Warum B2B Marketer sozialer agieren sollten

Imagine for a minute that you’re a buyer who falls into the rapidly growing “social searcher” category—in other words, you like to learn and research your purchase decisions socially. So, you’re on a social site looking for information, and someone talks about an ebook related to your search. You click on the link, but instead of an easily accessible resource, you’re greeted with a corporate Web page filled with PR speak and an old-school form asking for a mere 12 fields of data in exchange for the ebook. Ouch.

Not only does that not seem very social, it feels like a vendor trying to pitch you—an exchange you’re not ready for at this early stage in the buying cycle. And that’s when you decide to “X” out of that tab on your browser and search for some other thought capital that won’t require you to share your life history with a company you have little or no prior relationship with.

If you’re like many B2B marketers, this hypothetical scenario may hit a little closer to home than you’d like to admit. Perhaps you’ve been neglecting social because you already have a website with great content, which you’ve made search-friendly to attract new relationships, and you’re sending email to people in your database to drive them back to your site to engage further.