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B to B vs B to C Social Marketing
Jonathan Yarmis points out that business-to-consumer models are a more natural fit for social media adoption, while business-to-business adoption has lagged (often, ironically, at leading tech firms). "We'll get there" with B-to-B, he says, because companies know social media can give them competitive advantages. But the market success of B-to-B companies is often the result of a strict command-and-control system. "There's naturally some bias" against adopting social media in that sphere he says.
For example, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers has been an evangelist for social media in the workplace, predicting at the very least that it will boost productivity, and, as he did in an interview with Fast Company, tying it to what he would like to see as the total re-engineering of corporate structures. He has a Facebook page. The company has a Twitter page. But Cisco's social media tools for the rest of the company are behind a firewall and, citing the potential for violating the law the company instructs its employees that "Internet postings should not disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to Cisco."
Moreover, employees are warned that if they identify themselves as a Cisco employee on any posting, refer to the work done by Cisco or provide a link on a Cisco Web site, they must include this disclaimer: "The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cisco," and that "identifying yourself as an Intel employee, you are creating perceptions about your expertise, and about Intel, among shareholders, customers and the general public."
"Do us all proud," the company says.
IBM, which also maintains a Facebook presence, has launched a blog called A Smarter Planet that dovetails with its recent advertising campaign of the same name. And it maintains forums, communities, wikis and blogs on its corporate site, but its social-media tools are proprietary.
Other companies are taking more cautious steps, even as they encourage employees to engage the public via social networks.
"Common sense is the best guide," Intel's public guidelines say.
Beyond the promise or peril of social media as a communication tool, there is also the threat posed to internal systems by viruses spread across the Internet. John Cass, director of marketing at ideaLaunch, told CIOZone's Lauren Bielski recently it's imperative to "keep the computing environment stable." And Graham Cluley, a consultant with anti-virus maker Sophos, warns on the company's Web site that such third-party social-media applications open internal systems to the possibility of infection by adware, spyware, and malware. Facebook suffered two embarassments last year: The KoobFace worm attacked Facebook and MySpace last December, turning some users' computers into zombies. And the Secret Crush application on Facebook was found to send users to an external URL where they could mistakenly download adware.
Some companies want to draw a line between public and private social media, recognizing the value of both for collaboration and recruitment, and have developed their own enterprise solutions.
Microsoft's TownSquare interface has about 8,000 users, of whom about 700 use the tool regularly, the company told Computerworld last year. Developed by its Office Labs unit, TownSquare welds together enterprise newsfeeds, its SharePoint collaboration tool, and the Outlook communication and calendaring tool into an interface resembling Facebook. Like Facebook, users and choose how much information is available to others within the company.
Deloitte launched D Street in 2007 as a way to create virtual teams, share information and provide at least a virtual sense of community within an organization of 46,000.
BlueShirt Nation, an internal network for Best Buy employees, has been up and running since February 2007, according to its creator, Gary Koelling. The company's senior manger for social technology, he says the network has more than 15,000 members.
On a public page, IBM says it "trusts - and expects - IBMers to exercise personal responsibility whenever they participate in social media," but cautions that they should not use social media for "covert marketing or public relations." The company also maintains its own message boards and communities for engineers and product developers to share their knowledge with the outside world. Behind the scenes, Big Blue has been in the social media space for about eight years, first with BluePages, and then with BeeHive.
Smaller companies without the resources to create their own social media can opt for off-the-shelf software to install on their systems, including Sixtent, by Ramius. Like the larger enterprise systems, they offer employees a place to access key information for their work, grow their professional connections within the company, establish an identity, and stay up-to-date with their colleagues.
How does a company measure the success of its social media strategy?
Magness, at Zappos, says he relies less on hard data and more on what he calls "directional" feeling rather than hard metrics to see if the strategy is working. Right now, he says, the direction is positive.
At Southwest, Berg says she sets aside time to dig deeply into audience metrics on a regular basis to discover what interests them and plan her online strategy accordingly.
She also spends a lot of time away from raw data, taking what she learns about customers and passing that information along to other departments. Case in point: Coverage of the US Airways jet damaged by a bird strike and forced to land in the Hudson River after taking off from New York's La Guardia airport earlier this year. Southwest's Berg created a timeline for executives that showed how social media users, especially on Twitter, were ahead of most major news media - and Southwest's own communications team - in reporting the jet's miracle landing and the rescue of its passengers and crew. The entire company now recognizes the speed at which social messaging can travel, and how fast Berg and her team may need to respond.
Whether its lead generation, sales and support, customer feedback or employee collaboration, "all old school activities can be replaced or enhanced through the use of social networks," says Malcolm Lotzof, CEO and co-founder of virtual-event provider InXpo. His company recently announced that it had integrated Twitter into its product, and it used its own platform to build a virtual office. "Every Sunday evening I read the company blogs and within an hour I have an unbelievable understanding of what's going on in the office. I know which new features are being well accepted by which clients, I know how various client events went off, I know how our softball team did on Thursday."
The question now is whether the momentum behind social media networks will wane or build.
"Companies are initially enthusiastic about their social-media programs, but after a few weeks or months, the commitment becomes less and less until eventually all efforts stop," Lotzof sayd. "If you're going to embark on a program, you have to assign someone who owns the program for accountability and growth."
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