Social media & B2B Marketing

Transcription

1 Social media & B2B Marketing New opportunites A white paper by the IAB s B2B council January 2012 / Version 1.0

2 Foreword While social media is widely regarded as a B2C marketing concern, its role within B2B is increasingly central. According to IAB UK B2B study from Aug 2011, 80% of B2B marketers are using social media tactics (up from 30% in 2009) and more importantly, are finding that it s highly effective (2nd most effective channel for branding and retention). It can help promote your company, build your brand, generate leads, and make direct sales. Consumer adoption of social media across demographics is changing behaviours, increasing our expectations of brands and businesses and bringing issues such as transparency and engagement to the fore. It s no different for B2B marketing. In fact where customer connections, information distribution and access are often central marketing techniques, Social Media opens up entirely new opportunities and is one of the most powerful new toolsets for B2B marketers. Forrester Research s Social Technographics ladder for Business Technology decision-makers in US & Europe indicates that B2B audiences are in fact more active than their consumer counterparts socially, especially when it comes to creating and sharing content. Business Technology Buyers Adopt Social Media for business purposes US online adults for any purpose* Business technology decision makers for business purposes Creators 23% 32% Publish a blog Publish your own web pages Creators Upload audio/music you created Write articles or stories and post them Conversationalists Update status on a social networking site* Post updates on Twitter* Conversationalists Critics 31% 33% Critics 17% 46% Post ratings/reviews of products or services Comment on someone else s blog Contribute to online forums Collectors 19% Collectors 36% Use RSS feeds Vote for websites online Add tags to web pages or photos Joiners 59% Joiners 44% Maintain a profile on a social networking site Visit social networking sites Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki 68% Spectators 80% Read blogs Listen to podcasts Watch video from other Spectators Read online forums Read customer ratings/reviews Read tweets 19% Inactives 14% Inactives None of the above Base: 1,001 US and European business technology decision-makers at companies. (Percentages include US online respondents who said that they engage in selected social activities for any purpose and business technology decision-makers who said they engage in selected social activities for business purposes or for both business and personal purposes. Source: Q US And European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey For Business Technology Buyers*Source: North American Technographics Online Benchmark Survey, Q (US) Groups include people participating in at least one of the indicated activities at least monthly. *Conversationalists participate in at least one of the indicated activities at least weekly. Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 1

3 The environment is complex with dozens of different platforms that connect with each other as well as customers and commentators, supplier networks and influencers. Your online presence is no longer restricted to your website and so the way you manage your strategies is changing. Worth bearing strongly in mind is the search currency value of traffic generated from social media platforms. It s about authenticity and relevance. If people share and recommend your content in the wider digital space, then its value can be reflected in search rankings. Like any other marketplace, social media platforms are there to be exploited and the more skilled you become at understanding how (and why), the more valuable currency is developed around your brand, business and ideas. People follow people that s what Social Media is about. Social media expertise is very much a B2B marketing imperative. This briefing whitepaper, compiled by members of the IAB s B2B Council and others, serves as an outline of the environment. We hope to provide you with an introduction to the range of communications channels that are fast becoming a mainstream marketing platform for all businesses. Hanne Tuomisto-inch, Chair IAB B2B Council and Industry Head, B2B, Google. 2

4 Contents Introducing social media Social media channels LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Google+ Slideshare YouTube What you should talk about Tracking and measurement Paid tactics Case studies HP Simply Business

