Social media in B2B marketing

Social media has shown the biggest increase in use among all B2B marketing tactics over the last 3 years so that shows the potential of social networking for B2B marketers. In fact, over 90% of B2B buyers are already using Social Media tools, often to research and execute purchases Objectives in our study will be : WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS IN B2B MARKETING Identifying the level of social media engagement Social media objectives Roadblocks to social media success Measuring social media effectiveness What social media tools to use for what purpose? Most effective social media and communication platforms

Social Media Marketing at a Glance

Here is one example of the more than 30 charts and graphs that tells the social media marketer exactly why social media marketing is a resounding success. You will find-out how social media applies to the various specific stages along the sales funnel, and which platforms are best to use and why.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS IN B2B MARKETING

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is undergoing a sea change. Traditional marketing channels like television, the print media, and outdoor advertising no longer deliver the return on investment they once promised for a simple reason: your customers are spending less than 25% of their time paying attention to these channels. Wondering where all the action is taking place then? Here's a clue:1 - More than 133 million blogs indexed since 2002 - More than 10 million users create 1,500 new "tweets" every second - Facebook user growth for the 35-plus demographic has grown to 12 million users in the first quarter of 2009 Welcome to the world of Social Media. Where conversations, interactions and consumer-generated content get mashed up into a heady mix that's potentially marketing elixir. Remember the days when we heard of new brands and products through either word-of-mouth, press reviews or advertising? Now, take all these, add loads of opportunities for strong customer relationships, and what you have is social media. In fact, over 90% of B2B buyers are already using Social Media tools, often to research and execute purchases. Source: "A2/M2 Three Screen Report," Nielsen/NetRatings Source: Forrester Research. Feb 2009. Social media defies organizational boundaries. And social media is not something you would want your "agency" alone to run, like traditional marketing campaigns. No longer are you bound to "media buys" and agency dictates. You are now

engaging directly with your customer. And far from shying away from or fearing it, you can now leverage it to its maximum potential by understanding what your customers are saying, why they are saying it and how their dialogue could impact your business. Listen to, learn from, measure and engage in their conversations. Grasp their context and mindset, relevance and sentiment, and you will be able to gauge your customer's passion in a new and multi-dimensional way. If that alone doesn't enthuse you enough to buy in to using social media, there are some very pertinent reasons why social media can play a very major role for B2B marketing in particular. 1. B2B relationships and transactions are typically high-touch and are mainly established through direct interfacing with customers and relationship building. With social media, you can interact with prospects and customers using an array of touch points. The two-way, typically synchronous real-time nature of these tools lend a highly personal dimension to the relationship. And, unlike traditional B2C marketing channels (ads, campaigns, etc.), socialmedia allows more people in your organisation to engage and build relationships withcustomers and prospects, thereby multiplying the high touch effect. 2. The B2B market is far smaller than the B2C market. This fact alone impels expanding your reach to identify new leads. Social media is well-placed to do just that. Just monitoring online conversations alone can help you glean changing trends and needs and pick out emerging opportunities a mile way before your competitors do. This could then fuel new offerings and new revenue channels. With the expanded reach you also get to identify companies with which to establish-revenue generating partnerships. 3 The remarkable thing about the B2B arena is how people in it actively network online to share knowledge and build their network of industry contacts. Using social media, they can now build professional communities online to share insights and solve problems, and leverage upon these interactions to build brand, reputation and prospects. 4. B2B buyers rely heavily on third-party feedback in making purchase decisions. They wouldalso like to be part of the product or solution development process. They are also likely totrust the opinions of colleagues using the products far more than that of the

