Category Archives: Resources

A Brave B2B Social Media Book

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A couple weeks ago I published here a Q&A with Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen on their new book, The B2B Social Media Book: Becoming a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads With Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email and More. Here’s my review of the book itself:

Kipp and Jeffrey have chosen to bravely go right to the heart of the matter: how to apply social media for B2B lead generation. While there’s more to social business than lead generation, it’s refreshing to read a book that says it’s okay for social media to bring you more leads. It will help us earn the budgets from senior executives to further develop social channels. As they said in the book, “Social media marketing isn’t about hugs, kisses, rainbows, or any other fluffy happy words.” Engagement, in a marketing sense, needs to lead either to new sales or repeat sales.

Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen

Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen, Authors of The B2B Social Media Book

The authors correctly note that compelling content is essentially the fuel that makes social media marketing work. They explain how to leverage blogs as central hubs of content to move prospective customers to the all-important Call to Action that leads to positive ROI for social media investments (“Tweeting a landing page doesn’t kill a puppy.”) They also correctly note that reach is underappreciated in B2B. In most B2B segments, we do need online advertising, media relations and other reach-generating tools to introduce new audiences to our content and value propositions.

That said, there are certainly creative alternatives to corporate blogs. Facebook can be used in similar fashion.  Sophisticated social hubs like Cisco’s The Network also work, though they are much more expensive to maintain. A blog is a great way to start. And of course, ideally, you’d use all these things.

I would also argue that the chapter on calculating ROI is overly simplistic, especially if your business model is built on long-term customer relationships.

Finally, it’s also important for readers to understand there are realms of social media program management that are just as important and that are beyond the scope of this book, including customer service and customer relations, employee communications, and corporate reputation management to name a few (think topics like social media crisis management or online customer communities for ideation). In practice, a marketer must collaborate effectively with these parties to thrive in this interconnected world.

But that’s not what this book is trying to cover (and in fact, Kipp hinted that perhaps B2B customer communities could be their next book). From tradeshows to Twitter to the mobile Web, Kipp and Jeffrey have given you a crisp tome on bringing real accountability to B2B marketing to generate tangible results in social media. Remember that engagement is a means to an end for a marketer, not an end in itself. This book is a very good guide.

Do Most Online Communities Fail?

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This is an interesting question. Fortune magazine seems to think they are failing. But the answer is never as easy as the question.

For instance, if you build a community targeting CFOs from the Fortune 100 companies what would determine your success?

  • Would it be 100 percent participation? Probably not since we know most people watch and listen online and getting 100 percent is unrealistic.
  • Would it be an increase in sales from the companies respresented in your online community during the year? Maybe, but they may do that regardless of your online community.
  • How about if you focused on just three CFOs in the group whom you know would receive value from doing more business with you? Bringing in increased sales from two of them could potentially be linked to your efforts.

So determining what you want to get out of a community from the start may not be what you actually get out of it in the end, but that depends on what your objectives are for your community. Adjusting your strategy along the way may help you achieve the results you want, but you may also need to adjust your strategy because the results you desired have changed (You are getting results just not the ones you expected). Yes, communities are complicated, ever changing and complex.

The trading floor community in Chicago

I’ve been lucky that even before the rapid growth in social media I was part of working with a large community — the trading floors.  To get a feel for that you can read some of Jeff Carter’s posts on social media and trading and why he likes Twitter better than Facebook for building his social media trading community.

So what can you do to be successful? One key part of building a good community is letting the community run it. As PR20/20 reminds us, it’s the conversations that make good communities function.  And running a community takes a number of skills – from adaptability to empathy — as the Business 2 Community points out.  Whether you are an experienced community manager or new to it, I would definitely recommend you read Community Spark from Martin Reed.

