The ICUC Glossary: B2B

B2B is an abbreviation for “business to business.”  It’s a type of company that doesn’t deal with direct individual consumers, but rather offers a service or product to other businesses.

Good ole Wikipedia says that B2B, “describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer. Contrasting terms are business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-government (B2G),” (Wikipedia, 2012).

What we do here at ICUC is B2B – we’re a business that offers a variety of products and services to other businesses.  We offer moderation, monitoring and management for other companies to help protect online reputations and provide our clients with the best social media strategies.

Since marketing for B2B companies is often different than for those who are appealing directly to consumers, there’s a large sector of information, analysis, and tools available to other B2B entities.  How a B2B company would make use of a Facebook page or Pinterest account is different than how say, a retailer or a restaurant would do so.

On the Snoo.ws Blog, we try offer a variety of persepectives for all kinds of companies.  I know when I’ve researched presentations for my work at ICUC, I always like to find some B2B applications for various tools or social outlets.  Sometimes its not as straightforward to see the marketing opportunities or uses, but they are there!

For more reading, I found this article about Building B2B online communities, this is a report you can request that forecasts B2B industries in 2013, here’s a Snoo.ws article about B2Bs using LinkedIn.