Building a Social Media Marketplace in Financial Services

Filed under Uncategorized by on 10 July 2009 at 13:23 {2 comments}

I remember in my days working at Edelman during the ERP heyday that online B2B marketplaces, particularly for manufacturing, were the buzz and actually changed how many companies did business. Last month, I presented at the Ragan Corporate Communications Social Media conference (we also hosted the conference at the exchange) about what we are doing in the financial services industry (you can view my presentation here via Slideshare and a recap from Barbara Rozgonyi here).

In my opinion we are in the midst of developing a new marketplace at the exchange. In the past several years alone we have seen tremendous and rapid change in our industry. As a marketplace founded in 1848 (version 1.0) our model was unchanged for more than 150 years. Buyers and sellers came to our trading floors to hedge their risk and sell their products. They also used the markets to discover what the market would pay for a price. In 2002 that evolved (version 2.0) when the exchange went public (Nasdaq: CME) and we had new audiences to communicate with (investors, analysts) besides our members. When I came to the exchange in 2004 another shift occurred when for the first time ever electronic trading (version 3.0) surpassed floor trading. This shift in trading create even more opportunities for us as we now had customers in more than 85 countries directly connected to CME Group (as opposed to our trading floor). Today, more than 80 percent of our volume is now electronic. If you want to know more about how the exchange operates you can watch the video here.

So where are we now? I believe social media is profoundly changing financial markets once again (version 4.0). Social media, in particular Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, are having profound effects on the way our customers interact, communicate and research what is happening in the economy. If you want a great example of this just go to StockTwits and follow the conversations. We’ll see where all of this takes us but I think social media will continue to create a number of real business opportunities for traders and the financial markets in the coming years.

I’ll be talking more about this idea and concept at Blogwell and Ragan in the coming weeks. So how is social media changing your views about your industry? I welcome your thoughts, ideas and questions.

Community is Like a Dinner Party

Filed under Discussion, Guest Post by on 24 June 2009 at 08:34 {no comments}

This is a guest post by Rachel Happe, the Principal and co-Founder of The Community Roundtable, a peer network for community managers and social media practitioners.

Most of us have heard some version of “Social Media/Twitter is like a Cocktail Party” and while this is hardly a new meme, I wanted to add my perspective because a party is not a party is not a party. I have a soapbox topic that is related which is social media is not community – even though it may share many of the same characteristics.  To me it is like saying a cocktail party is not a dinner party – most people would agree.  I like both as an individual but one represents my circle of acquaintances and the other represents people with whom I have more intimate relationships. For business, that is very similar to a marketing funnel – and depending on what type of business you are in, one may be more important than the other. In particular, if you are marketing to businesses rather than individuals, the deeper relationships engendered by “dinner parties” are critical to your marketing efforts.
There are a few characteristics of a good dinner party that make it special and different:

  • The food and wine are typically more elaborate and sophisticated
  • Your attention is focused on a small set of guests all evening
  • The music is mellow to allow for in depth conversations
  • Guests are introduced to other people they are likely to enjoy meeting
  • The host or hostess mixes things up, ensures the conversation keeps moving, and draws out their guests
  • You put out your best dinnerware

Done well, the host of a dinner party makes their guests feel welcome, comfortable, interesting, and desirable. It is a pretty good ‘tool’ for establishing closer relationships with people and making them want to stay friend with you.

What can businesses learn? Sure, throw a lot of cocktail parties (i.e. use social media tools), you have to get your name out and chat with the crowd… but make sure you also throw some fabulous dinner parties – or get invited to them because those are the events that allow you to have a richer conversation. Niche communities are where people will trust each other, participate in deeper conversations about their needs, and really get to know you. Setting up a community to serve the same purpose as a dinner party requires:

  • A appealing location (even if that location is virtual) that encourages conversation and connections
  • Good content that will encourage the conversations you want the group to have
  • A community manager who facilitates introductions, highlights content, and keeps the conversation going
  • Participation of experts and thought leaders that people want to meet – whether from within your own company or external

You can throw the dinner party, which may cost more but you get to decide who gets invited, or you can work on being a sought-after guest – someone that helps hosts provide good content and/or energy. But beware: It is all to easy to provide an appealing location, invite people over and assume they will form a tight knit community. But think about throwing a dinner party, having people come over and then spending the evening in another room – maybe yelling out to them every once in a while. Awkward, no? People would chit chat a little but the conversation would be stilted because there they are, sitting in your living room… waiting for you and the food, eventually leaving in disappointment and annoyance.

Communities are a phenomenal way of developing relationships with prospects and customers… but don’t think they will effortlessly develop. Want to understand them a little better? Go home and plan a dinner party.

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Using Social Networking Sites in B2B Businesses?