Having the right resources in place can make a difference in a number of ways for you and your team. Here are some thoughts on what you need to build your success:

  • My suggestion to you is not to spend an overwhelming amount of time choosing what you need. You should have a list of important criteria (e.g., does it have mobile capability, what are the metrics you will receive, etc.) and focus on those. In addition, there are numerous blog posting and online reviews of platforms that can help you speed up your decision process.
  • Not only should you focus on your own content to share, which should be unique, interesting and offer helpful insight, but you should also be a resource to find and distribute third party content that your community may find useful. A good mix of content is challenging but will make you more trustworthy; it also can spark conversations around the topic of choice and should lead you to develop more of your own content. Here were some thoughts on content curation and dealing with social clutter.
  • Have a vision. It’s easy to get bogged down in what you are doing today — posting stories, answering questions, finding new members, etc, but don’t forget to keep thinking forward. Not only will you need to understand changes to social platforms, but you will also need to understand the trends and issues of your business.
  • While not something you can create or build, you will need to enlist the people who believe in what you are doing. I wrote about this concept and motivation as a driver of success earlier. For instance, we’ve found that some people really understand and enjoy LinkedIn vs using another social platform. In this case, we are cultivating the “believers” and getting them to best utilize the platform to meet their needs. Here’s some help about how we use LinkedIn: Don’t Overlook the Power of LinkedIn Groups

Community management is not simple nor is it easy. It takes a lot of hard work, making personal sacrifices and a constant flow of ideas and conversations. In fact the worst thing a community manager can receive is silence. But if done right, a community will grow, network and provide you with valuable insights and relationships.

So what do you think? Are more communities failing? Or are we measuring them wrong? What do you think makes a community successful that I missed?

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Don’t Overlook the Power of LinkedIn Groups

Content Curation: What Does it Take To Be Successful?

Social Clutter or Social Clarity?

Is Motivation the Key to Success?


Around the World in Social Media

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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

What drives your social media strategy?

Are you ready for a real-time B2B world?

Are you ready for these five trends?

The most important question you can ask

Using social networking sites in B2B businesses?

What Drives Your B2B Social Strategy?

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A new year and another opportunity to get under the hood and check your social engine. One of the keys to success in the social B2B space is having a strategy. The team here at B2B Voices have posted often on this topic of strategy from using social networking sites in B2B to looking at what makes a  world-Class social practice for B2B companies to asking the right question.

We all agree here that if you want to succeed you need to start with a strategy. Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter now has a must read paper titled “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation.” The paper is a great way for the experienced and novice B2B communicator to step back and think about what you are trying to accomplish.

The social vehicle you choose should help drive your conversations and evaluation

The key takeaways for me were as follows:

Businesses struggle with strategy: On page six of the report it’s clear that companies are struggling to get handle on what they want to accomplish and how they will get there. One thing we always focus on here at B2B Voices is making sure your social media strategy aligns with your business and other communication initiatives. It should rarely be a silo. If you need help understanding what your strategy should be you can reference the graphic on page 13 of the study.

Vendors need to catch up: The rapid growth of free tools with premium tools is creating an overload of resources that in the end create more confusion. Page 10 and 11 detail the issues and in my opinion we will see an ongoing consolidation of these tools. There is a good review of many of the platforms in the report and we at B2B Voices would encourage anyone looking at tools to take your time in choosing where you spend your resources.

The one point to remember in this discussion is that strategy takes time and effort. Not only do you need to have the right tools to work with, but you need to understand your business goals as well as what drives your brand strategy. While it’s easy to “do” social it’s much more difficult to “do social well” and measure the results.

UPDATE (JANUARY 17): Apparently, Tac Anderson and I are on the same page when we think about social media. Here is his post (Can’t Find a Good Social Media Management Tool? Get a Strategy First) on the same study by Jeremiah Owyang.

If you enjoyed this post you may also want to read:

Are you ready for a real-time B2B world?

Still pitching to use social media?

Are you ready for these five trends?

B2B Creativity is Not an Oxymoron

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One of the myths around B2B communications is that the industry lacks creativity – or the drive to be creative. I can’t think of anything that’s farther from the truth. And while it’s true that B2B companies don’t buy the flashy Super Bowl ads or use various mascots to win over customers, we are challenged day in and day out to think differently.

