This week, the Beechwood team went to a Russian restaurant to celebrate Russia’s “Old New Year” (a tradition celebrating New Year according to the Julian calendar).

My colleague Alina used the Internet to search for Russian restaurants in London. Browsing through several social media sites, she read restaurant reviews, looked at photos of restaurants and browsed through menus online, before she chose our venue. The restaurant was in the basement of a London hotel. Off the beaten track, the hotel itself was tricky to find. The restaurant within was even harder to locate, infact, there were no signs to indicate its existence.

Yet, we found ourselve in this busy basement restaurant, where every table was in use. As one of the team commented, “you wouldn’t just stumble upon this place; you would have to know about it”. My point is that the Internet has turned marketing on its head. In their 2008 benchmark survey for technology marketers, Marketing Sherpa found that 93% of those involved in the purchase of technology begin the sales cycle with an online search. Furthermore, 80% of those technology purchasers said that they found the vendor, that’s just 20% who were found by the vendor.

With the explosion of social media in the B2B world, marketers need to identify the online directories, forums and blogs most visited by their target audiences. Contribute to social networks and make sure your business and its solutions are highly visible online…you might not find the buyers, but they will find you.