Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed in Social Media?

June 10, 2011Joanne Costin1 Comment

You can read all the articles you want about social media marketing for B2B companies, but until you jump in and do it, you probably won’t realize what you need to succeed. As many have found out, hiring a college-age daughter or son to set up your Facebook page or your twitter account isn’t the answer.

If hardly anyone is reading your blog, visiting your Facebook page or following you on Twitter, there is a good chance you may be lacking in at least one of these three success areas.

Success Factor No. 1: Content

You don’t have the foggiest idea what your customers would find interesting or engaging. You find it hard to think beyond what you sell, and you probably don’t enjoy staring at a blank page.

A content strategist can help you plan what you want to say and how you are going to say it. Content strategists know how to find engaging stories about your business or topic area that people actually want to read. And the best part … they never run out of ideas.

Content creators get the work done, creating blog posts, videos, and slide shows. Crafting messages that sound like you or your brand, only better. Content curators select the “best of the best” information and ideas, creating value for your B2B audience.

Success Factor No. 2: Technology

Words like “meta tag,” “API” and “robots” scare you. You’ve never seen or even attempted to find the traffic statistics for your website or blog. You aren’t interested in learning a whole new language.

Without knowing the technology behind social media, the best content in the world can remain lost. And without reviewing your website analytics, content opportunities will be lost.

Boosts in website traffic require link building and that means knowing where on the Web you need to be. Each social media network has its own characteristics. Do you have the patience to listen and learn?

Social media training will shorten the learning curve and let you know where you need to focus first. Mastering the technology skills can help your social media efforts deliver a better ROI from the get-go.

Success Factor No. 3: Time

Once you engage your B-2-B business in social media, you quickly understand the tedium of it all . Day after day, week after week, you need to participate, create content, and promote content. Conversations aren’t all in one place. Information needs to be posted in a lot of places with thoughtful messages targeted to the audience. It’s downright time consuming.

However, the more you are involved in social media, the greater the benefit you are likely to receive. Do you have the time? Do you know the tools that can help you best manage and monitor your efforts? Do you have someone who can do the “grunge” work for you?

Some businesses and business owners want to do social media themselves and they have everything they need to succeed: Content, Technology and Time. That’s terrific. Some may have the content, but lack the time and energy. Others may have the technological skills, but lack content.

The important thing is to not get hung up on what you don’t know.Recognize it and get some help. Hire someone to get you started. Build a team and share your knowledge. Sign up to receive some social media training. Move on. Don’t give up.

What has held back your social media efforts? What kind of help does your business need?

How to Measure Social Media ROI using Benchmarks

May 9, 2011Mary Klest1 Comment

Can you measure the results of your social media strategies? Marketers know that social media is a strategy within a larger communications plan. They look at both the quantity and quality of results based on a defined goal and time period. Still, the number one question asked by marketers according to a 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner is this: How do I measure the effect of social media marketing on my business?

The report findings were culled from a survey of 3,300 marketers. It revealed a surprising result: More B2B companies have been using social media longer (52.6% reported 1 year or more) than B2C. Time matters. Those using social media for a year or longer reported improved search engine rankings.

Set these four benchmarks and you are on your way to measuring results that matter.

1. Know Where You Stand Now

Before beginning a social media campaign, find current rankings on all sorts of online content. Get familiar with PostRank. It is one of the largest aggregators of social engagement data in the industry. Enter a feed URL and get statistics on the most popular posts based on engagement points. The site ranks RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, and news stories. This is quality and quantity data that can be used to measure throughout your timeline.

Use Google’s Feedburner and Analytics tools to help analyze your company’s blog traffic, subscriber count, keywords, and trends. Find even more useful statistics at Xinu. These tools are all easily accessible to measure where you are now with your Internet presence. Check them according to your timeline. What do you find? Interpret those results for your business.

2. Measure by quantity
These might include the number of fans, followers, subscribers and friends. Other quantities you might look at are twitter lists, groups on linkedin. Having this data will show you what sites to focus on. It also gives an idea on what topics are popular with your audience. The question is not only how many friends, followers and fans you have, but where did they come from? Present this data in a given period of time.