5 Introducing social media Where to start? First, familiarise yourself with the landscape. Some of the key platforms are profiled below, but think as well about who s writing blogs in your sector, which trade bodies provide active forums and communities these are all part of your social media network as well as the dedicated platforms we talk about below. Importantly, think about what other businesses in your industry or sector are doing spend time watching what s going on. Listen to the kinds of conversation people use the platforms for. Questions to ask yourself: What are your competitors social media strategies? How successful are they and what mistakes are they making you could learn from? Who are they trying to market to, and which social media platforms are they using? Then consider where you should start. Who am I marketing to? What is my audience? Is it potential customers or prospects; journalists and media organisations; or existing customers you want to maintain a relationship with? All of these? None of these? A mix of these Why would they want to engage with you? Social media is no different to other forms of media in that the content has to be compelling for your chosen audience/s. Where will I find my audiences? Where do those businesses live online? Facebook and Twitter are two of the largest social media sites for consumers but this doesn t necessarily mean that they re best for connecting with your B2B audience. Have you checked out LinkedIn, SlideShare and Google+? Think widely and keep an eye on what others who are well connected are already doing. Above all think long term social media connections are relationships like any other. They require investment and nurturing. Social media is all about people and the connections that you re making are very human. 4

6 Social media channels Here s an overview of the mainstream social media platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Slideshare. Most often these channels are used in combination with each other and their use integrated with corporate, product and brand websites and campaigns. LinkedIn is one of the most prominent social networks for B2B marketers, many believing it s a strong platform for engaging in long term business and industry conversations. At the beginning of 2012 there were over 135m members, many of whom use LinkedIn for information and insights to develop their industry relationships, grow new business, increase expertise, and to create economic opportunity. LinkedIn has a range of marketing solutions to target this traditionally hard-to-reach business audience. Tools available to marketers include: establishing a brand presence via a LinkedIn company page, LinkedIn Groups to interact with communities where like-minded individuals gather to collaborate, share, and connect, and display ads allowing you to drive engagement through socially relevant messaging, dynamic content and an uncluttered environment. LinkedIn is an intuitive place to network, and to explore other users networks. If you re targeting a specific industry or company you can, for example, see how many connections you are away from them, enabling you to find and approach targets more effectively. And, as with Facebook and Twitter, other users can follow your news - and this is where you can start elevating your products or services more actively via a properly tracked program of follower and connection building; participation in (and sparking of) discussions; and answering of questions. Developing a buiness prospect on LinkedIn. Develop profiles fully Ensure links external content Use applications Answer questions to show expertise Push pre prepared content LinkedIn surveys Ask questions Beta testers Request recommedations and revies Acquisition Fill in Connect in Join in Create in Ask in Build trust in Advocacy Create customised company profile Create seed personal networks Join groups Create strategic alliances Collaborate on content Search people Request referrals Source: LinkedIn road map 5

7 Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service. It can be a very useful promotional tool, particularly if you use it to point your followers to longer-form content posted elsewhere. As ever though, this strategy will only be effective if you build and sustain a loyal following and this relies on great content. Point people at useful and relevant information and their trust in what you have to say will grow. Because Twitter limits each update to 140 characters it s easy to get started but bear in mind that it s a long term commitment to build an influential follower base that will drive success on this platform. It s a good place to experiment with different ideas due to the speed and immediacy of the network often beating mainstream news channels with important news and information that businesses need to get out into the marketplace. One of the most common uses of Twitter in B2B is customer service. Facebook is often a difficult social network to crack for B2B marketers as many people think of it as a place where they go to catch up with friends. However don t write off Facebook too quickly. For some B2B companies, it can be a way to humanise their brand by adding a little more personality. Facebook s importance is on the up from a B2B perspective as customers blend their personal and professional lives. And according to GlobalWebIndex*, it s also a place where decision makers can be influenced. Brands such as Dell, Cisco, Forrester and Hubspot have found value value in building a community. Facebook pages of B2B brands are often very different from other platforms. Successful Facebook pages are more engaging, even entertaining, showing glimpses of personality alongside knowledge sharing and industry wide information. In considering Facebook as an option, evaluate your audience, cultural and brand fit; examine how you might develop a community that could support lead nurturing and even lead generation. Google+ is the new social network from Google. It was created to make sharing online more real. Google+ Pages provide a brands identity on the platform, enabling them to connect with customers and fans in unique ways: Hangouts enable brands and other entities to have real conversations with people face-to-face over video chat. Imagine having a panel discussion with your early adopters on new product development or simply being able to directly answer customers questions. Circles let page owners reach the targeted people with relevant messaging. For example, a business can send special offers to their most loyal customers. +1 button is a device that brings together all of a brand s +1 activities from across the web including websites, search results and ads. Businesses can link their Page to their website and AdWords campaigns so that when a user +1 s the Page the +1 will also appear in search results, websites and ads. Likewise, when a user +1 s a website, search result or ad, that +1 will also appear on the Google+ Page, increasing the likelihood that people will see recommendations for that particular brand during their online research process. SlideShare The prime function of the SlideShare platform is to upload presentations and associated materials. As well as player functionality, it provides the means to embed presentations into websites and blogs as well as download them for personal and onward use. As with other Social Media platforms, it allows people to favourite presentations, comment and share with their networks. You can see how many people have viewed your presentation, embedded them into other web properties or simply downloaded them, serving as a barometer of popularity and credibility. * 6

