Graduation research project by management student Nimit Kathuria understanding the B-to-B social media space in India.

1. “ Social Media Networking for B-to-B Purposes ” Nimit Kathuria | 70059

2. Introduction What is Social Media Networking? Can it be a potent force for leveraging one’s business whether or not the business necessarily involves the medium itself?

3. Pepsi Gaurav “Eventwala” Mohan

4. Pepsi’s page on Facebook

5. Eventwala’s page on Facebook

6. “ not cheap or easy to engage in SMM after an inflection point, but there’s nothing more immediate or faster than SMM to start off with. ”

7. Networking “[N]etworking is the best way to acquire crucial information about the job and succeed early. Time spent in the early days building a network will save time down the road when you’re trying to solve problems, leverage success, and achieve success.” - William C. Byham, chairman and CEO of firm Development Dimensions International

8. Social Networking Through Web 2.0 = Networking at the touch of the button, on the move, while relaxing, 24/7 Not replace face-to-face interaction but complement it rather beautifully

9. 7 Cs of Social Networking Character Control Culture Creativity Clarity Choreography Cohesion - Umar Haique, Director of the Havas Media Lab

10. Key Terms

14. Blog Corporate Blog Corporate website

15. Industry Speak:Dialogue with Industry experts

16. Abhimanyu ShankhdharManager Operations, Digital Media,141 Sercon Little understood distinction between DGM & SMM. SMM is advantageous because: Direct response Customer approaches you Cost-effective Currently SMM has early mover advantage Immense exposure (if all the people on Facebook were to be put together on a nation, it would be the third most populous one) – if you reach a mere 0.1% of those, your work is done. For SMM you have to first find just the right target audience.

17. Discussion forums are a powerful way of keeping yourself at the top. As long as you keep posting good stuff, it is good. Blogs, in themselves are not a well-paying strategy as is being a part of the bloggers’ network. LinkedIn: career conscious people come here. One of the top 5 B-to-B sites (others being, in no particular order: Twitter, Orkut, FB and blogs). Discussion boards most popular. Facebook: you have to engage. That’s the keyword. Wikipedia: a good amount of controlling is happening. Golden rule #1: every business should have a wiki page.

18. KapilGuptaOMLogic Social media is one of the best mechanisms of marketing but it is not cheap. SEO is cheap. It is about expertise in marketing not technology. It’s very complicated. For B-to-B: Promoting your content Participation in forums, blogs – works amazingly well for B-to-B Viral It normally works for large companies. Small companies remain focused on lead generation rather than brand awareness which is what should be the objective.

19. LinkedIn Works well for the following features: Q&A Discussion Asking questions Recommendations News Articles Twitter is just great for creating a buzz around any product/concept. YouTube videos are good. Businesses post videos but first have to ask themselves whether the content interests anyone else other than themselves?

20. Saurabh ParmarDrizzlin Social Media B-to-B space is very immature in India. By definition B-to-B is for one person, whereas this medium is for reaching out to a lot of people at once. Online presence does not mean SMM. One good example of B-to-B: AmEx Open Forum directed at SMBs. Generates a lot of discussion, which is the crux of social media. There is a dichotomy in B-to-B: you target people whereas they think as executives. Constricted as a medium.

21. LinkedIn: excellent tool to display thought leadership; makes sense only when you have content even time-lagged executives will find interesting. Similarly for SlideShare. Freelancers can make better use of the medium. It’s not about the tool at all. A blog can be as effective as your LinkedIn page if the content is good.

22. Ankur Suri20:20 Social Create a platform for your partners/prospects/clients to connect with you and each other- A community created by you helps you upsell your products/services to your partners/prospects/clients who connect with you. Help build conversations and connections on such a platform: case-in-point: Dell “Take your own path” for SMB B2B marketing & VISA Small business network. Create periodic campaigns on the web platform-For existing members to increase their engagement with you; and for recruiting and engaging new members. Remember: Social media is always about creating conversations, and not selling your products/services. The sale is the end point where you want to lead clients as a company, not the first point of conversation. Soft selling always works better than in-your-face hard-sell.

23. Hari V. KrishnanCountry Manager, LinkedIn a pharmaceutical researcher working on molecular discovery in Bangalore created a poll targeted at north Europe, which has most of his clients, and asked technical questions. The goal was marketing, not market research. He did not care about the response. Typically, people add comments; so he got lots with the person’s name and designation. He got free business development, which he now wants to build up on and advertise. a pharmaceutical researcher working on molecular discovery in Bangalore created a poll targeted at north Europe, which has most of his clients, and asked technical questions. The goal was marketing, not market research. He did not care about the response. Typically, people add comments; so he got lots with the person’s name and designation. He got free business development, which he now wants to build up on and advertise. “[A] pharmaceutical researcher working on molecular discovery in Bangalore created a poll targeted at north Europe, which has most of his clients, and asked technical questions. The goal was marketing, not market research. He did not care about the response. Typically, people add comments; so he got lots with the person’s name and designation. He got free business development, which he now wants to build up on and advertise.”

24. When you hear that something's gone viral, you usually think of a YouTube video about a baby or a cat or the occasional sneezing panda. But the Altimeter Group's Social CRM report is anything but that. It's a full fledged document with a table of contents, bibliography and over 30,000 views in a month. At SlideShare, we think it's the beginning of an era where B2B companies and analyst firms share content freely and get viral. Obviously, there's a huge appetite for it on SlideShare. So if you have a B2B report, then try sharing it freely. - SlideShare’s May Newsletter

25. Brief Case Studies

26. Vaibhav KanwalFreelance Web Developer

27. 141 Sercon

28. nSys Inc.Semi-conductor verification IP

29. WebChutney

31. Questionnaire Analysis Perception of importance of various websites:

32. Preference of Networking over Advertising

38. Perception of effectiveness of various websites in relation to the given parameters

46. Conclusion Social media networking for B-to-B purposes is still at rudimentary stages in India. It is mostly the small firms that are making use of the opportunity. And for good reason. As discussed earlier, SMM may be cheap (or cost-effective, if you please), but only up to an inflection point. It works best for your company when you are at a level where you can oversee all the aspects yourself. Another key learning has been looking at the perception of what constitutes SMM. Most of the firms have a misconception as to what SMM really means. The responses show that an astounding 28% respondents believe that email marketing and banner advertising are part of SMM.

47. Engagement is the key word in SMM. The content has to be compelling enough for people to be moved to respond, preferably positively. As Saurabh Parmar tried to emphasize, the medium is not important, it is the message that matters and if the company have got that right, half the battle is won. B-to-B works best when you have to keep up/building the professional relationship. Although it cannot replace real world networking, it can complement it to a large extent. B-to-B also works rather well in scenarios where the goods delivered are themselves through the same channel (i.e. the Internet) as has been the common feature of all the above case studies.