Social media is the topic of the moment for many marketers. It seems you can’t move for blog posts telling you why you MUST get engaged right now. Half of this year’s conferences have a social media focus (the other half include sessions on getting more from Twitter or creating Facebook communities). And social media experts are multiplying faster than rabbits in Spring. No one is denying that social media is a powerful new channel for communicating with customers and prospects. But just how powerful?

1. More than Twitter
Social media and the tech buyer
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2. We are now a number of years into the ‘social media revolution’. In this
time we’ve seen the flourishing of social networks – from the now fading
stars of Myspace and Bebo to the thriving LinkedIn and all conquering
Facebook. We’ve seen the massive growth of micro-blogging – primarily
in the form of Twitter – and are beginning to see the emergence of
location-based networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla. Communities
of all kinds are now sharing more information more easily in more places
than ever before.
As marketers, these developments have lead to a wide range of
interesting questions:
• Where should we take our communications?
• How should we engage with these networks?
• Is social and B2B compatible?
• Has the role of marketing fundamentally changed?
• Will what we do work (and how will we know)?
The available data is, to put it mildly, mixed.
In one corner we have the new wave of social media advocates and
consultants who say that the role of marketing is now to simply engage in
the conversation on customers’ terms. At the extreme, the message is ‘be
social or be dead’ and that all non-social activity is frankly redundant.
In the other corner we get the traditionalists who claim that social media
can’t be measured, is a distraction and cannot deliver against bottom-line
objectives. They argue it is better to stick to the tried and tested methods
that can be shown to work.
The truth, as always, is likely to be somewhere in the middle.
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3. :
Bright shiny things and the magpie effect
Those of us who’ve been in marketing for some time have all seen fads
come and go. The allure of the new can be almost irresistible. And the
pressure to get on board with the latest approaches is pervasive on almost
every blog and magazine we read.
In our more rational moments of course we’ll see that the past is littered
with approaches that were just as bright and shiny in their day. It wasn’t so
long ago that everyone was focused on Second Life as being the place to
be. While consumers still seem to be going there in increasing numbers
(826,214 in March 2010, up 13% year-on-year)1 agencies and marketers
have largely moved on.
The current darlings consuming pixels on marketing blogs are, of course,
Twitter and Facebook.
At the time of writing (September 2010) Twitter’s increase in users appears
to continue apace. While they are somewhat reticent to give out too much
detail on their users, they recently claimed to have 145 million people
registered with them 2. This is, of course, an enormous number. But, as
many have pointed out, a registered user is not the same as an active user.
1 http://blogs.computerworld.com/16303/second_life_layoffs
2 http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/09/03/how-many-people-are-actually-using-twitter/
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4. Over 85% of users post less than once per day. Over a fifth have never
posted a tweet. In fact, just 5% of users account for 75% of all activity 3.
This still leaves some pretty big numbers of course.
Facebook is a different story. The company claims over 400 million active
users, half of whom log in on any given day. Some 35 million users update
their status every day too. And a staggering 5 billion pieces of content are
shared every single week 4.
While other social networks have gone into possibly terminal decline,
Facebook appears to have created a self-perpetuating community.
Of course, we shouldn’t forget bespoke business network, LinkedIn.
Founded way back in 2003, LinkedIn now has over 75 million users in 200
countries and boasts a wealth of special interest groups for every sector.
It is also beginning to add a range of social features to lift it out of its
status as merely a CV farm.
With numbers like these, you’d be forgiven for thinking that only a fool
wouldn’t jump in with both feet. But the numbers on their own don’t tell
the whole story.
3 http://www.twittertrafficstats.com/alarming-twitter-statistics-revealed/
4 http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-facts-figures-for-2010/
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5. There are some key questions that must be answered first:
• What are other marketers doing in social media?
• What’s working for them? What’s not?
• ow do customers and prospects view corporate social
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media activity?
In the following sections, we’ll take a look through a selection of current
and recent research to try to separate the reality from the hype so you can
make a more informed decision on social media. The focus will be primarily
on B2B and, where possible, specifically on technology buyers.
Who’s doing what?
Everyone is talking about social media (especially in the social media).
But how many marketers are getting involved?
According to Forrester research from 2009 5, at that time around 30% of
companies were using discussion forums, social networks or communities.
Of course a year is a long time in marketing so we can safely assume that
this has increased – you can find statistics that place this figure now at
anywhere between 55% and 75% (although their reliability is somewhat
open to question).
