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Just how relevent is social media to business to business companies? I get asked and even challenged on this regularly. The benefits are actually very clear and especially when you look outside of pure marketing goals. Simply knowing what your customers and target audience needs is priceless and the perfect place to start.

To get some further insights take a look at this survey conducted by the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn earlier this year. The survey generated over 270 responses from B2B marketers who were asked to consider the rapidly changing landscape of social media in the context of B2B marketing. 

SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS

• Social media shows the biggest increase in use among all B2B marketing tactics over the last 3 years
• B2B marketers cite using social media primarily for raising awareness (76 percent), then for lead generation (58 percent)
• The single largest roadblock to social media success is the inability to measure results 
• The most effective social platform for B2B marketers is LinkedIn, followed by Twitter, and then blogs

Download the complete social media survey report here.

What is your experience with social media in B2B?

I got asked this question today by someone replying to a social media training event invite. I respect the question as too many business simply stop there. Why should you let your staff use social media at work – surely they will just waste time talking to friends? In recent B2B social media survey it was found that 63% of UK businesses actively discourage the use of social media at work  - 48% ban it completely. 

The problem with this is that it acknowledges all the concern but fails to recognise the benefits. I’m not even going to look at the impact this may have on staff morale but happy well connected people can only be a good thing. This was my response to the email:

Firstly, whether you wish to use social media or not it would be advisable to acquire your business name across all succeful social networking sites. Even if you never use them it prevents issues later if another company gets them. I register for all new services I see.

Social Media HR Policy

I will now try and address your concerns about members of your team wasting time on social sites instead of working. From an HR perspective, permissible use of IT systems and the internet at work can be defined in HR policy. Breach of these terms should be just as serious as poor time keeping, misuse of telephone or sharing company knowledge outside of the office. An effective inclusion should be made to all staffs terms of employment. Some companies keep it simple, others run to two or three pages. I can provide suggestions on both if you wish. You should be able to log through your IT systems all the time that people spend online and what sites they visit and enforce this.

Benefits Of Social Media At Work

Secondly and slightly less draconian/more constructive is that the benefits of having your staff positively representing themselves online will benefit your business. If I have an online network of 1000 people and they all know what a great job I do at a company I love working for, then there is a positive effect there. Just as you rightly consider the use of LinkedIn to be beneficial there are other benefits that could be gained certainly through Twitter and possibly others (I don’t know enough about what your staff do to say which).

I encourage clients to see the benefit of having strong personal brands all supporting a strong corporate brand. In my eyes tpsconsulting is the sum of all its people and those people should have an online voice. What it takes for this to happen though is a strategy and plan that everyone is part of. This also enables suitable training to be put in place for those that don’t know how to do it (or how to do it effectively). Social media should be part of how they do their work.

With a strategy your team are part of and a clear HR policy that they have agreed to I see social media as a positive to the business. If any member of staff wants to fly against that positive objective then I question whether they are an asset worth having.

Andy Piper of IBM, said at an event recently “If you cant trust your people, maybe you are employing the wrong people.”

Design Your Own Social Media Strategy

Of course every business has its own structures and needs it’s people to do specific jobs which may not be relevant. You need to create a strategy and plan the fits your business. Whatever you do though it would be wise to run some sort of seminar and introduce a social media HR policy. Not everyone appreciates just how public social networks are and the last thing you need is a fed up employee moaning about your company.

Do you have a social media policy? How did your staff react to its introduction? If you dont have one I can help you set it up.

In one of my LinkedIn Groups today Jo James of the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce likened using social media to going to a health club. I thought I’d expand on it…

The Health Club analogy is a good one. Reason being is that if you don’t have a goal and a strategy to get there then it is likely that you will lose interest and momentum. Let’s carry the analogy forward:

Gym tour = Social Media Monitoring

Have a look around social media and monitor your clients, competitors and target audience. Get familiar with what is happening so you can prepare your business. Set up some Google Alerts. Do some searches on SocialMention.

Fitness plan = Social Media Strategy

Ttake the information you found in your monitoring and create a plan. What do you want to achieve? What do people need and what are you going to do for them?  Where will you find them and how often will you go there? What knowledge can you share? Who will deal with the questions, problems, suggestions and acknowledgements? It’s going to be a conversation remember – not a sales pitch.

How to use the machines = Social Media Training

You need to know how to use the machines in the gym, just like you need to know how to use the social media tools at your disposal. Search on Google or YouTube for “How to…..” or come on a training session. Get more than just your marketing team trained. This is not a marketing conversation this is about your business being social. You are going to have a blog and use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare and possibly others.

Do the exercises = Social Media Content & Participation

You’ve got to put the work in to get yourself fit. For social media this is about creating great content and being in the conversation. You need to do it regularly and consistently. Vary it and involve others who can help you or it will get boring to do. Follow the plan and review what you have done to make sure its following a pattern. Create great content, optimise it with your keywords, be active in the communities where your target audience are present and be of value. Flex your social muscle!

Compete =  How To Measure Social Media Success

Participation in a competition is a good way to measure how fit you are. For social media you need to monitor your activities against your goals to see how you are doing. Followers, views, fans, subscribers, retweets, comments, replies are all measurements of how much your audience is engaging with you. Use URL shorteners like Bit.ly to see how many clicks your links get and monitor your web site analytics (Google Analytics is free) to see how it is effecting the traffic to your site.

That’s it – you are now socially fit. Remember though, if you stop you will soon get unfit. It’s about being present in your communities, so keep it up.

