These are the Powerpoints for the beginning of my course in B2B social media marketing. The textbook used is Social Marketing to the Business Customer by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman.
2. Why concentrate on B2B Social Media?
◦ Spending on B2B Internet marketing is expected to
grow rapidly.
◦ In 2009, 81% of B2B companies maintained social
media sites vs. 67% of B2C companies.
◦ Nearly 60% of B2B marketers are using social
media.
3. Difference between B2B and B2C
◦ B2B marketing is more likely to focus on value than
experience
◦ B2B buying decisions are usually made by groups
B2B marketing programs need to influence multiple
people at multiple stages of the buying process
◦ Business buying cycles are longer than consumer
buying cycles
◦ Business buying decisions require more
commitment than B2C
◦ B2B requires trust and an established business
relationship
4. Difference between B2B and B2C (cont.)
◦ Service and support essential decision factors
◦ B2B require more negotiations and customization to
meet each organization’s needs
◦ Channel relationships are complicating factors –
striking a balance between selling to channel
partners such as resellers, wholesalers, etc. vs.
directly to the customers
5. Why B2B Social Media Marketing is Easier than B2C
1. It’s driven by relationships
B2C marketing is largely based on a product and its price. It tends to be a more
impulsive or emotional buying decision than B2B. B2B purchasing decisions tend to
be more involved and relationship driven, and that suits social media.
2. Your practices can lead to sales
Your social media practices can demonstrate your business value which can lead to
purchases. Users can see that you are reliable, responsive, intelligent, etc. via your
social media practices.
3. You have more control
B2B companies tend to have less people talking about their brand than B2C
companies. In most cases that means less content, and B2B typically generates less
negative sentiment than B2C. That means B2B companies have less content to
control and less negative content to deal with. Therefore B2B companies can
maintain more control over their social content which makes it easier to get their
message through to the right audience.
Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/07/b2b-social-media-easier-than-
b2c/#ixzz1u2HfnxUs
6. Why B2B Social Media Marketing is Easier than
B2C
4. B2B purchase decisions are more rational
B2B sales cycles can span months or even years. Buyers research
products, educate themselves, review competition, seek opinions via
referrals or recommendations and in many cases, interact with brands
before making a purchase decision. B2B buyers also need the approval of
one or more colleagues to make the purchase. Compared to B2C, the B2B
buying decision is a much more considered process and it’s based largely
on business value.
5. It’s easier to build long-term relationships
The goal for most B2B marketers is to convert prospects into customers.
Because the sales cycle is longer, B2B companies need to focus on
relationships as part of that process. Communication with prospects,
engaging them, educating them and leading them towards purchase
creates the foundation for a long term relationship. And in many
situations, the social media relationship continues past the sale through
support, updates and continuing education.
Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/07/b2b-social-media-
easier-than-b2c/#ixzz1u2IR2dfI
7. Why B2B Social Media Marketing is Easier than
B2C
6. The B2B market is smaller than the B2C market
Compared to B2C, B2B is a smaller, more focused target market. Using
social media to identify prospects, connect with them and start building a
relationship is faster and easier in the B2B market.
7. B2B buyers trust recommendations and feedback
Because B2B purchases are typically more considered decisions, B2B
buyers tend to value the recommendations and feedback they receive
from colleagues and other industry professionals. Social media provides a
great opportunity to solicit product feedback, which can help influence
the purchasing decision of the buyer.
8. B2B content has a long tail
B2B products tend to change less frequently than their B2C counterparts,
so the social content you produce for your marketing efforts will create
value for a longer period of time. That can make B2B social marketing
more effective (and likely less expensive) than B2C.
Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/07/b2b-social-media-
easier-than-b2c/#ixzz1u2IZslCu
8. B2B Engagement
◦ Engagement won’t work if it is limited to traditional
marketing and sales.
◦ Social media marketing is a way to humanize the
business
◦ Must be adopted broadly throughout the company
This develops trust which needs to be earned from
your prospects and customers.
9. B2B Social Media. Who is in charge of this?
◦ It should not be just the marketing department.
◦ Social media needs a broad approach throughout
an organization.
◦ This is not an easy
transformation of thinking.
10. B2B organizations have a lot to gain with
social media
◦ Group decision-making – show your expertise and
experience to prospective customers
◦ Business buying cycles are shortened when buyers
can find information easily through social media
◦ Social media allows for more touch-points in an
organization through social media
◦ Open channels of communication – making
complicated sales less complex
◦ Channel Relationships are smoother when all
parties are clued into what each other is doing
11. Risks in B2B social media
◦ Requires vision, commitment, and tolerance for
error
◦ It may be important to prepare social media policies
for your organization.
We’ll discuss this in chapter 5.
12. Steps to B2B Social Media Marketing
(from e-book SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS V2.0 by ASUTHOSH NAIR
& MARCO Del CASTIllO)
1 ESTABLISH YOUR GOALS
• Ask why you need to be in social media.
• Formulate your social media goals and
objectives.
• Align with the business goals of your company.
