The following comes from Mitch Joel at Twist Image via a great article with 12 more valuable insights that was written by Tamar Weinberg – check it out at Mashable.
Why do I share it with you? Because it’s dead on accurate – and I have had several similar conversations with C-level executives over the past 2 months. (I particularly love the description of the CEOs experience on the ‘jargony-corporate website’ – sounds all too familiar!)
If these conversations haven’t happened at your business yet – make them happen.
“True story: the CEO of a major organization and I are having breakfast and he’s asking me about the implications of Social Media from a B2B perspective. As I go through how important those natural voices and conversations are [to] the decision makers, he starts laughing and cuts me off. Here’s why: about a month prior to our meeting, his CTO came to him with a fairly advanced technical upgrade that needed to take place along with the pricing and deliverables. Without having much knowledge of the potential new supplier, the CEO found himself doing some online searches for what others have thought. Beyond the jargony-corporate website, the CEO was much more taken by the Podcasts, YouTube testimonials, Blog posts and Twitter chatter about the product.
Without knowing realizing it, the CEO was entirely reliant on Social Media for their final decision. While it’s easy to think that this is an isolated incident, do [your] own online search for “social media b2b” and you’ll quickly realize that Social Media is probably easier to link to true ROI in the B2B space than it is for B2C.”
