Reminder to B2B Marketers: Social Media is NOT Spectator Sport, its Contact Sport

By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)

I jump-started my Monday morning helping a CRT/tanaka client with the social dilema of “to comment or not to comment” on a competitor’s blog post that calls them out openly and has received several favorable comments from third party industry experts favoring the competitor’s viewpoint. Hence the inspiration to write this post for all my B2B social media peeps.

I realize B2B is a whole different beast and the rules of engagement, blog comment/response strategies are different compared to B2C social media BUT the basic rule of LEAVE A COMMENT when you have been called out openly on a social network works like a charm even in B2B social media. Thanks Beth Kanter, someone I greatly admire in the social sphere for co-authoring “Networked Nonprofits” in which she says, “Social media is not spectator sport, its contact sport.” Please read the book if you have anything to do with social media engagement, doesn’t matter nonprofit or for profit.

Here are simple guidelines on why and how to proactively LISTEN and PARTICIPATE in a meaningful way, especially when you have been called out by your competition on blogs and other open forums.

1. Set Your Google and Tweet Alerts: How can you possibly respond in a timely manner to a taunt by your competitor if you don’t get real time alerts directly to your inbox? Take the time to set up Google blog alerts for your company, products, services, key leadership team members and the same for your key competitors. I am surprised so many of B2B friends still haven’t taken this simple first step. Come on guys. Here’s a really good consolidation of different applications you could use to monitor Twitter activity.

2. Now Listen First Before Jumping Into a Blog Rant: Jumping into your competitors’ blog post without first making sense of it ALL is like jumping into the ocean without knowing how to swim. By “ALL” I mean, read through every single comment the blog post has, identify your key influencers who participated in the rant and clearly understand their motivations to join the conversation. Now think through how you can join the conversation in a way that makes you look smarter in front of the World Wide Web. Merely jumping in and saying something that means nothing to your stakeholders makes your competition look smarter.

3. Don’t be a Silent Spectator, Leave a Comment: There is absolutely no need to respond to every single taunt, tweet, blog post that pokes at your shortcomings as a product/service, BUT if your arch rival has openly called you out on social networks or is repeatedly mocking at you and creating a false perception about you, you had better COMMENT. I am amazed how many CEOs and CMOs of B2B companies still tell me, “It will go away. No need to comment.” Google wouldn’t be doing so well if comments, complaints and praises shared online were to simply go away. So you can either remain silent in front of your customers who invested in you OR respond back to your competitor’s blog jab with a smarter comeback. By merely leaving a comment, you have demonstrated to your competition, your employees and more importantly your customers that you are LISTENING and will respond as needed. I have seen situations where seeing YOU respond, your customers jump in and start defending you. That’s what Apple does best, lets the Macheads represent the brand.

So let’s get ready for some contact sport, shall we?

[Image courtesy: http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/photo/1-3016-1.jpg]