How Digital Solutions Like the Metaverse Transform The B2B Industry
Virtual reality has a lot of applications that range across industries. More than a gaming device, it allows for training in dangerous situations like flying, surgery, and engineering, and is boosting the tourism industry with its ability to allow people to journey anywhere in the world with a headset. But its abilities have barely been tapped into.
The biggest pioneer for the virtual landscape is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose Metaverse project has been getting a lot of coverage lately. The Metaverse is a platform within the virtual reality space much the same way Facebook is a platform on the internet and can open up a lot of possibilities for the B2B industry.
We’re looking at the applications the Metaverse and virtual reality as a whole could have on the B2B industry and what effect they could have. Read on to find out how the Metaverse can affect employee engagement, marketing and industry events.
It could improve employee engagement.
Virtual reality has a lot of applications, but little has been done to look into how employees might react to it. Zuckerberg seems to think we can host meetings in virtual rooms on the Metaverse, but that’s just the start.
Employee engagement has been the subject of hot debate and innovation for the last few years as office culture has shifted dramatically since remote work has become favoured. Businesses have sought to adopt new practices and policies to create a healthier and more engaged environment for their employees to work in.
For instance, the Incentive Smart employee engagement service is built around rewards and recognition, highlighting the successes of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks by hitting performance markers or getting nominated by a colleague or boss.
The Metaverse, naturally, due to its new area in which to operate and work, would create a different environment to work in. It’s entirely possible that a business can host team-building events, create a less hierarchically-emphasised workflow and communication structure, and allow individuals and team to operate in their own space.
The goal of improving engagement is that it creates not only a healthier business environment but healthier employees too.
It opens new areas for marketing.
There is a whole new wealth of opportunities opening up with the integration of the Metaverse. A lot of them are already established techniques on the internet and in the real world and some of them haven’t even been imagined yet.
Virtual reality will allow businesses and consumers to traverse the new and many landscapes of the Metaverse. A lot of marketing techniques used in traditional marketing can now be applied to virtual marketing, like billboards, mid-roll ads on content, banners, and sponsored clothes.
And with the algorithm personalising spaces to fit the individual, B2B businesses can be targeted with the marketing techniques, whereas in the real world, B2B marketing stays away from ideas like billboards due to its irrelevance to most of its everyday viewers.
And that’s all before getting into the already established means of marketing on the internet. Affiliate marketing can have its place as influencers migrate to virtual worlds, and there is even talk of virtual influencers. Some are cartoonish and obviously a mask for a person, others are photorealistic and could be controlled by a business’ marketing team.
It will allow for global B2B events.
Industry events are already going somewhat virtual, with hybrid events that are streamed to video calling peers around the world. Speeches are streamed to watchers, peers can schedule chats, and workshops can be held.
However, this is somewhat limiting. It’s a lot more forward to ask to schedule a chat with a busy potential mentor, rather than casually introducing yourself. It’s a lot more technical, therefore things can go wrong. And a lot of workshops thrive off of in-person interaction.
This could be a lot easier in the Metaverse where people can freely walk around and explore the space. Not only would it be easier, but far more engaging and interactive.
You could attract many people from around the world to an event where you can network as though you were in any other industry event.
