Social Media for B2B Technology Companies

Webinar: Social Media for B2B Technology Companies Ronnie Ray Alison O’Brien MarketPlane Consulting Inc. Contact Us: [email_address] @Marketplane on Twitter www.marketplane.net/blog Marketing Professionals in IT Management Group on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/wtKij

The Social Media Phenomenon

Ning

One million social networks

- YoY traffic up 283 percent

- 5.6 million people in the US

Bebo - YoY traffic up 148 percent - Strong in Europe - 6.1 million people in the US LinkedIn - Doubled its size in the past year -15.8 million people in the US - 3 rd in total size

Twitter

YoY traffic is 2,565 percent

13 million people in the US

Facebook

March 2009 69.1 million visitors

- 1 st in total size

MySpace

March 2009 55.9 million visitors

2 nd in total size

Forrester definition of Groundswell “ A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than traditional institutions like corporations” The transition from “shouting” to “participation and conversation” is a fundamental change in Marketing

Changing The Way We Communicate Lexis Nexis Technology Gap Survey April 09 All generations agree - the line between professional and personal life is blurring

The Social Technographics™ of B2B Buyers Groups include people participating in at least one of the activities monthly. Source : Forrester Research Presentation B2B Social Media, Feb 2009

B2B Marketing with Social Media Base: 50 Webinar attendees, responding to a pre-Webinar survey What is your current approach to social media strategy? Source : Forrester Research Presentation B2B Social Media, Feb 2009

An Array of B2B Social Media Tools

Blogs

Corporate, Individual, Public (Ulitzer)

Wikis

Product/Solution Enabling

Social Networks

Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace

Microblogging

Twitter, FriendFeed

Forums/Groups

Google Groups, open knowledge sharing

Online Video

YouTube, blip.tv, Vimeo

File Sharing / Podcasting

Scribd, Slideshare

User Community

Private knowledge sharing

Bookmarking

Digg, Delicious, Reddit

WOM (Word of Mouth)

Align Social Tools with Objectives Social Media Tools Impact on Social Media Objectives Thought Leadership Brand Awareness Demand Generation Customer Loyalty Blogs High High Medium Low Microblogs (Twitter, FF) Medium Medium High High Social Network Presence Low High Medium Low Forums / Groups Medium Medium High Low Online Video Medium Medium Medium Low File Sharing / Podcasts High Medium Medium Low Wikis Medium Low Low High User Community Low Low Medium High

Success Stories: Blogging

SUN

CEO blogs regularly

Provides employees with a free blogging platform and basic guidelines for blogging

Over 3,000 sun employees blog about projects they are working on

Benefits

Increased thought leadership in the blogosphere

Success Stories: Blogging

NetQoS

Provides commentary and practical problem solving

Oversight by CTO and CEO

Linked to by the Washington Post, Network World, PC World, ComputerWorld, and LinuxToday

Has been on the front page of Digg.com and Programming.reddit.com

Listed on Slashdot six times since the blog's inception.

Benefits

Increased thought leadership in the blogosphere

Success Stories: Microblogging

BreakingPoint Systems

Company “tweets” included:

Used TweetScan to track relevant key terms and respond to them

Re-tweeted relevant information

Notices of new blog posts, webinars

Fun entries (e.g., trivia questions, quizzes)

Informal focus group questions

Benefits

Thought leadership

Brand awareness

Demand generation

Success Stories: Online Video

SolarWinds

Very popular NetFlow video (16,680 views)

48 videos on YouTube

Tutorials

Customer chat

Product demos

Tradeshows

Fun

Technology focused

Benefits

Demand generation

Thought leadership

Success Stories: Social Networks

Spiceworks

520+ fan Facebook community enables them to connect with users – where their users go on the web

Supplements a community portal on their website

Content includes

Announcements

Events

News

Sneak Peaks

Benefits

Customer loyalty

Demand generation

Success Story: Product Launch

Marketing objectives:

