Business to Business Communication Processes
Three B2B Messages:
Today, the Business to Business (B2B) communication process is shifting according to changes in the way that businesses gather and distribute information. With the technological advances and user predilections driving the changes in web-bound information consumption, most businesses are giving a great deal of attention to Social Networking forums. B2B messages have found broader communities and more clearly defined targets through such venues. So is this demonstrated by the examples presented here, drawn from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter respectively.
LinkedIn is a B2B environment driven by professional purposes, using the social networking technologies pioneered by MySpace and Facebook and applying them to business and employment priorities. So is this demonstrated by the message on TMPWorldwide's profile page (http://www.linkedin.com/company/tmp-worldwide/careers?trk=holicm). The purpose of the B2B message here is to identify the company to the community of potential clients. The message centers around the firm's mission and the services provided, with particular description of its use of digital media strategies to help hiring companies create and distribute recruitment advertisements. Thus, the sender is the company in question and the receiver is a community of potential clients distinguished by the need to use outsourcing to recruit personnel. A LinkedIn does not use outside advertising on its professional pages, there is no noise to distract from the message, though it may be said that the ability of users to monitor the number of followers and fans of a page may influence the way a message is received. Similarly, Followers and backlinks serve as a mode of community-bound feedback demonstrating traffic and interest generating in the environment.
Facebook uses a very similar strategy, creating an environment of networked users. A distinction here is that the community is not strictly professional in nature, though it is considered increasingly necessary for the professional firm or individual to host a Facebook page. To this end,...
Here, the sender of the message is Forrester Research and the receiver is the community of companies that might require its expertise in technology research and analysis. Facebook is distinct from LinkedIn in a particular regard that is observable on Forrester's page. Here, Facebook functions based on highly interwoven networks of links. Thus, there is some external noise on the Forrester page, including a sidebar that offers 'Similar Facebook Pages.' This may encourage departure even before completely receiving the message provided on the page. With respect to feedback, the page has been 'liked' by 43 people. This suggests that the firm could be doing a great deal more to generate Facebook page traffic.
Increasingly, many firms are seeking out environments where short and informative message delivery is the norm. Twitter has proven just such an environment, with the messages delivered here ultimately underscored by the twin purposes of being concisely accurate and of being delivered in real time. The technology of self-publishing has become valuable not just to private users but also to large firms like Cisco Systems (http://twitter.com/#!/ciscosystems). Their Twitter page demonstrates the approach taken by the firm, as sender, to reach out to a growing community of receivers which as of the writing of this account stood at 92,532. This Followers approach is essential to the feedback facilitated by Cisco's Twitter account, as are the various Twitter accounts that Cisco also follows. Perhaps more than any other B2B approach, Twitter is saturated with noise. Constantly changing messages, an extremely dense presentation of links and an endless stream of other Twitter accounts makes this a productive but distracting way of gathering knowledge on other businesses.
ABC to XYZ:
To Whom It May Concern:
I'd like to initiate this contact by thanking you for your time. I know how dynamic your daily operations can be and I appreciate that…
