Part 1
“What do you mean we need to increase our social media budget? Isn’t it free? I thought we don’t need a budget.”
And another senior marketing manager bites the dust! This is not
fiction-drama. This is rampant ignorance among the C-Suite in corporate
America. B2B marketing professionals are challenged every day with how
to get executive management to buy in for social media. “It’s free”, “We
need huge numbers”, “We need a multi-channel presence”, all of these
and other confused C-Suite perceptions about the role and purpose of
social media make it increasingly difficult for social to be adopted as a
must-have. The fact is, social is now an integral part of lead
generation and marketing programs.
Mark Yolton, senior vice president of digital, social and communities at business software and services purveyor SAP was quoted in a recent eMarketer article:
“Social media marketing is no longer a nice to have—it’s a must have.
Our customers expect it. Our competitors are all doing it. And unless we
embrace and excel at social media marketing integrated into the full
marketing mix, we’ll be at a competitive disadvantage.”
(Note: Mark has recently transitioned into a new role and is now Vice President of Digital Strategy & Enablement at Cisco.)
So how do you gain that competitive advantage? You’ll need the
blessings of “the powers that be”. How will you convince them that
social media today is a necessary cost of doing business?
Here are 5 Fundamental Steps to Help You Get C-Suite Buy In for B2B Social Media
- KNOW YOUR INTERNAL AUDIENCE. What type of personality are you dealing with internally? Here are the most common demand generation personalities.
- UNDERSTAND YOUR CMO’S PROFILE. Which one is your CMO? Pick from this list.
- EMPHASIZE THE NEED FOR A SOCIAL VOICE. Not too many
members of the C-Suite are used to being hands-on with day to day
operations. Explain to your top management why having a coop student or
intern to Tweet and blog and post Facebook updates is not okay anymore.
You need trained and experienced hands that understand customer
relations, branding and lead generation. As you start to build customer
engagement and loyalty through social media, you will need a core team
to maintain and strengthen your company’s social voice.
- SHOW WHY MONITORING IS IMPORTANT AND HOW IT HELPS. Typically, the C-Suite loves numbers. If you can enable some number crunching in terms of social ROI,
you have a stronger case for continued and strategic social media
marketing. Explain that while free tools can be useful, you may want to
consider investing in better measurement and reporting tools. After all,
you do want to go beyond counting your likes and fans to actually
throwing light on engagement and lead progression levels with your key
target audiences. In addition, track and monitor multiple social touch
points to better respond to social conversations.
- PROVE IT. Nothing you say can be as convincing as
the proof of success. Run a few small, highly-focused and easily
measurable campaigns to show that B2B social media really does work. The
taste of success can be a heady one! Top execs will find it easier to
commit to ongoing social media programs once they see a few quick and
effective campaigns in action. Be sure to make them aware though, that
short bursts or spike marketing cannot drive long-term results; only a sustainable social strategy can.
Look out for the next 5 steps on the road to getting C-Suite
buy in for social media.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Louis Foong is the founder and CEO of The ALEA Group Inc,
one of North America’s most innovative B2B demand generation
specialists. As a thought leader with more than three decades of
experience in the field, Louis guides his team and ALEA’s clients
through the dynamic, evolving lead generation landscape.
His astute sense of marketing and sales along with a clear vision and
ability to see the “big picture” has proved beneficial to numerous
organizations, both small and large. With the right advice and a slew of
result-driven services, he enables clients to gain maximum return on
investment for their lead generation efforts. His clients include
companies in the technology, telecommunications, software, healthcare
and professional services industries.
Prior to starting the ALEA Group, Louis Foong has held various senior
executive positions within corporate America. Today he is known and
well-respected as a thought leader and pioneer in this industry. Foong
is a published blogger and among the top authors on CustomerThink, a
global online community of business leaders.
B2B Marketer Alert: Look In Before Looking Out
Another Social Media Week has come and gone, 5th year in a row. Where are we today? Have we really moved on from Social 101 and Social for Dummies?
From a B2C perspective, I think we certainly have and that is
inevitable given the popularity of social media channels and the ease of
communication. We know that social advertizing has also come a long way
with new tools and platforms available to marketers so they can drive
conversion and monetize their social activities.
But I am not talking about advertising and certainly not about B2C.
Our world, the B2B world is a completely different planet as we know.
