Social Media in the SME Business to Business Environment and Toolkit

This report responds to the growing appetite for businesses to gain a better understanding of social media marketing and the associated benefits. Over the last twelve months, we have spent time exploring the concept of social media marketing and the impact it can have on B2B campaigns. Academics from Newcastle Business School have spent time talking to SMEs and their marketing teams to help identify and successfully navigate some of the most common challenges surrounding B2B social media marketing. As a consequence of this study, we present a framework of integrated marketing communications (IMC), incorporating social media. This framework underpins the B2B Social Media Toolkit, which is the main outcome of this report. The research findings have been presented using the Social Media Honeycomb developed by Kietzmann et al. (2011). This has allowed us to distil our findings into seven distinct themes, which are presented on the right. The B2B social media toolkit is a practical and easy to follow guide for anyone wanting to improve the effectiveness of their social media activity or a good starting point for any business that has yet to incorporate social media into their wider marketing plan