THE PRACTITIONER

Some clues: Decipher your audience, know your goals and get engaged!

BtoB magazine Editor Ellis Booker hosted a roundtable discussion at the recent eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Jose, Calif. During the conversation about the current role and use of Web metrics, B2B marketers expressed not only an uncertainty about measuring social media activities, but also a lack of experience in proactively engaging and driving a social media presence.

B2B companies should absolutely engage in social media as part of an overall communications strategy. Alone, each tactic mentioned below has little impact. But when used effectively and in combination with a solid PR strategy, social media can not only enhance your brand presence, it can affect your bottom line.

Reading through the discussion below, here are a few recommendations for cracking the B2B social media code:

(Roundtable participants included: Anne Commisso, Cisco.com marketing Web metrics team lead, Cisco Systems; Moe Rubenzahl, executive director-Internet marketing, Maxim Integrated Products; Michelle Rutan, Web program manager, business intelligence, National Instruments; and Jim Sterne, founding chairman of the Web Analytics Association and producer of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.)

BtoB: The analytics discipline is getting better and better about locked-up things: Search engine optimization, keyword purchases and auctions, e-mail campaigns, click-through analysis. And then we have this tsunami of social media. What do you measure? How do you rank it? How do you score it? How do you magnify its presumably positive impact?

Commisso: Within our Web marketing team, we have a small team that’s devoted to the social networking space. They’re measuring responses back to Twitter, how many followers, how many mentions in the blog. They’re using third party tools like Second Opinion and others that measure the tonality of the blog posts. So we’re starting to see a lot more numbers with social media.

While Cisco Systems is ahead of the curve by monitoring their social media presence, Commisso doesn’t mention what the company is doing with the data that they collect. There is a big opportunity for Cisco Systems to use that data to strengthen their overall communications strategy and even to convert this data to sales.

Rubenzahl: We’re looking very hard at the social aspect, but over the years we’ve had small success in engaging our customers because engineers tend not to be social in the same way. So Twitter, discussion groups, Facebook … that’s a real push for us. We have a Twitter presence, [but] it’s not much. One of our competitors has a much stronger presence. … It also is not much. Where we do think there’s value is in China. And that’s a much harder nut to crack because of language issues, because we can’t just set up some social media in the U.S. and try to track Chinese engineers. We have to have some local presence.

Social Media, particularly with B2B audiences, must start with people. Maxim Integrated Products is seeking to connect with engineers, so why choose Twitter and Facebook as platforms to connect? The key is to know your audience first. What do engineers do online? What sites do they visit, and how can Maxim Integrated Products help them find what they need?

In this case, I recommend that they follow Forrester’s “POST” method for social media:

After doing some serious research to gain a better understanding of their audience, Maxim Integrated Products can re-evaluate what platforms may make more sense for engaging that audience. A blog that addresses engineering pain points and encourages commentary may be a better way to connect.

Sterne: Two parts: Part one is exactly the same as you measure everything else. Does it bring traffic to the Web site and is that traffic qualified, doing what we want when they show up? The second part of it, though, is the sentiment analysis. And there’s a whole new realm of tools that are out there measuring [whether] what’s being said about you is positive or negative.

Again, the analysis can go much deeper. When analyzing social media, why not add a sales component? What can companies do to reach out to those who have negative or positive feelings about them or their products and services, engaging with them to build stronger connections?

Rutan: In our top tier of metrics, social media hasn’t infiltrated yet. It’s more on the third tier. Last year we had a conference, [and] three or four people from the team were Twittering while there to get people to register. They wanted to be able to measure how many people had clicked through, and they did the tiny URL things to see people coming into their site. It was very exciting to their campaign. It was free.

As part of an overarching communications and marketing strategy, social media must be a “top tier” priority. Your customers will find ways to connect online, with or without your company’s input.

In a recent interview, Forrester’s B2B Marketing Analyst Laura Ramos said that “with social media, you can give customers a way to engage with other customers and like-minded individuals and talk about how to best use your products and services…In B2B, it’s about connecting with ‘people like me who have experience I trust’ – not strangers.”

The value of social media for B2B continues to grow. Perhaps it makes even more sense for B2B companies to use social media to gain their customers’ trust than it does for the B2C market. Cracking the social media code just takes a little more strategic thinking, a healthy dose of research and a lot of support from the B2B world.