5 things b2b marketers need to fear with social media

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5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear about Social Media A RevenueEngines™ Webinar Steven Lewis, VP Marketing Services February 16 th

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Social media is rapidly shifting the way B2B marketers focus on demand generation, and stories of extraordinary successes have created something of a gold rush mentality. However, marketing professionals looking to expand their use of social media should proceed with caution – there are significant downsides to be aware of. This presentation outlines the most common B2B social media pitfalls...

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Page 1: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

5 Things B2B Marketers Need

to Fear about Social Media

A RevenueEngines™ Webinar

Steven Lewis, VP Marketing Services

February 16th

Page 2: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 2 –

MarketBridge Overview

Customers

18 of the top 50 global B2B brands

Global Fortune 1000 corporations and emerging

growth companies

“Considered-Purchase” Products

Enterprise, Mid-Market and SMB Business

Customers

Go-to-Market through Direct and Partner

Sales Channels

Sample Clients across Technology, Financial and Business Services, and Healthcare

Deep expertise and experience working closely with senior leadership teams and

their Marketing and Sales leaders to solve their toughest business challenges

and measurably drive revenue growth

Differentiators

Go-to-market focus

Integration of marketing and sales

Strategy through market execution

Analytic core competency

Performance driven

Page 3: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 3 –

Agenda

B2B Social Media in 2012

5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear about Social Media

How to Get Started

Thank You and Wrap-Up

Page 4: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 4 –

Poll Question #1

On a scale of 1-5, where do you see your

company’s success in Social Media today?

Luddite – Do not recognize the value of social media and do not currently use it

Apprentice – Just beginning to leverage social media as a valuable tool in the marketing channel

Advocate – Utilizing social media as a tool to help generate leads and make sales

Expert – Effectively leverage social media to gain insight , build and participate in communities

Visionary – Successfully leveraging social media across multiple sales and marketing channels

with measureable results

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©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 5 –

B2B Social Media Today

Three waves of B2B social media show progression in use towards

leveraging the tools across multiple sales and marketing channels

• Sporadic use by B2B

companies driven by

curiosity, but field

dominated by B2C

industries

• Successful companies

able to leverage social

media alongside

online marketing

efforts to develop and

support a consistent

brand presence

Early: Discovery

• Most B2B companies

have a presence on

major social media

platforms

• Successful companies

able to measure value

and influence of social

media on marketing

efforts, begin to see

more proactive use

(monitoring,

prospecting)

Present: Understanding

• Success stories

encourage greater

numbers of B2B

companies to expand

social media through

the buyer cycle –

sales, customer

retention, etc.

• Successful companies

operationalizing social

media and measuring

and analyzing results

Future: Integration

B2B marketers spent $20 million on social marketing in 2011,

and that number will increase to $54 million in 2014

Page 6: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 6 –

Poll Question #2

Of the following common risks, which most

align with your concerns in 2012?

Getting left behind – Fear of not capitalizing on opportunity, or being passed by competitors

Lengthening the leash – Employees doing/saying/sharing misinformation or inappropriate

remarks that can land the company in hot water

Weakening of the brand – Audience confusion of marketing and product/service messaging

Balancing privacy with publicity – Finding a way to share the right information, but keep other

B2B conversations private

Operationalizing – Difficulty connecting the various parts of the organization from strategy

through execution

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©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 7 –

5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear about Social Media

Social Media presents excellent opportunities,

so every interaction online now counts Value of a Sale 1

Rogue Agents 2

Brand Inconsistency 3

Privacy vs. Publicity 4 Operationalizing

Social Media 5

Well-intentioned or rogue, employees can do

serious damage to your company’s reputation

Losing control of messaging across all channels

of communication can cause buyer confusion

Finding the balance between sharing information

publicly or privately becomes a barrier to taking

social media to the next level

Integrating social media across other channels

and areas of the organization causes rifts

Page 8: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 8 –

Value of a Sale 1

What happened:

A 55 letter Tweet made a $250,000 sale

“shoretel or avaya? Time for a new phone system very

soon.”

Avaya saw this and responded within 15 minutes, and

13 days later, an Avaya partner closed the sale

How they addressed it:

A team of Avaya employees monitor between 1,000

and 2,500 mentions of Avaya online every week

Proactively intercept support issues before the customer ever

logs a formal support request

Positive word of mouth and timeliness of response means

they identify, and are able to respond to, more opportunities

Value of a B2B Sale

A single sale or incident can have a significant impact on an organization

Why should you be afraid? B2B sales have

a higher dollar amount than a retail consumer

transaction, so every single interaction counts

In the Market: Avaya

Page 9: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 9 –

ING Direct uses Radian6 to monitor and engage with THRiVE

Chequing customers (40,000 to date)

When deployed, ING built infrastructure to support the platform -

human and technical resources that can grow in scale to be

prepares to meet expectations in timeliness and responsiveness

Evaluate tools based on company functionality and capability requirements before

making a strategic investment, and educate and train staff on value of social media

Develop an education and training program for the social media team and broader

socially-enabled staff

Train on how to communicate with customers across different communications mediums (Twitter vs.

product forum)

Choose a technology that fits

Define requirements, stakeholders, scope and create a tailored platform evaluation process

Value of a Sale

Best Practices

Page 10: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

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What happened:

An employee at Chrysler’s social media agency posted

a Tweet over the official “ChryslerAutos” handle that

was not only off-brand but contained an expletive

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no

one here knows how to ________ drive.”

