Around the World in Social Media

Filed under Application, Discussion, Resources, Toolbox by Allan Schoenberg on 16 January 2012 at 07:28 {one comment}

A lot has been happening in the world of social media, and I do mean the world. As many B2B companies move into using more social and digital tools we continue to read about case studies involving the big three — LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. But what abo0ut Sina Weibo? Orkut? Hi5? Renren? Are these networks a part of your strategy? Do you know who they reach and what they do? Do you need to expand your reach by using them?

Is your digital strategy stranded at home or are you on a journey to expand your work around the world?

As our business expands and we look to reach our customers around the world I’ve been reading more about the growth of social media globally. Here’s a breakdown of some of the research I’ve found interesting and helpful:

Asia

Europe

Latin America

But if you’re pressed for time and want a global view of what is happening online, I strongly suggest you download this Slideshare presentation from InSite Consulting and their total view social media around the world in 2011 (NOTE: you will need to request a copy from them).

Is there a presentation you liked that I missed pointing out above? Is there an example of what you’ve learned from your experiences? Is there a fact that surprised you from the information you viewed from the above links? Please share them in the comments.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

World-Class social practices for B2B companies

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Are you ready for these five trends?

The most important question you can ask

Using social networking sites in B2B businesses?

When it Comes to B2B Content, Don’t Go it Alone

Filed under Application, Discussion, Soap Box by Allan Schoenberg on 4 January 2012 at 06:32 {no comments}

One of the most often asked questions when I speak is around content — “Where do you find so much information about your company to post?” The answer is easy: That much content doesn’t exist. What B2B companies fail to realize is the power of partnerships and connecting with other users for content. Shannon Paul also makes a good point about B2B content:

Many folks in the B2B space often blame the lack of social media content opportunities on the fact that what they do doesn’t directly impact consumers, but I don’t buy it.

Finding good, original content can be difficult. So stop trying so hard. Instead, focus on ways that you can find content from others and collaborate with others. Here are ways that have worked for us:

Find internal champions who will send you content proactively and make sure you give them their just internal rewards for helping out.

My inspiration partner happens to be 8 years old and drinks hot chocolate.

Identify the key content aggregators in your industry and work with them. This takes time and effort but will pay off in the long run.

Experiment with content on platforms and times to find what interests your audience.

Finally, don’t be boring. Any company can post a news release or a research report. It’s up to you to make it interesting and fit within your brand standards. While you want to be taken serious as a brand, you should also find ways that capture people’s attention, and sometimes that requires a little bit of fun.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

You are What You Read

Social Clutter or Social Clarity?

Content Curation: What Does it Take To Be Successful?

Is Motivation the Key to Success?

Social influence matters! No, it doesn’t!

World-Class social practices for B2B companies

What’s your “I” in social media?

Your Game Plan: Focus on Fans

Filed under Application, Discussion, Soap Box by Allan Schoenberg on 3 January 2012 at 09:38 {2 comments}

There’s a lot to be said for comparing social media strategies these days and supporting your favorite team in sports. In fact, much of the reason sports teams do so well in using social media is that they understand the value of a loyal following. They also understand the value of winning, and one way of viewing how you can help your clients succeed is to get them into a sports mentality.

In fact, one thing Facebook got right early on was allowing people to be “fans” of brand pages. It’s a concept I think they should have kept rather than replace with the “Like” feature. Like a team in sports, companies don’t want people to “like” them, they want fans who defend them in a crisis, support them when new products are announced, and who constantly sing the praises (not literally, but employee bands still seem popular) of a company when they perform well.

Here are ways to start making fans out of your followers:

Find out where they want to talk with you: Prior to the rapid growth of social media customers more than likely relied on email from you to know what was happening. With so many choices now at their disposal, you need to decide how to best communicate with them. A customer who uses LinkedIn may not be on Twitter or Facebook while others still rely on email newsletters to know what is happening. As social CRM tools become more sophisticated you should be able to start understanding more about where your clients are learning about you and what type of information they want. If you need ideas here’s a relevant post from Eloqua on some new year’s resolutions for talking to your customers.

How are you attracting and keeping fans?

Actually talk with them: The worst thing you can do is ignore your fans. Living in Chicago it was easy for me to see this with the Blackhawks hockey team and how the fan base changed when ownership changed from father to son — and with that change you saw a huge momentum shift in support for the team.

