B2B Social Media

Using Social Media to Create a Powerful B2B Brand Four All-Stars of B2B Social Media Branding Show Notes: Four All-Stars of B2B Social Media Branding Sometimes it seems like the consumer marketing folks have all the fun. They get the edgy campaigns, giant marketing budgets and freedom to bask in the social media spotlight while B2B marketers are stuck talking about features and ROI. But wait…there’s proof that B2C marketers aren’t the only ones enjoying the branding benefits of social media. In fact, there are some real winners in the B2B space this year, and they deserve a look. Rather than showcasing major social media businesses or app providers (we all expect them to be good), I’ve picked firms from industries you might not expect to embrace social media. These companies don’t necessarily have the most popular posts on the net, but they’re working hard to integrate social media into their B2B marketing, and they’re doing it well. These fearless brands have overcome internal reluctance to adopt social media, successfully elevating brand awareness for their B2B companies. There are lessons here for anyone fighting with executives who believe social media can’t work for B2B branding. Show them these examples and make your case: GE is one of the most elegant examples of B2B branding that I’ve seen. Starting right on their home page you can see how GE has integrated social media throughout their online presence. From questions on Quora to photos on Instagram, GE is covering all the social media bases. One of my favorites, GE has published a compelling series of videos on YouTube that are eminently sharable via social media. These aren’t your typical “cross you fingers and hope it ‘goes viral’ ” videos. Instead, each video educates viewers on aspects of the GE product set, building brand comprehension, awareness and affinity. Check out the Juice Train and Darius is Still Playing Baseball for two great examples. Siemens – The folks at Siemens are having fun celebrating employees while promoting a global brand through social media. The firm has racked up over 6 million (yes, million) video views on their YouTube channel, and routinely garners several hundred Likes on new Facebook posts. From “Proud to Be Siemens” employee recognition to participation in FutuRide – a project to break the Guinness World Record of “Most electrical energy generated by pedaling on bicycles in one hour,” Siemens social media branding is active and engaging. ARAMARK – Wrangling the needs and priorities of a distributed organization can be a real challenge, even without social media in the mix. ARAMARK has over 250,000 employees scattered across the globe providing managed services including food, uniforms and facilities to airlines, hospitals, schools and sporting venues. Connecting these front line employees to the brand and the brand to corporate buyers is a tall order. The company uses its social media resources to highlight employee participation in community programs, putting a personal touch on the mammoth brand. ARAMARK also spotlights its products with Facebook photos of items like the Chicken Florentine Nachos offered at Paul Brown Stadium recently. (mmm!) Caterpillar – For an industrial company that launched its first products in 1925, Caterpillar is the kind of business that could easily write off social media as “not a good fit.” Instead, they committed themselves to social media a couple of years back and are busy building engagement. With 27,000 Twitter followers and 129,000 Facebook likes, CAT certainly has its social media fans. The company promotes community among customers and cultivates advocates for its varied product lines with presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogs and YouTube. Caterpillar also hosts a number of online discussion forums, giving the audience a platform to connect and share. Of course, I’d love to see them on Pinterest, too. One dealer, Carter Machinery, is already there. Your thoughts? Which B2B brands do you think are winning the social media game? Let me know who you think deserves a pat of the back for masterful use of social media in business to business branding this year. Prior Sessions: Session 1: Welcome Session 2: B2B Social Media in the C-Suite Session 3: Trust – Why It Matters Session 4: Social Listening Session 5: Telling the Story of Your Brand Session 6: Designing Social Excellence Session 7: Create a Brand-Building Customer Experience Session 8: Applying AIDA for Social Media Branding Session 9: Beyond LinkedIn Session 10: Best Friends – Social Media and Content Marketing Session 11: Using Video to Boost Your Brand Session 12: Social Media Spring Cleaning The post B2B Social Media #13 appeared first on Claravon Consulting Group.

Using Social Media to Create a Powerful B2B Brand Session 12: Social Media Spring Cleaning Show Notes: Social Media Spring Cleaning: 5 Tips to Brush Up Your B2B Brand I have to confess, spring is my favorite time of year. I’m a sucker for colorful blossoms as flower bulbs emerge from the ground, trees bloom and the weather warms up. All the signs point to new life when nature’s cycle comes full circle. As comforting as I find this annual rhythm, life in social media moves at a much faster pace. As a result, regular maintenance is required to keep the cobwebs out of your digital branding efforts, especially in your social media efforts. Here are a few quick spring cleaning tips to keep your B2B brand in tip top shape. 1)         Polish Those Company Profiles – It’s easy for social media profiles to spread like weeds if you’re not careful. Take stock of all the online profiles for your business-to-business brand and make sure your images, messaging and positioning are up to date.  This is especially important if your business has evolved over the past year (and who’s hasn’t?) or if you never got around to updating when Twitter, Google, LInkedIn and Facebook updated their profile image sizes and page layout. 2)        Dust off – or Discard – Outdated Accounts – While you are inventorying your social account profiles, you may find some that just don’t belong with your brand anymore. Do you have multiple brands, different divisions or lots of employees involved in social media? If you have accounts that no longer fit your social media strategy – or that were created by past employees – take them down so they don’t dilute your brand. 3)         Clean Up Your Curation– If you curate content from a variety of sources, it makes sense to check and be sure you’re still using viable sources. Do they continue to complement your brand and add value? It might be time to prune some content sources and cultivate new ones. 4)        Clean the Content Closet – As you are reflecting on your content strategy, you may find some great content hiding under the desk or in an old file. Don’t let it waste away! Pull it out, brush it up and share it in new ways. Maybe you have blogs to make an ebook, posts you can turn into a Twitter stream, or slides you can share via Pinterest. 5)        Weed It Out – If your company has been active in social media for a while, you probably have some content out there that has passed its prime. Instead of hanging on to last seasons fashions, consider tossing materials that are no longer relevant or don’t fit your brand. This might include ancient YouTube videos for products you no longer sell, SlideShare presentations for old campaigns, or other social media dust bunnies that need to be shown the door. I know spring cleaning can seem like a pain and it’s easy to find other things to do. On the up side, it can also be quite therapeutic. Once your business is free from the weight of all that dust and detritus, you’ll discover much more space for creating social media promotions that really build your B2B brand. Take a week to clean house, then reward yourself with a few new tools and social media tricks. The fresh perspective you gain will give you momentum, and success smells great! Prior Sessions: Session 1: Welcome Session 2: B2B Social Media in the C-Suite Session 3: Trust – Why It Matters Session 4: Social Listening Session 5: Telling the Story of Your Brand Session 6: Designing Social Excellence Session 7: Create a Brand-Building Customer Experience Session 8: Applying AIDA for Social Media Branding Session 9: Beyond LinkedIn Session 10: Best Friends – Social Media and Content Marketing Session 11: Using Video to Boost Your Brand The post B2B Social Media #12 appeared first on Claravon Consulting Group.

