Rise of the Social Media function

A good post by Michael Gerard of IDC on the potential uses of social media within B2B marketing organisations.  His suggestions include:

1. Establish a direct, relevant connection with your customers as a source of voice of the customer for new product development (e.g., through an on-line community)
2. Improve customer satisfaction (e.g., enable customers to share experiences on-line by creating a self-running community where customers can interact with and learn from their peers)
3. Increase the speed for troubleshooting and R&D by reducing the distance between customers and engineering
4. Join the on-line technical conversations about your products that your customers are already having, by either leveraging your own community or listening to and participating in other companies’ communities

Read the full post at Michael’s technology marketing blog