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B2B Social Media – A Backgrounder by robin frank beep beep media April 2012

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Part 1:Overview of B2B Social Media

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Latest Data• B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads/month than those who do not.• 69% of B2B marketers are shifting their budgets toward social media.• B2B companies that blog more than 4x/week see the biggest increase in traffic and leads, according to @HubSpot• 51% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spend on content marketing, per @MarketingProfs• 86% of #B2B companies are using social media• Top use of B2B social media is for thought leadership at 60%, per @btobmagazine

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Latest Data (continued)• B2B companies are more likely to use Twitter than B2C companies: 75% vs 49%, per @businessdotcom• 41% of B2B companies are acquiring customers through Facebook.• 39% of B2B marketers say blogging is their most valuable content asset, per @eMarketer• 60% of B2B marketers cite thought leadership as #1 reason to use social media, per @btobmagazine• Social media helps B2B marketers improve search results• B2B social media spending set to explode to $54M over next 5 years per @Forrester

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Social Media Statistics• Twitter – 225 million – Number of Twitter accounts – 100 million – Number of active Twitter users in 2011 – 250 million – Number of tweets per day (October 2011)• LinkedIn – As of December 31, 2011 (the end of the fourth quarter), professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate that is faster than two new members per second. – As of February 9, 2012, LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 150 million members in over 200 countries and territories. – Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members

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Social Media Statistics• YouTube – 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute (more video uploaded in past month than three big TV networks in the past 60 years). – YouTube gets 4,000,000,000 page views a day, which adds up to 1,000,000,000,000 a year. – YouTube has 800,000,000 users (about the same as Facebook) who watch 3,000,000,000 hours of video a month. – YouTube Average viewing session remains a low 15 minutes• Blogs – 70 million – Total number of WordPress blogs by the end of 2011

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The Rise of the B2B Social Buyer• Relies on social media and online communities during the purchase process.

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Solution Provider Credibility is also on the Rise• B2B solution providers need to create fact-based customer intimacy, establishing a relationship with the buyer based on knowledge and creating a continuous, coordinated dialogue.

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B2B Marketers’ Jobs are More Complex than Ever• Dealing with both social and traditional buyers

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The Goal: an Integrated Customer Engagement Program

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Social Media is the New WOM Engine• B2B companies should obsess about building reach as much as B2C companies.• Social media builds reach.• Social Media amplifies the effectiveness of online marketing. It doesn’t replace it! – Use social media to promote all your online and offline events.

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Social Media is Cost Effective• While social media requires an investment of budget and resources, it is nowhere near the costs associated with other media.• Even in tough economic climates, B2Bs can afford social media programs and use these initiatives to gain competitive advantage.• Social media platforms provide excellent outlets for customer education, building trust and shortening the sales cycle.

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Part 2:Developing a B2B Social Media Strategy

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Social Media Strategy Elements• Set Your Objectives• Know Your Audience(s)• Study the Competitive Landscape• Define Your Strategy – Platforms: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, – Social Media Playbook – Measurement and Reporting – Management Tools

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Objectives• Objectives (Customers and Key Stakeholders such as investors, partners, and others) – Increase awareness of company and the problems you solve. – Establish interest with compelling reasons for your solution is better than the competition and more details about your offering. – Engage social communities with content that is relevant, interesting, educational, and entertaining. – Create thought leadership position.

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Target Audiences• Identify target audiences – Who are they? – Where do they live online? – Which social platforms?

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Your Competition’s Social Media• Study the competitive landscape – What are they doing in social media? – What are their strengths and weaknesses?

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Platform Mix• ID platform mix and messaging – Create a unified presence that builds your story, empowers your interactions, and helps you rise up from being just another voice in the stream – Create useful information, to select the best possible media to package that information, and then to choose a series of distribution technologies for delivering your ideas to others, to encourage interactions, and to drive towards certain target results.