And on this planet, we still need a logical ecosystem. On my part, I
have really made a very diligent effort to find B2B social media best
practices. I look for the leaders who have driven innovation and change
and been able to translate that into tangible results.
Social media is a great catalyst for effective demand generation but have we found the secret sauce
for converting a prospect into a qualified lead or sale for a company?
It all depends on how you deploy social within your organization. The
need of the hour is to achieve total alignment of all go-to-market
tactics. What is happening in most organizations, sadly, is that whether
it is the hired consultants or in-house social media boss, these
experts tend to look at social media as a single-focus tactic. But it is
not a proven tactic yet! B2B marketers—my call to you is to start
thinking integration and alignment.
I have seen recent advocacy of various measurement metrics, social ROI measurement formulae—this
one here, I actually read with keen interest. On the surface, it does
seem very logical and simple. I just can’t see a B2B company actually
being able to use these formulae very effectively.
The organizations that have seen some B2B social media ROI worth
mentioning are focusing first on becoming social organizations within
their own four walls. Here is a good case study from CIO magazine about how TD Bank
formed an enterprise social network that fuels innovation internally
and helps serves customers better on the outside. The bank has seen ROI
in the form of:
- Time saving
- Increased productivity
- More effective communication
The 5 Laws that can Deliver B2B Social ROI
There are some useful lessons we can learn from the success of
organizations like TD Bank in the case study I mentioned above, and more
from Cisco—take a look at this SlideShare presentation: How Cisco Operationalizes Social Media for Repeated Success.
Yes, I realize it is a bit dated but it still reiterates the point I am
making about “looking in before looking out” and hence, I think it is
worth reading. Here is another example of how this company shows “love”. With the combined effect of internal and external social media training,
Cisco is seeing greater success in this space—as Elizabeth Houston says
in this interview. She also stresses the point I’ve been making: Tons
of people are interested in consumer products, but the audience in B2B
is more of a finite audience – it requires a specific approach and
targeted strategy.
So to quickly summarize what in my opinion should be the tenets / laws / rules, call them what you will of B2B social media:
- Test your social business initiatives—always—just
as we always did with traditional lead generation methods. It’s not
worth flying blind when your customers are signing your paycheck!
- Benchmark internal processes so that even before
you start to test your initiatives, you know the direction you are
headed in and the goals you hope to accomplish.
- Collaborate with your employees and learn and share together.
Pushing social strategy down people’s throats won’t work, just as no
other marketing tactics work either when there is not sufficient buy-in
and commitment.
- Look at ways to utilize your company and executive leadership to see how social processes internally can be enhanced and become value-driven.
- Don’t worry about fancy metrics and formulae.
Relationships cannot be measured by those yardsticks. Your social
listening posts and proactive initiatives will yield better results and
more meaningful measurement.
On one last note, I want to remind my B2B friends (because I am
seeing a lot of this going on and I feel it is my duty to say
something)—I don’t believe that employees or executives have the time to
Tweet to your customers all day. And your B2B customers don’t have time
to read them either. Let’s leave all this noise-making to the Hollywood
stars and the Oscar stage. We have a business to run—we need to think
Value, Relationship, Originality, Omniscience, Measurement—VROOM…let’s go! (Could not resist that…it came about as I wrote.
Louis Foong is the founder and CEO of The ALEA Group Inc,
one of North America’s most innovative B2B demand generation
specialists. As a thought leader with more than three decades of
experience in the field, Louis guides his team and ALEA’s clients
through the dynamic, evolving lead generation landscape.
His astute sense of marketing and sales along with a clear vision and
ability to see the “big picture” has proved beneficial to numerous
organizations, both small and large. With the right advice and a slew of
result-driven services, he enables clients to gain maximum return on
investment for their lead generation efforts. His clients include
companies in the technology, telecommunications, software, healthcare
and professional services industries.
Prior to starting the ALEA Group, Louis Foong has held various senior
executive positions within corporate America. Today he is known and
well-respected as a thought leader and pioneer in this industry. Foong
is a published blogger and among the top authors on CustomerThink, a
global online community of business leaders.
B2B Marketer Alert: Look In Before Looking Out
Another Social Media Week has come and gone, 5th year in a row. Where are we today? Have we really moved on from Social 101 and Social for Dummies?