Find your “off the field” captains: The captain on the playing field rallies the team and helps make key in-game decisions. There are also captains in the stands — the leaders of fan clubs who organize events, keep fans informed and become a key part of the organization. Finding the people online who can do the same for you is just as important and you and your team should embrace them, help them and learn from them. There are a number of ways to look at influence and I wrote about that before when I spoke about defining ROI.

Deliver on content: Just as a winning team in sports needs to field its best players in order to succeed, a good B2B marketing company will deliver content that wins. There are a number of ways companies can now do this via Twitter, a blog or research as some examples, and providing original and relevant content is key. As the concept of content marketing has grown it will continue to be important for most B2B companies.

Have a strategy: The best players don’t always win championships. Nearly every winning team has a smart leader who has a strategy. Don’t just think that doing all of the things above will instantly gain you the following you want. I encourage you to think about what you want to accomplish, how you plan to achieve it and how does it fit with the overall strategy of the business. If you need to get better at developing a strategy one suggested I made earlier was to start playing more games.

While we encourage you to start thinking more like a sports team, please don’t share your favorite team with us in the comments — we don’t want to divide our readership. But we do want you to be fans of our blog and we hope you subscribe to us via email or follow us on Twitter.

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2012: No Predictions, Just Actions

Filed under Application, Discussion, Soap Box by Allan Schoenberg on 21 December 2011 at 08:20 {7 comments}

Everyone seems to have dusted off their crystal balls the past few weeks as the predictions for social media in 2012 are plentiful. I  stopped reading them. There are only a handful of people who are making predictions that I would trust, and after seeing so many most are not taking into account the current economic climate and the themes are too repetitive.

Instead of adding to the overcrowded space of predictions I want to focus on actions. The path for next year is clearly lined with more questions than answers. So, what am I looking at in 2012, a year clouded with economic uncertainty and promises for social media nirvana? Here’s a rundown of what’s on my agenda and questions you may need to ask yourself:

What's ahead for you in 2012?

  • Digital Content: We’re doing a lot more with digital content on our website and that will continue. What we’ve learned from the past few years of doing social media is that we have become our own media aggregator with original content that cannot be captured anywhere else. Whether it’s our blog, our online magazine, our media room or our education center, various stakeholders look to us for content and we will continue to drive more of that next year. What are your plans for digital content in 2012? Have you developed an editorial calendar? Do you have an editorial team?
  • Mobile: This was a great year for us and using mobile devices as we expanded our iPhone/iPad offering to the Android and Blackberry. In addition, we introduced an app specifically for our annual Global Financial Leadership event. Our research continues to show that users are moving more and more toward accessing our site from mobile devices and we know that consumers in general are digesting more information via their mobile devices. We will continue to enhance our mobile strategy in 2012 not only for distributing content through social platforms but also for giving people access to our information. How are you integrating mobile into your marketing strategy? What type of research do you have on people accessing your content from mobile devices?
  • Real-time matters: We’ve been using Twitter since 2008 and are one of the few verified brands. In our line of business, real-time news and information matters and for the markets and finance this won’t change. David Meerman Scott’s latest book on real-time marketing captures exactly how we approach this world of instant news. Where we’ll be looking at improving on what we’ve already accomplished is with our partnership with StockTwits. Messages about our products and services in the past year surged from 15,000 a month a year ago to more than 40,000 a month last year on their platform. Does real-time matter to you and your business? Are you targeting the right people on Twitter? Do you have a plan for how you can leverage StockTwits and the messages about your company?
  • Social networks: Facebook will still be a part of our plan and remains a great way to connect with customers in a more static environment. We can create very topical conversations around news and events on our page and that won’t change. We do know that Facebook fans are passionate about topics and the stream has changed our approach to this platform and has helped in creating more awareness about our offerings. We can’t ignore either of those facts. The challenge for 2012 will be to figure out how to use our Google+ page, but first I think Google needs to figure out Google+ for brands. I don’t see a lot of focus there yet from Google so do not plan to spend much time there. At the best right now it’s an experiment in SEO. How are you going to handle new technologies that come out in 2012? Do you have an assessment plan or team in place?
  • LinkedIn: I am a long-time fan of LinkedIn for the B2B market and am very excited about 2012. The company has made some great changes to the corporate pages managed by companies and added a much needed dashboard for group managers. Both of these additions have been much needed and further enhance LinkedIn as a social business platform. We continue to leverage the groups and the private feature has allowed us to create a 24/7 virtual focus group environment where we talk with our customers. We will putting more emphasis on LinkedIn in the coming year and finding ways to better improve what we do for the benefit of our customers. How do you leverage the groups on LinkedIn? Is your company page a place where potential employees view you as a thought leader? How do you get others in your organization involved in LinkedIn?
  • Video: We do have a YouTube presence, but our video strategy continues to focus on bringing people to our location. Our website continues to be populated with video content in a number of places and videos allow us to visually tell our story through our spokespeople, customers and thought leaders. We’ll continue to build content that includes video as a key component and through our social platforms bring this content to our followers. How are you leveraging videos? What is your distribution plan? Do you use video to complement content?
  • Metrics: I’ve always believed that in order to manage content you have to know what is happening. So metrics and measurement continue to play a very active part of what we do and this will continue to be the trend for us in 2012. We have a number of tools that we use that include both qualitative and quantitative metrics for us to better understand what we are doing. Are you measuring the right information? How are you making decisions based on your data?
  • Experiment: We did a lot in 2011 to try new things and apply new technologies. For example, we integrated Facebook comments onto our digital magazine, started using Google+ brand pages, launched our Weibo account in China, and made several changes to our LinkedIn company profile. In the coming year we will continue to do the same and experiment where it makes sense. New technologies and enhancements are now the norm and finding ways to leverage them will be a challenge. How do you stay on top of the latest information? Do you have a social team to review and plan for new initiatives? How do you prioritize what to implement and where to hold off?
  • A Social Business: In 2011, we continued to integrate our social media with our business. One of the best posts I’ve read on this topic is from David Armano and Demystifying Social Business. When I started using social media at the company in 2007 it very much was a silo channel for us, but in the past year we have made great strides as an organization to integrate it throughout the company. That will continue in 2012 with our sales force, marketing activities and with our employees. How do you communicate your social initiatives internally? Have you implemented any training or education programs? Do you have social guidelines for employees and if so when was the last time you reviewed it?

