BCA

Missed opportunities for some marketers

From e-Marketer.com

Despite social media marketing’s popularity, business-to-business (B2B) companies are still fairly new to it. According to a survey from Business.com, 73% of B2B respondents have less than two years of social media marketing experience.

March 2010 research from marketing automation firm Genius.com and BtoB magazine found that about one-half of business-oriented marketers are staying away from social tools such as blogging and Twitter. Facebook was more popular, with nearly three-fifths participating, and business-focused social network LinkedIn was used by three-quarters of B2B marketers.

Both business-oriented social networks and general social networks offer B2B companies a variety of opportunities. They can improve communication between customers, prospects and suppliers; aid collaboration between business partners; help with product development; and identify leads.

B2B companies also have an advantage when using social media because they tend to focus on goals and results, such as leads, that visibly affect their bottom line. Business.com found in 2009 that those B2B marketers who do use social media tend to do so more extensively than their business-to-consumer counterparts.

Those with at least one profile were more likely to manage a presence on several sites than the general B2B respondents to the Genius.com survey, and were more likely than B2C companies to measure their social success.

“While recent studies have shown that up to 90 percent of consumers are using social media to make their purchasing decisions, B2B marketers seem to be out of step and are using these tools much less frequently,” said the Genius.com report.

By John Riley

 By now, the term social media (web 2.0) is well known, but arguably not well understood. Recently, I have had the opportunity to spend some time with several very talented gerus in the field who see social media as an engagement with online communities to share information that builds exposure and sales. Testimony to that definition is the large number of major corporations that have steadily re-jiggered larger shares of their business development budgets into this medium.

 Each instrument that plays a part in this concert has its own unique set of characteristics: Twitter, Facebook, podcast, blogs, Linked In and YouTube are the best known. According to a March 2009 survey sponsored by Social Media Examiner, Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs.

 Unsurprisingly, age is a factor in adopting and executing a social media campaign. The Social Media Marketing survey revealed that people 60 years of age and above were significantly more likely to be just getting started with social media than other age groups. The people aged 30 to 39 years were the most likely to use it.

 Shaping The Strategy

 When you read, The Social Media Bible,(2009)” a nearly two-inch thick book by Lon Safko and David Brake, you gain an insight into the growing influence of social media. The book’s précis says, “it will show you how to build or transform your business into a social media-enabled enterprise where customers, employees, and prospects connect, collaborate, and champion your products, your services, and your way of doing business.”

 The authors advocate a four pillar strategy as a basis for a successful transformation:

               Communication—many of the tools can measure effectiveness

               Collaboration—use the right mix of tools

               Education—turn expertise into content            

               Entertainment—make the content interesting and compelling

 By the time you are turning the final pages of the book, you will be familiar with social media vocabulary, have a tactical perspective on various tools and their capabilities and have an insight into creating a successful strategy for your business. The book lives up to its billing.

 Savoring The Payoff

 In the Social Media Marketing survey of 800 marketing professionals, 81% said their business gained increased exposure and 61% realized a pick up in web traffic.  Most importantly, 56% said their efforts had resulted in new business partnerships while 48% enjoyed a boost in sales leads. It was also significant that 45% of participants saw a reduction in their marketing expenses.

 As you engage with people, you are building content for your blog and connecting with many different influences you would not otherwise be able to reach. Additionally, companies are able to monitor what is being said about their products, services or company by enabling them to better shape their marketing and sales strategies. Finally, if your social media program really clicks, you create a volunteer sales force that sells your product and accelerates your ROI growth.

Plenty of opportunities remain to capitalize on the benefits of social media. Shaping a thoughtful strategy and using the right tools will reach employees, customers and prospects in a way that encourages and provokes dialogue. Therein lies your opportunity.

By John Riley

The thrill of participation, the engagement with others and the reward when one of your articles sparks a positive reaction to your product, your company or your blog, that’s what motivates today’s enterprising bloggers.  It’s what most of them will tell you. Bloggers relish their freedom to comment on the issues of the day, or for that matter, any subject at any time, to the Internet world and beyond. And they do. Politics, gardening, praise and criticism of products, companies, education, sex, etc. Nothing is off limits.

 Blogs have become part of the social media sweeping the country. This community of teenagers, Gen X and Y, boomers and seniors have evolved into what is now referred to as the blogosphere and it grows by the day. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and other such vehicles for building online relationships interface regularly with blogs. Companies have found blogs are an excellent way to promote and sell their products, reduce their cost of selling, and strengthen their customer relationship management efforts. Additionally, companies can monitor customer’s  reactions to their products and services and provide early detection of customer or government issues that could adversely affect their business. 

 After belatedly accepting this phenomenon, Rileybiz.com, now .org, entered the blogosphere a few months ago.

Blog History

 While browsing in the Barnes and Noble bookstore one summer day in 2006, I came across a book entitled, “Blog” by Hugh Hewitt. Intrigued with the prologue on the flyleaf touting the success of his blog that had attracted over ten million visitors in four years, I bought the book.

I had to find out if this Internet phenomenon had any serious applications for business.

 As I read the book, I learned the first blog appeared in 1999 and by 2004, there were over 4 million sites. According to Hewitt, the key to attracting visitors was content… the better the content the more visitors you could expect. The power to interact with the Internet world was heady stuff and it was easy to understand it’s appeal. That day in 2006, I concluded blogging definitely had potential as a business tool, but it would take several years to mature. Needless to say, my timing was way off.

 Currently, eMarketer says there are 27.9 million blogs in the United States. The decline in newspaper readership and television viewing is evidence of the impact of blogs and the Internet.

 “Blogs are now mainstream media”, says Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, an Internet search engine for blogs.  “You’re also seeing media coming in the other direction by adding media content.” There’s a good reason. eMarketer estimates that in 2009, U.S. Internet users will read a blog at least once a month. By 2013, the estimate is 128.2 million people, or 58% of all U.S. users will do the same.

Want to Start Blogging? Here’s how

 Blog platforms are ‘lost leaders’. A number of Internet organizations offer free blogs in the hope you will want to later upgrade your blog or add more functions to expand its capabilities.

 1)     Blogger.com, WordPress.com and Blog.com are three good operators. After you sign up for the free blog, you receive a ‘turn key’ operation…a robust blog with excellent functional capabilities.

 2)     You can then use your host assigned URL, WordPress in my case, or go to GoDaddy.com and buy a domain name. The name of your blog can be your URL/domain name or  something different. Next, develop a clear idea of the subject you want to focus on. It can be politics, marketing, gardening, orchids, food, movies, nursing, whatever.

 3)     When your blog is in operation, your primary task will always be preparing content. That is what attracts visitors, but it needs to be refreshed regularly. I try to post two new articles each week and occasionally include guest authors. While content attracts visitors, there are other traffic building techniques you can also employ.

 4)     From there  it’s simply a matter of becoming more familiar with how the blog operates. Its not complicated. The best documentation I have found is, “Wordpress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, but you can Google articles on the Internet that can also provide information.   

 After gaining experience with your basic blog, you may decide to upgrade to a more robust blog. That’s more challenging and will be the subject of my next article.