3. Measure by engagement
What level of engagement you measure depends on your business goals. How much activity is in your forum? Do you have stats on click-through rate to your product pages? How many subscribers to your RSS feeds? Do your fans, followers and friends make comments on blog posts and other social networking accounts? Are they sharing your content via the Facebook Like button or twitter retweets? Do they respond to surveys? Do they stay longer than people who came to you from other sources?

4. Bottom Line Results
By measuring your online presence, relationships, and increased sales you create a trail of data that leads to how each of these areas were enhanced by a social media strategy. Reaching a key audience and establishing meaningful dialogue may or may not increase sales over time. It is always good to know what is working and what is not. Use benchmarks to help you reach your business goals.

Content Expands Customer Experience

April 22, 2011Mary KlestLeave a comment

ConversationAgent.com brand strategist Valeria Maltoni posted: Does Your Brand Have the F-Factor? Referring to friends, fans and followers. The influence of social networks on buying preferences is becoming so pervasive and persuasive that marketers are looking for F-Factor possibilities.

Maltoni writes: “The biggest opportunity for brands is still to provide content that expands and improves the experience around a product or service. To build relationships with the people who choose to be inside that experience around what the brand makes.”

Who Follows the Ordinary?

How do I create content for a client that provides an ordinary, everyday service but later surprises me by naming well known celebrities and professional athletes who have used their services? The possibility for endorsements is limited because celebrities don’t want to be associated with an ordinary, everyday service. Their privacy is of concern to my client as well.

I focus on making potential and repeat customers feel good for making the right decision. I offer some pizzazz by including names of high line brands used with the service. Next, I find social footprints of people who follow these brands on Twitter and Facebook and listen in on some forums to help my client see the possibility for sharing and increasing the company’s F-Factor.

Become Extraordinary

Unfortunately for some marketing managers and companies the time factor rules out the F-Factor. This doesn’t need to be the case because outsourcing is available at a reasonable rate. What I like about my client is their openness to try something new. Also, they are trustworthy and care about quality. Their ordinary, everyday service becomes extraordinary through the care and craftsmanship they offer.

I am excited now. I want my client to prosper from a friend’s recommendation, share praise from a fan, and know why followers appreciate their insider news. The relationship is expanded and improved for both company and customer. How are you working on building your F-Factor?

Who’s Looking at You?

March 1, 2011Joanne CostinLeave a comment

Are you one of 90 million people on LinkedIn? One of the more interesting features of the business networking site is the ability is to see who has viewed your profile. Even though I have an unpaid subscription, I can see enough about the people visiting to know that my profile is something I need to pay attention to.

For example, in the past five days, my profile has been viewed by five people, some of whom I recognize, and some of whom I don’t. In the past 15 days I have turned up 11 times in the search results. Last year there were more than two BILLION people searches on LinkedIn. Just as you can improve your website’s rankings with the use of keywords, the same is true of your LinkedIn profile. Did you know LinkedIn now offers an enhanced profile for companies?

Who’s looking at you? Potential customers, bankers, vendors, journalists, former colleagues, future employers– anyone and everyone who might want to find out more about you or your business is searching online. So what does your online presence say about you? Are you professional, up-to-date, well-connected, well-read, and highly recommended? Can you be found through LinkedIn or Facebook? Does your company have a website? How easy is it for someone to find you if they can remember your name, but not your company; or your company, but not your name?

For those of you who are diligent about maintaining your LinkedIn profile and website you are probably already reaping the benefits of your efforts. But I know for a fact, there are many people and companies who still want to do business the same way the have always done it.

Does the construction industry lead the world in terms of companies without websites? I think it must. I was recently looking for a Las Vegas contractor to interview for an article I was working on. From a list of about 25 highway/heavy contractors, I was shocked to find that fewer than half had websites. This correlates with other research that shows that fewer than half of all small- and medium-size businesses have a website.

Now I had the names and phone numbers for the companies without websites. I could have easily called them for the article, but I didn’t. Why? Because I would much rather have some background information on your business before I make the first contact. How many others come to the same conclusion about working with your business?

While personal relationships are still the cornerstone of many business marketing efforts, companies must recognize that an online presence is a necessity in today’s world. At a minimum, create a LinkedIn profile and periodically review who is looking at it.

So please pass this post along to someone who needs to hear it. Ninety million people can’t be wrong.

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