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But Where’s the Conversation?

October 21, 2009 •

The hype around social media as con­ver­sa­tion has become deaf­en­ing.

Much of the hyper­bole comes from agen­cies and con­sul­tants who have seized upon social media as the next wave; their moti­va­tion is self-serv­ing, of course. Pro­mot­ing their cre­den­tials as social media experts enables them [Read more…]

Social Media Goes Mainstream

April 20, 2009 •

You know that fads have become main­stream when every­body is doing it. Or when it starts to be required as a part of peo­ple’s jobs. Or when every­body is talk­ing about it.

This week­end I encoun­tered two instances of the “main­stream­ing” of social media for B2B busi­ness pur­poses.

Thou Shalt Blog or Twitter

One of my friends told me over din­ner that she has to start blog­ging and/or tweet­ing. Her com­pany has begun to man­date that peo­ple in mar­ket­ing func­tions (like hers) demon­strate their pro­fi­ciency in dig­i­tal media and social media. We did­n’t get into the details of the spe­cific require­ments but it became clear that hands-on expe­ri­ence will be expected of her. [Read more…]

Marketing 2.0: How To

April 2, 2009 •

Finally there’s a prac­ti­cal resource for peo­ple who want the best of both worlds: what’s worth keep­ing from tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing, com­bined with the ben­e­fits of the emerg­ing Mar­ket­ing 2.0 toolkit. Thanks to IBM’s Sandy Carter, there’s now a great resource for B2B mar­ket­ing strate­gists and prac­ti­tion­ers, The New Lan­guage of Mar­ket­ing 2.0. I def­i­nitely rec­om­mend it.

[Read more…]

Social Media Marketing, Enterprise Style

March 18, 2009 •

After wrestling with taxes and Sched­ule C arcana, it’s a relief to blog. (I’m sure the IRS would pre­fer my cre­ative ener­gies go else­where…!)

While work­ing with a client on ini­tial strate­gies for social media mar­ket­ing, I keep being reminded of how much murkier the B2B social media land­scape is. Almost all the pun­dits you talk to have cut their teeth in the con­sumer mar­ket­place, and all their exam­ples focus on mega brands like the iPhone or Nike. Things just aren’t the same in the enter­prise soft­ware mar­ket­place.

In my client’s case the con­ver­sa­tional vol­ume is quite low: in a 30-day period there are just hun­dreds of men­tions of their prod­uct cat­e­gory across the blo­gos­phere, and even fewer of their cor­po­rate brand. And only dozens of men­tions of their cor­po­rate brand in con­junc­tion with the prod­uct cat­e­gory. Need­less to say, they need more buzz…

[Read more…]

Should the Medium Be the Message?

March 16, 2009 •

Some of my B2B clients are start­ing to encour­age blog­ging by their employ­ees. Cor­po­rate guide­lines, such as do’s and don’ts, are amply pro­vided.

Iron­i­cally, cor­po­rate blog­ging guide­lines are often pro­vided via Word doc­u­ments, instead of an inter­nal blog that might be bet­ter at encour­ag­ing dis­cus­sion or address­ing employ­ees’ ques­tions. It seems to me that these guide­lines would be more cred­i­ble if deliv­ered as a series of blog posts. Espe­cially when the com­pany is revers­ing ear­lier “thou shalt not…” poli­cies.

It would also be a great way for more expe­ri­enced employ­ees to share their tips and tricks with co-work­ers.

Is B2B Marketing Obsolete?

February 4, 2009 •

As com­pa­nies bleed rev­enues, prof­its and jobs, it’s ironic that peo­ple are debat­ing the death of B2B mar­ket­ing or its obso­les­cence. And yet I’ve been in sev­eral con­ver­sa­tions over the past week on this topic.

I think a bet­ter fram­ing for the con­ver­sa­tion, rather than death or obso­les­cence, is B2B marketing’s strate­gic rel­e­vance and value con­tri­bu­tion to the cor­po­ra­tion and the mar­ket­place.

I believe that B2B mar­keters need to rede­fine their roles and fig­ure out how to con­tribute more directly to rev­enue growth, mar­ket share gains, bet­ter mar­gins – while solv­ing mean­ing­ful cus­tomer prob­lems and nur­tur­ing 2‑way cus­tomer rela­tion­ships.

[Read more…]

Conflicts Looming? Personal Brands versus Corporate

January 9, 2009 •

If you’ve read the Clue­train Man­i­festo, you know that blog­ging orig­i­nated from people’s burn­ing desire to let their authen­tic voice be heard. Early blog­gers were react­ing against the watered-down, polit­i­cally cor­rect mes­sages they were read­ing in the pub­lic media or writ­ing for their employ­ers.

I’m now start­ing to run into clients who want their employ­ees to be more proac­tively engaged in the blo­gos­phere – active par­tic­i­pants in the inter­ac­tions between the com­pany and its part­ners, or the com­pany and its cus­tomers. It’s a praise­wor­thy goal on the part of these com­pa­nies. It’s chal­leng­ing them to think quite dif­fer­ently about inbound and out­bound com­mu­ni­ca­tions, to revisit cor­po­rate poli­cies, etc., etc.

[Read more…]

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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