Use of social media for B2B marketing

Abstract

Digital marketing has gained more and more importance with businesses becoming global and the advancement of new technologies. The advent of social media its vastness in terms of the wide range of applications and the number of users and new innovative trends in using social media and networking sites for marketing are inducing a paradigm shift in the traditional marketing methodology of organizations. Social media marketing has opened up a wide range of possibilities where new aspects and steps have been introduced in the marketing cycle and the advantages of using this channel for marketing are many. Specifically in B2B marketing, the focus is shifting from a push technique of marketing where there is a unidirectional flow of information from the marketer to the target audience; to a marketing style where the concept now is of interactive customer engagement with brand ownership lying with all the parties involved. We have endeavored to understand social media marketing, the strategy for organizations to leverage this channel and its implications on the B2B marketing space. It is clear that marketers worldwide cannot ignore the SMM channel because of the ever widening scope and the advantages that it provides over traditional marketing. This being established, it is also important to have a very specific strategy customized to specific businesses due to the unique characteristics of a B2B transaction. For the strategy, it is important to understand the various buying stages and the stakeholder involved in purchases in the B2B market space. We analyzed buying behavior on the basis of a survey conducted to understand the buyer behavior and put together a strategy based on research performed in related areas. We also interviewed various experts in the industry to understand their perspective of using social media marketing. Broadly a social media marketing strategy for B2B needs to consider:*The company s social media objective *Segmentation of consumers *Choosing the right social technologies *Communicating and Engaging with your customers *Building the reputation of an expert *Nurturing leads *Monitoring effectiveness of the strategy Finally, the report also details the implications of social media for businesses and the future of social media marketing.