One of the most often asked questions about The End of Business as Usual is how it’s different than Engage.

I thought I take a moment to answer it here just in case you were wondering the same thing.

Engage was and is special. In fact, I felt the mission and content of the book was so special, that I wrote it twice. I viewed both versions as my chance to not only document the transformation in marketing and service because of social media, but also empower people to lead change from within. I didn’t expect people to wait for direction. I expected them to lead. Engage helped readers design social media marketing and service strategies and programs that mattered…that worked…that performed against business objectives.

Over the years, I observed their struggles as well as recording my own challenges within the enterprise, governments, and small businesses alike. I realized that the gap that exists between social media and executive leadership is far too great for social marketing or service to solve. And, to be honest, social media isn’t going to save businesses, but instead, it will contribute to relevance. The real opportunity for the transformation of business lies in the evolution of customer behavior and how technology, social networks, smartphones, RFID, and other disruptive innovations empower people AND organizations alike.

The End of Business as Usual makes the case that the need for business transformation is bigger than social media and more important than just connecting or communicating with customers in social networks. For executives to realize the opportunity for innovation and leadership, they need your help in making sense of the differences between traditional and connected customers. They need to know that this emergent consumer category affects business objectives, priorities, and financial goals.

The book examines how leading companies are finding success with connected customers. The lessons, case studies, and best practices contained within will help readers earn the support of organizational leaders by identifying growth opportunities and prioritizing where to invest time and resources. The end result is creating an adaptive foundation for businesses to not only build relationships with connected customers, but improve customer and employee relationships overall.

Adapt or Die!

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

To celebrate the release of my new book, The End of Business as Usual, I recently hosted a discussion on behalf of Vocus on how businesses should rethink a marketing-driven social media approach by not just engaging, but activating a market-driven strategy defined by smarter, more meaningful engagement.

More than 1,000 people attended the event and while I tried to answer every question, many were left unaddressed because of time constraints. This post tackles some of the recurring questions we received on Twitter.

Q1: Whenever I hear about strategies, or when I present myself, I always get the feeling that Lewis Carroll said it best: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where…” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

This particular question is unique in how it was presented, but it also reflects the sentiment of so many others who attended the event as well as those I work with every day.

I believe that businesses approach social media with the genuine intention of wanting to engage; however, many miss the tenets and dynamics of what makes social media, well…social. For example, social media is already siloed within most organizations today. The top three departments that “own” social media are marketing, marketing communications, and public relations respectively. When you study day-to-day programs, it’s clear that campaigns, contents, and conversations offer the semblance of engagement, but really add up to nothing more than meaningless platitudes.

Much of new media is just that: new. But businesses are diving into social media without a clear vision, mission or purpose. They are not thinking about the experience they wish to design, the emotions they desire to evoke, the click paths of those they engage, or the outcomes they seek.

In the absence of direction, think about engagement as an opportunity to close existing gaps between an organization and its stakeholders. To get these answers requires research, discourse, and intuition. Without answers or insights, what is this really about? It must mean more than simply creating social presences.

Q2: Are we no longer supposed to speak WITH an audience? What happened to interaction?

Interaction, conversations and responses contribute to dialogue and two-way engagement. Intention counts for everything here, but at the same time, engagement is measured by the sum of actions and words. If you study the nature of dialogue that’s taking place without you today, the ability to learn from existing activity inspires engagement strategies and content programs that deliver value. Some ask questions. Others need help or direction. Certain groups seek affinity or simply entertainment. The reality is that social media can cater to all of the above and more, yet strategies are limited in scope with value measured by soft metrics such as the number of Likes, comments, followers, retweets, views, etc. Engagement is not measured this way and anyone who tells you differently is wrong. I just can’t say it any other way.

Engagement is defined as the interaction between a consumer or stakeholder and an organization. It is measured – here’s the important part – as the take-away value, sentiment and actions that follow the exchange. Without definition, where will they go, what will they feel, what will they do or say?

Your job as a change agent is to create content so compelling that you empower others to ENGAGE, SHARE and TAKE ACTION. To put it simply, that A.R.T. of social media is in the actions, reactions and transactions you can shape and steer. This is why we are no longer merely engaging with an audience, but instead a sophisticated and connected audience with an audience of audiences.

