B2B Storytelling

When we produced the first YouTube B2B comedy in 2006, our video didn't sell any two-million dollar IBM mainframes, but it earned extensive coverage from press and analysts, and increased our blog traffic by over 25 times. Some  B2B marketers are slow to invest in social media because they believe that the ROI should be based on an increase in sales. Wrong. The focus should be on engaging conversation with influencers who matter. It's the first step toward social business.

A year ago at Cisco, we launched the  The Connected Life Exchange blog and invited industry experts to be the authors, along with only a few company employees. We do not blog about our company or products, but discuss the industry issues that are relevant to our customers: the telecom service provider. It has proven to be a powerful approach in engaging analysts, bloggers and customers in a welcomed way — through storytelling.

We just finished production of a web documentary series, "The Network Effect," again with no mention of our company, but focusing on entertaining stories about the inventors who built the network and the impact it has on economic growth, particularly in developing counties.  Here's  the first episode of six:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

[image error]