Does Social Media have a role in B2B relationships? I’ve been trying to find a role which makes sense, and so far a definitive answer has eluded me. What do you think?

There’s no shortage of Social Media consultants extolling the potential for the genre to add value to business relationships, and a bunch of tools to purportedly help. Some of them work well, from a software perspective. But B2B is a very special environment which doesn’t sit well in the social media space. Or that’s the way it seems to me at least.

When it comes to B2C I can readily understand. Consumers get involved with social media precisely because they want to be social. Big brands have already established relationships with their consumers, and the smart ones understand how their brand translates into status for their customers. They’ve spent an enormous amount of money building presence in their particular niche.

Rock stars, movie stars, sports equipment companies etc. have all followed the auto companies down the line. They create niches consumers can associate with. This is the natural place for Facebook Pages and corporate Twitter accounts. On a personal level I might have a real thing for Ferrari cars. If Ferrari has a Page and a Twitter profile I’ll follow them, because that brings me closer to their tribe. Knowing the inside track says something about me, just like me wearing their logo does.

But when it comes to business there’s no individual relationship. No brand association which says something about me. I don’t get to feel good because my company uses At&T for phones. Will I be a fan on the At&T page or follow the company on Twitter? Not likely.

Fact is, as a corporate exec, or even a solopreneur, when I’m working, I’m working. Not hanging out on Facebook and keeping up with the latest news from Exxon or Cargill, or GE.

In either role I’m reluctant to go where I’ll be pitched at. Individuals in corporations get sold to all the time, but never get to buy anything in isolation. They stay away from Linked In precisely because of the selling. There’s no fun in the relationship between “let me tell you what I can do for you” and “you’re talking to the wrong man”.

So what do you think?

When it comes to B2B are these social media consultants just dogs barking up the wrong tree?

In B2B its organisation charts and corporate strategy which counts, not relationships.

When I’m entertaining myself in Social Media fun and relaxation is my objective. The last thing I want to tell anybody, and particularly social media friends, is “I can’t help you. I don’t have that much influence.”

That was a long time ago. Now I’ll write most days. Mostly for our businesses but sometimes just for fun. And then there are times I’ll get so angry about something blogging my disgust is a relief valve. I can say what the hell I like. There’s a lot to be said for blogging.

In my opinion every business should have a blog – a compendium of thoughts and arguments explaining what the business does, how its better than the competition, and how customers benefit.

Our blogs are just that. Prospects and customers can browse our pages, understanding our value proposition from the perspective they choose. Every article is our best sales presentation on one dimension of the problems we help people solve. We don’t have to quiz prospects to figure out their pain points. We just offer all the answers and invite them to choose which best relates to their needs.

But most businesses we talk to can’t find a way over the barriers. First there’s the question of technology. Then there’s the question of content, or topic. And finally there’s the hard work – learning how to write in simple terms about complex issues, keeping it short, on topic, and hopefully a little entertaining.

Technology is really simple – go to Posterous (my favourite for the novice), Blogger or WordPress for free software and hosting.

Content shouldn’t be difficult – it’s really just the arguments you use in sales pitches.

Writing is the tough part. There is no way around the need for somebody to put into words on a web page the reasons customers should come to the business. But that particular mountain turns into a mole hill with Brian Clark’s – Copyblogger – advice. In his article Is F.E.A.R. Holding you back he generously explains how would be, but held back, bloggers can face down the devils and get on with it.

Personally, I don’t know Brian Clark but admire his work immensely. Anybody wanting to learn about blogging for their business should be following him. Before they know it they’ll at least be one eyed men in the land of the blind, and enjoying it.

And the proof in the pudding? Through nothing but blogging we’ve engaged interested people all over he world – from Beijing to San Diego. In the last year we’ve had more 2,000 download our White Papers and 350 sign up for our software.

Ideas engage people, and blogging engages people in ideas.

One poor guy had obviously been promised a software development job when he’d completed the course. Another paid nearly £100 for a book he could have bought, on the Internet, for £20. Somebody else had paid out £4,000 for what turned out to be just another Internet scam.

This “learning on-line” thing has been bubbling away for the last couple of years.

I remember reading an article written by one of these expert Internet Marketeers. He explained how the Multi Level Marketing scams weren’t working any more. It was time to move on to distance learning. At the time this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it does now.

Over the last six months there’s been an explosion in the number of “join our club” and “buy my course” offers from so called expert bloggers who’ve built large followings by giving away their “secrets”. Now is the time to harvest the gold hiding in those “lists”. Only $49.50 per month and you get to hang out with a group of expert bloggers, learning their secrets so you too can join the exclusive club.

Talk about low hanging fruit! How many people are out there wanting to make a bucket load of cash working 2 hours a day from home? Retirees, stay at home Moms, Job Seekers? There must be no end.

Happily this learning on-line thing will be shown to be the scam it is soon enough. It will go the same way as MLM. Nobody will trust on-line learning and distance learning pitches anymore.

Unfortunately a whole new community will, in the process, have learned about being ripped off on the Internet.

It used to be there were some generous souls sharing their secrets to help others exploit the new possibilities emerging from the Internet – or at least that’s the way it seemed.

Their argument was we shouldn’t be taken in by those MLM schemes and SEO experts. All we needed to do was read their insight, translate it to our particular markets and get on with writing great content. The biggest secret was avoid boring blogging. Mr Google would look after traffic provided the content was sufficiently engaging.

That was before the sting. Having sucked us (me at least) in they started with the sales pitches. The first one was for the WordPress template. Next up came the insider group – only $49.99, per month. And then there was the SEO tools – guaranteed to optimise the great content for search engines and only $99.99 per month.