The coming year promises to be another exciting year for communicators. We will not only face a global economy that has numerous challenges for our businesses, but we are being inundated with new and various tools to communicate with our stakeholders. Finding the balance between those two will help determine success for each of our enterprises and I wish you all the best of luck.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Finally, a comprehensive B2B social media study

World-Class social practices for B2B companies

Are you ready for a real-time B2B world?

Using social networking sites in B2B businesses?

LinkedIn Becomes More Relevant for B2B Communicators

Filed under Application, Discussion, Resources by Allan Schoenberg on 11 November 2011 at 06:20 {3 comments}

LinkedIn continues to be enhance its platform for B2B communicators. Last month the company announced that companies could stream news and information from its corporate page. That was a small change and a much needed addition. But a much bigger change has just happened.

When LinkedIn went public I wrote about some new things for the company to invest in and focus on, and one of those was a dashboard. Yesterday, the company announced that an analytics dashboard is now live within groups. This is a game changer for LinkedIn but also for all of us.

LinkedIn Dashboard

It’s no secret that I am a believer in the power of LinkedIn Groups. We use them extensively at our company. But the lack of data and information have made them a guessing game for marketers and human resource managers. LinkedIn says the dashboard for groups will be updated every day — something that would be expected and critical to the success of this tool.  The addition of data points about group members can help in two key ways:

  • Demographics. You can now see by title, demographics, industry and function who is in your group. For highly targeted product groups like we do, if you’re trying to reach senior managers in the Ukraine in the agriculture market you now can get a clear view. For larger groups that are more focused on a topic, the dashboard gives you an accurate display of who is interested in order to help better facilitate conversations and connections.
  • Discussions. Views on comments and discussions posted help show how active the group is and if you are facilitating conversations among the group. While this is a great view, this part of the dashboard still needs work in order to better drill down. I would like to see the dashboard to start to include information on who is most active at posting, commenting and sharing information. It would also be helpful to see which posts are most read by the group in order to focus further content.

One thing I also like is that you can see the data for any group. LinkedIn did not fence this data just for group managers. As a member of several groups on LinkedIn, I like that openness and transparency since I can now better determine which groups are worth my time and effort.