Conversations and interaction is useful. But there’s a gap between what stakeholders or consumers expect and what businesses deliver against today in social media. Don’t just mind the gap – bridge the gap!

Q3: What is the marketing potential for Tumblr? Are consumers escaping the corporate feel of Facebook and Twitter?

Let me first say this, Tumblr is a unique network that is often misunderstood or underestimated by businesses. In terms of social media, Tumblr is third on the list of total minutes spent in social networks and blogs behind Facebook and Blogger according to Nielsen.  Perhaps I should also point out that Twitter is in a not-so-close fourth position.

Tumblr is a hybrid social network and microblog community rich with its own culture. Some businesses look at Tumblr as an opportunity to further syndicate media in a one-to-many approach. For example, a post on Facebook is often published to Twitter and also Tumblr. Yet, Tumblr demands something new, dedicated and introduced within the culture code established by its fervent user-base. As it is also a social network, Tumblr requires more than just content publishing to successfully engage: it requires bona fide engagement outside of your page to cultivate relationships and a community.

Q4: Your social media examples seem skewed to B2C. What are the best practices for B2B?

Social media is not relegated to any industry. The benefits of smarter engagement know no bounds. However, smarter engagement, regardless of market or industry, requires research and an understanding of how people find and share information and also how they influence and are influenced by their peers. You’ll find that with B2B, information, direction, insights around challenges and opportunities, are bound by shared experiences. What’s different of course, are the networks and the nature of the interaction. Depending on the nature of the business, the top networks are usually not Facebook and Twitter – instead, they’re blogs, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Companies focused on solutions for other businesses find that participating in conversations for the sake of conversations carry little value. Instead, delivering value or insights based on real-world challenges or questions helps decision makers make decisions.

For example, Indium, a global solder supplier specializing in solder products and solder paste for electronics assembly materials, studies how prospects search for solutions based on keywords. Rather than manipulate search results to send people to Web pages, the company invests in useful content to match keyword searches with value-added original content. The result? The company experienced a 600% spike in leads over the course of six months.

If you add video to the equation, there’s a reason that Youtube is the second largest search engine next to Google. People are using similar keywords to find results based on a video narrative. The question is, what are your customers and prospects searching for and what’s turning up in their results?

The social media revolution has given way to a new era of consumerism and consumer influence. As a result, the era of business as usual is over. As customers grow more confident and vocal, organizations are either listening and responding or turning towards the inevitable path of digital Darwinism – the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt. Meanwhile, fast-moving challengers are making huge gains through smart, meaningful customer engagement.

This is your time to lead, not follow.

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Guest post by Eric Schwartzman and Paul Gillin

B2B social media marketing is particularly well suited for business-to-business lead generation. Business purchasing decisions are made by stakeholder committees with diverse priorities and a voracious appetite for details. Social media is the most efficient channel for committees of engineers, product developers, purchasing managers and marketers to self-educate, and a way for marketers to abbreviate sales cycles.

B2B social media makes it possible for marketers to inform communities with greater fidelity and less friction. And for most B2B marketers, snapping a blog, a Twitter feed and a SlideShare account onto the marketing department has been the logical first step. But as B2B social marketing matures, it is becoming clear that this is only one option. In this blog post, we’ll explain the three different approaches that are currently gaining traction with B2B marketers.

DIY Social Marketing – Up to know, savvy marketers have risen to the occasion by creating content themselves. They optimize, upload and fill the vacuum with details customers seek to make informed purchasing decision. Indium Corporation, a company we profiled in Social Marketing to the Business Customer — the first book devoted exclusively to B2B social media — maintains an arsenal of 17 corporate blogs to turn content into contacts into cash.

Indium’s blog posts feature buyer oriented keywords likely to be searched. Headlines like “Wave Solder Flux Deactivation Temperatures Explained” and “Using Integrated Preforms for Solder Fortification” may not be interesting to most people, but if you’re on the market for solder, these are the details you need to know to specify the right solder. In the six months after Indium started blogging, lead generation surged 600%. The do it yourself approach is manual. These corporate blogs are maintained by 17 company employees, many of whom are engineers.

In a market like Indium’s, where there’s a dearth of this type of data available online, the strategy has been extremely effective. But in more competitive markets where stakeholders have even heftier appetites for details, informing the marketplace on your own is kind of like accepting responsibility for nation building a war torn country without a the help of an international coalition. Which leads us to the next approach.