It was all very entertaining, for a while. At first it was exciting – so much potential so easily harvested. Then it became laughable – blatant pitches suckering the pilgrims. Today it got really boring.

Unfortunately I subscribe to updates via email from one particular outfit. Today’s article explained how the author had become an expert blogger (implying fantastic rewards) in as little as 6 months. How did he do it? Reading blogs about blogging and using the tools of course.

These boring bloggers are no different to the MLMers and Product Placement reprobates. They’ve just been better at masking their schemes.

Worse, the rubbish they publish gets propogated by newcomers who repeat the mantra – it’s easy to be successful blogging, just write great content, build a following of 1,000s, write a book on how to be a master and sit back enjoying the money.

I’d rather believe those idiots punting that stupid Trump network.

Free software on the Internet has reached its sell by date, or at least that’s the implication behind Ning‘s announcement highlighted in Mashable’s post Ning:Failures, Lessons and Six Alternatives It seems the run away train of Ning’s success is screeching to a halt with a decision to focus the business on making money, as opposed to building a community, from which it can make money. Having passed the 1 million social sites mark the new management has decided to put an end to its freemium model and concentrate on providing tools to community builders who make money themselves, and will pay for use of the facilities.

This news follows hot on the heels of Twitter‘s announcement of a new monetization model, in that case through advertising. I guess everybody was expecting that move. Nobody can afford the costs of supporting more than 100 million users for ever. In the end everybody has to make money, and free software soon reaches its sell by date given today’s economic environment.

What’s particularly interesting is the way services to help other people make money using the Internet are developing into sophisticated business models. We’ve mentioned before that the only way to make money on the Internet is to charge others for helping them to do just that. It’s a development on the affiliate marketing, or MLM, model which has fallen into disrepute.

Over the past months we’ve seen other leaders of the social revolution turn their following, built on a seemingly altruistic philosophy, into a pool of gullible buyers. Instead of selling secrets of how to make money on the Internet they’re now selling secrets of how to make money on the Internet. Only now it’s turned into coaching and software.

Will it work? Will these new Internet entrepreneurs make money?

My guess is they will. There’s a bottomless pool of would be millionaires believing the stories of endless income from a couple of hours each day, wherever in the world they happen to be. Only $50/month for this book, $49.99 for this on-line course, $27.99 for this infrastructure complete with money making tools.

Will their hapless customers make enough to cover the cost? That’s another matter. But Ning won’t care if its customers don’t make money, just like the MLMers, and nor will the guys selling the coaching, the tools, the infrastructure. There will always be another punter willing to pay out small amounts for access to the secrets of Nirvana.

The only way to make money on the Internet is to charge people for helping them make money on the Internet. Free software isn’t the way to do that so we’ll need to find another way.

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• The free ride in social media is coming to an end (socialmediatoday.com)

Maybe you’re more like me – frustrated at the difficulty of getting heard above the noise, finding people interested in the same topics, and getting their attention?

If so you’ll be interested in the new services offered by Implu? Using keywords they match-make, helping us follow those interested in our stuff. Invariably the close match brings about a return follow and chance to work on a relationship.

They also help us to stay within Twitter’s rules – optimising our contacts, unfollowing the inactive and blocking out the spammers.

All of this in a free trial followed by a monthly charge less than the cost of a decent dinner for two.

If like us you can see the potential for these services in your business check them out at Implu and give the a road test.

We liked it so much we decided to partner with the guys and now represent them in Europe.

Want to know more ? Email me at steve@frontofficebox.us and I’ll get right back to you.

Here’s a positive step to avoid the faceless bureaucracy that wants to take over your organization:

Every new rule needs to be associated with one and only one person who is willing to stand up for it and explain it (to your people and to the public).

“No swimming until 45 minutes after eating.” Really? Why? Who made this rule up? Why?

I think most international travelers would like to know who made the rule that bans wifi from international flights. Or the name of the other person who made the rule that you can’t have a blanket covering your legs during the last hour of a flight. If we knew the bureaucrat’s name, could we lobby to have them fired for being ridiculous actors in security theater?

Organizations thrive on their ability to allow individuals to remain faceless. It permits them to act badly, not in the interest of their customers.

One of the reasons I so enjoy buying from small companies is that you know exactly who has their name on each and every policy. It builds a more responsive organization and it’s good marketing.

I really like the idea of this. If you want to force a rule on others you’ll label it with your own name so we know who claim at/to/about.

Posted via web from stevensreeves

Probably the reason is these sites are no longer niche.  As soon as people like Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservative Party brag about their use of these things we know it’s gone mainstream, and boring.

But that’s only part of the reason (it seems to me).  The rest is down to the (automated) – noise made by all these self appointed social media gurus, and their false bonhomie and SPAM.

The original ethos of networking has been lost.  Twitter is like email without a SPAM filter.  Linked In is like a high school reunion full of Life Assurance reps, and Facebook is like an infants school playground.

That’s why I picked out this video by Rebel Virals  - enjoy!

Posted via web from stevensreeves

Research at the Harvard Business School came up with some really surprising answers to question we probably wouldn’t ask – like these:

Facebook?

“The biggest discovery: pictures. “People just love to look at pictures,” says Piskorski. “That’s the killer app of all online social networks. Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people’s profiles.”

“That was stunning because on all these other social networks you see the opposite,” Piskorski says.

You can find the full article at Understanding Users of Social Networks

I picked this up from an original post by Noelle Chun

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• Who dominates on Social Networks? Males or Females? (This may just surprise you.) (thenextweb.com)

Please wish us luck. There’s maybe 5 million patients each year who’ll have better outcomes if we can make it work.