Social Media in B2B Marketing

7/29/2019 Social Media in B2B Marketing

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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, over90% 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.


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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


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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 mainlyestablished

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 identifycompanies 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


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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.


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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 highlyengaged), 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 consumer-

facing marketing, but not a fit for B2Bisnt 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


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Google+ and Pinterest trailed behind (and these two networks also had the weakest

performance for B2C companies).

Otherdatasuggest that 40 percent of businesses see sales from social media.

This makes sense given the fact that business decision makers are increasingly using socialplatforms. A UKstudyfound 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%).
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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 awareness2. Generate leads3. Increase sales4. Establish thought leadership5. Build relationships with customers6. Engage customers as brand evangelists7. Get customer input for product and/or service improvement8. Improve internal communication9. Staff recruitment and retention10.Improve departmental and/or company-wide collaboration


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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.
http://smedio.com/http://smedio.com/http://smedio.com/http://smedio.com/


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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 t ime 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 outreachId

say yes! Do they drastically reduce the amount of human time neededId 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


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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 asuccessful social media campaign. Have you experienced any other roadblocks to adoption

of social media campaigns? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.



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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 justaccessing 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 onmeasuring your websites ROIto

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 differentcampaigns. 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.
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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



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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 manysocial media platformsacross the web,

its can be overwhelming to maintain a presence on each. A better alternative is to be activeon 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 over800 millionactive 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+
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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 sitesestimatedto have received nearly11 million visits during one week in December (almost 40 times the number of visits six
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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 andindustry.

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 anextension of their brand (some moderate HTML tinkering is required).

Those on-the-go you can update from mobile devices and set posts to publishlater.

Businesses with content that is highly visual half of all posts are photos.Twitter
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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 largestsegments of users are those age 45-54 (30%), followed by 35-44 (22%), and 25-34 (18%).
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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.


Documents

Social Media in B2B Marketing