Lessons from the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle

Wednesday, 9 November, 2011
Jason Ball in B2B, social media

I recently spent the day at this year's Dell B2B Social Media Huddle held in Google UK's London offices. It was an interesting, well-run event combining set presentations in the morning with an unconference format in the afternoon.

Overall, I think B2B companies are still finding their feet with social – there is a growing realisation that it is just another channel but making it work for large B2B enterprises is a different challenge than for smaller businesses talking to other smaller businesses. Personally, I think it can help deepen and widen customer conversations but there is still the critical factor of having something to talk about (which comes back to my passion – content).

Three key takeouts for me were:

• While there is an ever-increasing focus on analytics (a good thing IMHO) turning these into forward-focused, actionable insight is more important than ever.
• Trust is one of the most valuable commodities in marketing today. Building up a positive trust account with customers is a long term challenge but provides a vital buffer against negative comments online. (If you haven't already, check out the Edelman Trust Barometer – presentation embedded below.)
• That making some attempt to assess and track influence (while an incredibly imperfect science) will be key to reaching out to niche and specialist influencers.

Below, I'm embedding both the Trust Barometer presentation and a nice piece of curation from Gabrielle Laine Peters (@gabriellenyc).

The story of the event in 140 character bursts:

Article originally appeared on Specialist B2B copywriter and content strategist | Twelfth Day ~ 12thday.co.uk (http://www.12thday.co.uk/).