What we have here is a failure to analyze

There’s one word that can simultaneously strike fear in the hearts of business owners while making communications gurus light up like a Christmas tree: analytics. This new digital world we live in has brought with it a boat load of data and where there’s data there’s the need for data analysis and market awareness. Now, sales data is typically pretty straightforward: We made X number of sales and brought in Y number of dollars. But what about marketing data analysis? Ah, that’s the one that makes people run and hide. Why? Because it’s never black and white. Are Likes the same thing as Follows? Is it something we can monetize? How much does reach matter? Do we even know what we’re doing?

I read a very interesting report yesterday by the Columbia Business School called “Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data.” It was all about measuring marketing ROI. Some of the stats in there were mind boggling and all in the wrong ways. For one thing, it seems that companies are playing a budgeting crapshoot:

“…but many managers aren’t measuring marketing ROI either consistently or effectively.
Only 43% of organizations are establishing their marketing budgets based on marketing ROI
analysis. By contrast, 68% base their marketing budgets in part on “historical spending,”
and 28% on “gut instincts.” When it comes to specific marketing spending decisions, 21%
are using financial metrics for little or none of those specific decisions, and 7% are making
all or most of those spending decisions with no metrics at all.”

Even worse, the people who are in charge think they know what they’re doing while those down in the trenches are shaking their heads:

“Satisfaction depends on your viewpoint: 54% of CMO’s are satisfied with their ability
to measure marketing ROI, but only 43% of those below the vice president level are satisfied –
perhaps because they are closer to the problem of determining how to most effectively
measure marketing ROI.”

The final stake in the heart was this one:

“In place of marketing ROI, many traditional measures are used. 37% of the respondents claimed that they used brand awareness as a universal metric to make marketing decisions. More troubling, of those using brand awareness, more than 60% said it was their only marketing ROI measure.”

Where do I begin?!

Get your ducks in a row

Well, let’s begin with KPIs. I’m going to go out on a limb and say people who say social media can’t be measured probably don’t have a good understanding of organizational KPIs and how to develop them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, everything can be measured. The key to understanding KPIs, though, is that you can’t use someone else’s KPIs. You need to understand where you want to go as an organization and how each piece of your marketing scheme fits into that. You can’t track Likes on Facebook because Joe Schmidt at URCompetitor does. First you have to ask yourself: “What are we trying to do with each of these pieces?” Brand awareness? Driving traffic back to the website? Conversion rates on offers? Those are what you need to determine first and then you use the analytics to back it up.

I’ve got all this data but it doesn’t amount to any ROI

Are you sure about that? Here’s where I might blow some minds. To me, there are two types of ROI: tangible and intangible. Both are vitally important. Tangible ROI is, of course, money. You had X number of hard leads, Y number of sales, Z number of people coming to your site and making a purchase. But then there are the intangible. Do visits alone make you money? Perhaps you don’t see the dollar signs in your account but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get a ROI. Content consumption is a good example of an intangible ROI. You didn’t get a lead this month from social media but you improved your reputation. You personally reached out to 80% of the posters on your Twitter account. You have more mentions this month than last month and 95% of those are positive. Can your competitors say that? No, that doesn’t bring in direct dollars but your good reputation eventually will.

Dashboards are your friends

The beauty of business analytics these days is that you aren’t limited to spreadsheets and simple charts. I wonder if some of the resistance to truly analyzing all that data comes from the inability to get it into a format that’s easy for people to look at. I do a dashboard for a client every month that pulls analytics from at least 4 sources. The set up of the dashboard itself was indeed complicated but the hardest part was learning how to write the formulas. Thankfully, there are tons of resources out there so that shouldn’t stop you.

This dashboard is effective because we can look at all of this data and easily understand it. There’s no scrolling through hundreds of data points trying to find the one you need and compare it against the past. We simply pick a month and the dashboard dynamically changes to show us all the data for that month. I did another dashboard that was far more complex looks wise but, again, it allowed us to pull data from multiple sources into one place that was easy for the non technical people to understand. You could show and hide multiple data sets. You could customize the data to show exactly what you were looking for. The important thing to note is that neither of these dashboards shows sales data. It is all marketing/communication data that gives the clients insight into how users are consuming their communications.

