Business-to-Business Social Media

Business-to-Business Social Media Presented by: Out There Advertising Kim Keuning, President Melissa D’Aloia, Account Executive

Why is social media important?

Social media is here to stay
B2B buyers are spending more time researching online
Social media can play a big role in the decision-making process
Leverage social media for:
Building relationships
Listening to the market
Influencing buyers before they are identified as leads

Why social media for B2B
Before
Prospect engaged directly with salesperson
Arrival of Google
Search engine optimization
Pay-per-click
Today
Social media sites drive a large portion of B2B interactions on the web
www.companywebsite.com

Fundamental concepts
Choosing your social media identity
Social media monitoring
Twitter search
Facebook search
LinkedIn search
Search engines
Alerts
Monitoring software
vs

Inbound Marketing
“ Your prospect…cares about his boss or the story you're telling or the risk or the hassle of making a change. He cares about who you know and what other people will think when he tells them what he’s done after he buys from you.
The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need.”
Seth Godin, The Rational Marketer (and the Irrational Customer), 2009

Check list – Is your company ready for social media?
My company has clear goals for social media
We have the human resources to commit to social media
We produce enough quality content to sustain a social media conversation
We know which social media sites are popular with our prospects and customers
Our company website is prepared for social media attention
We are ready to incorporate social media
strategies throughout the buying process

Developing a social media strategy
Target Audience
Goals or Objectives (tie-in with overall company goals)
Tactics
Key Metrics

Example Tactic:
Target Audience: Owners of small businesses
Objective: Increase brand awareness
Social Media Tactic: Blogging
Short-term objective 1: Promote thought leadership through blog posting on
industry best practices
Create blog publication schedule
Add RSS button
Publish blog post once a week
Short-term objective 2: Increase engagement
Respond to comments within 24 hours
Add links to blog on website and in e-newsletter
Invite relevant guest bloggers and market to their networks
Time invested: 1-2 hours daily

Social Media Tools
Blogging
Social Bookmarks
Microblogging
B2B Social Networks
Documents/Content
Video
Wiki and Crowd Sourced Content
Pictures
Social Search
Monitoring and Measurement

Determine your social media voice
Social voice is different from a brand voice
Social voice=person
Brand voice=anonymous
Informal is acceptable
Be genuine

Start a blog
Promote yourself and get feedback from community
Build prospects through search engine rankings
Establish business as thought leader
Share customer success stories

Using LinkedIn
Merge offline engagement with online
LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Answers

Don’t be creepy
If you use social media like a keyword searching robot you are going to come off as creepy
Use common sense
Approach people like you would want to be approached
Be transparent

Using Twitter effectively
Twitter search
Hashtags
Follow industry influencers, engage customers, track competition

Be consistent and follow-up
Social media is not about setting and forgetting, it’s about being social
Stay engaged
Blog consistently
Follow-up and ask if they
have any additional
questions
Send direct messages

Leverage analytics
Website stats
Shares/Retweets/Mentions
What is driving visitors to your website?

Monitor Industry

Make it easy to share your content
Make sharing options visible
Allow e-mails to be viewed as web page
Frame web pages/blog posts with a social bar
Enable forward
to a friend

About us page
Add photos of staff to about us page
Add links to employees’ LinkedIn profiles
Describe employees’ expertise and cut out the gobblygook

Start/maximize your blog
Update regularly - once a week at least
Publish helpful content and not always a sales pitch
Write about topics your business partners, customers, vendors, etc. are searching for
Design of blog should match your website

Taking social media seriously
Add links to social media sites on bottom of e-mail – let people know how they can connect with you
Be yourself and realize “You can’t do it all.”

Make your business more human
Interesting content is king
Know your audience and your goals
Borrow knowledge from consumer world
People buy expertise
Social media isnt’ about you, it’s about them
Fuse social media with offline engagement
Learn to be human again
Have a goal
Go where people are interacting now
10 Essential Social Media Lessons

You can find us at:
www.outthereadvertising.com
www.facebook.com/outthereadvertising
@outtheread
@melissadaloia

Business-to-Business Social Media

by Out There Advertising

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Business-to-Business Social Media Presentation Transcript