Why Communities are Critical for B2B Marketing?

People are the essence of B2B like B2C. Actually companies connect their people to other people like themselves just in another company. Apart from formal emails and meeting they as human beings have their own friendly talks and chats whether on phone, or instant messenger. So online communities for businesses definitely play a critical role in connecting business people which paved the way for B2B marketing.

What is a community? An interesting definition comes from Bailey Richardson ex instagram community manager. In her words: “Communities are simply groups of people who keep coming together over what they care about. The most vibrant ones offer members a chance to act on their passions with each other.” According to People and Company and their book called “Get Connected” community is about making something with people not for people. With is the key here.

Online communities may consist of different groups like customers, partners, and even competitors. The company who owns the community can easily share about new products, latest achievements, new customers, new joint ventures, events, etc. On the other side, customers can share their use cases, best practices, their market demands, customer satisfactions, etc. 

How social media can improve B2B communication through communities

Social media impacts are not limited to consumers. Companies in B2B have created their own channels in different social platforms like instagram and Linkedin. Social media posts are more engaging, friendly and fun. Besides that, social media can make every employee and every customer a potential evangelist. Your customers can generate leads toward your company when they talk about your products or services. It is first hand and their peers in the community will receive it. This is exactly where we can see great impacts of online communities on B2B marketing.
 
According to Michael Torok from higherlogic: “Community is about listening at scale.” Community shows the voice much more compared to other channels.

So let’s start listening and scale your community. 🙌