by Claudia Bruemmer

Since the advent of social media, wholesalers and general merchandise vendors have seen a significant change in B2B buying behavior, especially over the past few years. People are using social networks to access and share many different kinds of information about companies, brands and products. As a result, wholesalers are using social media marketing tactics more and more on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

According to a B-to-B Online study, (Emerging Trends in B-to-B Social Media Marketing: Insights from the Field), B2B marketers believe branding is of top importance. The study also reveals 93 percent of B2B marketers are very engaged in social media marketing, with 26 percent of them citing LinkedIn as their most important social channel. Next in importance is Facebook (20%), blogging (19%), customer communities (14%) and YouTube (7%).

While not all wholesalers and web merchants have used social networking, search engines − especially Google, Bing and Yahoo − realize the impact of social signals on the way users find content online. As more people get connected via social media due to their interests, they will connect to companies that have a presence in social networks. This also impacts the way they will be finding new information and their future search behavior.

Note the following information about social networking:

• The Google +1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day.
• Google Plus exceeded 10 million users in only two weeks.
• Seventy-three percent of Americans with an Internet connection visit Facebook each month (comScore)
• Twitter is “delivering 350 billion tweets a day.”

As you can see from the above stats, social networks represent a significant part of current online behavior, in the social networks and in relation to how users now share information.

We’ve seen how Facebook and Google are becoming part of our everyday lives. Google, for instance, with Gmail, Group Collaboration, Events, etc., has the ability to bring a larger audience into Google+, positioning itself as a major player in social networking.Effective social networking by wholesalers and other merchants can provide “free” marketing research on what your potential customers really want in the way of products and policy. Effective listening within social networking sites is the first step toward discovering what will resonate with your target market, providing clues for the content strategies for websites, email campaigns or other promotions, as well as clues on what your customers want and what they think about your brand and products. To get your company involved in social networking, start with the following steps.

1. Identify Volunteer Company Team Members
You need individual representatives to support your social networking strategy. Because social networking is mostly a personal initiative, not every employee will want to share their social network for business purposes.

2. Create a Complete Company Profile
It’s important to develop a completed company profile in all your social networking communities. Don’t forget to include images, video, and opportunities to integrate business specific initiatives. For instance, you can have custom landing pages on Facebook for a welcome message or for product information. You can create custom background images and messaging on Twitter.
Wholesalers should be exploring Google+ at the personal level, integrated with business specific initiatives.

3. Create Cross Links and Develop Awareness
Once your profiles are completed, it is important to contribute content and information where it can be easily seen. For instance, you can integrate new cross-links and information in the following places:

• Facebook basic information and website links, in addition to callout information in the page icon and about section.
• Change your URL information in your company (and individual) Twitter bios.
• If you have Google Plus, add relevant links in your links section and directly in your profile introduction.

Conclusion. Quality participation is the key to getting the most value from social networking sites. It’s important to start by listening to what’s going on in the community, and then progressively develop communication strategies. Social networks work the same way as traditional relationships, you must build the connection over time.