It was only a matter of time before this tool became available and there’s no doubt more changes will be coming. This initial launch was well done by LinkedIn and has already helped me get a better understanding of the groups we manage and how we can further achieve our sales and marketing goals.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

CME Group Builds Impact on LinkedIn Using Exclusive Groups

Don’t Overlook the Power of LinkedIn Groups

What the LinkedIn IPO Could Mean for B2B Communicatons

What’s your “I” in social media?

Why LinkedIn’s Company Pages Now Matter More

Still Pitching to Use Social Media? Here are Three Steps to Take

Filed under Application, Discussion, Resources by Allan Schoenberg on 14 October 2011 at 05:55 {4 comments}

Social media in B2B continues to rise in use. In fact, research from BtoB magazine shows that more than 90 percent of B2B companies are now using some form of social media to communicate with stakeholders. Before you present that B2B social media plan to executives or a client, the best thing to do is prepare. Here are three ways to ensure your pitch is a success:

  • Benchmark: Do your research first and look at not only what your competition is doing, but look at other companies in the B2B space that you emulate. Ask yourself what you like and what you would improve for them.
  • Be the Brand. I’ve always said that social media is not a silver bullet. While the tools are great they are not going to fix or anything alone. In the early days of social networking this could have been the case (e.g. @ComcastCares), but today you need to think about your entire brand story and how social media will fit into it. You will want to demonstrate that social media is not a silo taking resources away from other initiatives, but show how it complements, improves and is a part of what the company is already doing.
  • Back up your pitch. Executives are interested in facts and proof points. You should prepare yourself for an in-depth discussion not just about social media and what you want to do, but know who you are targeting, how they already use social media, and what business objective (not communication objective) you are working toward. Also, enlist the support of others in the organization — legal, research, products and IT. Showing that you have support from other parts of the company will help bolster your plan.

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How do you reach the guy with the wallet?

Filed under Application by Kate Brodock on 5 August 2011 at 12:35 {3 comments}

When you market in the B2B space through social channels, a large part of your audience can often times be non-decision makers.  I had a client who works in the production/post-production technology industry for the film, advertising and broadcast verticals – straight B2B transaction-  ask me what the benefits were of using tools like Twitter were for selling a product that’s tens of thousands of dollars directly to a production house or film team.

My answer, simply put? Finding the users of that product/service, highlighting the pain point and our solution, creating a buzz and a demand from the bottom up.

FIND THE PRODUCT/SERVICE USERS

Using this example, when an extensive piece of technology is implemented across a large enterprise, the decision to do so doesn’t usually involve all the users, but a handful of decision-makers that head IT, Finance and maybe a few other departments. In other words, most of the users of the product/service have little say in the purchase of the product/service, but they’re the ones most affected by the implementation.

These users are the ones who’s daily processes will be changed and improved by said technology implementation.

HIGHLIGHT THE PAIN POINT AND YOUR SOLUTION

Because these users are the ones who’s lives you’ll be ideally improving, you’ll want to make them directly feel their existing pain point, and communicate to them that you have the solution.

CREATE BUZZ AND DEMAND FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Now that they know you have the solution, part of the process of you reaching the decision-makers comes from upward pressure from the users.  In part, the decision-makers pain point becomes the users – their employees – clamoring for a solution to their own pain point (which they’ve found from you).  If you’re top-of-mind for the users, it’s likely this will reach the decision-makers.

It’s a simplified model, and only part of the sales and marketing process that goes into the equation, but something to think about as you’re contemplating the ways social media can help your B2B marketing.

Integrating Social Media into Disaster Recovery

Filed under Application, Discussion, Soap Box by Allan Schoenberg on 5 April 2011 at 04:55 {no comments}

A recent story in InformationWeek caught my eye – Few Businesses Use Social Media For Disaster Recovery. As communicators we know the increased usage of social media helps us listen to a variety of stakeholders and communicate what is happening inside our company. It should come as no surprise then that social media also is an area where crises can manifest and take on a life of their own. There are many examples already and I’m sure the list will continue to grow.

I continue to be intrigued by social media and not just for its uses to promote a company. Social media resources are becoming more and more a part of our communication fabric and a topic I enjoy studying. In January, I was able to participate in a live chat on the topic of crisis communication and I wrote about the topic extensively in grad school. Like many past examples, crises tend to raise the profile internally of the communications team and perhaps this will be the case with social media teams.