8 SlideShare has also introduced a network or branded channel function where businesses can create communities around their presentation resources. Eloqua ( and IBM ( are good examples of how businesses are using the platform to establish information-based resource destinations for business communities. IBM on SlideShare The IBM Network on SlideShare is designed to be a continually evolving resource for forward thinkers to engage with IBM experts and expertise. Here, anyone can access IBM s latest thinking, research presentations, documents and videos for inspiration, insight and discussion. IBM says the value in its SlideShare programme is clear. As a knowledge based B2B company differentiating itself through the expertise of its employees, the program allows it to turn the most common activity of its thought leaders, creating and delivering presentations, into social objects with reach across the web. It s capped this network today (Jan 2012) at just 50 experts (0.01 percent of its employee base). It s also slightly U.S. centric. But many IBMers are already active on SlideShare who aren t in this program. Over time, the plan is to work with SlideShare to evolve the network to be more global, expansive and representative of its work, reach and employees expertise. YouTube As marketers become more reliant on video as a prime communications tool, YouTube is an important Social Media channel to engage with your audience. For example, a recent IDG study found that 95% of Tech buyers view video, while two thirds post and share content. All the built in functionality means that videos on YouTube can be easily shared and embedded into other digital properties as well as easily found via the video results on search engines. As well as standard corporate videos, many organisations have discovered the value of using video to support customers. For example, there are numerous how-to videos that demonstrate how to operate equipment, replace spare parts etc providing additional after-sales and customer-care services. Often customers or resellers will make their own videos, sharing knowledge and information about products that brands can also incorporate into their own channels. Salesforce is a good example of how a B2B company is maximising its YouTube brand channel. It s moved all video from its own site to YouTube, giving a higher SEO value and making it easier for the audience to view and share. It s also measured the ROI of the YouTube views: 7,500 YouTube video views are equal to 46 Hyper Efficient sales reps on the phone. In addition to the mainstream platforms mentioned, there are hundreds of niche publishers offering communities and standalone forums. These should not be forgotten in your social media plan. There s a broad range of communities across various vertical sectors. In the technology space, for example, you may choose to target sites like Toolbox.com and Spiceworks. 7

