We are asking buyers from different organizations (Big brands, Non-profits, Government Agencies, Start-ups, Small Businesses) from around the Globe what are the most important things they consider when buying "social media" from technology vendors and services providers.

Below are open-ended questions for us to gather initial feedback from everyone.

Once we have contributions, we will migrate a lot of the learnings into the defined questions survey.

We will then send out the survey to corporate buyers to gather results which we will unveil at Web 2.0 Expo.

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OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS: 

What are the areas of focus for your social media activities?

Conversations with customers, support, pr, marketing, buying ads on social media sites (blogs, soc nets), product development / innovation / refinement, listening, reputation management, crisis management, employee ambassador programs, digital media production and distribution, social network presence/marketing, SEO, SMO, RSS, commenting / responding?

- Expand here:

As part of selling a social media program internally, what do you need/envision needing?

- Business strategy on why should you consider social media?

- Target audience definition and understand how much social media they "consume"?

- Case studies on social media?

- ROI of social media?

- Articles/research reports?

- Live examples of presence in social networks?

- Social media plans from other companies?

What has been/you think will be the strategic issues/challenges in developing a social media strategy WITHIN your organization?

- Strategy?

- Finding the right blog/community platform?

- Finding the right social media monitoring tools?

- Finding internal or external content creators?

- Finding/training community managers?

- Finding/training internal/external Evangelists?

- Training of internal staff on social media?

- Graphic designer?

- Legal approval

What has been/you think will be the tactical issues/challenges in developing a social media strategy WITHIN your organization?

What has been/you think will be the strategic issues/challenges in developing a social media strategy OUTSIDE of your organization?

What are the top 3 things to consider when buying social media?

• Any specific issues for government buyers?
• Any specific issues for non profit buyers?

What are the 3 questions should buyers ask of OUTSIDE social media technology providers or solutions providers?

How has the global economic crisis affected your social media budget/strategy?

Are your social media tactics global or localized to specific regions? If localized, which regions and why?