Should a mainly B2B Company/Service have social media presence ?

Using social as one aspect of B2B marketing can be incredibly effective.
The key is to engage with your buyers in the right context, and carefully defining what you mean by social media marketing.
B2B marketers fail when they treat social as just another outbound or advertising channel, or attempt to transfer the same marketing vehicles and methods intact from B2C marketing.
For example, an advertisement on Facebook is both not social (it's a display ad, just placed on a social property) and in the wrong context, when someone is browsing Facebook they are highly unlikely to want to engage with your brand.
You must also consider more of the funnel than just the very start.
This will help you drive engagement with customers and prospects through the entire lifetime of their interactions with your brand.
Being an active contributor to communities interested in your space, without being overly pushy about your product, and being generally helpful to your customers and prospects, and providing venues to allow them to help each other, may not be as cool as "what's your Twitter strategy", but it's much more effective.

Well Ofcourse, Yes !! Social Networking websites have boomed in recent years and it is in this area that businesses can tap into a vital source of free Online advertising and market knowledge.
Through understanding of what peoples think about your company or products, what your competitors offer and what the current trends are you can represent your company as being a market leader in brand and knowledge building a credibility and trust between you and your audience.
For B2B portals, Social Media Platform is not just only for the effective marketing tool but also a great in terms of clients/user Social Engagement on major Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as the most prior based Effective Social Media Platforms.
If we take an example of Giant B2B portals like Alibaba.com or Tradekey.com, most of the clients wants to engage themselves on Social Media Platform in order to get the latest updates within the website updates, new services, discounted packages, even updates from Premium clients.
So I truly believe that it can work perfectly within B2B Companies.
Have a Nice Day.
Syed Waqas Saghir Internet Marketing Expert, SEO Consultant, Social Media Evangelist.
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There is no harm for B2B companies to be social media platforms but in that case, I would suggest LinkedIn as a priority!

I believe so, I am specialising in it. Currently i am reading "Services Marketing" by Zeitmal and also doing case studies on Services Organisations. Services Marketing is about differentiation and Social Marketing is a great way to create awareness and brand image in the minds of the target audience for the following reasons.

 

• Service Marketing in the current age is about a continuous feedback about Expected, Desired, Predicted and Adequate Services. Social Marketing provides many tools to monitor and evaluate the effect of your marketing and create better products.
• Social Marketing can help in the service quality dimensions such as Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy.
• A Service Organisation can also measure their success through social interaction and help develop a culture of Spontaneity and Coping.

 @patelabid

Yes, just because its presence is important, not because it will be an effective tool for B2B. It will have an effect, but not like a B2C organization's presence on social media. In the end, all decision makers are consumers.

Ideally you should join the gang! No social media presence does not look good to any professional organisation. Linkedin is a good channel for B2B companies.