company sellingthose very products. Social media channels are great avenues for providing objective, thirdparty experiences and feedback, reduces buyer-side risk for big-ticket B2B purchases. 5. Social media engagements are a good platform to consistently demonstrate thought leadership. Thought leadership is fast emerging as a must-have in B2B marketing to have real impact, lead and stand out. It helps strengthen your market positioning, enhance your perceived value to clients, build trust and loyalty, and generate more business overall.Thought leaders can also expect greater recognition, demand and reach in the market.2 And what exactly is thought leadership? When you help people frame the way they think about key issues or guide them to smarter decisions, by presenting insightful, compelling and often provocative perspectives, that's when you are likely to be acknowledged as a thought leader - the "go to" business (or person) for a particular interest area. 6. Social media is cost-effective. Some would say, the most cost-effective ever. That is not to say it's free. It does require investment of budget, professional resources, and most crucially, time. But all these combined is nowhere close to the cost associated with other media. In tight economic times like these, it's social media that can be utilized most effectively to gain competitive advantage. And as the cost of sales acquired through social media is significantly lower, ROI and profit margins can increase. 7. B2B offerings tend to be complex and B2B purchase decisions are not by any stretch impulsedriven or low-risk. Sales cycles are long and buyers will spend a lot of time on upfront research.

So why not be a part of that process? Social media offers unprecedented and abundant avenues for knowledge sharing that can help educate prospects and facilitate faster sales cycles. You get to communicate information and answer buyer questions about your offerings more quickly. By providing this almost real-time, two-way communications, you not only inform, but also build trust and credibility that can work to increase sales in shorter periods. Furthermore, in lessening the confusion around your offerings, the information exchanged and relationships built through these conversational media can help position you as a trusted advisor and decrease the concerns associated with high learning curves. In turn, these could help increase purchase rates of your products, services and offerings. Source: "Building the B2B Business Case for Social Media" by Christina Kerley Source: Britton Manasco. (2009, December 21). Want to Build Trust? Want to be a Market Leader? Be a Thought Leader Source: Mike Schultz and John Doerr.Professional Services Marketing. 1999. Wiley.

Identifying the level of social media engagement

According to the WebMarketing123 survey, the broad majority of B2B and B2C companies are investing in social. Though consumer-facing companies lead the way in terms of full engagement with social marketing (with 70 percent saying theyre moderately to highly engaged), the company says B2B brands are catcing up, with 63 percent claiming theyre at similar engagement levels. Moreover, nearly one in 10 B2B respondents said social marketing is now fully integrated into company marketing plans, and 41 percent will invest more in social marketing in 2013. Nearly half of B2B businesses win leads through LinkedIn marketing (44 percent), and 23 percent say the platform generates sales. Facebook often regarded as key to consumerfacing marketing, but not a fit for B2B isnt far behind as a money maker. Thirty-nine percent of B2B respondents see Facebook leads, and nearly one in five close sales off of Facebook fans (19 percent). Twitter also proved a strong platform for B2B brands, while

Google+ and Pinterest trailed behind (and these two networks also had the weakest performance for B2C companies). Other data suggest that 40 percent of businesses see sales from social media. This makes sense given the fact that business decision makers are increasingly using social platforms. A UK study found that B2B buyers consult social sites for shopping insights even the ones they dont explicitly use for work, but incorporate into their daily lives (like Facebook).

16 percent of business decision makers consult Facebook while researching products 14 percent check out LinkedIn when making purchase decisions 11 percent turn to Twitter for business shopping insights

There are plenty of opportunities to win fans and followers who convert through building a social presence.

BtoBonline reports that B2B marketers are making their presence felt on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Each of these platforms has specific advantages over the others and you may want to use a combination of these for your social media campaign. Twitter provides you with an avenue to engage and interact with your consumers, both starting and joining conversations, by routinely providing information, updates and even discounts to the follower base. BtoBonline further reports that the use of viral video, through sites such as YouTube, is being primarily used for customer/demand generation (58%) and the building and management of the brand (35%). The primary objectives for blogs on the other hand are customer retention (33%) followed closely by brand building/ management (29%) and customer demand/generation (25%).

Social Media Objectives

Some possible social media objectives To help with the social media brainstorming process, here are ten of the objectives companies typically focus on when they get serious about social media strategy. They are numbered for convenience, but in no particular order of priority. 1. Build brand awareness 2. Generate leads 3. Increase sales 4. Establish thought leadership 5. Build relationships with customers 6. Engage customers as brand evangelists 7. Get customer input for product and/or service improvement 8. Improve internal communication 9. Staff recruitment and retention 10. Improve departmental and/or company-wide collaboration

Source : B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.

