3. Why? 69% of B2B organisations are increasing marketing budgets for inbound marketing tactics including social media 100% Fortune 500 Company’s executives using LinkedIn. 50% LinkedIn’s users are decision makers in their company Forrester predicts B2B interactive marketing spending to reach $4.8 billion by 2014 – almost double 2009 A business that blogs gets 55% more visitors than a business that doesn’t Media use is changing, people are connecting, sharing, buying and consuming media in real time across multiple devices
4. Top reasons companies invest in social media for PR purposes Customer support/’listening’ Crisis management HR & Recruitment Brand (influencers expect you to ‘be there’) Market research / feedback Lead development
5. Social and Search … 90% or more of people begin their purchasing process in search engines Blogs and social media make it more likely that your prospects will find you online when they search.
6. So what does Social Media mean to B2B marketers? It’s about getting your content found online …
7. It’s a way of thinking Think content. …think critical business asset. It is one. Tells your company stories Answers questions Inspires Simplifies complex ideas Influences Entertains Reinforces beliefs Builds community Inflames passion Builds or damages trust
8. Transparency, give something away Recognised by the Forrester 2010 Groundswell awards 35,000 views & downloads, 12,000 visitors to blogs
9. And you will in turn sell Recognised by the Forrester 2010 Groundswell awards
10. Add value - be safe / educate and still get results #CTtip 1-100
13. Consider all channels 100m+ professional members… …have your followers talk about you Brilliant for SEO…45m visitors every month …so post your presentations to Slideshare
14. Consider all channels Simplify and make the message entertaining, video is now accessible to SMBs…2bn videos are viewed everyday 200m+ users, news source, global barometer, networking group and drives traffic like no other channel
15. Social media, measurement & ROI Overall sentiment Journo briefings per quarter Press / online mentions Website traffic and key search terms Twitter and blog grading Total mentions of co by channel Sentiment monitoring Benchmarking of followers Topic cloud for all co mentions Identification of prevalent commentators/influencers Overall buzz
16. Recommendations & conclusions for social media marketing It starts with good content…create, re-use and re-use again Answer questions and listen – don’t just promote Don’t use a marketing tone – think of it as f2f interaction Be honest and transparent It needn’t be expensive, many tools are free Think guidelines, not restrictions AND it’s measurable, so set benchmarks “the conversation is taking place, with or without you”