Thought leadership

Strong buzz from influential bloggers, analysts and press

Open source cloud monitoring WP (file sharing)

Brand awareness

Google page rank on key cloud terms

tool set downloads

Increase in web traffic

Project: Launch an open source cloud initiative and monitoring tool set

MarketPlane’s Results

Thought Leadership

Prelaunch discussions and briefings led to impactful posts by bloggers, solid coverage by industry analysts, and press coverage

WP was positively referenced in several blog posts. WP hosted on Scribd had 678 reads

Brand Awareness

Vendor’s cloud initiative captured 5 of the top 20 targeted keyword spots and a #4 ranking on Google.

Toolset had 250+ downloads during the launch

Overall, vendor had a 18% increase in page views; 14% increase in new traffic during the launch

Many Benefits of Social Media

Improved search engine presence

Broader awareness at lower cost

Pinpointed influencer targeting

Energized customers become powerful evangelists

New sales leads

Higher rate of conversions

Faster progression through the buying cycle

Repeat business from existing customers

Feedback from real people

Stay ahead of competitors

Community driven support

New idea generation

Validate product roadmap

Build Reach Drive Revenue Cement Leadership Social media enables all of the above at lower costs than traditional means

Building a Social Media Strategy: Points to Consider

Social Media is not about the tools; its about your audience and the relationship you establish with them

Your objectives should decide what tools to use; not the other way around

Your goals should measure delivery against your objectives

The best measure of social activity is the level of audience participation

Social conversations about your brand will happen with or without you

Building a Social Media Strategy: Phased Approach Product feedback mechanism SALES PRODUCT MGMT ENGINEERING SALES MARKETING SALES MARKETING CUSTOMER SUPPORT Competitive Research Build Web traffic Generate Qualified Leads Track Your Brand Community Building $ CUSTOMER SUPPORT Sales go UP! Support costs drop More Prospects Faster product cycle Brand Awareness Thought Leadership Improve/Manage Brand Build customer loyalty $ YOUR ORGANIZATION Gain Competitive Edge Market share

Campaign Example: Brand Monitoring Social Media Objective Social Audience Social Media Tools Goals Brand Monitoring # of incidents tracked # of active interventions Qualitative insights Competitive Activity Keyword based Google Alerts, Twitter Search # of incidents tracked Qualitative insights Customers RSS of customer blogs, Twitter search, Social aggregation sites # of active interventions # of comments on interventions Influencers Blogs and Twitter # of active interventions # mentions based on interventions Prospects Professional groups on Linkedin, Google etc.. # of active interventions # of comments on interventions Qualitative insights Media Blogs and articles # of incidents tracked # of active interventions

Campaign Example: Demand Generation Social Media Objective Social Audience Social Media Tools Program Goals Demand Generation # of incremental leads Professional groups on Linkedin, Google, Ning ..etc Forums/ Group Active Participation and Incorporation # of discussions, comments # web traffic from social site Direct to Prospects Twitter # of followers, tweets, retweets # web traffic 10 top Bloggers and Analysts Blog commenting and link backs # of responses # web traffic Direct to Prospects Corporate blog Page rank improvement (assuming SEO is constant) # of comments, blog traffic Direct to Prospects Online Video / Podcasts / Filesharing # of views/downloads # shared

Social Media Takes Time, Effort and Domain Expertise Note: This does not include activity like reading blogs and articles for informational purposes that is now integral part of all our jobs Activity Description Time / Month Comprehensive Brand Monitoring Monitoring, reading, analyzing across all social media channels 80 hours per month Blog writing 8-10 blogs / month 30-40 hours per month Twitter, Friend Feed New tweets and responses uncovered by monitoring 20-40 hrs per month Social Group Participation Reading and responding to topical discussions 10-20 hrs per month Top Influencer Targeting Reading and responding to topical discussions 10-20 hours per month TOTAL 200 hrs per month

Social Media Best Practices