Social media was top of mind in 2011 and that will only increase in 2012. B2C companies like Starbucks have proven that they are not only savvy but also strategic with their social media efforts. B2B companies are gaining momentum in the market as well, with projections indicating that more and more plan to [>>]]]>

Social media was top of mind in 2011 and that will only increase in 2012. B2C companies like Starbucks have proven that they are not only savvy but also strategic with their social media efforts. B2B companies are gaining momentum in the market as well, with projections indicating that more and more plan to get on the bandwagon.

According to a recent eMarketer report, “B2B Social Media: A Growing Focus for Marketers,” only 11 percent of B2B companies are not using social media in their marketing mix. While an overwhelming majority of companies are exercising social media strategies, it’s still surprising to learn that there are companies that have yet to try out social media—or more alarming still, don’t believe there’s value in it. Here’s why it is valuable:

1) It creates brand awareness. People are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. If you’re not, you’re missing a key opportunity to connect with customers and promote your brand to a fairly captive audience.

2) It helps humanize your brand. Whether B2C or B2B, companies run the risk of seeming unapproachable and unrelatable. They’re more like entities than groups of people. Opening new communication channels helps debunk these myths.

3) It establishes thought leadership. Regularly posting relevant content on social media sites shows, not just tells, potential customers that you know what you’re talking about (your company website might fall into the “telling” only category).

4) It provides new touch points for connecting with customers. Customer service lines are outsourced and outdated. In their place have emerged new and more relevant ways for customers to get in touch, share opinions, make suggestions, and ask questions.

5) It helps you keep your finger on the pulse. As more consumers make social media a priority, more businesses should, too. Paying attention to what they’re saying keeps you knowledgeable and customer-focused, which can inform your future business decisions.

Where should you begin?

Even the smallest shop can employ a dedicated social media operation. Facebook will reach more than 1 billion users in 2012. If this isn’t reason enough to get a company page up, I don’t know what is. In addition, Twitter’s recent redesign is aimed at helping businesses better use its promotional services, and Google+ also has businesses on its mind. So not only are your present and potential customers using social media, but the platforms themselves are growing more business-friendly and business-compatible.

What happens if you receive public negative feedback?

Look at negative feedback as yet another way to humanize your brand. We’ve all received unfavorable feedback. It’s natural and expected—it’s practically written into the opportunity cost. Since you know that not all customers will have a perfect experience, you should also expect some of them to voice their concerns on public forums like social media sites. Don’t shy away from this sort of exposure; it can actually work in your favor. Customers appreciate candor as much as they appreciate a top-notch product or service. If you’ve made a blunder, now you have the opportunity to make up for it and show that you’re human and capable of earning back trust.

Important social media objectives for B2B firms

According to eMarketer, when B2B companies focus on social media outreach, they’re able to interact with potential customers earlier in the buying process. The result is new lead generation and, if all goes well, new sales and customers. But first things first—often the primary purpose of initial B2B social media efforts is to create brand awareness. Mary Ann Gallo, senior director of corporate marketing and communications at Hitachi Data Systems, says that while there is some lead generation involved in her company’s social media marketing efforts, it’s primarily about “top-level company awareness.”

Why? Social media allows for more of a branding and awareness-building focus. Marketers can leverage social media outlets to promote messages that will reach customers where they are and when they are ready to learn more about a specific company or product.

Do you have plans to kick-start your social media efforts in 2012? Let us know in the comments.

Check out the eMarketer report here (registration required).

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last week, you’ve heard about Google+. [>>]]]> Update: Since we published this post on July 5, Google+ has exploded. Current reports, including this one from Mashable.com, suggest that the new social network is close to reaching 18 million users. Of course, expect that stat to be out-of-date soon, too.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last week, you’ve heard about Google+. It’s Google’s latest, biggest, and most serious effort at a social network. And it’s getting lots of “likes” among the social media pundits.

Being the consummate marketer that you are, you’re probably wondering how Google+ will change the social media marketing space.

In short, it remains to be seen. No one knows if an appreciable audience will even develop on Google+. And Google has yet to say anything about any marketing services. However, there are at least two aspects of Google+ that could influence social media marketing: Sparks (how social interactions are sparked) and Circles (circles of friends).

Will Sparks fly on Google+?

The Sparks feature will allow Google+ users to enter interests, such as “Texas BBQ.” Once entered, Google+ will then search the Web for interesting information related to that term—articles, recipes, photos, videos, and so on, and feed it to the user’s Sparks stream. Like any Google-sponsored search term, Sparks could offer sponsored-search opportunities. (Note, however, Google refers to Sparks as a “sharing engine,” not a search engine.)