As I said, the set up times for these can be intense but it’s worth it in the end. If you think it isn’t then just listen for that voice of your superior asking you to explain all the mumbo jumbo numbers in your 12 sheet workbook. It’s worth it.

Learn to love analytics

The bottom line is if you’re concerned about ROI you need to get friendly with analytics. They aren’t your enemy. Analytics are like the force in Star Wars. They’re in the sales, the leads, the blogs, the likes, the traffic, and the comments. They’re in everything and they ALL have an effect on your ROI. Please do yourself a favor and don’t rely on your “gut instinct” because that will just give you an ulcer. Also do yourself a favor and read “Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data.” It’s an eye opening report and well worth the read.

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You can’t be a thought leader on Twitter. Discuss without getting verklempt.

Remember that hilarious skit called “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman” on SNL? You know, the one with Mike Meyers dressed up like a lady with a giant Brooklyn accent and even bigger hair? I loved that skit and one of my favorite parts was how he would give people a ridiculous topic to talk about and then say “Discuss!” So what does this have to do with social media? Well, recently a report by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that corporate blogging among Inc. 500 companies has decreased while Twitter and Facebook use has increased. Now, it’s great that companies are embracing these new social media outlets but are they missing out by focusing on micro-blogging as opposed to actual blogging? My vote is “yes” because it’s the business equivalent of companies throwing out ideas and saying “Discuss!” ala our friend Ms. Richman.

Frank Reed, managing editor of Marketing Pilgrim, wrote an article in response to the report that I happen to agree wholeheartedly with. Frank’s opinion is basically that companies who are just doing Twitter and Facebook while ignoring the power of corporate blogging are taking the easy road out. As someone who blogs in my personal time, I can attest to the fact that blogging takes time, lots and lots of time. It’s not like Twitter. You can’t be Linda Richman and throw out a topic and hope people have a valuable conversation about you just because you gave them something to retweet. You have to think about what topic you want to write about, do your research, and then sit down and write it. Then, of course, you have to edit it, proof it, edit it some more, change the title three times, and then post it. That may seem overwhelming to most companies both in the effort needed to compose a blog and the money spent while that person is blogging. Twitter and Facebook are cheap and cost effective making them very popular in a tough economy. In ten seconds you can tweet a quip out to all of your followers and then tell all your corporate buddies you’re a social media mogul. However, what happens when they try to find out more about you? If all you have to show for your communication efforts are one sentence Facebook status updates and a hundred tweets about how you’re a leader in your industry they’re going to sniff out the shallow facade from a thousand yards away.

Yes, blogging is time consuming. Yes, it might open you up to people disagreeing with you. But, in the end, is that a bad thing? Is it bad to defend your stance? Is it bad to show you are so much more than a status update or a tweet? The idea of being cheap and cost effective works great when you’re trying to justify the business cost of mass producing, say, toys for a kid’s meal. But you can’t apply that same thinking to representing your brand’s leadership. Do you really want your leadership to seem cheap and cost effective? Gaining the trust of clients isn’t about efficiency. In the end, they don’t care just about the fact that you know 5 different programs and have X number of other clients. That information might be a hook to get them interested but it’s not going to keep them around. They want to know that you really and truly know what you’re doing. Can you prove that in 144 characters? Probably not.

This post was dedicated to Barbara.

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Communities.cisco.com Reaps Rewards of Sound Strategy

Success in the B2B online community space seems to come from just the opposite of what many companies actually put into it: planning , teamwork and transparency. That’s right. Some companies we talk to or observe online still aren’t grasping the concept that communities need a dedicated team and strategy to thrive.

Communities.cisco.com, on the other hand, gets it. A platform that contains more than 50 communities for Cisco’s partners, customers and employees, communities.cisco.com, also known as Cisco Communities, has almost doubled its membership and has seen a 50% increase in overall traffic in the last year. Additionally, Cisco continues to see measurable savings and efficiencies as a result of the program. Allison Johnson, Social Media and Community Manager at Cisco, who has worked with Cisco for 5 years and communities.cisco.com for the past year and a half, discusses the ingredients that make up Cisco’s recipe for success and the challenges of managing a successful global community platform.