From a B2C perspective, I think we certainly have and that is
inevitable given the popularity of social media channels and the ease of
communication. We know that social advertizing has also come a long way
with new tools and platforms available to marketers so they can drive
conversion and monetize their social activities.
But I am not talking about advertising and certainly not about B2C.
Our world, the B2B world is a completely different planet as we know.
And on this planet, we still need a logical ecosystem. On my part, I
have really made a very diligent effort to find B2B social media best
practices. I look for the leaders who have driven innovation and change
and been able to translate that into tangible results.
Social media is a great catalyst for effective demand generation but have we found the secret sauce
for converting a prospect into a qualified lead or sale for a company?
It all depends on how you deploy social within your organization. The
need of the hour is to achieve total alignment of all go-to-market
tactics. What is happening in most organizations, sadly, is that whether
it is the hired consultants or in-house social media boss, these
experts tend to look at social media as a single-focus tactic. But it is
not a proven tactic yet! B2B marketers—my call to you is to start
thinking integration and alignment.
I have seen recent advocacy of various measurement metrics, social ROI measurement formulae—this
one here, I actually read with keen interest. On the surface, it does
seem very logical and simple. I just can’t see a B2B company actually
being able to use these formulae very effectively.
The organizations that have seen some B2B social media ROI worth
mentioning are focusing first on becoming social organizations within
their own four walls. Here is a good case study from CIO magazine about how TD Bank
formed an enterprise social network that fuels innovation internally
and helps serves customers better on the outside. The bank has seen ROI
in the form of:
- Time saving
- Increased productivity
- More effective communication
The 5 Laws that can Deliver B2B Social ROI
There are some useful lessons we can learn from the success of
organizations like TD Bank in the case study I mentioned above, and more
from Cisco—take a look at this SlideShare presentation: How Cisco Operationalizes Social Media for Repeated Success.
Yes, I realize it is a bit dated but it still reiterates the point I am
making about “looking in before looking out” and hence, I think it is
worth reading. Here is another example of how this company shows “love”. With the combined effect of internal and external social media training,
Cisco is seeing greater success in this space—as Elizabeth Houston says
in this interview. She also stresses the point I’ve been making: Tons
of people are interested in consumer products, but the audience in B2B
is more of a finite audience – it requires a specific approach and
targeted strategy.
So to quickly summarize what in my opinion should be the tenets / laws / rules, call them what you will of B2B social media:
- Test your social business initiatives—always—just
as we always did with traditional lead generation methods. It’s not
worth flying blind when your customers are signing your paycheck!
- Benchmark internal processes so that even before
you start to test your initiatives, you know the direction you are
headed in and the goals you hope to accomplish.
- Collaborate with your employees and learn and share together.
Pushing social strategy down people’s throats won’t work, just as no
other marketing tactics work either when there is not sufficient buy-in
and commitment.
- Look at ways to utilize your company and executive leadership to see how social processes internally can be enhanced and become value-driven.
- Don’t worry about fancy metrics and formulas.
Relationships cannot be measured by those yardsticks. Your social
listening posts and proactive initiatives will yield better results and
more meaningful measurement.
On one last note, I want to remind my B2B friends (because I am
seeing a lot of this going on and I feel it is my duty to say
something)—I don’t believe that employees or executives have the time to
Tweet to your customers all day. And your B2B customers don’t have time
to read them either. Let’s leave all this noise-making to the Hollywood
stars and the Oscar stage. We have a business to run—we need to think
Value, Relationship, Originality, Omniscience, Measurement—VROOM…let’s go! (Could not resist that…it came about as I wrote.)
Louis Foong is the founder and CEO of The ALEA Group Inc,
one of North America’s most innovative B2B demand generation
specialists. As a thought leader with more than three decades of
experience in the field, Louis guides his team and ALEA’s clients
through the dynamic, evolving lead generation landscape.
His astute sense of marketing and sales along with a clear vision and
ability to see the “big picture” has proved beneficial to numerous
organizations, both small and large. With the right advice and a slew of
result-driven services, he enables clients to gain maximum return on
investment for their lead generation efforts. His clients include
companies in the technology, telecommunications, software, healthcare
and professional services industries.
Prior to starting the ALEA Group, Louis Foong has held various senior
executive positions within corporate America. Today he is known and
well-respected as a thought leader and pioneer in this industry. Foong
is a published blogger and among the top authors on CustomerThink, a
global online community of business leaders.
