Social Media Challenges for B2B Organizations : A case study of a large manufacturer

Abstract: When looking at the engagement of social media in general we see that business-to-business (B2B) companies have a significantly lower day-to-day usage compared to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies even though there are more B2B companies present in the social media space. By studying a B2B company in the midst of implementing social media in their efforts to enhance their marketing capabilities we want to know if there are any specific reasons for these facts. When studying the company we conduct a case study to discover and explore the challenges a B2B company face when implementing social media that could explain the facts of low utilization. Based on our findings during the course of this thesis we developed a model for evaluating how well a company is fitted for the social media space. The model consists of a number of key factors important for a successful social media engagement. Each factor has been broken down in comprehensible questions making it fairly easy to do a situational analysis of a B2B company regarding its strengths and weaknesses in marketing through social media.