Q: What is your role at communities.cisco.com?

A:  At Cisco I manage the communities.cisco.com platform in addition to driving social media and digital marketing across the company.

When working on the communities platform I oversee the entire program at a macro level. My team and I work on everything from identifying technical problems and scheduling the bug fixes as well as onboarding new teams and setting up the overall program structure. We work closely with the community managers to help them reach their individual goals as well as goals we have for the program.

Sometimes we joke around that in my role I’m essentially a community manager of community managers. Every day is different and I never know what hat or situation I’ll find myself in. A main focus for us is our long-term strategy. People forget that communities are a long-term commitment and it’s essential to align your long-term plan with corporate strategies and initiatives. At the end of the day, the most important thing I can do is give the community managers the tools they need to be successful.

Q: What’s your vision for communities.cisco.com and its business purpose?

A: We set both short-term and long-terms goals for the program. Our 5-year vision is to sustain and create a global community program that deepens relationships with partners, customers and employees. Getting there involves building out some of our core areas to make them more engaging and relevant. We’re in the process of a study to learn more about behaviors. Currently we added a social share functionality to the platform to encourage conversations that are happening in the social web to interact and share with our communities.

Q: Tell us about some of the success you’ve seen as you’ve worked toward that vision.

A: This past year we saw tremendous growth in registrations (more than 50% to more than 110,000). Overall that is one of our largest success metrics. Monthly, we capture metrics and do analysis on our platform. This past year we’ve seen a lot of growth. Ways we hope to continue this growth are building out case studies and best practice sharing modules from these growth spikes.

A more specific example can be seen in our Partner Community. This private space was built for our Cisco partners and we have seen it contribute to reducing travel and increasing the productivity of Cisco experts. These experts travel most of the time and have little time for face-to face interactions with our partners. Now these experts broadcast training sessions for partners on communities, which achieves the goal of deepening relationships with our partners.

The common theme here is that the Web 2.0 technology that communities use can positively impact the business by encouraging innovation, reducing travel costs, opening communication and open up resources. Another way we’re positively impacting the business is that we are capturing and sharing frequently asked questions and conversations within the community. We have a wider reach and we’re able to answer more than one person’s question online. If someone else has the same question it’s all right there with a paper trail.  Communities.cisco.com have proven to be a very transparent, authentic way to communicate so more than one person is able to benefit.

Q: Those are impressive results. What are some recent milestones you’ve reached in terms of overall traffic and membership?

A: Our membership a year ago was at about 74K. We are now at about 113K. In 2011, we saw more than a  50% increase in overall membership and traffic. And, we’re also happy about the response time we’re seeing. Support questions usually get at least one or multiple responses within 24 hours.

Q: What are a few best practices you can outline that have helped achieve these results?

A: Open and frequent communications are a must when you are working with a group this large. We have an open bi-weekly Community Manager meeting to serve as a communication platform as well as a best practice share and overall time to update one another on the various projects we have in the works. We set the agenda in advance and we have an area in our own Community Managers Community, completely dedicated to presentations delivered and communications relayed in these meetings. We encourage CMs to bring up topics they want to cover as well as set the agenda for future facing meetings. Not limiting ourselves, we also bring in our external networks.  I think it’s really valuable that we’re always willing to learn from internal and experts about how to best manage the platform.

Additionally, every community has an established and committed community manager. You must always have one point of contact for each space. This way that person can drive communications about the community and content within their space. It is also imperative that they manage the editorial calendar. This is another best practice.

Overall the CM will coordinate with campaigns in different parts of the organization to drive awareness. Some may also work with hired moderators to make sure questions are escalated to appropriate subject matter experts. They should be focused on the communities health.

Q: What is the biggest challenge ahead of you?