Managed Social Marketing – The SAP Community Network, also profiled in our book, is a branded B2B social network with nearly 2 million members — less than 10 percent of whom are company employees. The community generate 6,000 posts per day in 200+ discussion forums. “If we can make our customers more successful than our competitor’s customers, than our competitor’s customers are going to come to us. Or our customers are going to buy more, upgrade faster, extend their capabilities and so forth,” says Mark Yolton, SVP, SAP Community Network, Global Ecosystem & Partner Group, who oversees the social network.

System integrators share best practices with customers as a way of increasing their own visibility. Customers ask questions, prospects educate themselves and, as a natural byproduct of all that sharing, tire kickers are converted into leads. Jeremiah Owyang calls them unpaid, peer-to-peer armies. Unlike the DIY approach, this one is a more scalable, and more self-sustaining, because instead of accepting responsibility for sustaining the momentum on your own, you manage a community with its own inertia.

The SAP Community Network helps engineers share details with other engineers, and the by-product of all that sharing makes a market for SAPs products much more efficiently than the company could do exclusively through its own sales and marketing channels. Intangible benefits like easier networking, industry recognition and professional development drive community engagement. But the networks must be actively monitored by community managers, who serve as farmers, weeding out the off-topic conversations and fertilizing healthy ones. So while it may be less resource intensive than the DIY approach, it still requires ample resources.

Automated Social Marketing – A third approach is also emerging. It’s embryonic at this point, but it relies not on sharing details or managing others but rather, on data integration itself. It’s the latest iteration of social marketing, and it’s automated. By allowing visitors to a destination website to login with their Google, Facebook or Linkedin credentials, marketers can exchange access for the right to aggregate profile information, get individuals to recommend their products to their online social network and establish a persistent connection with the prospect, all in a single click.

Between July 2010 and January 2011, B2B sites saw a 20 percent increase in logins using Linkedin user names and passwords, showing that more websites are integrating social sign-in, and that more users are choosing to segment their business activities from their personal ones by using Facebook for logging into non-business websites, and Linkedin for sites they’re comfortable aligning with their professional profile But regardless of the particular social network a user signs in with, this approach was the first iteration of automated social marketing.

Last March, Hoover’s, the most popular sales prospecting B2B database, released a mobile app to help marketers find prospective customers based on the GPS in their smart phones. Now you can search based not only on industry sector and annual sales, but also location.

In January, Hoover’s announced a deal with LinkedIn to integrate elements of the B2B network’s functionality in the Hoover’s online business information database. Tomorrow, your Hoover’s iPhone app will probably also show you which of your Linkedin contacts has a contact at those nearby businesses. Armed with spatial and social networking intelligence, the world’s largest professional database becomes an even better lead generation tool.

In contrast to the DIY and managed approaches, the automated approach leverages the actual the data created from online sharing, rather the act of sharing itself. As APIs become easier to integrate, and social sign-in providers like Janrain and Gigya release low cost solutions, the automated approach is likely to continue gaining steam, as marketers look to the data to get better insight into the demographic and psychographic make-up of their prospective and existing customers.

Eric Schwartzman is coauthor of Social Marketing to the Business Customer, the first book devoted exclusively to B2B social media through social media, producer of the award-wining PR podcast On the Record…Online.

Paul Gillin of Paul Gillin Communications. Gillin is the author of The New Influencers, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, the Joy of Geocaching and along with Schwartman, co-wrote Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

Social media didn’t invent conversations, it provided us with tools to surface and organize them. Conversations about brands predates the mediums used to connect messages and aspirations with consumers.

The motivation for brands to engage in social networks varies based on the culture and agility of each company, but what is constant is the aspiration to connect with customers and prospects to earn awareness, attention and connections. On the other hand, B2B and B2C consumers have also expressed desire to connect with those brands whose intent is genuine and beneficial to the each engagement and the overall relationship. The time has come to not only engage, but do so in a way that’s mutually beneficial to individuals, brands, and the ecosystem at large.

In April 2010, Performics commissioned ROI Research to study Twitter behavior around brands. The study found that 33% of Twitter users share opinions about companies or products at least once per week. More so, 32% make recommendations while 30% seek guidance and direction.

Did you get that?

