Eric Schwartzman | New Media and Social Media Communications

While there has been a great deal of recognition and discussion among social media enthusiasts about the use of social networks to engage consumers, in the world of B2B marketing, high profile case studies have been fewer and farer in between.

But after a discussion with Mark Yolton, the senior vice president of the SAP Community Network, a B2B social networking site nearly 2,000,000 members strong and growing monthly at the rate of roughly 30,000 new members spanning 200 countries worldwide, I’m convinced that social networking just may be the killer app for B2B marketing online, and here are 4 reasons why.

1. Faster, Better, Cheaper
According to Yolton, “If it can make our customers more successful than our competitor’s customers, then our competitor’s customers are going to come to us. Or our customers our going to buy more, upgrade faster, extend their capabilities and so forth.” And that’s precisely what the SAP Community Network does.

2. On-Demand Subject Matter Expertise
By providing stakeholders with free access to subject matter experts, the SAP Community Network helps its customers implement its solutions and resolve issues faster, decreasing time to market. “Our hope is that if they can reduce some of the burden of day-to-day operations, adopt best practices and overcome challenges faster, they’re going to have to budget left over to buy more stuff,” says Mark Yolton.

3. Self-Serve Professional Development
Customers can use the SAP social network to increase their knowledge within their organization at a very low cost. These savings extend to SAP as well, because customers share knowledge directly with other customers, reducing the demand on SAP’s salesforce to educate the marketplace. The scale of the SAP B2B social network is also beneficial, since it’s sheer size increases the possibility that there will be customers within the same industry to share best practices.

4. Reputation Management Opportunity
For SAP’s customers, many of who are system integrators, participating in the B2B social network allows them to procure sales leads and actively build their reputations to attract new business opportunities. The social network has become a primary channel for customers and partners to demonstrate their expertise within a focused community, and in so doing, attract qualified leads.

Want More?
To listen to an in depth, one-on-one interview with Mark Yolton of SAP on the benefits of B2B social networking, visit “On the Record…Online” and download the audio transcript, or subscribe to the podcast via RSS or Twitter.