Filed under Discussion by on 8 June 2009 at 11:37 {3 comments}

In the B2B Online Marketing group on LinkedIn, Rob Schmelz, E-Commerce Manager for Central Restaurant Products, asked a simple question from people:

robb2b

The question got a few good responses that hit on several key issues involved in instituting social media into the B2B space.

Kathryn Korostoff, Founder and President of Research Rockstar, notes varied successes:

kathrynb2b

A lot of success to date with B2B and social media use has been in cultivating communication with your current constituents: customers, clients, and employees.  As Kathryn mentioned, they had a ton of success using the tools for their customer support.  Other such examples are internal communities for current employees, or platforms that increase the connection to tier one clients.  She also highlights where social media tactics have room to grow: new client or customer acquisitions, or new sales.  In summary, at least in Kathryn’s experience, social media has been much more useful in making existing relationships stronger and deepter.

Scott Hardigree, CEO of Indiemark, which recently launched the mformer portion of their services to target B2B companies,

scottb2b

There is still a place for quick, viral marketing to happen in the B2B space.  A lot of people think this and other forms of word of mouth marketing are reserved for the B2C space.

Maria Colacurcio, Co-Founder of SmartSheet,

mariab2b

As Kathryn also mentioned, social media is a great way to develop your standing as an expert in your field and, ideally, an industry leader.  One of the primary ways this is done in the B2B space is to have a company blog where you’re able to post valuable information that brings readers back for more, and thus creates more brand awareness for when it does come time to make a decision on a certain product or service.  It’s icing on the cake that also boosts your SEO.

Jann LaGoy Mirchandani, Owner of Mirchandani Consulting, a graphic & web design firm in New York, commented:

jannb2b

Some B2B industries may see more success than others when it comes to sales.  Part of that, as Jann points to, may be a result of having a company with a little bit more word of mouth capabilities.  Once you have happy customers, information on a jewelry design may have the capability to be more “talked about” outside your direct network or industry connections than, say, a supply management software application.

Do you have any thoughts on successes or failures in the B2B space?  What have been our experiences?

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B2B Case Study: ShipServ

Filed under Case Study by on 29 April 2009 at 12:27 {6 comments}

The social media program that this case study is based upon was a joint effort between ShipServ and Velocity Partners, a London-based B2B Marketing agency specializing in technology markets.

So what works for a B2B company? Let’s start by taking a look at a campaign that’s been pretty successful so far. This campaign was driven by John Watton, the VP of Marketing for ShipServ, an internet trading platform for the shipping industry. ShipServ has a global audience and a dispersed community of purchasers who are, believe it or not, quite eager to network.

Goals of the campaign:

  • Raise the awareness of the ShipServ brand amongst our target audience
  • Increase traffic to shipserv.com by 50% in three months
  • Engage with the audience and start to build community

Challenges faced:

  • Limited budget
  • Conservative target audience, late to adopting the internet and Web2.0 technologies

ShipServ’s Strategy:

  • Build an online community of advocates
  • Move communications from broadcast to discussion, engaging the audience in ongoing,open dialogue
  • Nurture prospects through drip feed of relevant content
  • Establish key themes on a quarterly basis, and develop rolling thunder of editorial content

Tactics Used:

  • Launch of the ShipServ Maritime Trading Network Group on LinkedIn in December 2008
  • Joined five other maritime groups on LinkedIn
  • Launch of the ShipServ blog as a container for opinion pieces
  • Opened up a twitter account, taking direct feeds from the website
  • Undertook keyword planning, optimized the website and developed landing pages for SEO
  • Revamped company newsletter to be more point-of-view oriented
  • Distributed humorous viral video

  • Underpinned site with lead nurturing system (marketo) to track visitor behaviour and nurture leads
  • Developed six themes, each of which manifested itself in:
    • A discussion posting on the LinkedIn groups
    • A social media release, distributed via PitchEngine
    • A blog posting

Results:

Building the community

  • Built a community of nearly 400 on LinkedIn
  • Attracted nearly 300 visitors to blog postings
  • Attracted over 50 relevant followers on Twitter
  • Over 600 views of the viral video, 62% of which came via email distribution and 18% via shipserv.com/linkedin distribution

Web site stats:

  • Visitors went up by 59% (increase in quantity)
  • Page views went up by 70% (increase in quality)
  • Average time on site went up by 25% (increase in quality)
  • Linkedin and Twitter went from zero to being in top 20 traffic sources
  • Number of leads passed to sales increased by 400%

This is a great example of using social media as a low cost way to build brand awareness and encourage engagement in a B2B space. Ship Serv, and John Watton, are instituting pioneering strategies with social media in a what is usually considered a pretty conservative industry.

