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The very reason that companies invest in their brands and the supporting digital channels of communication is to shape perceptions in the minds of their audiences. Brands aren’t ‘things’, brands are what people, customers, ‘think’. Brands are the experiences people have and the stories, like this one, they tell other people. In our digital world, those stories can travel a long way. BA fundamentally failed to manage my customer experience and, in the absence of any other input, they have allowed me to form my own perceptions of the brand. So that’s what I’ve done.

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It struck me that digital isn’t our future anymore, it’s now an intrinsic part of our daily (working) lives. We can look to the future, but it’s pretty much already here. Even if we don’t use the tools, the machine, the ‘matrix’ indexes the information anyway. There is no escape. But however exciting the B2B future could be, the limited budget is almost always spent on what is probable and known rather than what might be possible, and unknown.

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The sticking point in B2B Social Media, seemingly, is measurement. When you can prove it, then we’ll think about it. Well, I for one, am bored. I’m bored telling companies that they have to actively engage with social media for their brand to remain relevant in a digital economy and I’m bored listening to agencies pretending they have measurement matrices that prove they know what the customer’s doing.

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Some years ago, a pimply-nerdy-geek-type told me that traditional B2B communications were dead and that the future was digital. I guffawed, spluttered and muttered outrageousnesses then lay down in a darkened room to sniff some well earned printed collateral. But just because you don’t like it or are unfamiliar with the territory, doesn’t mean it isn’t so. There are some home truths about online brands that every B2B marketer needs to face, and at the moment, they’re not.

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Crowdsourcing broadly means using the power of many to solve problems. The principal can be applied to any challenge where many hands can make light work. It’s a bit of a big deal. One that the B2B marketing community has thus far almost wholly ignored. Brands aren’t about guidelines or products or services, they’re about feelings. Rather than being restricted to the views of a few you can open up the brand discussion to the prospective customers.

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I’ve always been deeply suspicious of anyone introducing themselves as an ‘Entrepreneur’. It’s one of those wank words. I’d been asked to the meeting to discuss social media, so I was slightly perplexed as to why we might need an ‘entrepreneur’ in the room. “Are you entrepreneurial in the social media space?” “No”, he said, “I think social media’s a complete waste of money.”

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The B2B Marketing Magazine seminar on ‘Exploiting Social Media in B2B Marketing’ was quite an eye-opener. Social Media is no longer a fringe subject. There was a room packed with well over a hundred people and the common denominator was everyone seeking a business model for social media activities. I’m not sure if that means the client’s haven’t ‘got it’ yet or if the agencies are trying to keep up – either way, it’s on the agenda. The power has shifted from the corporate propaganda machine to the selective conversations that the customers are prepared to engage with. How’re we going to handle that that then?

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There seem to be two issues of note this year in the B2B marketing space – the agenda and the hidden agenda. The agenda is the recession, the far more interesting hidden agenda was just warming up when the economic shit hit the fan – it’s the Social Media Agenda. Everyone’s formed an opinion or become social media ‘experts’ but there are no experts. No one knows what’s going to work and the whole space is a complete land-grab.

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