A: I’d say it is taking the platform to next level. As I mentioned before we recently added social share into the platform, but what else is out there? It will be a challenge making communities an easy go-to Web 2.0 tool. There are so many different ways we communicate day-to-day whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, e-mail or text messaging. It’s hard to make sure there’s one central place to go to. From a platform perspective, technology and communities will continue to evolve and it’s my job to monitor this space and help drive what will make communities a better platform and program, without losing sight of our goals.

 - Lauren Bittner, the author of this blog, is Senior Director of Client Services at Impact Interactions and has 10 years of experience with helping companies align their online community management efforts with their business goals.

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Executive Use of Social Media – A Collection of Research (Part 2)

In part one of the presentation, we focused on looking at the research that has come out during 2011 about social media for B2B companies and how you can use that research to understand how to use social media in your organization to solve your pain points. In part two, we’re going to look at several companies who are doing just that. Through published case studies and an example from Impact Interactions itself, we’ll see how you can utilize social media in a manner which generates real economic value to your firm. So let’s get started.

As always, should you have any questions or would like to comment, please do so below in the comments section.

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Pro-Active Social Media: Taking Audience Engagement to the Next Level

While doing some research on how companies are incorporating social media into their communications, I came across two intriguing articles that really got me thinking about how far the social media industry could go and whether it should go there. The first article, When Customer Service is a Twitter Response, was actually written in response to the Hotels Magazine article, A Day in the Life of the Digitized Hotel(registration required to read). The Hotels Magazine article was a proposed day of interaction between a hotel and their guest completely driven by social media. First, the guest gets off the plane and complains on Twitter that the taxi line is long to which to hotel quickly responds asking if they would like the hotel to contact a car service for them. In a second exchange, the guest is sent a message on their hotel provided iPad recommending a massage because the guest had mentioned in a tweet that they were considering having one after a long day. Finally, when the guest returns home and mentions the hotel in their tweet the hotel again responds this time thanking the guest and giving them a code for a complimentary upgrade on their next stay.

The idea of taking social media to this level was fascinating even though the “big brother” aspect was admittedly a little creepy. The comments I read in the Economist article were mostly against this kind of heavy social media driven interaction. Many of the comments lamented the loss of human interaction in our society while others were somewhat unsettled by the thought of companies knowing that much about where they were and what they were doing. One commenter actually recounted how he stayed at a hotel only to find out that the hotel (and many others) had actually removed the in-room phones because they assumed that all their guests had cell phones and it was just costing them money to keep them in the rooms.

Taking it to the extreme that the fictional hotel did does smack of something from Minority Report but I’m still left asking myself why shouldn’t companies engage their audience (or event heir business partners) in this way just on a smaller scale? I don’t know that I lament the use of social media by companies to pro-actively engage their customers. If my options for communication are calling a company and being put on hold for an undetermined amount of time or making a request online which can instantly be dealt with, I know which one I’m picking.

I recently helped put together a presentation on examples of companies successfully implementing social media into their business plan. One of the stand outs was TATA Docomo, a telecom provider in India. Rather than operating like most corporations who expect the masses to come to them, TATA Docomo realized that the only way they were going to make inroads in the tough Indian telecom market was to go to the people. They now skillfully leverage both Twitter and Facebook as their main means of communicating with their customers for both customer service issues as well as informing them of new offerings. This has lead to huge customer loyalty despite the lack of a “physical” connection.

The generations that are coming of age now are doing it in a time of amazing digital advancements. I’m old enough to remember the days before the internet was a daily part of life but young enough to be in the generation of adults who are keen to absorb any new digital gadget that comes onto the market. Businesses need to realize this fact and capitalize on it. Don’t be afraid of using social media for these kinds of communications. Companies that start a Facebook page only to tell all the people who ask for help that they need to contact the customer service number are going to be sorely disappointed by their “community” building efforts. That’s because they aren’t engaging people in the places where they actually want to be engaged. The example of TATA Docomo is one that companies should look to as the way forward. TATA has engaged their communities consistently on the formats they know are the most popular. What did it get them? It took them from the bottom of the Indian telecom barrel to the top of the mountain. They were the 9th telecom company to enter the Indian market and faced competitors who had been there for years but in a very short time they were the top. Why? It worked because they embraced what social media could do for them.