This happened not long after Chrysler was re-launching

itself as a success story with its “Imported From

Detroit” campaign that made a big splash during the

Super Bowl

How they addressed it:

Quickly Apologized to the public

Made sure the employee who sent this Tweet was

reprimanded and dismissed their social media agency

Rogue Agents

Well-intentioned or rogue, employees can do serious damage

Why should you be afraid? Even well-intentioned

employees can cause a surprising amount of

damage without knowing the consequences

In the Market: Chrysler

Rogue Agents 2

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©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 11 –

Rather than posting strict rules about what employees can or cannot do within social

media networks, offer guidance on advisable interactions, behaviors and involvement

Install and enforce a clear and comprehensive social media process, policy and

guidelines

To protect your company’s brand image and reputation

To minimize confusion about potential legal issues

To help employees understand how they can use social media to accomplish business goals

Rogue Agents

Best Practices

Intel’s social media guidelines are all about engagement. The

document includes:

• Social media “How Tos”

• Examples of appropriate content and engagements

• General guiding principles

Page 12: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 12 –

Brand Inconsistency

Losing control of your messaging across all channels of communication

What happened:

Discussions about HP’s products and services were

visible on multiple social media outlets

Not all discussions were depicting truisms about HP

products and services

How they addressed it:

HP brought unfettered social media discussions onto

their corporate site becoming the source of both

“official” company information and authentic peer-to-

peer sharing

HP’s new approach has made the company site a

primary destination for those who are ready to buy

In the Market: HP Labs

Why should you be afraid? Inability to control

marketing messaging over social media can

weaken brand presence and confuse audiences Brand Inconsistency 3

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©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 13 –

Extend your brand guidelines and messaging

Define your tone over social media presence – it’s a more casual interaction, but shouldn’t stray far

Tie marketing campaigns and social media campaigns as one – avoid posting on social media for

the sake of posting and sharing ideas that do not highlight overall brand promise or image

Plan for social media interactions on the web – engage product teams, sales and HR to ensure they

are equipped with playbooks and sales enablement tools to create value and distill and negativity

Brand Inconsistency

Best Practices

Leverages social media in product launches by using tools to

engage audience in interactive way:

• Planned and built cohesive messaging and content strategy

to encompass blogs, online forums, social media platforms

• An extension of traditional product launch methods

Clearly define presence and messaging to deliver an accurate perception of identity,

improve customer confidence in your business and enhance competitive advantage

Page 14: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 14 –

Privacy vs. Publicity

Getting overwhelmed with the publicity of social media and retreating

Why should you be afraid? Diving into social

media without establishing what company

information is private vs. public

In the Market: Citibank What happened:

Citibank was having an issue with their social media

strategy – their marketing engine turned into a

customer complaint forum so they were forced to

change their twitter handle:

“@Citibank is no longer active. Get news, deals & more

by following @Citi!”

How they addressed it:

Since Citibank still had the opportunity to assume the

@Citi handle, they were able to begin a new marketing

engine that lead them to promote Citibank news,

promotions, discounts and reach their users without

bringing to light the prior customer satisfaction issues

Privacy vs. Publicity 4

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©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 15 –

Don’t back out – be transparent but with a defined strategy and permission

Leverage all necessary PR and communications departments at your disposal

Just because you go dark does not mean your customers will stop discussing your business,

products or services

Make sure you have a social presence so you can determine the content and information about your

company that goes to market

Privacy vs. Publicity

Best Practices

Chase developed the Chase’s Facebook Community Giving

charity campaign which helped them get more than 2.5 million

people to follow them on Facebook

• Able to increase brand awareness and position events

• Build community outreach and establish the bank as a

socially responsible leader

Find a way to connect with your audience through engaging content

and leveraging the channels that best meet important business criteria

Page 16: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 16 –

Operationalizing Social Media

Growing disconnect with the use of social media across multiple departments

In the Market: Adobe

Why should you be afraid? Internal

obstacles can derail effective strategies

while integrating across multiple departments

What happened:

Adobe wanted to take better advantage of what was

being said about them via social media

After a company-wide audit, Adobe found they lacked:

Knowledge Sharing

Standard Metrics

Common Policies

Overarching Social Media Strategy

How they addressed it:

Adobe assembled a Social Media Center of Excellence

Adopted the Hub and Spoke model and launched its cross-

functional Center of Excellence, which supports/coordinates

between corporate functions and business units

Operationalizing

Social Media 5

Page 17: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 17 –

Operationalizing Social Media

Best Practices

Find evangelists and drivers outside of marketing to ensure that all stakeholders have a

say in and are accountable for the organization’s social media strategy

Involve leadership from other arms of the organization – sales, HR, PR, product teams – and

develop a strategy that can grow use of social media holistically in the organization

Reassess current processes throughout the year to ensure needs are communicated and

addressed

Dell launched their very own Social Media Listening Command

Center:

• Monitors more than 22,000 Dell-related topic posts on

average and growing

• Reacts to customers quickly and globally by monitoring the

web in 11 languages with over 5,000 trained employees

Implement a strategy throughout your organization that communicates clear

process, escalation and methods for handling all social media-related activity

Page 18: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 18 –

Summary and How to Get Started

1. Recognize inconsistencies in your current social media sales approach

preventing you from achieving optimal performance

2. Identify the primary social media channels in which we should actively

participate

3. Educate and train the organization on how to best utilize these channels

4. Develop brand guidelines that your organization should observe when utilizing

social media tools

5. Determine governance policies that frame the actions and behaviors of

employees when engaging in social media activities on your company’s behalf

6. Leverage key technologies within your social media sales approach and

ascertain how to implement these

7. Employ measurement tools and reporting methods to evaluate your

successes and areas of improvement

Page 19: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 19 –

RevenueEnginesTM Methodology | Integrate, Activate, Accelerate

Page 20: 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear with Social Media

©2012 MarketBridge Corp. – 20 –

Thank You!

Steven Lewis

Vice President

(415) 343-8717

[email protected]

Learn more:

Web: www.Market-Bridge.com

Twitter: @MarketBridge