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So you want to be a B2B communicator? Know your customers.

Filed under Uncategorized by on 17 April 2009 at 13:50 {no comments}

As an adjunct professor it never comes as a surprise that the majority of students I teach do not know what B2B communication requires, let alone even define it (Hint: it is not Back to Beer).

So let’s discuss what I feel is one of the key distinctions of doing successful B2B versus B2C communications – understanding your customers.

As communicators one of our basic mantras is to know who the end users of our products and services are in the marketplace. All of our strategies and tactical outputs should remain focused on communicating our messages and delivering on our brand promise to end users. No matter if you sell consumer goods or technology services, you need to recognize your customers’ wants and needs. That is a value-add from our efforts to our companies and clients.

So what makes B2B customers different? Here are five distinctions I see of B2B v. B2C customers

1. Customers in the B2B space typically have longer purchasing cycles. So instead of purchasing your products or services in a day or week it may take weeks or even months. This presents great opportunities to drive home our messages and value proposition, but at the same time it allows your competitors to do the same. The focus during this time now becomes building trust and differentiating our brand against our competition.
2. Customers in the B2B space often buy from our competition and can even compete with our other customers. We need to emphasize in our communications that we have to treat our products and services individually to each customer in order to build trust, loyalty and deliver on their needs. Remember, it is a long purchasing cycle and over time you can build strong loyalty or lose it all.
3. Both B2C and B2B customers are interested in customer service. The difference is that B2B customer service begins well before any sale is ever made or even considered. From a communicator’s standpoint we need to build our winning argument with case studies/references as well as third party endorsements during this time. These “outside influencers”, such as industry analysts, become a key component of our efforts to build trust with potential buyers. Find the people outside of your company that matter to our customers is always an ongoing initiative.
4. A B2B customer is typically more sophisticated than a B2C customer and has a deep understanding of our products or services (which means they also can be very skeptical). Since there already exists a great degree of knowledge or a high interest in learning about our offering, we must communicate in a way that talks specifically to them. This means you need to have a very complete understanding not only of what your company does but what your customer needs.
5. B2B customers buy your products because they will use them to help their company grow, become profitable, and stay competitive. This means you need to stay focused on communicating the value of your offering to them. They will not be entertained by funny animal mascots or snappy slogans. They want (need) a product or service to keep them competitive.

Even though this is a brief list, it feels like asking someone to name the top baseball or hockey players of all time. The list will change or evolve or could even be missing something. So tell us what you think.

Allan Schoenberg
Director, Corporate Communications
CME Group — A CME/Chicago Board of Trade/NYMEX Company
www.cmegroup.com
@allanschoenberg
@cmegroup

4 Great Reasons to Start a Social Media Program as a B2B

Filed under Application by on 3 April 2009 at 11:12 {5 comments}

A lot of B2B marketing professionals or departments have wondered what, if any, benefit they would get out of adding social media components to their marketing plans. Isn’t that for consumer-facing companies?

Here are 4 ways to start thinking about incorporating social media within your company:

Thought Leadership

  • Provide valuable information that establishes your company as an innovate thinker in your industry.  The end goal is to position yourself as an industry leader.
  • You could post a blog on useful industry information, again providing timely and innovative content to your readers.  Kinaxis has done a good job at this with their blog, The 21st Century Supply Chain.
  • Develop a complete content production program with such things as eBooks, white papers, webcasts etc and utilize social media channels to disseminate your information.
  • Part of the concept of a content production plan is that the information that you’re outputting is ultimately connected to your brand in the eyes of the reader.

Research

Marketing Profs has a great post about the benefits of social media for B2B companies.  I won’t re-invent the wheel, as they did a great job in explaining it. They focused primarily on the research advantages it offers, with the following highlights:

  • Conducting research to understand more about a prospect’s or client’s “buying desires.”
  • Finding decision makers for certain products and services.
  • Extracting names from a given community for lead generation.
  • Getting answers to questions, reaching out to other experts.
  • Finding joint-venture marketing partners and creating various “cooperative opportunities.”
  • Connecting with past customers, keeping them up-to-date.

Brand Outreach

  • People often gather online around common interests or professions.  Many are employed in their field and, if not in a decision-making position, are at least closer to the decision-maker than you may be.  Join in their conversation in a valuable way.
  • Sponsor groups or networks that offer a forum of exchange and engagement for people that might be in what you consider your “target company” (see above).

Communication and Customer Service

  • The ability to connect with customers and clients in a way the offers 2-way communication and conversation can greatly increase relationships between parties.  Rethink the way you communicate with your clients.
  • Use new technologies to streamline the flow of information. Offer a platform to discuss pertinent issues and share knowledge on such topics as R&D, sales, supply chain, production and marketing.
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