Roadblocks to Social Media Success(Source : smedio.com)

In this post, I talk about the 7 most common roadblocks to successful social media campaigns and how your business can avoid these. 1. Free I meet several clients who want to run social media campaigns because its free. This is a common misperception and a perfect recipe for disaster for your social media campaigns.

Before you start a campaign, make sure to account for the manpower costs as well as the recurring technology costs associated with your social media campaign. Devise a sound social media strategy, define your expenditure limits and track it on a periodic basis 2. Pitch Social media or not, a pushy campaign always ends up as a disaster. Whether its your Facebook page or your Twitter feed, mind the pitch of your campaign. In fact, this is one of the biggest mistakes companies make being too self-promotional in their posts to fans and followers. Keep your self-promotion within limits. Be mindful that self-serving posts drive your audience away, so make sure you follow a suitable pitch to keep your audience interested with valuable and useful content. 3. Content If a social media campaign lacks original content, its not worth the time and effort spent. If you are simply copying your competitors, such campaigns will do no good to your business cause. While I agree that producing original campaign content isnt the easiest thing in the world, you need to follow the golden rule that content is king and base your social media campaign around original content. 4. Time Are social media campaigns quicker than traditional methods in terms out of outreach Id say yes! Do they drastically reduce the amount of human time needed Id strongly say NO! In fact, Im amazed that a lot of businesses simply resort to social media campaigns as they consider it as an excuse to save time. I dont think thats the case like a traditional campaign you still need to create content, interact with customers and measure the ROI in a social media campaign. Like its traditional counterparts, social media campaigns need time and perseverance the results will follow. 5. Interactivity As in any campaign, customer interaction is a key part of social media campaigns. The idea is to get customers interested, answer their questions and adopt a caring and proactive approach to ensure sustained customer interest in your social media campaigns. Ive often seen Facebook campaigns falter when theyve adopted a lax approach to responding to customer queries. If people do not get answers that theyre looking for, theyll gradually lose interest in your social media campaigns. 6. Management

Lack of management support is commonly perceived to be one of the most common roadblocks to launching social media campaigns. Senior management is often interested only in how the campaigns will impact their bottom line. The idea is to lay down a concrete plan for your social media campaigns and how the ROI would be measured. 7. ROI Last but not the least, its crucial to be able to measure the ROI of any social media campaign. If you fail to do so, the campaign wasnt worth the effort. Though most businesses treat the number of followers and mentions on social media platforms as a ROI metric, it can often be misleading. The idea is to know how many people is your social media campaign reaching and how many of the prospects are actually being converted into customers. Any business must be prepared to face the roadblocks outlined above in order to launch a successful social media campaign. Have you experienced any other roadblocks to adoption of social media campaigns? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.

Source : B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.

Measuring Social Media Effectiveness

(Source : 2011 Social Marketing Survey) Social media is still fairly new and B2B marketers are still experimenting trying to figure out what works and what doesnt. Once best practices emerge, metrics to measure the effectiveness will be more defined as well. Many B2B marketers are using basic metrics around social media activity (number of posts, tweets, and visits), followership (number of fans, followers, members,) and engagement (re-tweets, comments, downloads) are equally popular with 35 percent of B2B marketers. Measuring leads Social media can be a great tool for lead generation if you measure them. A lead can be a customer filling out a contact form, requesting a demo, visiting your online store, or just accessing your contact information. The best way to measure those leads is once again with a tool like Google Analytics and creating goals; if you have a marketing team, they will be the one responsible for goals. You can refer to our post on measuring your websites ROI to know more about setting up goals. To isolate the leads coming from social media, you can either use URL tagging, or you can also create custom segments comprised off all the social media sites you use. Both of these methods will allow you to see the leads generated only by your social media efforts. Tagging takes more time but it also more precise if you want to see results according to different campaigns. Dont forget to give your lead a dollar value to know if the time and labor you spend on the leads you are receiving offset social media. Measuring sales Measuring sales works the same way as measuring leads. For some types of business where sales volume is relatively low, measuring lead proves more accurate. However if you have a high sales volume, measuring sales made through your social media campaigns is the ultimate way to know if your efforts are really paying out. The number of fan/followers/friends The numbers of followers/fans/friends that you have is not an accurate way of calculating ROI. Some fans can be passive and completely overlook your marketing efforts, while others will be very responsive.