1a
GET INPUT FROM STAKEHOLDERS
• Conduct interviews and internal surveys to find out
what social media channels
13. Step 2 - WHERE ARE YOUR BUYERS?
• Map your buyers’ personae.
• Find channels where the interactions of
your team and buyers intersect.
• Determine which social media channels will
work best in reaching out to them.
14. Step 3 - MAP INFLUENCES
• Use monitoring tools to find out more
about your prospects.
• Discover the ―influencers‖ of buyer’s
purchase decisions —bloggers, partners, and
even competitors.
15. Step 4
MAP RESPONSIBILITIES
• Distribute key roles among stakeholders.
• Set up a social media ―task force‖ around
key responsibilities.
• Encourage employees to blog/post/upload
content/respond
16. Step 5 - SET UP YOUR CHANNELS
• Use the internal survey results and buyers’
personae to determine which channels you
will engage in, (e.g.: Facebook, Twitter,
Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest,
blog, etc.)
17. Step 6 - ESTABLISH YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY
• Source for existing content and re-purpose it, e.g.,
whitepapers, case studies, opinion pieces, videos,
etc.
• Indentify topics that align with key marketing focus
areas.
• Research to determine relevancy by searching for
brand name, competitors, and target keywords.
• Amount of content shared is proportional to the
amount of engagement.
18. Step 7 - ESTABLISH YOUR METRICS
• Create and align metrics and the
monitoring framework with strategic
objectives.
• Some key measurement goals include
Reach, Buzz, Sentiment, Influence.
• Measure only what matters to the business.
19. Step 8 - CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHANNELS
• Set up, customize, and optimize your
channels e.g., multi-author blogging
platform, customized FB page, YouTube
channel, etc.
20. Step 9 - SET UP ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
• Work out who responds, how, where (what
channel), and how often.
• Constancy and immediacy are keys to a
well-managed social media engagement.
21. Step 10 - DEVELOP A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
• Based on best practices, what’s acceptable,
out-of bounds markers, confidential
information, business vs. personal capacity,
etc.
• Document everything to avoid grey areas
that may hinder engagement.
22. Step 11 - PUBLISH YOUR INITIAL CONTENT
• Develop an editorial schedule. This should indicate the
various topic themes, who will write the content (posts,
tweets, status messages) and when it will go live.
• Populate your channels with appropriate content.
• Establish content syndication mechanisms across social
media channels. This means posting once and then
publishing everywhere. For example, when you put up a
blog post, it should automatically send a tweet so that it
gets discovered early and propagated quickly.
23. Step 12 - 12 MONITOR & MEASURE
• Set up monitoring and measurement tools
based on the metrics established earlier.
24. Step 13 - HARNESS THE POWER OF YOUR
INTERNAL NETWORKS
• Time to get your team to provide the initial
ballast.
• Propagate, publicize, promote.
25. Step 14 – Time to Begin
• Analyze, Adapt and Improve: Adapt any
new findings into current processes, and
improve efforts as you navigate through this
social media journey.
• Always keep in mind that this is an iterative
process.
26. Now you have a strategy
You now have a strategy, you know from your
research where to focus and you have the
basic guidelines for everyone to follow. The
only thing left is to implement your action
plan.
It’s not enough for an organization to just
make itself visible on a social media platform.
27. Create value through the content
Make content valuable for your readers and
consumers and you have to be regular and
consistent with your content creation and
distribution.
Offer insight into your expertise through
well-written and meaningful articles on your
corporate blog.
28. Establish your position
◦ Becomes thought leaders and proven experts as it
increases customer confidence.
◦ Any organization that embarks on a social media
campaign needs to actively participate in
conversations relevant to the brand and its goals.
One way to do this would be to start your own
community through blogs and forums.
◦ It’s important to remember that the organizations
29. Monitoring and Measurement Tools
• Social Mention: a social media search and analysis platform
that aggregates user generated content from across the universe
into a single stream of information.
• Google Alerts: a free tool to monitor millions of blogs and new
sites using target keywords as well as receive streaming or batch
reports.
• Radian6: a robust social media monitoring tool with configurable
dashboards, broad and narrow topic definitions, and features
such as custom alerts and engagement workflow management.
Licensing fees apply.
• TweetDeck: a free desktop app that combines Twitter and
Facebook monitoring with search for a multi-dimensional social
application that also allows for publishing.
• Viralheat: a social media monitoring tool that tracks hundreds
of video sharing sites, Twitter, blogs, social networks, groups
and forums in real-time by geographical location.
30. Measurement Metrics
• Buzz and sentiment - Who’s talking about your company
right now and what’s the tone. Useful if you want to manage your
company or brand reputation.
• Influence - Are compliments/complaints coming from isolated
individuals or people with huge followings and influence? A
factor that could lead to financial impact. In fact, you may want
to
think about looking at ROI with a different perspective - Return
on Influence!
• Reach - how far are your messages spreading? how many
users/
viewers are interacting with and consuming the blog-generated
or twittered content and comments?
• Virality -The speed at which a conversation moves through the
social media ecosystem.
31. Common Ways to Use B2B Social Media
◦ Product launches
◦ Lead/Demand Generation & Customer Retention
◦ Brand Building & Management