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...

1. 5 Things B2B Marketers Need
to Fear about Social Media
A RevenueEngines™ Webinar
Steven Lewis, VP Marketing Services
February 16th

2. MarketBridge Overview
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
Customers Differentiators
18 of the top 50 global B2B brands Go-to-market focus
Global Fortune 1000 corporations and emerging Integration of marketing and sales
growth companies Strategy through market execution
“Considered-Purchase” Products Analytic core competency
Enterprise, Mid-Market and SMB Business Performance driven
Customers
Go-to-Market through Direct and Partner
Sales Channels
Sample Clients across Technology, Financial and Business Services, and Healthcare
–2– ©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
–3– ©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
–4– ©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
Early: Discovery Present: Understanding Future: Integration
• Sporadic use by B2B • Most B2B companies • Success stories
companies driven by have a presence on encourage greater
curiosity, but field major social media numbers of B2B
dominated by B2C platforms companies to expand
industries social media through
• Successful companies
the buyer cycle –
• Successful companies able to measure value
sales, customer
able to leverage social and influence of social
retention, etc.
media alongside media on marketing
online marketing efforts, begin to see • Successful companies
efforts to develop and more proactive use operationalizing social
support a consistent (monitoring, media and measuring
brand presence prospecting) and analyzing results
B2B marketers spent $20 million on social marketing in 2011,
and that number will increase to $54 million in 2014
–5– ©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
–6– ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

7. 5 Things B2B Marketers Need to Fear about Social Media
1 Value of a Sale
Social Media presents excellent opportunities,
so every interaction online now counts
2 Rogue Agents
Well-intentioned or rogue, employees can do
serious damage to your company’s reputation
3 Brand Inconsistency
Losing control of messaging across all channels
of communication can cause buyer confusion
Finding the balance between sharing information
4 Privacy vs. Publicity publicly or privately becomes a barrier to taking
social media to the next level
Operationalizing
5 Social Media
Integrating social media across other channels
and areas of the organization causes rifts
–7– ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

8. 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
1 Value of a Sale a higher dollar amount than a retail consumer
transaction, so every single interaction counts
In the Market: Avaya 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
–8– ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

9. Value of a Sale
Best Practices
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
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
–9– ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

10. Rogue Agents
Well-intentioned or rogue, employees can do serious damage
Why should you be afraid? Even well-intentioned
2 Rogue Agents employees can cause a surprising amount of
damage without knowing the consequences
In the Market: Chrysler 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
– 10 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

11. Rogue Agents
Best Practices
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
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
Rather than posting strict rules about what employees can or cannot do within social
media networks, offer guidance on advisable interactions, behaviors and involvement
– 11 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

12. Brand Inconsistency
Losing control of your messaging across all channels of communication
Why should you be afraid? Inability to control
3 Brand Inconsistency marketing messaging over social media can
weaken brand presence and confuse audiences
In the Market: HP Labs 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
– 12 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

13. Brand Inconsistency
Best Practices
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
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
– 13 – ©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
4 Privacy vs. Publicity 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
– 14 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

15. Privacy vs. Publicity
Best Practices
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
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
– 15 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

16. Operationalizing Social Media
Growing disconnect with the use of social media across multiple departments
Why should you be afraid? Internal
Operationalizing
5 Social Media
obstacles can derail effective strategies
while integrating across multiple departments
In the Market: Adobe 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
– 16 – ©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
– 17 – ©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
– 18 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

19. RevenueEnginesTM Methodology | Integrate, Activate, Accelerate
– 19 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.

20. Thank You!
Steven Lewis
Vice President
(415) 343-8717
slewis@market-bridge.com
Learn more:
Web: www.Market-Bridge.com
Twitter: @MarketBridge
– 20 – ©2012 MarketBridge Corp.