I come across a lot of discussions about how social advertising works in B2B. This is a hot topic and has gained both skepticism and optimism from different marketers. But sometimes even the optimist marketers have a vague understanding towards “Social Media.” So let’s begin with a clear definition of social media and then we discuss how it should work.

Social media is not only social networking site. The term social media should be synonymous with user-generated content. When it is seen as a marketing vehicle, I always like to use the term “Consumer generated media.” Social networking site is a genre of social media which seems to be the most heterogeneous type compares to other social media such as blog, video/photo & bookmark sharing site, microblog, wiki, and bulletin board.

I recommend two inspiring pieces that put this topic in a perspective. Andrew Chen’s Futuristic Play, “Your ad-supported Web 2.0 site is actually a B2B enterprise in disguise” explains the whole advertising business from a supply chain point of view. The SNS publishers are actually the B2B publishers who sell inventory to ad agencies and ad networks. Shel Holtz, “Social media and B-to-B: made for each other” thinks Social media actually makes more sense in B-to-B companies than business-to-consumer firms. Particularly Holtz talks about blogging as a glue for community and how we can make use of the community to engage leads, convert loyal customers, and make them become advocates. A classic marketing funnel that we all keen to go through.

My firm receives customers’ request for proposal for social advertising almost every week. Whether or not it is just a hype, we can still feel the heat. Also take this into a consideration, in this region it is a marketplace where the first mover has no advantage over the fast mover. So it is about time the hype drives customer’s demand to jump on the bandwagon.

The skeptic who doesn’t see the application usually judges from a wrong angle. If you want to make social advertising sensible, you probably shouldn’t trust your own experience. Don’t think about the way how you use Facebook is the way that makes social advertising works. It is not.

If you are a marketer, this is what you should be interested. Have you ever thought about Facebook has over 600 million searches per month that makes the social networking site one of the top 20 search engines on the web? Facebook has an algorithm called “Social Proximity,” which ranks search results according to the people distance. According to Facebook, your friends and people in your networks are likely to be more relevant to you and thus are ranked higher. This is definitely something different from the marketing based on contextual relevancy.

Then, how social marketing should work in B2B? May be in this part of the world the economy is still very export-driven, our marketers are overkilled by marketing for selling. They probably forget customer service, as one of the important B2B components, by nature is very community-oriented. Social media is a perfect vehicle to nurture future opportunity and re-marketing your product. It is a channel that handles communication better than selling. It does your customer service very well!

If you still prefer marketing for selling and your metric is predominately cost per click, then social marketing won’t be a solution for you. It requires a little bit more patience than bidding for low price. But having said that, if you haven’t got enough patience, you probably won’t be a good B2B marketer too.

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