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Social Media Playbook: A Guide• Social Media Playbook: a procedural guide to aid social media spokespeople for your company – Audiences – Voice/Tone – Content Strategy • Timing • Editorial guidelines • What can/can’t be said • Promotions/Special offers (whitepapers, reports) – Content Creation System – Monitoring guidelines – Spam policies

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Key Messaging Doc• A living “Google doc” of your company’s positions on leading industry trends and issues.• Gathered from fraud prevention best practices, sales personas, analyst opinion, press coverage, mgmt opinion.• Used as a reference in creating social editorial on the fly, using keywords/phrases.• Reviewed quarterly.

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Editorial Calendar• Marketing/Editorial Calendar – Spreadsheet of all content across all channels, by date for creation, publishing, promotion, and tracking. – Guarantee that you always have something proactive to talk about. – Includes current/older content, but also integrates with PR schedule, event-driven mktg, blog editorial planning. – Ensures you are proactive, not just reactive, to drive eyeballs to owned assets (site, social, blog, etc).

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Content• Prospects don’t care about your products; they want solutions to their problems.• 60% of the sales cycle is over before a buyer talks to a salesperson.• Publishing and sharing content online is the single biggest lever to increase lead generation.• Create awesome content and reduce the friction of sharing it.

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Atomize Your Content Reactive example New Aite Group report: "Online Fraud Mitigation: Tools of the Trade“ 27 October 2011 Today Tomorrow Next WeekTWEET: COMMENT: BLOG POST:You can market fraud Here are 2 ways to not Download the reportprevention to your affect online usability… from us. Here’s ourcustomers! <link> take on what to do…

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How Social Media Leads Happen 1 Twee t Landing Page Form Lead Like Blog Landing Post CTA Page Product Landing +1 Page CTA Page

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3 Must-Haves for Social Media Lead Generation• Get people to connect with you.• Get people to share your stuff.• Place calls to action everywhere.

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THE Links to company blog posts 10-4-1 Links to third- party articles Link to a company landing page RULE

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Know Your Expiration Date

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Twitter To-Do’s• Create Profile• List in directories• Follow and engage key audiences and press on Twitter to gain followers• Participate: use keywords, define keywords, retweet, @reply, create lists• Content strategy: customer support, interesting information in the industry, education, even humor• Monitor keywords and key lists of stakeholders and customers

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LinkedIn To-Do’s• Build out company profile –jobs, description – Encourage employees to create profiles, connect, get recommendations• Monitor and participate in key groups• Create company group• Share updates• LinkedIn ads – wait – currently not high returns

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YouTube To Do’s• Add videos and create company channel• Create playlists• Add tags• Add annotations• Add friends/gain subscribers• Optimize for SEO

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Measurement & Reporting• Identify key analytics and targets.• Create customized analytic report and provide monthly reporting.• Offer/integrate recommendations based on learnings. – Evolve content and promotions to emphasize what you find to be successful. – Create strategies for flexibility and adapting to changing market conditions.

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Tools for Management & Monitoring• Hootsuite – Schedule and monitor posts on Twitter/Facebook – Link accounts to save time – Hoosuite analytics for Twitter• YouTube Insights• Twentyfeet – Broad cross-platform monitoring• Klout – Monitoring influence across social networks

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Social Media Monitoring• Industry blogs• News websites• Conferences/events• Analysts• LinkedIn Groups and companies• Twitter profiles – lists of PR, competitors, analysts, influencers, etc.• Note: create workflow for alerts, and responses

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Social Media Analytics• Suggested analytics to measure – Inbound website traffic referred from social media sites – Inbound blog traffic referred from social media sites – Growth in blog commentary (per post average) – Blog article “Likes” – Growth in Twitter followers, retweets, @replies, and hashtags – Growth in followers on LinkedIn – Growth in group members on LinkedIn – “Authority” measures for blog, Klout – Number of new prospects who admit first following us on social media

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Social Media ROI

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Thank You!

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Background