B2B Social Media Wish List for Santa

It’s been a good 2011 for my firm Strategic Communications Group. Our brand of b2b and b2g social media marketing has been adopted by clients such as Microsoft, British Telecom, Neustar, Polycom, EMC and Pitney Bowes, plus many fast growth companies that aren’t (yet) familiar names. All this despite an uncertain economic climate and the prospect of less federal IT spending due to budgetary concerns.

The reason I call out b2b/b2g specifically from consumer is that I think it’s a very different beast. As I’ve talked about previously on this blog, b2c social media becomes straight publicity due to the sheer size of the audience, which makes ROI very difficult to quantify. It also demands a level of automation that threatens the authenticity of the conversation – though many in the industry are working on this problem.

So with Christmas right around the corner, here’s my wish list for Santa. Granting these will keep b2b and b2g social media moving in the right direction:

• Strategy before tactics — yes Santa, this is still missing from a surprising number of initial conversations with prospects;
• Think like a publisher — easy to say, hard to do. The production of high quality content that engages, educates and (sometimes) entertains is hard. But its the cornerstone of success;
• Make social media a line item in more company marketing budgets — this one is big. It’s 2012 everyone — companies should not have to poach funds from other areas like conferences or traditional PR to fund social media activities;
• Look to integrate social media activities with back end CRM processes — Strategic has made exciting progress on this front with many clients, and this is why I believe Salesforce is on to something by acquiring Radian6 and integrating that functionality into their popular CRM SaaS offering.

So what’s on your list? Whatever it contains, I hope you’re on Santa’s “nice” list for 2011!