The author has a doctorate in marketing from IIM Ahmedabad. He is currently working as a marketing analyst at Forbes Marshall.
Why should a B2B firm have a social media strategy or even a presence? This question often grapples most B2B companies. As Regalix’s data shows, B2B firms’ investment in social media is going up. This upward trend is a reflection of legitimate rewards of such practices.
What’s social media to my business?
Many B2B firms do not engage with social platforms believing that it is not of relevance for their business. Michaelidou and colleagues1 found that lack of identified relevance is one of the major barriers for adoption of social strategy at a B2B firm. To complicate it further, most B2B firms struggle to identify or adopt metrics to measure success of social media presence. In spite of these reservations, the data also shows that more number of B2B firms are engaging with social networking sites than before and this is likely to increase in future.
A study2 on B2B firms in the UK shows that perceived ease of use and image of social media also play a role in its adoption. Firms that view social media as an easily available option to use and promote themselves are more likely to adopt it. This perception may stem from their exposure to technology, industry and innovativeness as a work-culture.
So what if my business is on social media?
Social media is a powerful channel for customer engagement. Research shows that benefits may not always be as direct as sales, but could be even more intrinsic such as responsiveness of sales personnel. Agnihotri and his collaborators3 found that social media usage by sales people resulted in enhanced information flow between the organization and their customers. This resulted in a higher responsiveness from the sales team leading to tangible benefits such as customer satisfaction. Similarly, researchers4 have also found that B2B social media usage influences brand performance amongst its customers as well as customer-retailer loyalty.
As a real-time information exchange tool, social media allows organizations to create customer level value beyond instances of purchase. Andzulis and others5 have found that social media consumption at a B2B firm evolves over time and it graduates from being a mere presence (Facebook page, etc.) to active efforts to drive customers to such company pages; followed by social media being perceived as an extension of the sales channel and finally resulting in becoming a tool for value co-creation with customers, real-time engagement and facilitation of learning processes. At the final stage, social media becomes an enabler of a competitive marketing approach for a B2B company.
However, social-focused CRM practices cannot yield results in isolation of a customer centric approach – belief that customer engagement is the key to success – at the top management level. A paper published in Journal of Business Research6 shows that social CRM is influenced by the degree to which an organization is customer-oriented in its decision making and marketing approach. A company that has an overall customer engagement and support mind-set is more likely to view social media as a necessary apparatus for contacting and cultivating customers for future instances of purchase. They would also focus on other
on-ground and offline channels for communication. Hence, an effective social approach would begin by focusing on capturing customers across touchpoints and engaging them in a conversation.
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