One interesting finding from the recently published B2B Barometer from
Circle Research, however, is that the perceived relevance of social media
is steadily falling among B2B marketers. Over the past three years, the
percentage of client-side marketers who believe social media is relevant to
B2B organisations has fallen from 71% down to 53% 6.
5 Forrester Q1 2009 B2B Marketing Budgets And Tactics Online Survey With MarketingProfs
6 http://www.b2bbarometer.co.uk/
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6. This may go in part to explain Forrester research from this year that shows
that budgets attached to these activities are still very modest (and have
not increased):
• logs account, on average, for just 2% of marketing budget
B
(down 1% from 2009)
• Social networks make up another 2%
• And Twitter accounts for just 1% 7
Now these activities do not typically cost a lot of money. The real expense,
and still a major barrier for many marketers, is time. And this may not be
accounted for in these figures. Plus, widespread budget cutbacks will have
had an inevitable restricting effect.
Certainly the appetite to do more is there. The same Forrester survey
shows that marketers plan to increase spending in every category of social
media. But before everyone runs out and puts up a Facebook fan page, it
is interesting to see what marketers are actually doing (hint: it’s not wall-to-
wall Facebook).
In the recent B2B Barometer study from Circle Research, respondents were
asked about the social media channels they were using.
The top five were as follows:
7 Forrester Q1 2009 B2B Marketing Budgets And Tactics Online Survey With MarketingProfs
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7. Admittedly Facebook comes in at number six with just over a third of
respondents taking part but the overall picture is far more complex
and nuanced.
As we will see, this confusion over what activities are right for the business,
what customers really value and what role social activity takes in the
purchase decision is leading to some strange choices of where to invest.
What’s working? What’s not?
There is still the sense that many companies are simply playing at social
media. They are dipping their toes in the water as much for the experience
(and appearance of doing so) as to meet any hard business metrics. In the
aforementioned B2B Barometer survey, a massive 79% of respondents do
not measure the impact of their social media activities. (Although to put
this in context, 43% don’t measure the return on their entire marketing
investment.)
‘‘
Emily Riley from Forrester sums it up well:
Marketers don’t think they’re very good at measuring social media:
On average, they rate their own efforts to measure social initiatives at
4.5 out of 10. And there’s no silver bullet – depending on marketers’
objectives and the technologies they’re using, any of dozens of different
metrics could be appropriate. But one thing’s for sure: With the need
for accountability rising, marketers can’t keep pretending that fans and
followers are useful success metrics. In 2010, marketers will finally start
to focus on the metrics that match their objectives – and metrics that
‘‘
their CMOs already know and trust.8
As Emily points out, so much depends on the objectives. In this regard
there are echoes of a previous age when any activity could be justified
simply on the basis of ‘raising awareness’. Of course today this might be
justified as ‘joining the conversation’.
8 Top Social Computing Predictions For 2010, December 18, 2009
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8. Fortunately others do measure effectiveness (albeit imperfectly).
MarketingSherpa’s 2009 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey asked
respondents to assess the effectiveness of a number of social media
tactics. The answers allow us to focus in on the business technology
market and look encouraging. The following were seen as effective:
• Maintaining a corporate blog – 38% of respondents
• aintaining business profiles on social networks – 37%
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of respondents
• Creating podcasts – 31% of respondents
• Online viral marketing – 28% of respondents9
Of course, without the hard metrics it is impossible to get an objective
view of just how effective these tactics really are (and against what
objectives). This simply highlights the critical importance of determining
meaningful objectives and how they will be measured before creating
a social media strategy and all its associated tactics and programmes.
It’s the customers, stupid
Fundamentally, whether and how much you use social media should come
down to one thing – your customers. Where are they? Why are they there?
And what will be the effect of engaging them in that context?
Returning to the impressive statistics from the likes of Facebook and
Twitter, these are useful only if those people are the right people
and in the right frame of mind to engage with you. Otherwise you are
back to what is essentially the same interruption model of traditional
mass-market advertising.
9 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey 2009
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9. Fortunately, here we have some hard, recent statistics on how European
tech buyers use a wide range of media to inform their purchase decisions10.
The results shine new light on the kinds of social media technology
marketers should be investing in (as opposed to what the hype might lead
us to believe). While the data covers a range of emerging information
sources (eg virtual events, rich internet applications etc), here we’ll focus
on the social networking tactics.
