A few weeks ago I
posted about the role of social networks in the B2B
marketplace. This morning I attended a webinar, presented by
Hitwise, which
focused on the growing popularity of social networking sites.
LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise mentioned that in October 2006, social networking accounted for 1 in
every 20 internet visits. 82% of these were from myspace.com. That does seem
like a lot doesnt it? By the way did you know that a search in Google for
myspace returns about a half of a billion results?
The webinar went on to state that:
- the average session time spent on social networking sites was three times
longer than on the average site (27+ minutes vs. 10 min)
- in October, the average session time on MySpace was 30 min 22 sec
- the average social network user belongs to 3 or more social network type sites
These really are some amazing stats. For a more comprehensive recap of the
Hitwise webinar, visit analytics expert Manoj Jasra's
Web Analytics World blog.
Social Networking in the B2B World
So where does social networking leave B2B marketers? Well, as I mentioned in my
previous post, social networking has not yet caught on with the B2B market. This
doesn't mean that social networking won't catch on with the B2B crowd; it just
means that it may be a matter of time. I am a little skeptical about the B2B
marketplace participation in the social networking scene. The main reason for my
skepticism is the fact the B2B market is hyper-competitive and the sharing of
information and data through social networks may not be as forthcoming as it is
in traditional social networks such as
MySpace. Having said that, the reason
social networking may have not taken off as much in the B2B world is that really
there are not that many significant B2B social networking sites out there. How
many can you name off the top of your head?
That may change though. Dave Networks has recently released its B2B platform
with its S.O.C.I.A.L (Social Online Community & IPTV Application Library)
platform. This platform allows companies to build social IPTV communities around
various brands to help grow a social group base and generate user participation
for their brand.
Dave Networks has a new
site dedicated to building IPTV social
communities around brands. It will be interesting to see how many B2B companies
leverage this kind of technology.
The B2B market is being rapidly conditioned to understand and accept social
networking, video sharing, blogging, RSS and other technologies as new forms of
communication and information access. With a longer selling cycle this means B2B
marketers need to establish creative ways of deploying content that their
potential consumers are thirsty for.
Do you have the juice to quench their thirst? |
enquiro research
Jody Nimetz