33% talk brands 1x per week

32% make recommendations

30% seed advice

In the study, we see can compare responses over a short six month period. Depending on how you interpret the data, it appears as though consumer behavior is inching towards the promised land or on the other hand, the documented uptick demonstrates a slow or slowing adoption rate.

Twitter

Clearly, Twitter users are supportive. Their responses and also their online activity indicates tells us as much. But if you were to base future decisions on social marketing and service strategies, the results of this particular study might cause you to second guess your plans. While the numbers are still incredibly promising, we must read between the lines to see beyond a slight downward trend.

Just over 40% would attend a promotional or sponsored event, which for Twitter, equates to the need to factor Tweetups or meetups into the mix.

Roughly 45% stated that they would link to a brand-related ad, which is consistent between 2009 and 2010.

Here’s where things get interesting…In 2009, 51% claimed that they would purchase the company’s product/service, but only 48% expressed similar sentiment in 2010.

In 2009, 55% admitted to talking about or expressed a willingness to discuss brands whereas 52% stated as such in 2010.

Referrals also took a slight hit, with 55% in 2009 and 53% in 2010 stating that they would recommend the product/brand as a result of online connections.

Facebook

Earlier this year, I made a controversial prediction at the Ragan Social Media Conference hosted by Coca Cola. I predicted that in 2011, brands would dedicate greater time and resources to cultivating communities on Facebook over Twitter. I shared this idea not because I believe that Twitter is going to become less prevalent in overall marketing mix, instead I believe that Facebook will grow in its prominence as a centralized hub for defining the consumer experience where brand managers will host organized events, interaction, commerce, and corresponding activity.  The data below seems to offer a glimpse that this might be the case.

Facebook edged a bit higher between the 2009 and 2010 studies, almost across the board.

Consumers expressed a 3% increase between 2009-2010 from 26 to 29% when it comes to interacting with the brand in Facebook.

Customers also shared that engagement on Facebook helps them feel as if they’re valued, increasing from 28 to 30%.

When it comes to inviting greater interaction, growth was stagnant year over year.

Overall, many believe that Facebook is a solid way to get information about companies and products edging 1% higher from 40 to 41%

The Role of the Social Consumer is Gaining Momentum and Importance

When we compare this data to another recent study conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey along with iModerate Research Technologies, we find that individuals who follow brands on Facebook and Twitter are 51% and 67% respectively more likely to buy a product post connection.  Accordingly, Facebook and Twitter users are 60% and 79% more likely to recommend a brand as a result of the engagement online. Those numbers are astounding, yet the opportunity is far from realized.

However, it’s clear that while people are open to meaningful connections and interaction, businesses must learn to convert conversations into corresponding action and long-term value. There is a greater opportunity on Twitter and Facebook than we may realize.

The last mile of engagement is nothing short of the complete socialization of business. The roles of the social consumer, even if they’re a follower on Twitter or they “like” the brand page on Facebook, businesses must cater to the various needs of the whole of the community as well as the parts that contribute to its sum.

Based on the data that I’ve reviewed contained in countless studies, the prospects are nothing short of blinding. But therein lies the opportunity. No two brands or consumers are created alike, meaning that the triggers that incite action and response are yours to discover and cultivate. This is about growing the opportunity based on engagement and adaptation. Social consumers are on a highway where regression isn’t an exit. The question is, how will you participate to guide their journey and experience?

#ThisisYourTime

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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Social Media is often misconstrued as a medium for business-to-consumer or B2C engagement and discounted as a viable communications network for those companies focused on business-to-business transactions. However, B2B, as in any other field impacted by online activity, is faced with a prime opportunity to not only cultivate communities in social networks and other social channels, but also amplify awareness, increase lead generation, reduce sales cycles, and perhaps most importantly, learn and adapt to market dynamics in real-time.

Ignorance is Bliss Until It’s Not…

Customers and those that influence them, regardless of industry, are migrating to the social Web at varying paces. While social or digital strategies do not replace proven means that are in play today, they do however, require augmentation and shifts in resources commensurate with the distribution of attention, where it’s focused and to what extent.

