How to Use Social Media to Engage Small Business Decision Makers

Focus on external social media opportunities

B2B social media marketing initiatives require marketing and IT to work closely together to prioritize projects, allocate resources, manage execution, and maintain new systems and features. One key implication from this study for companies marketing to small businesses is that marketing can and should actively pursue B2B social media initiatives which require little IT investment before taking on more IT resource-intensive projects.

For example, rather than placing a company-managed online community as the core of the emerging social media strategy—a community where, according to the study, it would be very challenging to build participation by small business leaders—instead establish a company presence on one or more social networking sites. Focus your initial community development efforts on those sites.

By focusing first on external, "IT-lite" social media opportunities, companies marketing to small businesses are more likely to reach a far larger portion of their target audience in the short run, begin to develop a following, and learn key lessons that inform what social media features and functionality are actually necessary on the company Website.

Rob Feinstein is Vice President and General Manager at Business.com. Rob oversees all aspects of sales, marketing and product development. Rob joined Business.com in 2005 as vice president of product and was responsible for monetization, user experience and new feature development. Prior to Business.com, Rob was vice president and general manager of MonsterTRAK, the college recruiting specialty division of Monster.com. In that role, Rob oversaw all business functions including new product development and strategic relationships with major universities nationwide. Prior to MonsterTRAK, Rob worked at EarthLink, leading the creation of subscription-based, value-added services ranging from online entertainment services to voice over IP. Rob also held senior management positions at CareerPath and GeoCities. He was also a marketing, planning and sales executive at the Los Angeles Times.

Prior to all of this, Rob was an award-winning journalist. He worked for The Associated Press and newspapers in Dallas and St. Louis. Rob holds a Bachelor's degree in History from Brown University, a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and an MBA degree from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He can be reached at rfeinstein@business.com.