What term is the business world equivalent to the term “social media”? (Or help us coin the term right here!)
My business will provide an automated “tool” that can be used as part of the pre-sales/pre-purchase process. A by-product of using this tool is the creation of a network of buyers and sellers. (In other words, the user's objectives are not networking or socializing as it is with social media like Facebook; however, the end-result of using the tool is that they create and expand a network of homogeneous buyers and sellers that may result in a Facebook-like network of interconnections.) We want a term that conveys the Facebook-like netowrking effect that dosn't also convey "socializing".
Describing the tool as “social media” does not seem accurate, because it’s not about "socializing". Then what is an appropriate term to describe the business equivalent of social media? The best terms that we have come up with are “B2B/B2C Enabler” and "B2B/B2C Network Enabler", yet that doesn’t seem to capture it and something like “business media” or “business networking” is too vague.
So, is there already a business world equivalent for “social media” (so we don't have to explain it when we use it)? If not, maybe the term will be coined on (and credited to) this site, so what suggestions do you have?
Networking Ecommerce Social Media Social Network Selling
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What field is your product in? Maybe the industries targeted might help with wording... – David Benson 14 years ago
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It's not industry specific, although it lends itself to manufactured goods. It's more about creating collaboration (rather than socializing) around the buying process and becomes more useful as the buying decision becomes mroe complicated. – Cesel 14 years ago
3 Answers
there are indeed different terms used to describe products that brings social network dynamics into a company (or a group of company). The two I see more used are
- Enterprise 2.0 (very broad term to describe all enterprise software trying to leverage on the usual Web 2.0 concepts and technologies) see for example here the Wikipedia entry
- Social business. I saw this used (for example here ), but it can be confused with "business with a social objective", so I wouldn't adopt it
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Thanks for the suggestion; however, Enterprise 2.0 is company-centric and doesn't easily "spread" across companies/industries. Our tool/solution would put the prospects buying needs at the center (buyer-centric) and provide an infrastructure for collaboration among similar buyers. These buyer-communities would grow and spread (not unlike Facebook), and I’m looking for something more on-point than social media or social networking to describe the media. – Cesel 14 years ago
Since vp inspired "B2Z", what do you entrepreneurs think about other variations of the "B2B" or "B2C" acronyms where "We" is used to express the aspect of groups interacting with businesses (interacting with groups) like "We2B"?
Or waht about about “Me2B2We” or “C2We2B” to convey that it’s a consumer’s interest in business that spawns a community focused on a business segment?
Vote your ups or downs depending upon whether you think this is meaning and might stick or too corny/confusing.
Found the answer on Wikipedia - Social Commerce: "Social commerce1 is a subset of electronic commerce that involves using social media, online media that supports social interaction and user contributions, to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services." -From Wikipedia