Another Lego creation at home.

Just like with B2C companies, creativity can be driven by a company’s culture. We’ve always been focused as an organization on innovation, which is why we’ve been so successful at trying new things, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and mobile devices. Ben Parr over at Mashable posted last year how B2B companies will be using social media as part of their creative campaigns. And Aaron Pearson just posted here on B2B Voices a post on world-class B2B social practices that’s a must read.

But there are some rules and guidelines to follow.

  1. Your ideas should always be in line with the brand you are trying to convey. Don’t be creative just for the sake of being creative. While this can work more in the B2C space, it rarely works with B2B companies. We have fewer opportunities to sell our products and services and every opportunity counts. In addition, B2B purchases are usually long-term investments by companies and they want to trust you. Any creativity — whether its very smart and interesting or immature and insulting — will reflect back on your organization.
  2. Study the competition — and be better — don’t copy or instigate them. Your competitors can always give you new ideas and thoughts, but I’ve seen B2B companies try to take on their competition head to head in ads and direct mail. That’s hard to pull off successfully (it can be done) and I always feel it’s better to focus on your strengths than your competitors weaknesses in paid campaigns. Save your competitive arguments for non-paid mediums such as your website and the media.
  3. Always be thinking about driving sales for the organization — this means being fully integrated. We know in B2B the sales process and cycle is much longer than in most B2C decisions, so you will need to think long-term for your campaign. If you are thinking of a new creative campaign it needs to play out online, at trades shows, through direct mail and in person. “One hit wonders”, like a weekend sale, are simply not the norm for B2B campaigns.
  4. Take risks, but know your limits. Good creativity helps you to stand out, but as you think about how creative you should be and how you will use the ideas read points 1 – 3 above.

Here are some other ideas from Marketo on being creative in B2B communications. It’s worth a read if you are looking to learn more about this topic.

I’ve been lucky to work on both national and international B2B and B2C campaigns in my career and personally I’m glad I’ve gravitated into strictly B2B. The creative challenges are different. They are more demanding. They require more time to succeed. And they need more buy-in from the organization. Not to take anything away from B2C creativity, it’s still demanding, but I’ve always liked that challenges and pressure as a professional of being more creative in B2B communications.

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

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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

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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.

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy:

Are you ready for a real-time B2B world?

Need a Strategy? Start by Playing Games

Using Social Networking Sites in B2B Businesses

Why LinkedIn’s Company Pages Now Matter More

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With one small update, LinkedIn made the company pages more releevant and more competitive with other social platforms last week. The new company updates feature allows the administrator for a company’s page on LinkedIn to now add news and share links that feed into the page’s stream. In addition, the stream for company’s you like will now be udpated on your own LinkedIn home page. I’ve been a long-time supporter of the group’s feature on LinkedIn to promote our company, and we use LinkedIn group’s as internal focus groups.

CME Group on LinkedIn

Prior to this update, administrators for the page could only update company basic information and facts — addresses, blog URL, number of employees, etc. Not a very compelling reason to visit the page. If you have been following companies you like via the LinkedIn “follow” button you know there is value in connecting with a company and its people. However, there was little incentive to revisit a company page once you started to follow it. As an administrator of our page on LinkedIn we’ve already started using the new updates feature to post and share news and information about the company. The new updates now allow an administrator to play a more active role in promoting the company and brand and makes a company more visible.

Why does this matter?

  • You have a highly targeted audience that is looking for information about your company. You can now share relevant information that matters to you and them.
  • The analytics portion of the LinkedIn company pages continues to get better and adding this feature should help you correlate more data.
  • Using URL tracking and analytics, you should try to develop and track use of the page and how it correlates to your other communications activities.
  • Anyone who is following your company will now see these updates in their own home page stream, which makes your updates more visible to the people who follow it. This should make your company page a more active landing page.