In my research, programs measured in hindsight are not the only views that offer 20/20 vision. Unobstructed foresight is now attainable and in some cases, predictable, based on our investment in time, energy and creativity in how we analyze online behavior, interaction, and ultimately influence. And, our ability to study and put research to work is only limited by our process for learning and adapting to earn and increase resonance within our target markets.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of listening to focused online interaction, is the ability to breakdown the decision making process and how customers and influencers impact behavior. To say it blatantly, social media makes it possible to identify and segment the specific stages of decision making online and how to in turn, respond in ways that steer interest in your favor. The results of these interactions also lend to the importance of adaptation. As we learn more about the challenges, considerations, and sentiment of our potential stakeholders, we can introduce those insights into future designs, processes, and communication.

If we are not part of the decision making process, we are then absent from the decision.

Opportunity Clicks

To help make the case, Outsell recently published its “Annual Advertising and Marketing Study” and in the report, Outsell states that B2B advertising and marketing spending will increase by only .8% to $129 billion. Interactive spending, on the other hand, will escalate by 9.2% to $51.5 billion this year.

As Social Media becomes pervasive in workflow and influence, Outsell’s study shows that spending is following the trend. To that end, B2B marketers will increase spending in social networks by 43.3%. While it’s not necessarily as alluring as social, company websites are only receiving a boost of 7.5%.

When we study engagement in interactive media, we find that we captivate attention in a very dynamic environment, but we lose them with each click that we either intentionally or unintentionally introduce to lead their experience post engagement. Many times, the click path is aimed right at the company site, and if we were to analyze the design and effectiveness of B2B websites today, we might just find that a large number are stuck in time, representative of an era more aligned with Web 1.0 than Web 2.0.  Opportunity clicks, and without defining a rich and rewarding click path as well as an enriching experience, which most likely requires the renovation of the corporate website, all online activity associated with increased social spending, will bear the brunt of defining and capitalizing on attention, within social networks, the moment it’s captured.

As part of the study, Outsell surfaced preferences for business engagement and activity in social networks. When asked to rate the effectiveness of particular networks, more than one-half of respondents claimed that Facebook was either “extremely” or “somewhat” effective. LinkedIn ranked second with 45% surprisingly (and not so surprisingly) ahead of Twitter at 35%, which of course, ranked higher than MySpace at 25%.

As eMarketer noted, when HubSpot ran its B2B North America survey, it found that businesses ranked LinkedIn on top at 45% ahead of Facebook at 33% as most effective in lead generation.

B2B, or any business or organization, must evaluate and implement interactive strategies in order to earn relevance and hopefully resonance in order to compete for the present and the future.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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Please consider reading my new book, Engage!

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I spend a great deal of time working within the B2B sector, among other things, and social media is a growing and or pervasive program within a comprehensive, integrated communications and service strategy. In almost every scenario I’ve encountered, executives, marcom and service executives, and brand managers have generally assumed that social and interactive activities and programming were ideally best suited for consumer applications. However, as we recently explored, in Social Media, it’s not just business, it’s business-to-business.

Indeed, Social Media is not limited to B2C applications, its impact and effects are actively measured and felt in B2B as well as government, education, military, and other prominent verticals. As decision makers take to the social web, their research, activity, communication, and most importantly, their relationships only intensify over time.

If you’re working in B2B, perhaps this post will provide you with value. Or, at the very least, it will arm with you data necessary to convince, compel, and persuade those skeptical or uninspired colleagues, clients, and managers.

Business.com recently conducted a study that evaluated Social Media activities of those in B2B and B2C. In its report, “2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study,” Business.com found that North American companies focused on B2B were much more rigorous in the world of social media than those in B2C. As you’ll see, B2B leads the fray across the entire regiment of campaigns and programs.

Social Media: B2B vs. B2C

Maintained company-related profiles on social networks:

B2B: 81%
B2C: 67%

Participate in Twitter:

B2B: 75%
B2C: 49%

Host blog/s:

B2B: 74%
B2C: 55%

Monitor brand mentions:

B2B: 73%
B2C: 55%

Engage in discussions:

B2B: 66%
B2C: 43%

Participate in Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn, forums:

B2B: 59%
B2C: 44%

Upload content (social objects) to Social Networks:

B2B: 50%
B2C: 32%

Manage a community dedicated to customers or prospects:

B2B: 49%
B2C: 51%

Monitor/support user ratings and reviews:

B2B: 49%
B2C: 51%

Produce Webinars or podcasts:

B2B: 46%
B2C: 22%

Advertise on social networks:

B2B: 42%
B2C: 54%

Utilize social bookmarking sites such as delicious and digg:

B2B: 38%
B2C: 21%

Employee recruiting:

B2B: 36%
B2C: 27%

As expected, those companies engaging in social media, whether B2B or B2C, focused efforts on creating social network profiles, microblogging, blogs, and brand monitoring, hitting a high of 81%. Most social activities however, maintained a level of participation with an average of around 50%. There is room for growth for brand engagement regardless of industry.

