Some companies are still wondering if social media works in a B2B context. It does.  Social media does not positively discriminate for or against any particular audience.  These new tools are available to all audiences.

For a good example of how B2B communications can be supported with social media, take a look at how IBM used social media to energise customers for a conference held earlier this year. IBM used twitter, blogs, video and linked in to generate a buzz around the conference and to get people participating.

Mark White, who works for us as a blogging and Twitter consultant, has written an interesting post about how social media is profoundly affecting what we do and how we interact. He makes the point that there are still companies who seem to believe they can ignore or avoid it.

‘Well, they can certainly elect not to actively participate, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be involved,’ he writes.

Quite rightly Mark is encouraging companies to embrace social media rather than fight it. And he highlights the fact that the experience of being involved with social media can be enjoyable.

I would strongly agree. Social media is an opportunity to express yourself, be creative, share knowledge, be part of wider communities, be respected and  be recognised as an expert.

You can read the full post here. Enjoy it!

Jeff Jarvis has written an excellent article about  the mistaken strategy of charging for online news. He argues that pinning hopes for the survival of news on charging for it is not only futile but possibly also suicidal.

Jarvis writes:

‘Charging for content brings marketing and customer-service costs. Online, it reduces audience and the advertising they justify. Putting content behind a wall cuts it off from search and links; they cut off your Googlejuice. When publishers build those walls, they open the door for free competitors, who can now enter the content business with virtually no barrier to entry. Publishers who fool themselves into thinking pay will save the day only further forestall the innovation and experimentation that is the only possible path to success online.’

By remaining open to the web, through not charging, you give yourself more opportunities to enter into conversations and to spread the influence and build the reputation of your brand. Companies as well as newspapers can benefit from being as open as possible in order to participate fully in the social web.

It is interesting to see that companies are no longer satisfied with the old models of measurement and are actively challenging Nielsen.

In old media, the view was that everyone saw your advertisement. But now advertisers want to know that their ads are relevant and are reaching the audience they are targeting. It is much easier to measure activities on the web; and companies are realising too that size of audience is not the only thing that matters. Niche audiences have real influence too.

This development further underlines how many established industry organisations are struggling to retain their relevance in the new social media age.