From a strategy standpoint, Google believes that interesting information is usually the catalyst for social interaction. So by automating the process of finding and delivering interesting information, Sparks could fuel social interactions among Google+ users. It’s like automating the process of finding an interesting Web page in one browser, and using another browser to post it in a Facebook status update.

No one knows whether Google will use the Sparks feature to monetize its search capabilities. But considering how large a revenue stream search advertising is for Google, you have to wonder.

Circles of friends

Another feature that adds a new twist to social marketing is called Circles. Although Facebook has a similar feature called “Lists,” which lets you share information with lists of friends, hardly anyone uses it.

Circles, on the other hand, is reportedly intuitive and easy to use—it really forms the foundation of Google+. As Google sees it, in real life not every “friend” is equal and you don’t share the same information with everyone. So why would you behave that way on a social network?

With Circles, Google+ organizes your friends into common circles, such as “family,” “work,” “hockey team,” “college,” etc. When you share information on Google+, you share it to Circles, rather than individual friends or the entire universe, a la Facebook and Twitter.

For marketers, this might create a barrier. Nate Elliot, principal analyst at Forrester Research, summarized the problem nicely in a column last week in Forbes: “After all, if users spend more time posting content to and reading content from just their circles of friends, doesn’t that make it harder for marketers to get a message through? The more selective a user is in who they listen to, the more likely they are to screen marketing out of their world.”

Both Sparks and Circles are still untested, so it’s a long way off before we know their implications on social media marketing. However, among the main Google+ features announced, Sparks and Circles end up being the most relevant to your world.

To see for yourself what Google+ is all about, take the tour.

Google Wave fails to take flight This search engine leader is probably the biggest goldfish bowl when it comes to allowing public viewing of its developments still in [>>]]]> Even if you’re the coolest company in the world, you’re not immune to marketing failures or PR blunders. Take these examples from 2010’s three most-watched companies: Google, Apple, and Facebook.

Google Wave fails to take flight
This search engine leader is probably the biggest goldfish bowl when it comes to allowing public viewing of its developments still in their “lab” stage. Remember Google Wave, the real-time collaboration tool that Google unveiled in 2009? While many of us can only dream of getting such media buzz for a new project, Google only needs to put up a few slideshows and videos to get people clamoring. Bloggers fought to be one of the 100,000 invitees to test-drive Google Wave. Invites were being sold on eBay to the highest bidder.

Google Wave was going to revolutionize communication, enabling users to communicate instantaneously and simultaneously with a multitude of people. But it proved to be too revolutionary. “Nobody really understood what to do with Wave, and Google never gave any useful guidance to clarify it,” wrote PCWorld. The project was canned in August 2010. Two months later, the engineer behind it left Google for Facebook. He said its demise was because Google lost patience waiting for people to understand it.

The project has since resurfaced as an open source project called Wave in a Box.

Lesson learned: Google Wave wanted to be the main communications platform for its users, who wouldn’t need a separate IM account or a separate email. Users could chat with multiple people, with different people sharing and making additions to anything from photos to videos to calendars—all in real-time. From the demonstrations it all seemed very noisy. Imagine not only trying to focus on one conversation at a crowded party but multiple conversations.

Was the market ready for such a huge platform? Did the market need yet another social collaboration tool? Good marketers understand that people dislike change and they dislike something new that might replace their beloved email or IM clients, for example. So asking people to change their habits and learn a whole new way of communicating—particularly if there are many facets to the new software—is a huge challenge. Baby steps with Wave—perhaps unleashing one or two of the features at a time rather than everything at once—may have been the better way to go.

Apple’s feminine side
If you think having legions of fans and being a style icon make you immune to sniggers, think again. Apple drew scores  of feminine hygiene jokes when it announced “iPad” as the name of its tablet computer. “The term iTampon—a riff on the fact that the iPad can be taken to sound more like a maxipad than a slick new computer—was the third most-talked about trend on Twitter on Wednesday evening,” wrote CNN Tech.

Lesson learned: One of the most entertaining parts of product launches is naming the new product. Your marketing sense should remind you to check that your chosen name sounds good and that it doesn’t mean something totally different (or embarrassing) in another culture. Even colors have different meanings in different countries. So it’s surprising that Apple decided to name its tablet iPad. Didn’t the company ask its employees (which hopefully include women) what they thought of the name? Surely someone would have raised the red flag? Or saw the Mad TV skit (apparently from 2007) about “Apple IPad?”

Facebook privacy woes
The cost of an ad in The Washington Post is probably pretty steep, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got free space for his very own op-ed. In May Zuckerberg tried to limit the damage caused by Facebook’s new privacy controls that had senators complaining. They said the changes exposed some user profiles to public display, allowed advertisers to store profile data forever, and allowed other websites access to a user’s friends list.

