CK's Blog

B2B Social Media Objections: Meet Fear, Irrelevance and Overwhelm.

Since I've written on building the B2B business case for social media and penned key tips for breaking through the knowledge barrier, it's only fitting that I take a post to focus on the main B2B objections to social media, and some strategies for overcoming them. Because even in this all-digital, always-on world I hear objections a great deal.

And it's imperative that those of us who have been working and participating in social media for years take a BIG step back and remember that this space is still brand new to most B2B companies... and change takes time (and comes with objections aplenty). That's just the nature of change.

While it sounds cliché, each of these objections are an opportunity. Why? Because they invite a conversation. Why's that? Because in voicing their concerns to using social media, executives are not only making a statement about what they're thinking (and feeling), they're seeking reasons to either (a) confirm their viewpoints or (b) change their minds.

These objections have helped me in my own work as they've pushed me to be more objective when nudging more companies to integrate social media into their marketing practices. For example, instead of only offering my professional opinions, I provide plenty of third-party data points as support. And instead of crafting a counterpoint, I work to build a business case. I talk the language they speak, not lingo that gets lost in translation (a basic principle that's still as timely as ever!)

And I should note that while this post focuses on B2B objections, these very much pertain to B2C companies as well. So on that note, let's get started...

B2B Marketers: If Your Markets' Needs and Behaviors Have Changed... Why Hasn't Your Marketing?

Reports, statistics and factoids are marketers' best friends. After all, data gives us information from which we glean intelligence to build our business models, marketing strategies, plans to increase market share and programs to cut through clutter. And rock-solid data is the fuel we need to drive change within our departments and across our organizations.

Devoid of statistically sound findings, however, we're left relying on gut feelings and our personal views of how we perceive things to be... which can turn out to be perfectly correct or miserably myopic. So research gives us insight, reduces uncertainty and lends credibility to our business arguments.

And that brings me to the facts and findings from the just-released Consumer New Media 3-Part Study (by Cone Inc.), which are too good not to share--but I'm going to do so with a bit of a twist. As the report is a consumer-oriented study, I'm going to extrapolate some of the study's findings to cite implications for business audiences. Because the fact is, B2C gets the lion's share of social media marketing attention and while B2B social media studies are popping up more, marketers still have to dig deeper for social media data that speaks to the needs, challenges and profit potential inherent to professional audiences. So let's get started...