What surprised me about the InformationWeek story is not the lack of understanding or use of social media by the business continuity teams, but it’s the lack of coordination by the communication teams to have social media included (NOTE: We have it as part of our planning where I work).

What should the role of social media be in contingency planning? Let us know your thoughts.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

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The Beat Goes On at StockTwits

Filed under Application, Discussion, Uncategorized by Allan Schoenberg on 30 March 2011 at 06:21 {3 comments}

I’ve written before on the various merits of StockTwits for B2B communicators and how it can be used as a listening tool for investor relations and communication teams. Who wouldn’t want real-time insight into their company from the people who invest and buy your products? Well, the company continues to gain momentum. As reported this week by IR Web Report, TechCrunch and Business Insider, the company has hired David Putnam, a senior product director from Yahoo! Finance. I’m excited for Putnam’s addition to the team and the energy he is going to bring. I’m also thrilled at the opportunity to work with him.

We remain a dedicated partner of StockTwits and here’s why I continue to endorse what they are doing:

  • Their official investor relations accounts give companies a dashboard look at what is being discussed. In addition, the official badge verifies a company to external people, making it a credible source of news and information, and provides internal teams metrics from the discussions. Here is a white paper from StockTwits on the investor relations account. StockTwits also is a great platform to help executive communicators showcase the value of social media to finance executives.
  • The company continues to develop new and innovative ideas. As a partner who is excited about working with StockTwits, it’s sometimes difficult for me to keep up with the passion and innovation produced by the company. Working with a company like this energizes our team to continue to think of new ways to reach our customers.
  • Take a closer look at the CNN Money pages. If you haven’t noticed yet StockTwits is providing a real-time stream from their site on the stock symbol pages. By the way, they’re on Yahoo! Finance too. And MarketWatch as well. Those are three very credible news sources all tapping into the StockTwits network.
  • There is a tremendous focus on community — taking out the features that made most message boards of the past useless and making sure value is added to the network. The team that works at StockTwits believe in what they’ve built and it shows in the quality and quantity of the content.
If you still haven’t looked at StockTwits as part of your company’s or your client’s social media planning  it’s probably time you rethink that strategy.

If you liked this post you should also read:

Should Investor Relations Teams Use Twitter?

Are You Using StockTwits?

Social Media for Financial Communicators

It’s Social Media Week — Do You Know Where Your Brand Is?

Filed under Application, Case Study, Discussion by Allan Schoenberg on 7 February 2011 at 08:19 {2 comments}

Today marks the launch of Social Media Week around the world and there’s a lot going on. I’m hoping to get to one or two events this week in London. With so much taking place around the world it’s clear that the days of not paying attention to social media are over.

To me the foundation of social media — any media for that matter — is the concept of listening. Who is talking about your brand? What are they saying? Why should you care? What can you do? The rapid growth of technologies makes it far more easier to discover the answers to these questions, but my advice is don’t just use anything. Find the right tools. Here are some that I particularly like and have used to help us.

  • StockTwits: I’ve talked for months about the value of this network from an investor relations perspective. But the platform brings a much richer experience than traders just talking about puts and calls on your stock. This is a constant stream of investors who are also talking about your executives, products and services. You should register and tune in.
  • Hootsuite: I like what Hootsuite has done with its dashboard in terms of metrics and its ease of use. Because of the platform and how simple it is we can really take a deeper dive into specific topics and the people talking with us and about us. There’s also an ongoing debate around Klout, which is integrated into Hootsuite — I’m following the discussion closely. In fact, I just started an online poll about Klout the other day — http://twtpoll.com/s4luaa
  • 14 Blocks: This is a very simple tool that looks at the time your followers on Twitter are most active. The free trial is useful and does give you a good indication of when to engage with your audience.
  • Facebook: We continue to gain a larger audience on Facebook and I continue to be impressed with their analytics. I think they could improve them with more information about topics that our followers discuss, but I’m sure they’re working on that. And if you haven’t tried Facebook ads yet I would encourage you to do so. I think you’ll be surprised.
  • Omniture: If you’re not talking to your website team about this you should make it a point to do so this week. Their tools for your website can give you a much better picture of social media traffic and how you can improve your programs. Your web team will also appreciate the attention and how they can help. It’s a win-win.

There are lots of other tools and resources out there. In fact, my good friend Ken Burbary has created a Wiki of social media monitoring resources to use.  So what are you using to listen and why to you like it? Let us know.

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