Chris Koch wrote an excellent blog post, "There is No Social Media Strategy, Only Marketing Strategy," in which he states:

Social media simply makes starkly plain what we’ve known for some time but haven’t had to face yet: We don’t have a lot of content capable of generating trust and relationships.

Chris sees, as I do among clients and prospects, that B2B marketers are eagerly adopting the next-generation tools, but are learning the hard way what it takes to use them properly. That requires feeding them with content--and the right kind of content.

Chris asks, "What do you think? Are we overemphasizing social media strategy at the expense of overall marketing integration?" Yes, many marketers are. As I blogged recently, there are marketers who want to produce content quickly, and social media turns the demand for content into a race. It is easy to rely on what's familiar--the old product pitch--but that isn't effective in social media. What is effective is thought leadership, which requires real strategy and forethought.

Labels: business to business (B2B), content strategy, social media