Source : B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.

What social media tools do you use for what purpose?

Here are the top selections by category: Listening to social conversations: TweetDeck, Google Analytics, Radian6, and Social Mention. Managing conversations: TweetDeck, HootSuite, Publishing content: Bitly, TweetDeck, HootSuite Managing leads: Eloqua, Marketo Measuring results: Google Analytics, Bitly, Eloqua

Source : B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.

Most Effective Social Media and Communication Platforms

Embracing social media is key for small businesses hoping to strengthen their customer relationships in an engaging way. But with so many social media platforms across the web, its can be overwhelming to maintain a presence on each. A better alternative is to be active on those sites that can help your business most, but how do you know which one is best for your business? We break it down for you here. Facebook

On Facebook you create a business page where you can post updates, photo, video, and connect with fans, potential customers, and others in your industry. Audience: Facebook has over 800 million active users, closely split between women (58%) and men (42%). Contrary to popular belief that social media is only popular with younger generations, 54% of users are actually aged 35-54, with 67% making $25,000-$75,000. Best For:

detailed updates, and using your profile as an extension of your website.

Facebook Marketplace (which allows you to sell directly from the site).

more likes and activity

Google+

ivanpw G+ works like Facebook in that you can interact more dynamically with your social network. But G+ allows you to compartmentalize your social networks, meaning you can tailor certain messages to certain contacts. Audience: G+ is still relatively new, however, the majority of early adopters are male (63%) compared to female (37%). The site user audience also skews younger than other social networks with the majority of users being between age 18-34. Best For:

Businesses with consumers who are younger/early adopters. Creating more targeted social interactions via groups, allowing you to send special discounts just to repeat customers, for example.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual pin board that allows users to pin photos/links they like, then organize them into boards. Other users can like, comment, and re-pin these links. Audience: Pinterests popularity has exploded. The sites estimated to have received nearly 11 million visits during one week in December (almost 40 times the number of visits six

months earlier). It is definitely female-dominated (83%), and 70% of users make $25,000$75,000. Best For:

Gaining exposure for products, particularly creative or design-specific products (every post requires a photo). Businesses with visual goods that also want to engage with their consumers and industry.

Tumblr

joshwept Tumblr is a simplified blog that lets you post many things, including text, photos, links, music, videos, with the added benefit of being able to post from your phone, browser, email, etc. Audience: Tumblr is a newer social media platform that is more popular with younger demographics: 72% of users are under age 44, with more women (62%) than men (38%) using it. Best For:

Tech-savvy businesses that want to use the highly customizable interface as an extension of their brand (some moderate HTML tinkering is required). Those on-the-go you can update from mobile devices and set posts to publish later. Businesses with content that is highly visual half of all posts are photos.

Twitter

Twitter is a social media site that allows you to post 140-character messages to interact with your networks. Audience: The majority of Twitter users are female (62%), though males (38%) also contribute; 71% of users are ages 25- 54; 63% of users make $25,000-$75,000. Best For:

Companies that dont have a lot of time but want to stay connected. Finding out whos talking about your company, allowing you to engage directly to do things like promote new products, provide customer service, conduct market research by asking questions, get feedback, etc.

YouTube

This video-sharing website allows users to upload their own video clips, including tutorials and video blogs. Audience: YouTube attracts men and women almost equally, but notably one of the largest segments of users are those age 45-54 (30%), followed by 35-44 (22%), and 25-34 (18%).

Best For:

Businesses that provide services or products that are conducive to a visual medium, such as tutorials, demonstrations, etc. Brands that can properly produce (and benefit from) quality videos.

Source : B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.