171330 Resource 81701 49412 49412 1181227438952 1181227438952 Controlled BtoB Social Media Marketing

Conversations are still tops in influencing purchase decisions

We know that word of mouth is the best and most trusted form of marketing. Consumers love to hear from 'someone just like me.' But does this apply to BtoB marketing too?Yes, says a study by the market research firm, Keller Fay Group which was sponsored by experiential marketing agency Jack Morton Worldwide. Word of mouth is the #1 influence on business purchase decisions.50% of the respondents polled reported that they were highly likely to buy a product or service based on word of mouth; while 49% passed on what they've heard to others. The study goes on to say that "Business decision-makers most value communication channels that provide two-way dialog." So conversational marketing will work for BtoB just as well as it does in BtoC. There are a slew of social networking sites like Linked In that connect business people with each other.  But can social media marketing be done on a larger scale in BtoB?  Many firms are providing spaces online that create these dialogs with prospective business customers.Cynthis Trevino at<a href="http://www.smallcompanybigimage.com/small_company_big_image/2007/01/using_continuou.html"> Small Business, Big Image</a> offers this example:<a href="http://www.chordiant.com/">Chordiant </a>Customer Experience Solutions uses wikis (web sites that visitors can add to/edit) to both shorten and improve their new product development process.  They have a select group of customers that collaborate on the private wiki with Chordiant's product engineers.  The customers help define features for the next product release.eWeek wrote a good article about <a title="social media btob" href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2061135,00.asp" target="_blank">how wikis are working in the enterprise.</a>Sun Microsystems attributes the revival of their brand to  blogging.There must be something to this online conversation thing. 10 application/xml false btob enterprise social media wikis Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 sally false true false false true 177676 false false true false false false true 205703 Resource 177676 173239 49412 1212413924497 1214851002252 Controlled Any other research?

Sally - do you have any information on the success of other B2B social campaigns, using Facebook or Digg? 10 application/xml false Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; SU 3.011; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; MS-RTC LM 8) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 216.57.96.1 false true false false true 81701 blog blogsite/Falkow/web