the Internet today. Consequently, B-to-C companies have a much easier time finding and participating in relevant, existing conversations on social networks. They also have an easier time generating responses from conversations they initiate. In contrast, the target audiences of B-to-B companies are relatively small and harder to find in online communities and networks. Because of this, it’s helpful for B-to-B companies to know the full range of social networks that other organizations and professionals are using.

Please note: each network listed below can be used in a variety of ways. Finding the correct social media solution for any B-to-B business requires careful planning, clearly defined goals, experimentation, and cross-pollination between various networks.

Video

Considering the popularity of online video, it’s surprising that companies aren’t using it more to display their products, services and thought leadership. YouTube currently has more than 1 billion views a day, and 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute (the vast majority of which will be viewed by fewer than 1,000 people). B-to-B businesses don’t need to target the world with video; they need to target the correct audience (whether that’s 5 or 5,000 individuals).

Photos

Social photo storage and distribution services can be used by B-to-B businesses to show participation in industry events (conferences, seminars, etc.), detailed product or service galleries, company culture, and more. Many of these can work with your mobile device, and several also have common plugins for popular content management systems, including WordPress and Drupal.

Presentations

Want to share your presentations or embed them into your website? Considering requiring visitors to submit their contact information before viewing presentations, and then follow-up with these individuals at a later date.

Streaming Audio & Video

B-to-B businesses frequently work in industries with specialized news sources, industry blogs, and periodic coverage by large media outlets. Allow these sources to get the information and quotes they need as easily as possible by streaming (and then storing) conference speeches, product releases, technology briefs, webinars, and more.

Blogging

Blogging is one of the best ways to show your thought leadership. Have your SME’s (subject matter experts) post innovative articles, respond to questions or give their thoughts on current industry news. Most websites today use content management systems (such as WordPress, Drupal, etc.). Creating a blog through a CMS provides greater control and integration into your existing website than using the external services listed below.

General Social Networks

The big social networks can be difficult to leverage for B-to-B marketing. A lot of B-to-B companies use LinkedIn as a directory, enabling them to gather quick contacts in specific industries. LinkedIn tried making this process easier by creating groups tied to specific interests and professions, but many of these quickly became soundboards for self-promotion. Regardless, a sufficient presence on these networks typically doesn’t require a lot of maintenance for B-to-B companies. At the very least, putting some effort into Facebook and LinkedIn can help you gain a few first page rankings in Google for your company’s name.

Specific Social Networks

In addition to the big social networks, an increasing number of specialized social networks are popping up to meet the demands of highly specialized groups. Sometimes these groups are targeted at professionals, which opens the door for easy B-to-B networking and information sharing. However, B-to-B companies can also get valuable information and feedback from specialized personal networks (especially if their products or services end up in the hands of consumers).

BabyCenter (for new and expecting parents)
Cake Financial (for investors) (Purchased and discontinued by E*Trade in January 2010)
deviantART (for artists)
Epernicus, ScienceStage, Scispace.net (for scientists)
Hospitality Club (hospitality)
NGO Post (for non-profits and NGO’s)
Ning (allows users to create their own specialized networks)
Ravelry (knitting)
SocialVibe (for charitable organizations)
Sermo (for doctors and health specialists)

Colaborative Publishing

People use Wikipedia to find information about everything, including B-to-B businesses. If your organization has a page on Wikipedia, monitor it, and consider editing it when there are good reasons to do so (e.g., if you add products to your offerings, or if there are indisputable factual errors, etc.). Please note that there are vague but well-established ethical standards for companies editing their own entries on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia

Microblogging

Microblogging is essentially public text messaging. That said, it’s surprisingly popular and powerful for a variety of uses. There is something of a learning curve involved with using services such as Twitter (users need to learn how to find and sort information, in addition to learning the platform-specific terms and standards), but with that knowledge in hand a surprising amount of information can be shared with 140 character messages. Additionally, because Twitter is a public network (anything you say can be viewed by others) it’s incredibly easy to see if anyone is discussing your organization, products or services.

Aggregators

Aggregators can be helpful to easily monitor industry news and social media at the same time. For example, Netvibes is a free service that provides organizations with an infinitely customizable online portal that consolidates industry news, Google Alerts, blog feeds, Google Analytics overviews, and social media functionality (including keyword searches on Twitter). Consolidating all of this information in one place saves time. It also allows your monitoring and listening activities to be more comprehensive.

NutshellMail (Social aggregator for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace)
Lifestream (was SocialStream — social aggregator)
Netvibes (Information, news, RSS and social network aggregator)
Twine (Information aggregator)

Ask & Answer

Some B-to-B companies (mostly large ones) can monitor answer forums to find questions about products and services. Large organizations with reputation management teams can also use these networks to find and respond to negative feedback.

Events

Event planning, sharing and RSVP’s can be done through several networks (including Facebook and LinkedIn). B-to-B companies can host events, share their participation in industry events, and find networking opportunities. Highly specialized events or discussions (for individuals with very particular interests) can also take place virtually, allowing experts in various fields to easily connect online.

Bookmarking & Link Sharing

Although social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are incresingly used to share links (25 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month), social bookmarking sites can still be useful to find and share specialized information. B-to-B companies can use social bookmarking (or link sharing via social networks) to find or share useful industry information. If done correctly, this can also influence an organization’s status as thought leaders in their field.

Reviews / Opinions

Reviews and opinions generally aren’t very applicable to B-to-B companies at this point in time (although there are exceptions). However, it may still be useful to create a Google Local Business Listing to allow people to find your location and contact information easily.

Location Sharing

Although location sharing is increasingly popular, it may currently be difficult to leverage for B-to-B companies. That said, integrating Google Maps functionality into B-to-B websites can be useful for several reasons. For example, conferences with events in different locations can use the Google Maps API to share the GPS locations of each event with conference attendees. Similar implementations can be used to show the locations of stores, offices and services.