By Peter Wise
Businesses form online partnerships with other businesses every day. Those businesses may never physically meet and are spatially and temporally displaced. The objectives of the business, in participating in online forum social media communities (OFSMCs) and other social platforms, may be to source suppliers, distributors, expertise, personnel, etc. Much has been published concerning B2B relationships in the offline physical world, but much less about the online virtual world.
For the business practitioner, online presents an opportunity to research seller prospective relationship partners (PRPs) without the other party being aware and without interacting. The practitioner can complete preliminary evaluation, shortlist candidates, and then resolve to interact. The candidate, once aware via contact of their buyer PRP’s interest, is afforded the opportunity to reciprocate in their own due diligence of their suitor, to identify potential synergy, homophily, potential, etc.
Where a mutual spark is detected, the businesses come together, typically virtually and asynchronously, at moments that suit each PRP, to interact and rapidly determine whether ‘marriage’ prospects are recognised. The interaction may be brutal in the absence of F2F social etiquette; time is money, and where there are multiple seller PRP candidates, the faster the evaluation decision, the faster a buyer PRP can move on to the next seller PRP candidate evaluation.
The Study
Analysis was conducted of multiple active UK focussed B2B OFSMCs throughout a 12 month period. The study used netnography, a blended ethnography approach adapted for online research; observations were subsequently discussed with the most active OFSMC practitioners using depth-interviews.
The approach permitted naturalistic observation of B2B relationship development interactions, without disturbance from the researcher. Dialogue was observed and insight gained; this qualitative, inductive, exploratory, research was conducted without preconceived hypotheses.
OFSMCs are populated by a diverse spectrum of practitioners; start-ups to mature businesses, construction to legal, CEOs to product managers. Time resources are invested longitudinally in the development of an archive of contributions typically containing knowledge, advice, commercial war stories, etc.
The contributing practitioner typically acts on behalf of their own business with autonomy or with the ear of decision makers. Practitioners are typically experienced and knowledgeable of the business they represent, recognising commercial opportunities arising, and understanding how to get things done within their organisation. Opportunities are real in OFSMCs; in the rare instance where the practitioner is bullshit-inclined, this is publicly identified and the practitioner duly exposed.
The process of forming a relationship is longitudinal witnessing an archive of contributions and interactions, consciousness from other OFSMC practitioners, successful due diligence, satisfactory interaction, and thereafter formal or informal convention of a roadmap. Where projects are fulfilled successfully and profitably, the relationship matures, with a greater quantity of projects allocated to the relationship. Relationship partners (RPs) increasingly worked together to resolve challenges and share resources, without equivocation.
Status was influential at early stages where multiple suitable seller PRPs were present in the OFSMC. At later stages, the relevance of asymmetry in status became contracted. RPs respected one another having developed relations with personnel at different strata, observed the seller RP in action, understood the internal working of the respective RP, etc. RPs mutually valued one another based upon a history of successful transactions.
The relationship could continue indefinitely, successfully and collectively navigating operational challenges with the product offering cocreated to maintain and grow the relationship. Alternatively, the relationship could conclude harmoniously where business circumstances changed (e.g., retirement or end client ceased trading) or acrimoniously where a RP determined that the respective RP was no longer a worthy RP (e.g., opportunism, unethical activity, illegal activity).
The Reality
Businesses met other business, formed relationships and flourished online, in much the same way as they always have in F2F relationships offline. In the absence of visual and audio cues, RPs honed their asynchronous written skills, carefully crafting text to convey meanings (e.g., knowledge, confidence, clarity, and latency) developing textual analysis of communications received. Spatial and temporal displacement were overcome by communications, addressing operational issues, but with an informal personalised social content – interactions between proven friends.
An indicative timescale for a business entering an OFSMC to achieve consciousness by other practitioners was a maximum of 47 months, which required a significant labour investment in crafting an archive of OFSMC value-added content. From initial contact, the relationship was formalised typically in 1.75 months. Following a further indicative period of 36.75 months of multiple successful and profitable project completions, the RPs had become intertwined, understanding respective businesses intimately. The RPs, regarding each other as valued and trusted colleagues, had developed friendships. It was not inevitable where demand and harmony remained, that the relationship would advance to conclusion / cessation, therefore the timescale was not measured beyond business contentment.
To Summarise
Real B2B partnerships are formed online via OFSMCs, without requirement for traditional F2F etiquette formality. OFSMCs afford access to diverse businesses. The practitioner may engage with other practitioners and experience spontaneous camaraderie and commitment through a common forum membership. The business can be validated in the forum through peer review, interrogated, and approached to form a relationship. B2B partnerships evolve with synergy, homophily, trust, shared knowledge, shared ecosystems, and cocreated products.
Key Points to Takeaway
- Online communication is textual and asynchronous; offline communication is typically verbal and synchronous
- Reliance on text and textual interpretation, versus voice and behavioural communication
- Six distinctive relationship development stages
- Consciousness is gained via the creation of an archive of quality content
- Up to 47 months to become established in the OFSMC
- OFSMCs provide access to naturalistic text for due diligence without interaction
- The online process of qualifying PRPs is abrupt versus offline
- Trust and respect between RPs can be realised, whilst spatially and temporally displaced
- Knowledge sharing, self-disclosure and intimacy online is rapid and candid, in the absence of restrictive social cues
- 36.75 months from formation for the relationship to achieve contentment
- Asymmetric status becomes irrelevant where the end client is fulfilled satisfactorily and profitably on multiple occasions
- The results obtained in the research can be applied to other social media platforms wherein B2B interaction is possible