Last night we attended a great event hosted by Social Media Club Chicago and crowdSPRING (@crowdspring) at their new office.  The drinks and food were out and there was a great panel discussing Chicago’s hospitality Social Media scene that included:

• Theresa Carter from The Local Tourist, @thelocaltourist
• Andrew Mason from Groupon, @groupon
• Mike Evans, GrubHub.com, @grubhub
• Dawn Reiss, @dawnreiss

It’s always great to catch up and meet with other Chicago entrepreneurs.  By the way, crowdSPRING’s new office is SWEEET.  They definitely raised the standards for the ideal startup office.  Congrats to them.

You can see all of our pics here.

Here at FYIndOut, we’re on an adventure to figure out what Social Media is and how business can best capitalize off it.  Social Media is no longer an if, it’s a necessity for business, especially B2B.  By now you’ve heard this plenty of times…it’s nothing new to you. Though, understanding how to effectively capitalize on the millions of users connecting, sharing information and communicating is essential to building relationships and profiting. In this theme, we’ve decided to begin a series of offering FYIndOut Social Media tips.

Tip 1         There is a human behind the profile.
Behind every Twitter, Wordpress & Digg account there is a human being, so treat them like one.   Humans have an inherent need to connect and build relationships, hence the millions of people using social media.  If you were to run into an old friend at a coffee shop, you’d smile, shake their hand, maybe even give them a hug and ask how their lives are. Of course they’re glad to see you! You just gave them an opportunity to talk about their lives, families, or the new dog they adopted. This is Dale Carnegie 101; If you want to get people to like you, ask questions about them and show real interest.
So, think like Dale Carnegie and connect.

We love opinions & feedback:
www.twitter.com/FYIndOut

Today I attended a webinar by MarketingProfs and Citrix titled, “Business-to-Business Marketing Trends 2009: Dramatic Changes in Dramatic Times”.  All in all, I’m glad I attended as the webinar was based on their study of around five hundred businesses and pretty informative.

The most intriguing slide to me was the one that listed the five B-to-B marketing tactics expected to increase in 2009:

1. Search Marketing – 46%
2. Online Video – 40%
3. Discussion Forums – 38%
4. Webinars – 38%
5. Email – 37%

It’s interesting to note that none of these are considered traditional forms of lead generation (maybe email but that has nowhere near the history of direct marketing or conferences).

Another item of interest was what businesses listed as their most effective tactics for lead generation.  In order of most effective, they were:

1. Executive Breakfasts
2. Inside Sales
3. Webinars

I definitely think face-to-face events like breakfasts and after work functions will always be the best way for making connections but I can see webinars and social media continuing to increase the generation of qualified leads.

Towards the end there was a great slide about how the power and process of the deal is changing from the Seller to the Customer.  We have said this before (see “Don’t Believe Me, Just Ask Me: A Major Issue in B2B“) and it’s great to see it presented by others.  Through no fault of their own, Sellers in B2B have historically been the information gatekeepers and the latest technologies and trends (If you’re someone that needs to label things, you can call it Web 2.0) have turned that process on its head.  Here are some bullet points from the slide.

Then

• Seller in control (size matters)
• Seller converts prospect to a lead and identifies decision maker as fast as possible
• (NOTE: There were more but my perception of how great my multi-tasking skills are is obviously inflated compared to reality as I wasn’t fast enough to write them all.  Sorry.)

Now

• Buyer in control
• Buyer qualifies the seller for participation in the consideration set and dictates timing
• Seller’s success depends on engagement and trust (lead nurture)
• User conversation to drive preference and loyalty

Thanks to MarketingProfs and Citrix for sharing their findings.