B2B Marketing meets Higher Education and Development Cooperation
A few weeks ago I have been contacted by a dear friend of mine who asked me if I wanted to participate in the conference “Social Media meets Development” organised by the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) and the BMZ (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung). The goal of the conference was to discuss ways how we can improve higher education in developing countries with the help of social media. Sounds interesting? You bet it was!
First I wasn’t sure how I could fit into this scenrio given my background and experience but then I started to dig into the topic and discovered some strong parallels between b2b marketing and higher education. My role was to give some input from my business point of view and based on the experience I had with social media in b2b marketing.
It’s all about content – How to facilitate access to information
The short version of my input: It’s all about content and how we can facilitate access to information. In b2b marketing companies had – and still have – to learn that not only they compete on products and services but with the rise of search engines and social media the challenge already becomes who will actually consume their content. Since we are flooded by information we became very picky about the content we are willing to read, view or hear. Companies had to learn to design their content in a way that meets the preferences of potential buyers at all different stages in their decision making process. They had to learn to pay attention to the actions and reactions of their contacts and to trigger the right marketing and sales activities at the right time. Simply put, they had to learn to be fully focused on their target groups and markets.
And the same is true when it comes to higher education. In the opening session Wolfgang Kanera from the BMZ said that the number of internet users in developing countries magnified by 10 times in the past 10 years, in some countries even by 100. Unfortunately the number of students has not. In b2b marketing we would say that there is a problem with the conversion rates. How can we convert more people to sign up to universities? I wished there was an easy answer to it but reality is that it’s a long process. We have to use the potential of the internet to facilitate this process and social media is a key factor in the whole game because this is where we find the right audience. This is where we find those young people who can educate themselves and find access to higher education if the content is designed in an interactive and interesting way and matches their preferences and style.
Of course, the internet and social media will not solve the problems in developing countries. Sometimes they might even cause more trouble then do good. But we are at the beginning of a journey that has started only a few years back and it’s up to us to shape the future. This is the great potential of social media as it gives the younger generation a platform to participate.
So what was the true value of this conference? To me it was the fact that I was invited to give some input but I left the conference with many new learnings for myself and met so many interesting people from all over the world with completely different backgrounds and experience. I also love the fact that our political institutions like the BMZ organise events of this kind and I can tell that this was an extremly well organised conference (thanks again to all the great folks from GIZ and BMZ!). Keep up the good work and hope to see you next year again!
If you want learn more about the “Social Media meets Development” conference, please click here:
[url=http://www.socialmedia-development.com/index.php][/url]
First I wasn’t sure how I could fit into this scenrio given my background and experience but then I started to dig into the topic and discovered some strong parallels between b2b marketing and higher education. My role was to give some input from my business point of view and based on the experience I had with social media in b2b marketing.
It’s all about content – How to facilitate access to information
The short version of my input: It’s all about content and how we can facilitate access to information. In b2b marketing companies had – and still have – to learn that not only they compete on products and services but with the rise of search engines and social media the challenge already becomes who will actually consume their content. Since we are flooded by information we became very picky about the content we are willing to read, view or hear. Companies had to learn to design their content in a way that meets the preferences of potential buyers at all different stages in their decision making process. They had to learn to pay attention to the actions and reactions of their contacts and to trigger the right marketing and sales activities at the right time. Simply put, they had to learn to be fully focused on their target groups and markets.
And the same is true when it comes to higher education. In the opening session Wolfgang Kanera from the BMZ said that the number of internet users in developing countries magnified by 10 times in the past 10 years, in some countries even by 100. Unfortunately the number of students has not. In b2b marketing we would say that there is a problem with the conversion rates. How can we convert more people to sign up to universities? I wished there was an easy answer to it but reality is that it’s a long process. We have to use the potential of the internet to facilitate this process and social media is a key factor in the whole game because this is where we find the right audience. This is where we find those young people who can educate themselves and find access to higher education if the content is designed in an interactive and interesting way and matches their preferences and style.
Of course, the internet and social media will not solve the problems in developing countries. Sometimes they might even cause more trouble then do good. But we are at the beginning of a journey that has started only a few years back and it’s up to us to shape the future. This is the great potential of social media as it gives the younger generation a platform to participate.
So what was the true value of this conference? To me it was the fact that I was invited to give some input but I left the conference with many new learnings for myself and met so many interesting people from all over the world with completely different backgrounds and experience. I also love the fact that our political institutions like the BMZ organise events of this kind and I can tell that this was an extremly well organised conference (thanks again to all the great folks from GIZ and BMZ!). Keep up the good work and hope to see you next year again!
If you want learn more about the “Social Media meets Development” conference, please click here:
[url=http://www.socialmedia-development.com/index.php][/url]