Ignoring the changing communication landscape is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand. The world is changing around us, why not change with it? Our two part blog series on this very topic titled Executive Use of Social Media discusses the importance of this changing landscape and highlights the success several major companies have had in implementing social media into their business operations. Part One is already posted so be sure to check back and watch Part Two.

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Consumer Focused Social Media: Are We Building a Brand or Simply Throwing Money Away?

If your social media strategy is all about coupons and discounts for your company, you’re not really getting the point of social media from a business perspective. Sounds a bit arrogant right? Well, let me explain what we’ve seen over the past several weeks as we analyzed a segment of the retail space…

Company A (Large U.S. Based firm in the Womens’ Apparel category) – Analyzed 400 tweets, 293 were related to promotions for a 10% coupon. Analyzed 125 wall posts, 96 were related to the same promotion.

Company B (Large U.S. Based firm in the Sportwear category) – Analyzed 200 tweets, 127 were related to a BOGO (buy one get one) offer. Analyzed 63 wall posts, 48 were related to the same offer.

Company C (Large Internations firm in the Apparel category) – Analyzed 320 tweets, 148 were about a buy X amount of merchandise online and get a coupon for 20% off your next purchase. Tweets autoposted to Facebook. (YIKES!)

Is this what social media has become for the B2C market, a platform to push coupons?

What our analysis, limited as it may be, is showing us is that the Retail market is simply building an audience which activates only for a deal. Yes consumers want a deal, but do you as a seller only want your customers to come to your site when you offer a coupon? Doesn’t really seem like brand building does it? While many companies get it right (see Nike for one and Zappos for another), many do not. It’s as if these companies are competing with the Groupons, Living Socials, CouponDeals, etc. of the world rather than focusing upon their customers’ needs and building their brand in the process.

Maybe B2C social media marketers could learn from how B2B companies are using social media to build relationships.

“But Mike, that won’t work. You have to capture the shopper’s attention.”

I’d agree with you on that, it’s how you do it with social media where I differ… Let’s go about this use of social media in a different, more consumer-brand friendly way. Start with your brand. Is this something that you continually want to cheapen by constantly incentivising followers/friends to only care about when they get a discount? More importantly from a business perspective, how does constant couponing impact your margins?

Really successful social media programs understand that there are steps to reach success. First there is audience building, then engagement and activation, which in turn leads to value for the company. Too often companies lead with activation, skipping the audience building and engagement processes that generate loyalty. Audience building is time consuming, but works to give your company an group of followers and fans who actually are interested in your brand and products. (To learn more about why followers and fan counts are not a measure of influence, read this.) Audience building takes compelling content that excites and interests your potential customer. Social Media activities which compliment your existing brand building activities help to build audience. Use your branding messages from Television, in-store promotions, print, etc. to expand your reach to social media viewers.

Engage with your fans and followers. Pay attention to their content. Are they retweeting or tweeting a positive mention for your brand? If so, send them a direct message and thank them. Does a customer want help with store locations? Sure they could go to your site and use your store locator, but why not engage and ask them what city they are near and then give them a list of locations? What about that person who complains about a poor experience? Engage with them by apologizing and offering to have customer service contact them. Post content about your product line, post content about what your company is doing in the communities it operates in, post content about industry news from news sources you trust, and post pictures of people using or wearing your products.

Remember visual ques are just as important as customer reviews. That’s why so many brands pay celebrities to use their products in public. Social Media just allows a larger group to do the same thing. User generated content is a powerful tool to utilize in social media, yet we see very few brands even try to do this without offering a prize or coupon.

And that goes back to the point of this post, by providing incentives as your main content on social media, you are doing a disservice to your brand. From our blog post on incentives, “Remember that it’s EGO that drives the participation of your top members. They crave recognition for their efforts, not trinkets.”

That message holds true today for your best customers… so engage with them, give them an opportunity to shine, then recognize them. Otherwise, you’ve doomed your social media audience to be a zombie group which only activates for a coupon, not because your brand is of interest.

