There are a lot of marketing-oriented blogs talking about how to leverage the social media phenomenon as a marketing vehicle. And when it comes to sites like Facebook, MySpace, I think it makes a whole lot of sense for some marketers. But what about a business -to-business blog? I think it makes sense from the marketers’ perspective, but at what cost to the members when it is a niche B-to-B community? Are there any examples of B-to-B communities that are integrating marketers’ messages/applications in interesting and effective ways? Please let me know.
continuousbeta said
I think the social media site will radically change the BtoB space. Most B2B properties focus on qualification as the entry point. Social media place the value on self selection and participation. Social Networks provide the ability to extend invitations to people in your social graphs and accept/reject applicants based on their profile. You’re not a restaurant owner? You will not be allowed into a group for restaurant owners…. Really powerful.
There are a number of companies doing really interesting tests and there are a number of groups that are quite lively within Facebook (most of them are gated to the general public.) In most cases I think these groups will be self organized rather than organized by a third party but it is still really early.