Content sharing is no longer anonymous.
B2B marketers can’t ignore Facebook Likes. And we’re going to have to make some serious decisions about how to use the new social graph.
You may have not noticed, but as B2B marketers our network is our network is our network. No longer can we afford to separate our personal, private selves from our public, professional selves.
Think about it.
Freelancers have always intuitively known that work comes from your network of personal AND professional contacts who 1) Know what you do, 2) Trust you to do it, 3) Like working with you. It’s probably why every freelance designer I know has over 1000 Facebook friends. They’re not just extroverts, their livelihood depends on it.
Is it any different in the B2B world?
Now that we can see who is liking our content, whether it be in blogs, eBooks, or on Scribd. It’s in our best interest to 1) broaden our networks 2) blend our personal and private networks.
Oh sure, you have valid concerns about whether or not you want your customer to see your fraternity pictures. We’ll have to be careful. Yet, the need still remains.
Why B2B Should Care About Likes
There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not we should give away content or require some quid pro quo from our customers. On the one side you have David Meerman Scott and Seth Godin.
On the other side, you have every other marketer out there.
Scott and Godin argue that content should be a gift that doesn’t set up a transactional relationship. Rather, your content is an idea that, if good enough, will freely spread throughout the web.
Retorting from the other side are folks who have to show some results for their work. “We need to build a list and measure what we do, you can’t measure free content,” they say.
Until recently, I was torn. I want to be generous, but, man, I’ve got to show something.
Track B2B Content With Facebook Likes
Now that people are spreading Likes across the web we have the opportunity to give content away for free as well as track it. Thus making our broadening our personal networks all the more important.
Likebutton.me is an early to market tool that allows you to build a dashboard of your favorite sites and track who Liked your content. It uses the Facebook Activity feed plug in which you can get here.
As you can see in the image above that I can now see who in my network, Likes or has shared my work. Sure, it’s not perfect. Hey, it’s free. I can’t see everyone who made a like or share.
What it does tell me is that if my personal an private networks were bigger, I’d be able to get more information on about what my customers are reading.
Another benefit is that you can track what your customers think of your competition. Are they getting more likes than you? From your favorite customer? Why? How often?
We’re just in the early phases of tracking the social graph. Other tools like OneRiot are already starting to track Facebook Likes as well. I’m sure we’ll see a surge of new free and enterprise offers coming out the door daily.
In any event, you have to ask youself, “How badly do I want to be Liked?”
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