9 So, what should you talk about? Given that you re operating in a B2B environment, content should probably be industry specific although there s nothing wrong with exploring an entertaining off-topic tangent now and again. Above all, make your content interesting and relevant to your audience. After all, you want your customers to share and spread the word this is what Social Media platforms are best at doing. Content comes in many forms. But before you invest in a series of videos or a line-up of podcasts think about the messages, themes and topics you want to cover. Get into the detail, and map out your conversation triggers. Understand what will motivate your customer to share. Are they keen on entertaining explanations, or do they prefer informative lists. Would you be better off creating participative surveys or collaborating on ideas with customers. Be clear on your own messaging too. How can you ensure your content and assets not only travel across the social sphere, but meet your objectives? Start with a detailed content grid. Work out what you will discuss each month, week or even day. Then think about the type of content. Don t always rely on text. If you have a new product, photograph or film it, talk about what it does and then ask for comment. Better still look at multiple ways to share your thought leadership: shatter your content to make it bite sized and sharable. Top 5 tips when considering content and Social Media 1. Keep it informative and relevant and avoid marketese. You want people to share your information which means they need to feel comfortable about putting their name to your material. 2. Use social media platforms in concert with each other and build the reach and currency value of your content. For example, upload a presentation to SlideShare, embed it on your LinkedIn Page, point to it from Google+ and Twitter and publish your latest social media activity on your website. 3. Deploy social media sharing toolbars across all your publishing platforms websites and s. Turn your content - wherever you publish - into something sharable. 4. Don t be afraid to associate with other business content. Sharing and pointing to excellent content produced by others builds trust among your audience, establishing you as a useful and authentic source. 5. Think about the kind of content you produce. Even though whitepapers are traditionally valuable, you may want to consider simpler but more immediate infographics as well. 8

10 For example, a white paper can be shortened for list style blog posts, converted into video to highlight key points and put a human face to the company, made into podcast interviews with customers to discuss key points and adapted into a series of images that reflect the white paper themes. Make more of your ideas, and give your customers multiple ways to enjoy, share and advocate your company. This will help to increase awareness and engagement and, ultimately sales. Finally, don t think about content only in terms of assets. People buy from people. The content that your experts and thought leaders produce, by engaging and interacting with your customer community, can be rich and persuasive. Look for the smart communicators in your organisation. Empower them to be your voice and help them reach customers through multiple social touch points. Who does this? If you re serious about social media, incorporate it into the everyday life of your organisation. Many people in your business will already be using social media in their everyday activities. Consider formalising this. Introduce social media guidelines. Where practical, consider employing a community manager. In many respects, social media is another PR channel. Should your community manager come from this background? Perhaps customer service skills are more important. Maybe it s a blend. This post is all about communication the technology is just the enabler. And critically social media is as much about listening as it is about talking. A community manager is well placed to set up structured listening tools feeding back often vital information into the business. 9

11 Tracking and measurement Measuring social media efforts often requires a different approach to that which you might use for other online channels. Due to its softer nature, and viral spread, it can be much harder to pin down metrics as clearly as tactics such as Paid Search. That is not to say it s impossible though, just that you may have to try harder. This can make for a confusing picture. Fortunately, though, there are many aspects of social media marketing that can be measured easily and which will help you understand the impact of your efforts and justify the outlay. What should you measure? The metrics you choose to measure will depend on your specific goals. The following ideas should help to give you a broad overview of the success of your social media efforts. Actual numbers, with metrics like followers is a simple place to start. These give a quick glimpse of how your social media effort is growing. Caution though these can be very crude measures and don t produce real insights into engagement or frequency of contact. For each platform where you re active, measure directly associated metrics such as: unique visits, page views, forum posts, time on site, content shares, Tweets, likes, wall posts, subscriptions, and so on. Think how these correlate with each other and figure out ways of using this kind of data to suit your own business objectives. Traffic directed to your main domain, and to the other social media platforms on which you are active. Google and other engines take social media presence and activity into account when compiling their rankings. Measure these and see if you can correlate the two. Sales and leads, keeping track of sales is one of the most important ways in which you can determine your social media ROI. Analytics solutions like Adobe s Omniture now incorporate tools that help you measure sales and traffic generated as a result of social media activities. If you can t directly measure your sales online, keeping track of leads such as newsletter subscriptions, quotes, and other call-to-action (CTA) events can also be useful. By keeping track of the number of individuals completing a CTA (or sale) as a result of a social media interaction, you can easily get an insight into the effectiveness of your efforts. But you don t necessarily need a fancy tool to do this for you. If you think it is worth the time investment you could place unique tracking codes on all of the URLs you use across social networks. Brand and PR, measuring brand and PR performance is always a tough call often requiring deep understanding of your marketplace to identify shifts. So too with social media but with so much that s measurable online, you can experiment to find the metric set that identifies changes in behaviour towards your brand. For instance, positive brand associations, built up through social media campaigns, may help drive clicks on paid search ads and encourage responses to other forms of advertising. 10