Zuckerberg’s op-ed did little to placate some bloggers. In Zuckerberg’s words, Facebook “… just missed the mark.” Tech.blorge commented: “‘Just’ just doesn’t come close to describing how Facebook failed on this one. Sorry is also a great word. But it’s one I doubt we’ll ever hear Zuckerberg utter.” Ouch!

Lesson learned: When your company deals with private data from customers and users, you need to take the responsibility seriously. It’s a tricky balancing act trying to make money while providing a service that’s free to users, especially if users are entrusting you with their private information. This fiasco demonstrated that it’s better to err on the side of more privacy rather than less, and it’s vital to give users the ability to opt in or out of sharing their info with third parties. The erosion of trust, especially for a social networking site, isn’t worth it.

What 2010 marketing blunders made your list?

I receive a lot of email (newsletters, promotions, etc.) from a variety of brands. I also follow many of [>>]]]> In a recent post , I stated that email was still a key marketing tool—even in the wake of newer channels like social media. This got me thinking about my email and social media habits as a consumer.

I receive a lot of email (newsletters, promotions, etc.) from a variety of brands. I also follow many of these same companies on Facebook. Even though they’re delivering much of the same content via status updates that I receive in their emails, I haven’t unsubscribed to most of the emails. Why? A couple reasons.

First, there’s a high probability that I’ll miss a company’s message in my Facebook News Feed. Unlike the majority of Facebook users, I prefer the Most Recent to the default Top News News Feed option. This means my News Feed includes updates from everyone I’m “friends” with. So, chances are good I’m going to miss an update (or two or three) from the companies I follow. Similarly, unless customers are regularly interacting with your company on Facebook, your status updates won’t appear in their Top News feeds.

Second, I prefer sharing content via email than via social media channels. It’s easier. For example, there isn’t always a Share option for content I find on Facebook. Also, an email often provides more information, and this helps me determine whether it’s something I want to share. That’s not to say I don’t share content on Facebook, I just don’t do it with the regularity that I forward emails onto friends, family, and colleagues.

Apparently I’m not alone in this behavior. A recent study by SocialTwist found that 55 percent of sharing happens via email while only 24 percent of sharing occurs by social media. That said, according to the study, social media content garners more click throughs than email—60 percent vs. 31 percent, respectively. That holds true for me; I click through more on Facebook, as it’s the only way to read the entire message or access the promoted content.

Both email and social media are valuable for sharing content. However, as Jay Baer recently pointed out, “…the connections between companies and their email subscribers are far stronger than the connections between companies and their social media subscribers.”

A customer who “likes” your company on Facebook or follows your brand on Twitter may show passion, but it doesn’t show commitment. What it does show is the potential for a fan or follower to become a customer. Using your social media channels to get them to subscribe to your emails offers a better opportunity to convert them into an actual customer.

What channels are your customers using most often to share content?

Despite these robust estimates, B2B marketers have lagged behind B2C marketers in adopting [>>]]]> B2B social media seems to be on everyone’s minds these days. EMarketer.com reports that B2B marketing activity on social networks is estimated to increase 43.3 percent in 2010, while spending is estimated to increase by $54 million in 2014 (up from $11 million in 2009)[1].

Despite these robust estimates, B2B marketers have lagged behind B2C marketers in adopting social media. And it’s no wonder. Because B2B social media is still relatively new, few concrete examples of success exist, making ROI difficult to prove. Standards and best practices are still being developed, mostly through trial and error.

So why should B2B companies bother? In my recent social media-focused client work, I’ve been facing this very question. “We need to focus on short-term revenue,” they tell me. “How do we know this social media stuff is worthwhile?”

With no metrics to point out, this question is difficult to answer. How do you justify building a Facebook fan page, for example, when traditional marketing practices can be backed up with numbers and a history of proven efficacy?

Well, for starters, social media—even for B2B companies—isn’t marketing. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Applying traditional marketing practices in a social media context just doesn’t work. Imagine a friend posting a link to a press release announcing a new diet pill on your wall. There’s a reason the Can-Spam Act was passed. People don’t like marketing infiltrating their personal space.

The human element of social media is exactly what makes it difficult to translate into a B2B context. Until recently, social media has largely been a consumer realm, where people interact based on personal interests, personal entertainment, or to accomplish tasks. No wonder a lot of B2B marketers don’t take social media very seriously.

But this is a limited way to look at the potential of social media. Whatever people are doing on social networks, the underlying principles are the same: communication, interaction, and building relationships. Every company, no matter what it’s selling, depends on this same set of principles. It’s all about reaching your customers effectively and building relationships with them.

So when considering social media in the B2B context, keep this in mind: Behind every impersonal business decision is a living, breathing human being. And most business decisions, no matter how big and how important, originate from a network of personal relationships.