As next steps, if you play a role in your company’s social media efforts you will want to connect with your company’s page administrator and gain access if you have not already. Also, follow other companies that are now using the new update and benchmark your efforts against them. Finally, figure out how you want to use your LinkedIn company page and the new stream — will it be a job posting venue, industry news source, or a platform to promote your product efforts.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn here: Allan Schoenberg LinkedIn

If you enjoyed this post you may also want to read:

Don’t Overlook the Power of LinkedIn Groups

What the LinkedIn IPO Could Mean for B2B Communicatons

What’s your “I” in social media?


The Changing Role of Communicators — A Look at the Financial Services Industry

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I was fortunate enough to be invited to and attend an event last week hosted by VMA Group in London rolling out the latest survey results of communicators in the financial services industry. I’m an enthusiastic fan of surveys and studies. Here were two takeaways from the study that I found most interesting:

  • A little more than half (52%) report to the C-suite (CEO/CFO/Chairman) with 3/4 of those respondents feeling that senior management feel communications is a priority. Among all of the various direct report structures, the report showed that there is a firm link between senior management understanding the role of communications and the prioritization of communications as a management function.
  • In terms of personal skills to develop, respondents feel they need to focus mostly on developing relationships outside of the business (23%) and presentation skills (22%). At the bottom of the list were developing business acumen (13%) (see my previous post on business acumen) and creating/engaging writing (8%).

Three trends and issues I hope the study explores in future versions include crisis communication and the role it plays in helping define/elevate the top communicator, the views of social media in financial services, and further analysis of integration and cooperation with marketing.

You can view the results of the survey here: Financial Services Survey: The role of communicators in a changing environment.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Why my role model is an economist

The Trust Economy

Getting Your Degree in Business Acumen

You are What You Read

Is Motivation the Key to Success?

Do We Need a Social Index for Businesses?

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Last month, the Dachis Group launched a public version of its Social Business Index as a way to measure and analyze the social influence of brands in real-time. Less than a month into its launch the company has gathered a lot of attention from the likes of Tech Crunch, AdWeek and Edelman Digital. There certainly are a lot of questions. For one, do we need this? And second, is it legitimate?

In terms of the need for it, yes, it’s an interesting way to benchmark brands and its early days for the index. Before the index existed taking a look across multiple platforms was time-consuming and, frankly, quite biased if you were doing this for your own interest. The index looks to create a “neutral” view of brands based on the back office technology it is using. This can be helpful, but it also needs to be accurate and fair. As time goes on I’ll be following what the Dachis Group is doing to improve and expand the service.

So is this a legitimate tool for you to use? That’s hard to tell since companies that do this type of analysis keep their formula mostly secret. The most well known indicator of online influence these days is Klout. The service is focused on individuals for the moment, but brands can take advantage of Klout as well. Klout has its detractors, but people can opt out of Klout. An advantage — or disadvantage depending on your point of view — of the Social Business Index is that if you’re a brand you have no choice — you will be measured against your competitors. In order to build on the influence of this tool I’m hoping the Dachis Group continues to reveal more about its metrics and analysis.

From what I’ve seen so far I like the index (One reason is that we rank quite well as a brand against our competition). Yes, there are a lot of questions that remain but surely Dachis will continue to improve what they have created. It’s not perfect. None of the metric and measurement tools that exist are perfect, so don’t think of this as a way to solve any content or competitive issues. It’s simply a tool to give you a view of your industry.

So what can you do?

First, if you’re company is not listed you should register it. Once you do so you can gain access to a handful of ways to compare your company against the competition. My hope is that Dachis Group will build out the metrics portion of the index, and even offer for purchase more detailed information on their scores.

Second, you should discuss the index with your team. Keep in mind that this is a view into the social side of your business only. I have always held the point of view that social media needs to play a part of your overall brand strategy — it’s not a silver bullet. If you are falling behind the competition in social media, yet, track far ahead of them in other marketing measures you will need to assess how important it is. On the other hand, if you are far ahead of your competition in social media, yet are behind in other areas you should decide how to integrate everything better. But these are decisions for you to make. The advantage is that you now have a new tool to help in your discussion and decision process.