12 The gap between social media and PR is gradually closing. It s increasingly important to listen to your markets and analyse what is being said about your brand online (not what you say about it). You can monitor and visualise this using techniques like word clouds, channel reports, and blog performance reports. Tools for measuring engagement and customer satisfaction The importance of interaction on social media platforms in terms of boosting both on- and off-line perceptions of your business should not be underestimated. You ll need specialist tools as well as your standard analytics toolset to establish the ongoing effectiveness of your social media programme. While many tools are free to use and all platforms provide some form of embedded measurement tools, in general paid tools tend to be more accurate and customisable, often providing you with a good, across-the-board view of your efforts. And if you re a Google Analytics user, you ll already be seeing the growing prominence of social media metrics on your dashboard. When choosing a social media measurement tool you will need to decide how much you want to spend; whether or not you require geographical targeting; whether or not you require workflow and reporting capabilities. Notable paid tools, Simply Business use Radian6 for brand and PR measurement and workflow management. It provides reasonably accurate, useful business reporting through an intuitive dashboard. Honourable mentions also go to Meltwater Buzz, Alterian SM2, and Brandwatch. All these tools provide accurate results, and can be considered to be one stop solutions. As a rough guide, paid social media measurement tools can cost between 400 and 650 a month, but this figure will depend on factors such as: number of users; volume of search results; contract term; and popularity. Obviously a prime consideration is to ensure your tool properly integrates with whichever analytics solution you re using. Useful free tools, while many free social media measurement tools are of high quality, it is worth remembering that some can be unreliable and others are simply not supported by their developers. Unilyzer, enables you to keep track of key metrics, and is generally reasonably well regarded in the industry. Sprout Social provides you with a dashboard including all the numbers you are likely to need. Sprout, while not strictly free, starts at a very reasonable 7 a month. At the other end of the spectrum, tools like Klout, Peer Index and Trackr all help you understand things like brand reach, influence, and sentiment and are all free. Platform specific tools, finally, consider platform-specific tools. For efficient and effective Twitter use look into Hootsuite and Tweetdeck which allow easy management of multiple accounts and searches. Monitter, TweetStats and Tweetreach on the other hand support brand engagement measurement. In addition you may find this review of the top 20 social media monitoring vendors from socialmedia. biz a useful research resource ( 11

13 Paid tactics Social media is often thought of purely as an earned media strategy, but paid tactics also play an important role. These include: cost-per-click advertising on social platforms, community building, even lead generation. Both Facebook and LinkedIn operate auction models, where advertisers pay either per click or per thousand impressions. Facebook s targeting options means your advertising, especially in conjunction with keyword analysis, can reach very specific, precisely defined audiences. It is worth considering other options such as Facebook s sponsored stories innovation, which may help generate a viral effect. The LinkedIn advertising platform is similar but provides more business-specific options. Campaigns can be targeted by job title, industry, level of seniority, size of organisation etc. LinkedIn also offers an marketing platform via the InMail system for the registered users. YouTube has an advertising platform allowing companies to advertise via promoted videos (similar to sponsored links on Google), standard advertising on the homepage and video watch pages as well as skippable video pre-roll formats within the video content that are paid for on a cost per view basis (ie you only pay if the video has been viewed for a minimum of 30 seconds or to the end of the video). Google+ does not currently offer paid for advertising opportunities. Finally, there are many platforms with premium options to increase the spread of your content within your target audience, eg Scribd, Toolbox.com, Slideshare and Youtube. Slideshare, for example (see page 7), offers a monthly fee for their brand channels which includes data capture for lead generation. The typically high ranking in search engines of their hosted content, combined with the ease with which users can share the content, make them important hubs for B2B campaigns. Many niche sites can also host live chats for special events, enabling you to engage in real time. 12

