Social Media Makes Friends - photo credit StuSeeger

People ask me all the time if Social Media is effective or how it works.  I try to explain but usually I blow it because I get all passionate about it and it comes out all confusing.

But I caught two things just a few minutes ago that reminded me how simple it really is.  Here’s one of them – From Mitch Joel of Twist Image (love his podcasts on iTunes) via Mashable article.  (It’s around the bottom of the page)

“True story: the CEO of a major organization and I are having breakfast and he’s asking me about the implications of Social Media from a B2B perspective. As I go through how important those natural voices and conversations are [to] the decision makers, he starts laughing and cuts me off. Here’s why: about a month prior to our meeting, his CTO came to him with a fairly advanced technical upgrade that needed to take place along with the pricing and deliverables. Without having much knowledge of the potential new supplier, the CEO found himself doing some online searches for what others have thought. Beyond the jargony-corporate website, the CEO was much more taken by the Podcasts, YouTube testimonials, Blog posts and Twitter chatter about the product.

Without realizing it, the CEO was entirely reliant on Social Media for their final decision. While it’s easy to think that this is an isolated incident, do [your] own online search for “social media b2b” and you’ll quickly realize that Social Media is probably easier to link to true ROI in the B2B space than it is for B2C.”

I think this is a great example but then I realized how I found the article.  Via Brain Solis’ twitter account who was also mentioned in the article.
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