I quite agree, Vanessa, most B2B organisations aren't geared to incorporate Social Media Business Strategies within their total marketing strategy because the executives don't know how to use it. Moreover they don't know how to communicate its benefits to the line managers who have the discreet knowledge that clients want in order to make the interaction happen.
At the moment, (Jan 2011), we are at the same point as in 1990, when Sales & Marketing Systems were just beginning to flourish, (now called CRM systems), and it means we are going to go through a decade or so of trial and error. On the plus side, we do have media knowledge experts now, which we didn't have back then, so maybe we won't have to wait so long!
If anyone has a "How To ..." book on implementing your social media business strategy I think it would sell quite well. Everyone seems to have pitched their narrow expertise (like Google's SEO Manual), and others on areas like Twitter and Facebook; but there seems to be no definitive concourse on the whole B2B marketing mix. For instance, if you take one of your boxes "Access", each one of the five stages requires a "third dimension" behind it to make each element work - each one such as "Indentify overall business goals and contributions for social media" requires a project plan in itself. Stakeholders need to be identified and given tasks to implement their particular angle to a defined audience with KPIs for response, including metrics on boundaries and reporting.
In other words, I believe that if we are to progress with social media marketing strategies, they have to be built into the job descriptions of line managers with specific knowledge, executives with planning remits, and board members for reporting. This means they need to be trained to use it effectively, once the landscape has been defined. Only in this way can we reap business rewards from what is currently (and widely) seen as being more "social" than "business" activity.
It seems that Paoga don't really understand the main drivers behind CRM in the corporate world, so they are justifying their comments about Personal Knowledge Banks by confining them to consumer data.
CRM in the comsumer market is about profiling - do they (Paoga) really believe people - all with computer knowledge and access, are seriously going to run their own personal data for a raft of quasi government and commercial users to delve into at will! All 44million of us of buying age. I don't think so.
CRM, however, in the corporate world (B2B) will continue to expand as not only ROI, but also payback and IRR will be better understood by software house salemen to help make their business case. These people will also be made more accountable for their promises by clients, who will be able to monitor more effectively CRM specifics on their bottom line.
It has taken 15 years since we first acknowledged that there was a horizontal market called CRM. In the early days this was merely called "Sales & Marketing Systems" by those of us who had the vision to put the effort into getting the products to market. Since then the big software houses have chased the niche market boys for the large corporates. Microsoft, like IBM in the early days of PCs - joining two years after the smaller innovators at the time, are now in the CRM market with the lower middle corporates, as well as the large ones, as targets. They will, no doubt, sell off their interests in it ( like IBM sold off their PC business), when another flavour of application takes over. Until then be prepared for a major step increase in CRM successes over the next 3 years.
My answers
I quite agree, Vanessa, most B2B organisations aren't geared to incorporate Social Media Business Strategies within their total marketing strategy because the executives don't know how to use it. Moreover they don't know how to communicate its benefits to the line managers who have the discreet knowledge that clients want in order to make the interaction happen.
At the moment, (Jan 2011), we are at the same point as in 1990, when Sales & Marketing Systems were just beginning to flourish, (now called CRM systems), and it means we are going to go through a decade or so of trial and error. On the plus side, we do have media knowledge experts now, which we didn't have back then, so maybe we won't have to wait so long!
If anyone has a "How To ..." book on implementing your social media business strategy I think it would sell quite well. Everyone seems to have pitched their narrow expertise (like Google's SEO Manual), and others on areas like Twitter and Facebook; but there seems to be no definitive concourse on the whole B2B marketing mix. For instance, if you take one of your boxes "Access", each one of the five stages requires a "third dimension" behind it to make each element work - each one such as "Indentify overall business goals and contributions for social media" requires a project plan in itself. Stakeholders need to be identified and given tasks to implement their particular angle to a defined audience with KPIs for response, including metrics on boundaries and reporting.
In other words, I believe that if we are to progress with social media marketing strategies, they have to be built into the job descriptions of line managers with specific knowledge, executives with planning remits, and board members for reporting. This means they need to be trained to use it effectively, once the landscape has been defined. Only in this way can we reap business rewards from what is currently (and widely) seen as being more "social" than "business" activity.
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It seems that Paoga don't really understand the main drivers behind CRM in the corporate world, so they are justifying their comments about Personal Knowledge Banks by confining them to consumer data.
CRM in the comsumer market is about profiling - do they (Paoga) really believe people - all with computer knowledge and access, are seriously going to run their own personal data for a raft of quasi government and commercial users to delve into at will! All 44million of us of buying age. I don't think so.
CRM, however, in the corporate world (B2B) will continue to expand as not only ROI, but also payback and IRR will be better understood by software house salemen to help make their business case. These people will also be made more accountable for their promises by clients, who will be able to monitor more effectively CRM specifics on their bottom line.
It has taken 15 years since we first acknowledged that there was a horizontal market called CRM. In the early days this was merely called "Sales & Marketing Systems" by those of us who had the vision to put the effort into getting the products to market. Since then the big software houses have chased the niche market boys for the large corporates. Microsoft, like IBM in the early days of PCs - joining two years after the smaller innovators at the time, are now in the CRM market with the lower middle corporates, as well as the large ones, as targets. They will, no doubt, sell off their interests in it ( like IBM sold off their PC business), when another flavour of application takes over. Until then be prepared for a major step increase in CRM successes over the next 3 years.