14 Case Study - HP & LinkedIn HP s LinkedIn case study: Developing market engagement HP UK s Personal Systems Group (PSG) is the laptop and desktop business unit of HP s United Kingdom operations. Challenge Small and medium-sized businesses still viewed HP PSG as serving large corporations, not the smaller business market. HP PSG needed to engage directly with potential customers to change this perception. The existing websites for HP PSG did not have the facilities to promote user engagement. Solution HP launched a custom LinkedIn group called the HP Business Answers community to promote interactivity and engagement via discussions, polls, and valuable content. Why LinkedIn? LinkedIn was chosen because it provides the tools needed to drive traffic to groups, such as display and text ads and targeted Partner Messages. LinkedIn account teams can work closely with companies such as HP to continually refine group content and maintain engagement. According to Sam Wilson, HP s Personal Systems Group s Commercial Marketing Manager, the LinkedIn account team have become key members of our marketing team, continuously participating in discussions about improving the group. What happened During 10 months, the group grew to more than 5,500 members. Nearly a third of members have contributed multiple comments on various discussions. Almost three-quarters of members make repeat visits to the group. Group members are 20% more likely to recommend HP A study of group members found that they are twice as likely to rate HP as excellent in listening to its customers. What HP thought With LinkedIn, we can communicate with a network of SMB influencers, and we can develop creative ways to keep them engaged and provide SMB advice as a trusted business partner. Sam Wilson, Commercial Marketing Manager, HP Personal Systems Group UK and Ireland 13

15 Case Study - Simply Business Simply Business case study: Integrating social media platforms throughout the customer lifecycle SB is the biggest UK business insurance provider, insuring almost 200,000 businesses. SB began using various social media channels in 2009 to support its marketing activities and to improve overall customer service experience. The two aims for social media activity are Customer service improvements Content marketing and brand engagement In December 2011 all social media activity was integrated into the company s customer service tool, Zendesk. Now every Tweet or Facebook post is automatically transformed into a ticket. The dedicated Community Manager trained several customer service reps as social media champions to manage these tickets. By 2012, SB had achieved over 23,000 followers on Twitter and was running active Facebook and LinkedIn pages and a LinkedIn Group. Social media platforms are becoming a vital part of Simply Business brand marketing strategy, to: raise brand awareness, encourage engagement, drive traffic to the main website and future community. How SB makes it work Twitter: (via 4 - Business advice for customers and followers. Tweeting content published on main website and related sites SB likes. Marketing and editorial team - Does the same job for landlord insurance customers and - Used purely used for customer services. The account is communicated on our website. After trialling for three months, three Customer Solutions Consultants have access to social media monitoring tools to: Monitor what s been said about SB on Twitter Monitor keywords (eg business insurance) on Twitter Interact with followers and non-followers According to SB, success is not about followers but engagement and interaction. For example, in October 2011 this account produced: 36 quotes 114 leads/service contact moments through contact - Is managed by HR and used in combination with LinkedIn options to attract qualified staff. 14

16 Facebook: Supports customer service (support tab directly linked to Get Satisfaction), develops brand awareness and affection by offering behind the scene content, improves likability of the brand by offering freebies and organising competitions. Forums / blogs: Monitoring what s been said about SB, interacting with positive and negative comments, creating knowledge posts to drive traffic to SB s site LinkedIn: Offers business advice for customers and followers, organise discussions around topics published on the SB website via the SB Group (800 members Jan ), populate other Groups with relevant discussion topics. The goal - build expert status among small UK businesses, brand awareness. 15

17 IAB B2B Council Produced by the IAB s B2B Council Author: Alastair Douglas, Simply Business Contributors: Katy Howell, Amy Miller, LinkedIn, Hanne Tuomisto-inch, Google Editor: Clare O Brien, Industry Programmes, IAB / info@iabuk.net 14 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5NF