Twitter has opened up huge opportunities for businesses. Never before has it been so easy to quickly target people by their location, interests and conversations. All you need to do is understand how.

Twitter Success for Business – social media training

This full day training event will get you started on your way to success. You may already have started, in which case this will be a shortcut to your Twitter Success. During the event you will cover

• Strategy planning
• Tool use & Automation
• Effective following
• Copy writing
• Time management
• Using #hashtags to promote your content
• Integration with other social media sites
• Promotions and competitions
• Customer service
• Measurement and results tracking

Half Price offer – all attendees will be given the opportunity to bring a colleague or guest for half price.

We run our full day training in the relaxed atmosphere of the Detling Coachouse, nr Maidstone, Kent. For full details visit the Accelerated Twitter Success page or go direct now to reserve your place on this amazing course. Click on the dates to reserve your tickets for just £167 now. Details of price reductions for early ticket purchase  and half price offers are on the event pages.

January 27th – Accelerated Twitter Success – early bird price before 10/01/10

February & March dates in London and Kent to be announced shortly

Register below to be the first to find out dates, limited early bird offers and all the latest Twitter Tips:

I’ve been away but work is underway for a relaunch of my online marketing and social media services. The plans are close to fruition. As I work through these I today came across a useful definition of Goals vs Objectives.

Goals are broad objectives are narrow.

Goals are general intentions; objectives are precise.

Goals are intangible; objectives are tangible.

Goals are abstract; objectives are concrete.

Goals can’t be validated as is; objectives can be validated.

Now, I can clearly define my goals and objectives for the rest of the year. Watch this space…

Facebook is growing – still – at a phenominal rate. Last count I read it was over 500 million and the projection for when Facebook will hit 1 billion is 2012. That’s just a ridiculous number and is even more reason why your business can not ignore it. I follow a lot of social media commentators online and one I respect is Jeremiah Owyang. He has just interviewed a dozen or so other Social Media thought leaders to investigate Best Practices in Facebook Marketing.  The result is a must-read:

I got a strange but inticing DM Tweet today.

“I made $426.23 online today with (link).”

I admit I clicked on it but fortunately for me nothing happened. I have  since received further information suggesting that this is a new Twitter scam.

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK or links that appear like it.

After tweeting with a number of friends on Twitter, its apparent that this is another Twitter money scam and its moving throughout Twitter fast.

NOTE: The Direct messages were likely not sent from the users themselves but by account hijackers.

Here’s some tips to help you and how you can help others from being scammed:

1. Do not click the link

2. Change your password immediately

3. Do not give out your Twitter user name and Passcode

4. Report the account to @Spam

via Warning: Twitter money scams in your DMs | TwitterWatchDog.com.

I received some great advice the other day about managing your Outlook and being efficient with emails.

1. Use the subject line to say what the email is about or what you want them to do

This has been the biggest eye opener for me and it makes so much sense. State clearly in your email subject line what the email it is about and what you want the recipient to do. Don’t just say “Project X” put more details about what the email is asking i.e. “Project X – start date unclear – please remind me ASAP”.

For replies, don’t just hit reply and ignore the subject line. How often do you get an email that uses the “RE: previous email subject” and then just says Thanks? Update the conversation in the subject line as well as the email body

2. Set times in your day for checking your Outlook

It might seem odd that you would ignore your email for set periods of the day but you need to make efficient use of your time. Let people know of your practice and tell them what times you check your emails. As well as being able to stay focused on your work you will find you get less emails as people will call your or come find you if they want a quick question answered. I hate those emails when I know it would have been quicker to deal with if the other person had called me.

Simple – two quick tips for a better working life

Planning for an event is never an easy task, getting people there is an ever bigger challenge. The key is planning.

My plans for the first Accelerated  Twitter Success went rather out of the window when Jago was born and I have been playing catch up since then. I’ve been keeping a diary of the activities on my Postureous blog and at Social Media Tribe.

Through this diary: My Social Media Challenge I have received various suggestions and support. Yesterday after one of my guests swapped her attendance on to the December date I had a brain wave. Inspired by an email from Christopher Howard it occurred to me that the best form of promotion is referral and recommendation by people on the course or who want to attend but can’t afford it. So I set up a basic Send A Friend mechanic.

The FREE option

If you send a friend to my course and they pay the full price( £127 before Oct 30th, £167 after) then you can come for free. Lovely I hear you say. All you need to do is let me know when they have purchased their ticket. Alternatively, email me and I can set you up an affiliate link so you can promote the event without having to follow up to find out if they bought a ticket.

The Half Price Option

Simply decide with a friend or colleague that you both want to come. Buy the first ticket at the event page Accelerated Twitter Success, then email me to request your second ticket.

Simple and equally lovely.

Over on a LinkedIn group where I have been talking about why businesses don’t think social media is relevant to them I just got a comment :

“I don’t get it”

Which is a fair answer – that’s why I run the Beyond Your Website presentation. But let me make it clear to all – social media is as simple as you want it to be.

It’s talking about your business, your passion. Creating contacts with people and talking about what you do, sharing your knowledge and being of value all creates trust in people. You’re website will say ‘what you do’ but for it to truly say ‘who you are‘ you need to illustrate it over time i.e. on a blog or through you photo stream on Flickr.

Do This - go to some of the popular social media search engines and search for your business type or product keywords. See what people are talking about

http://socialmention.com
http://blogsearch.google.co.uk
http://search.twitter.com
http://www.samepoint.com

Go where you audience is, set an objective, be part of the conversation, be yourself, have integrity. Then just see what happens when you go Beyond Your Website….