The premise of this blog, Acquiring Minds, is that social media, as with other online media, provide B2B marketers with a stellar opportunity to generate qualified leads and to impact ROI.
But wait one minute! It almost seems heretical to sabotage social media by attempting to generate leads. However, there are many organizations who have demonstrated that these two goals are compatible by building their business through social media while adhering to best practices (but more on that shortly).
The discourse on social media or Web 2.0 media almost entirely focuses on communication and collaboration with little discussion on how social media impacts the bottom line. And justly so: the opportunity to innovate, build competitive advantage and cut costs with Enterprise 2.0 tools is compelling (see Andrew McAfee's blog).
The advent of social media is comparable to other disruptive technologies in the area of collaboration & communication.
When Lotus Notes was launched in 1989, some of you may remember the bewilderment expressed by your organization.
Like social media today, Lotus Notes and other communication and collaboration technology is one of those IT expenditures where payback and ROI are much more difficult to quantify.
Lotus Notes
<=== so,="">how did you explain the value of this to your boss in 1989?
Social media creates the same befuddlement in executive decision-makers as do other communication and collaboration technologies.
You may be talking but your executives are hearing this:
"Gee, we are not quite sure on ROI but here is something different: we're giving a public voice to the 'unwashed masses' in our organization and let's not forget our disgruntled customers."
Is it any wonder that so few Fortune 500 organizations encourage their employees to blog?
Where social media happily deviate from their fellow communication and collaboration tools is their unique ability to dialog with not only internal but also external parties and to publish fresh content featuring keywords that attract search engines to your website.
Tell me - how are you using social media for lead generation?
On my next post, I will provide some success stories from B2B marketers.Link to original post