Zombie Image from: http://neighbourhoodzombiewatch.wordpress.com/

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Why Social Media Shouldn’t Be Treated Like a Shiny New Toy

We’ve all seen it happen. A kid begs their parents for the latest and greatest toy because ALL of their friends have it. The toy gets bought, played with in earnest for a week or two, and then is promptly set aside only to collect dust and create clutter. Then one day the child’s parent walks into the room to find something and is totally overwhelmed by the mountain of junk they have to sift through to find what they need. The same can happen to your company’s social media campaign if you aren’t careful.

Too often, companies launch Facebook and Twitter sites before fully understanding why they want them. They don’t know what it does or how to use it but they know their competitors have it and they assume they need it to give them an edge. So, they get their Facebook page going, send out a few Tweets, and make ready for the waves of new fans and maybe even some customers. Except, the fans and customers don’t come. Why? Because the company didn’t think about what they were going to do with their new toy once they got it and now it’s just another waste of money.

Social media has power; a lot of it. But you have to wield that power in the right way. We at Impact Interactions strongly believe in what we call the “Beacon Strategy.” You want to utilize certain tools in ways that will guide new users to your main repository of information (your website), not leave them lost in the sea of digital clutter. Facebook and Twitter can’t replace a robust website full of quality information, nor should it. These are simply tools, lures even, that should be used judiciously. When considering how to use these tools you must first know where you’re going, what you want to achieve, and how you can measure your success. Once you have determined those things then you can go out and make the investment in developing a social media campaign. Always understand the why of your campaign before you think about the how and then make a commitment to nurture the campaign over time rather than letting it sit and get dusty next to the last latest greatest business toy you just had to have.

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Why Blogs Work in B2B – Featured B2B Magazine Article

I was recently interviewed by Jon Vanzile for an article he wrote for B2B Magazine (6/6/11) titled “Is Blogging Over?” along with our client, Jeanette Gibson of Cisco. The article is in response to a New York Times article in February claiming that blogs are losing their marketing power, especially with younger audiences due to the growth in Twitter and Facebook. When we spoke about this, I told Jon that this isn’t the case from our experience in the B2B world. In fact, blogs are a cornerstone for B2B marketers (or should be) who are looking to develop stronger relationships with their customers, prospects, and stakeholders. Here is my quote from the article about why blogs work for B2B marketers:

“When you look at the B2B market, what’s necessary is thought leadership, and you cannot get thought leadership in 140 characters or a Facebook post.”

Think about this for a moment.

We counsel our clients that the main difference between B2B social media and B2C social media is the needs of the audience and the buying cycle timing. For B2C, social media is about building awareness and then trial. B2B is much more complex, it is about building awareness then relationships with the audience. Why? Because in general, the sales cycle for B2B is longer than B2C so more effort and information is necessary to help your prospect move to become a customer.

Blogs can play a big role in this relationship building process by highlighting your company’s thought leadership in the industry. Companies want to buy from companies that will be leading the industry and can demonstrate staying power. By providing executive views of the world to your audience, you help them to understand that your company is a leader and will be there in the long term to help your customers.

Can Twitter or Facebook do the same? No, they cannot. Here is a better way to use these tools in your B2B marketing.

We work with our clients to use B2B social media tools like Twitter, Facebook (yes, it does work in B2B), LinkedIn Groups, and YouTube in their online marketing mix. But we recommend a stronger process of using these tools as a complimentary set of tactical processes that support business objectives. We do that through our “Beacon Strategy.”

Just as a lighthouse helps ships to find safe harbors, the correct use of social media tools can help your audience find the best information you can provide quickly and efficiently on their time. Social media in a B2B setting works best when it works together with blogs and compelling content to educate and help audiences to learn more about your products, services, view of the industry, and support issues. By pointing your social media content on third party sites such as Twitter or LinkedIn Groups back to your controlled website, you have the advantage of measurement while your audience has the advantage of learning more. B2B social media requires measurement. Friends, followers, group members, etc. don’t mean anything until they are engaged in a conversation or contact process with your firm. Why? Because you cannot measure anything of real economic value until the person completes an action. Those actions should take place in your harbor, not somewhere in the vast ocean that is the internet.