If you look at it this way, B2B companies have some characteristics that make them great candidates for using social media:

• B2B companies typically have a more complicated value proposition than, say, the satisfaction of an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Communicating intangible business value and thought leadership requires a wider platform than traditional marketing can provide. Social media opens the door to more types of communication. Furthermore, you can communicate at a deeper level using social media platforms than you can with traditional marketing.
• B2B companies often have a long sales cycle. High stakes purchases require a lot of support and information. This support and information is traditionally provided by sales people working one-on-one with customers during the pre-sales/consideration phase. Why not use social media as one strategy for providing that?

Some B2B companies are taking the leap into social media. Cisco has a Facebook page with more than 60,500 friends linked to it. Marketing traditionalists might question the value of this page, but one glance at Cisco’s Facebook wall clearly shows that the audience is actively engaged in the form of comments and “likes.” Oracle, Dell, and Deloitte all have Facebook pages that show similar levels of interaction.

Even if we can’t clearly articulate the monetary value of B2B social media, it’s clear to me that it is a useful promotion tool, especially when combined with traditional marketing practices. Reaching your audience is reaching your audience, regardless of how you do it.

For some interesting insight on this topic, check out this useful blog I found, Social Media B2B.

But before you go, tell me what you think of B2B social media. Is it just marketing in disguise or is it an authentic way to reach your audience? What successful B2B social media strategies have you seen?

As organizations begin to seed and continue customer interactions on external social networks, customers will [>>]]]> Following on from his controversial post of 2007 suggesting that corporate websites were irrelevant, social media guru Jeremiah Owyang told attendees at the recent GilbaneSF content management conference that corporate websites as we know them may not survive into the future.

As organizations begin to seed and continue customer interactions on external social networks, customers will no longer be able to tell the difference between a corporate website and the company’s presence on Facebook. It’s already happening, he says. Just go to Vitamin Water’s website and you’ll be forced to visit its Facebook page. In fact, a message on its website reads, “We’ve temporarily moved to Facebook—let’s hang out.”

If that sounds scary to you, don’t fret. The change isn’t going to happen overnight. And even if the change does eventually happen, you can gain control of this shift and turn it into a win-win situation for you and your customers. Your first step is to understand that your corporate website and social media networks should be blended rather than separate strategies.

Customers are directing your social strategy. The change is happening because we’re led by customer preferences. Say you’re in the market for a new car. Don’t you take information on vendors’ websites with a grain of salt? But you pay attention to what friends and other buyers are saying on car forums or other independent sites, right?

Some enlightened companies may even host discussions on their corporate sites—even if some of the comments are negative about their products. This is one of the eight evolutionary steps of the social corporate website, according to Owyang (view the slideshow).

Owyang’s evolution of the social corporate website

1. No social integration with the corporate website. Owyang cited Traderjoes.com as an example of a website that has no social media element, despite the existence of unofficial fan sites.

2. Sites that link directly away without a strategy. These sites have chicklets that encourage users to “follow us” on various external social sites, but has no strategy for what customers should do after they leave. Owyang also points out a particularly troubling offense by McDonald’s: When you click on the Twitter link on its website, up pops the legal disclaimer about the dangers of navigating away to a third-party site.

3. Sites that link away but encourage sharing. Outback Steakhouse, for example, has a Facebook “Like” link on its home page.

4. Organizations that replicate their brand across the corporate site and social channels. Starbucks is an example of this, as it replicates conversations across all its consumer-facing channels.

5. Organizations that aggregate discussions on corporate sites. Skittles aggregates conversations from Twitter, etc., on its own site. The benefit is that discussions are centralized on your site, driving traffic there. However, you have no control over the content, which may contain links to competitor sites.

This strategy reminds me of my work as an editor on a tech magazine. We were one of the first to aggregate stories about our topics from around the Web, and that included linking to stories in competitor magazines. It was a radical move—why would a journalist want to discuss and link to stories on other publications? But the result was that readers would come to us first for a comprehensive view of how the blogosphere and other media were covering the news of the day.

6. We’re seeing these types of strategies a lot—companies encouraging their visitors to sign in using their Facebook Connect log-ins. Marketers lose on the one hand because they can’t collect e-mail addresses, but they also widen the marketing funnel because Facebook friends can share their activities, including the sites they’ve visited.

7. Social login systems that allow users to stay on site, but trigger a viral loop. The Pepsi Refresh Project awards grants to community-improvement projects voted on by visitors to Pepsi’s site. Visitors vote by logging in via Facebook. Pepsi benefits when visitors recruit friends.

8. Seamless integration between corporate sites and social sites. We’re now back to the Vitamin Water example. Do you dare go so far?