10 North American and European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey, Q1 2010, Forrester
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10. In top spot are technical support forums and discussion groups. We
sometimes forget that these kinds of networks have been around for a
long time and are the natural community for many tech buyers. They have
a long history of relatively unmediated contact between vendor and buyer
and are excellent predictors of the likely relationship a buyer can expect in
future. Oddly, they are often largely ignored by marketers.
Second place is taken by virtual trade shows and conferences.
Ratings and review sites come in third. These are sites such as Digg,
Delicious and StumbleUpon. This clearly demonstrates the power of the
crowd in shaping opinions.
Interactive and 3D demos place fourth.
Interestingly private online community sites come in at position five, one
position ahead of open, public social networks (LinkedIn etc). This shows
the importance of relevance. The private networks are more focused, have
a tighter sense of community and are generally better moderated than the
public alternatives (even the specialist groups within those networks).
In seventh to ninth positions come wikis, podcasts and blogs. Wikis
are one of the unsung heroes of the social media world and have
huge marketing potential for companies to demonstrate how they can
help users achieve their aims (they are not, however, a place for overt
selling). With the wholesale adoption of MP3 players and smartphones,
podcasts offer one of the best ways of delivering media and content on
the move. And blogs are still one of the default options for communicating
with customers.
At the bottom of the table in terms of social media (in joint last place)
comes microblogging (ie Twitter). The current darling of the social media
universe is used less by technology buyers for making decisions than any
other social media option (just 5% claim to be influenced by it). So while
there are some 145 million registered users, for the most part they are not
using the service to make technology buying decisions.
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11. As we mentioned before, given the relative effectiveness of the varying
tactics, marketers’ future investment plans can begin to look more than a
little odd. The same survey asked which of the above tactics high tech B2B
marketers plan to use more of in the coming year. The results are revealing:
• 0% of B2B high tech marketers plan to increase their use of Twitter
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(in joint last place for influence)
• 2% plan to do more video recordings (affecting just 8%
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of customers)
• 4% plan to increase their use of open public networks versus just
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24% who will invest in the more influential private communities
• nd just 32% plan to increase their use of support forums and
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discussion groups (in number one spot for the influence they carry)11
To be clear, all these tactics have a place in the marketing mix. Against the
right objectives and the right audience, any of them can deliver significant
results. But without clearly defined targets and a deep understanding of
the role each tactic can play, ultimate success will be, at the very least, an
exercise in hope over expectation.
What does it all mean?
While this article has sought to debunk some of the hype around social
media, one thing is clear: social media is important. It represents a
fundamental shift in how marketers and brands engage with their
customers and prospects. However, it is critical to look at the types of
social media available to determine their suitability for meeting specific
business objectives and the results they can deliver for your business.
Much of the blogosphere appears to be adopting a tweet-or-die mentality.
The evidence, however, doesn’t back this up.
Only 5% of technology buyers use Twitter to inform their buying decisions.
Considering the cost in time of properly engaging with customers via
microblogging, it is difficult to recommend it above many other social
media activities. The exception, in our opinion, is the use of Twitter to
publicise time-limited offers (the Dell Outlet model) or as an adjunct to
technical support.
11 North American and European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey, Q1 2010, Forrester
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12. The answer is both more complex and, in some ways, simpler than the
hype would have you believe.
It is complex in that to really see the benefits social media can offer, it is
critical to integrate all your activities. It means using what works, focusing
time and budget into what will deliver the greatest value to your business.
And it means tracking results so that you can adapt and improve results
over time.
The simplicity comes from the fact that you are probably already using a
number of the most effective tools and services. The question is: are they
getting the attention they deserve? Can you clearly see the effects of
each tactic you employ? And are you able to move beyond the ‘fans and
followers’ aspect that Forrester’s Emily Riley talks about to focus on the
tangible effect upon your business?
In developing an effective social media programme (or integrating
social media into your existing strategy) it is important to look at where
your customers can be found, what they’re doing there and which are
the most effective channels for engagement. In doing so you can
both develop a deeper relationship with your customers and clearly
demonstrate how your approach is making a tangible, positive difference
to your business objectives.
Want to know more?
In this white paper, we’ve merely scratched the surface of how
social media should be used by today’s technology marketers.
If you would like to delve deeper into the current research or
discuss how social media can be used to deliver tangible results
for your business, please get in touch.
We are happy to meet you for a no obligation discussion.
Simply contact Michael Wrigley at michael@b1.com or call him
on 020 7349 2266.
Follow us on:
Twitter: @bannercorp
And keep up to date at:
www.b1.com/blog
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