Getting back to the article, B2B blogs when clearly written with compelling content are one of the best destinations in your safe harbor for people to learn about your company. In a project we did with SAP back in 2004 and 2005, we saw that one of the best indicators of whether a company was moving towards purchase was their reading of the SAP Executive Blog Series. This was a series of blogs by SAP Board Members and top executives at the time (people like Hasso Plattner, Shai Aggasi, Leo Apotheker, etc.). Why? Simple. Before a company spends thousands of dollars on your products, their executive team wants to know if you are aligned with their interests and if your company is truly customer focused. Blogs help to show this to your audience.

So, are blogs dead? For B2B marketers looking to use relationship marketing, the answer is a resounding NO!

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B2B Social Media Catalyst Series – Customer Success Videos

Welcome to our second session of the B2B Social Media Catalyst Series on Customer Success Videos. As the internet becomes a more proficient source of information for purchasers, the role of online recommendations is growing. This is a commonplace activity in the consumer market where Amazon recommendations drive book sales, comments on TripAdvisor and Expedia drive vacation purchases, and even on Twitter where there is a constant stream of tweets from users recommending their favorite store. Smart business marketers long ago discovered the power of positive comments in online communities. 

Asking for referrals has become much more a part of regular business as members of LinkedIn already understand. For Business-To-Business marketers, that same routine can help build demand generation results by helping to build stronger relationships with the visitors to their web sites.

Too often, references are used in the ending phases of the sales process. Social media allows you to bring these very important assets into play much earlier with your prospective customer, even if you don’t know him or her yet. So with that as an introduction, please view our next video session on building your Customer Success Videos.

 

 

To download this presentation and/or the transcript for the video, please visit our Social Media Resources document library.

If you have questions or comments, please add them below in our comments section. The team at Impact Interactions is ready to help you improve your B2B social media strategy and tactics.

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Welcome to Impact Interactions’ B2B Social Media Catalyst Series

In our new B2B Social Media Catalyst Series, we are going to provide our best practices for developing or enhancing your B2B social media efforts. Too often, we see content on the web that promotes the idea that B2B and B2C social media tactics should be used in the same manner. Based upon our experience with major B2B brands like Cisco, SAP, NetApp, and midsize B2B companies like Micropole, we respectfully disagree with that idea.

The main reason is focused upon the results that marketers are trying to achieve when using social media. Consumer focused efforts usually are attempting to build awareness which leads to trial of the product or service. That’s why couponing and discounts work so well in the space. Think of Dell’s results on Twitter. They gained results by constantly announcing a discount on their products which lead to a sale. Yes, some small businesses bought using this channel, but the majority of customers were individuals seeking out a discount.

Business to Business focused firms have a much different path to success using social media. Their efforts are based upon building awareness to build a relationship that is mutually valuable and sustainable. In most cases, B2B social media efforts are not built for quick transactional results, but rather for a longer term relationship. In our experience, this is why we believe that B2B social media is a complimentary tactic to your relationship selling strategy.

So let’s get started with a quick introduction to the series by learning a bit more about the differences we’ve noticed during our work with our business to business clients and colleagues.

We’d like our B2B Social Media Catalyst Series to be an online roundtable for discussion of these issues. Please feel free to add your comments to this blog entry and the team at Impact Interactions will be happy to discuss our experience and ideas with you. You can download the presentation and transcript in our Social Media Resources library.

Future series sessions will include the building blocks for a successful B2B social media strategy, beginning with content then moving to the 3rd Party application (think Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook) beacon strategy we recommend to our clients, social media monitoring tactics, building stronger conversion and engagement rates, measuring your B2B social media efforts, and a framework for using social media for your lead generation and customer nurturing efforts.

We hope that you’ll join us for the series over the next several weeks and let us know if there are specific topics that you’d like to see us cover in our B2B Social Media Catalyst Series.

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