Using Social Media to Create a Powerful B2B Brand Session 4: Social Listening Show Notes: Using Social Listening to Transform Your B2B Brand There are two parts to every conversation: talking and listening. With social media, the former gets most of the attention, while the latter is really the secret to success. Social listening is the process of monitoring social streams for content and comments relative to a specific topic of interest. It is essential to engagement with the right people, as opposed to random conversation with whoever happens by. For B2B brands, social listening is a powerful tool to understand markets, trends and competitive issues – all factors that inform decisions about positioning and brand strategy. This is also a tool that is drastically underutilized, with recent research by Satmetrix showing that 67% of business have no social listening system in place. Connection is Critical Branding has become a contact sport: people are no longer satisfied with sitting on the sidelines receiving one-way brand communications. They want to be heard, respected and valued by the companies they choose. Like consumers, buyers and users of B2B products and services use social media to express their voice. Social media is the ideal tool for B2B companies seeking the deeper level of connection with customers and prospects that will build their brand and drive revenue growth. Social listening, rather than broadcasting, is the best place to start this process. Unlike the closed communications channels of telephone and email, social media provides a unique, open platform that is especially well suited for discovery. Social listening techniques are essential not only to understand your audiences, but also to find engagement opportunities that can be used to build your brand. Finding Key Contacts The first step to a strong social listening program is learning to whom you should listen and where they can be found. Social media users are often tech-savvy business professionals with the power to purchase in a B2B environment. While they tend to draw clear lines between personal and professional use, those lines are starting to blur. With that in mind, explore each social media platform as a unique venue and learn how your customers use that site versus others. Then start identifying where the most important groups hang out and tune your social listening efforts to those channels. Not sure where to start? Here are a few ways to find the right contacts online: Look for people who congregate in virtual communities to talk about a specific platform, product or service. Use parameters such as company, job title, industry affiliations or certifications to search for people in your target audience on a number of social networking platforms. Explore shared interest groups on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, Meetup group members and followers of industry blogs. Use Twitter to find people who are tweeting using certain hashtags to reference a product or event. (This is also a great way to find people attending an industry conference or seminar.) Track Topics that Matter Once you find the right contacts, set up a social listening program to monitor customer insights and feedback. Listen for mentions of your own company name and your company name paired with that of a competitor. This will uncover searches for recommendations from others, asking questions like “What’s better, Acme or Zeta?” that you can track for brand preference. Look at the areas that are key differentiators for your brand and set up regular searches for related themes. Use the results to engage with commentators or refine your brand for better awareness. There are a number of wonderful tools you can use for this effort. From something as simple as Google Alerts or Hootsuite to more sophisticated social listening platforms, there are resources available for B2B companies of any size. Monitor Customer Sentiments Put your ear to the digital ground and listen for online comments about your business, both positive and negative. Are customers talking about the quality of your service? Are they looking to buy or resell your product? Tune in to social conversations to get a feel for how customers view your company and take the cue when it’s time to make changes, whether that means updating your brand messaging or addressing incorrect perceptions. If you are doing things well, you will probably discover some real fans while listening for customer mentions. Inviting these brand advocates to submit online reviews, provide testimonials or participate in case studies will make them feel valued while expanding the social proof of your value proposition. Don’t Just Sit there…Respond! The online world is like a giant digital water cooler, where news spreads faster than the speed of light. What better place to hear about customer problems, even if they don’t come to you directly? Customers often reach out for help through Twitter and other social media channels, especially if traditional support avenues like the call center, online knowledge center or email frustrate them. Surprisingly, 69% of B2B firms ignore these requests! (Satmetrix.) Appeals can take the form of direct contact through postings on your company’s Facebook wall or messages sent to executives through LinkedIn. Customers may also use indirect messages to garner support for their cause by posting on a blog or tweeting about their concerns. A social listening program can identify these messages, giving you an opportunity to step in and offer a solution. When employees are empowered to address these concerns, people will quickly spread the word that your organization cares about its customers, reinforcing a positive perception of your brand. Be an Active Listener Simply listening to social channels is useless if you don’t have a mechanism in place to turn what you learn into actionable information. Beyond responding to customer comments, think though how your business can integrate what it learns with brand positioning and marketing strategy, operational enhancements or product improvements. Assimilating knowledge gained through social listening may just be the secret formula to becoming a breakout B2B brand. Prior Sessions: Session 1: Welcome Session 2: B2B Social Media in the C-Suite Session 3: Trust – Why It Matters The post B2B Social Media #04 appeared first on Claravon Consulting Group.