Business.com also evaluated where companies were focusing their attention and resources. The study surfaced that not only are a greater number of B2B companies experimenting with Social Media, they are also extending their presence across multiple networks. However, B2C businesses dominated engagement within Facebook and MySpace.

Notice the disparity between B2B and B2C adoption of Twitter. If these numbers truly reflect that of the greater community of businesses, B2B companies are at the forefront of this wildly scrutinized and popularized social property.

Facebook

B2B: 77%
B2C: 83%

Twitter

B2B: 73%
B2C: 45%

LinkedIn

B2B: 56%
B2C: 27%

YouTube

B2B: 43%
B2C: 30%

MySpace

B2B: 14%
B2C: 23%

FriendFeed

B2B: 9%
B2C: 2%

Plurk

B2B: 1%
B2C: 0%

Other

B2B: 4%
B2C: 8%

Also according to the Business.com study, 60% of B2B respondents leverage Twitter search to monitor brand or company mentions compared to just 35% of those in B2C. With Facebook slowly revising their privacy settings to open up real-time search capabilities within the 350 million strong network and MySpace recently announcing the availability of a real-time API, businesses will have the ability, and the responsibility, to search for relevant conversations outside of Twitter and Google.

Google search results, at least prior to the real-time search revolution, also proved valuable for mining and unearthing relevant content. 59% of B2B and 40% of B2C companies report using Google Alerts and 61% of B2C and 60% of B2B reported that they actively googled themselves.

With the rapid evolution of search, business monitoring will assuredly shift its focus from traditional to real-time. Just recently, Google announced both Social Search, the inclusion of content generated by your social graph in traditional search results, as well as real-time results from Twitter and other social networks. We already know that customers, regardless of industry, are actively taking to search engines to learn more about brands and products mentioned in their social stream.

A New Era of Influence

- 20% of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives

- About half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information

- 8% of those who came into contact with a brand name on Twitter went on to search for additional information on search engines with 34% searching other social networks

Customers Take to the Social Web

- 44% admitted that they have recommended products in Social Media and 39% stated that they have discussed a product specifically on Twitter

- 46% of Facebook users talk about or recommending products on the 225 million strong social network

- Social Media already accounted for 18% of all information searching in early 2009

- 30% claim they wished to learn more

- 27% reported that they were receptive to receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions

- 25% stated that they visited a site after learning about a product on their social network of preference

Engagement Has Its Rewards

In a recent Razorfish study, 40.1% of consumers reported friending a brand on Facebook or MySpace. Once a connection was established, the resulting activity was profoundly beneficial to the awareness and potential revenue of the brand.

Recommend the brand to others:

Always: 22.94%
Usually: 39.15%
Sometimes: 33.92%

Consider the brand when in the market for a similar product of service:

Always: 22.69%
Usually: 40.90%
Sometimes: 34.41%

Raise awareness of the brand:

Always: 21.45%
Usually: 38.65%
Sometimes: 36.66%

Purchase a product/service from the brand:

Always: 17.46%
Usually: 42.89
Sometimes: 36.66%

ROI: Return on Investment or Ignorance?

I recently wrote about the lacking of an industry-wide practice for measuring social media. According to one study, 85% of businesses engaged in interactive programs were not measuring the ROI.

Even though measurement was more pervasive in B2B over B2C, participating companies appeared to actively measure social media in this case – at least those surveyed anyway. B2C companies tended to focus on revenues to assess ROI (where the I represents investment and involvement). B2B companies typically evaluated Web traffic, brand awareness, and the quality and volume of lead generation. That being the case, B2B and B2C reported that Web traffic was considered the top metric.

It appears that an industry typically characterized as lethargic is in actuality, pioneering new forms of communications, service, sales and branding in the social realm.

Questions remain for me however, in order to better ascertain how and why businesses are using these new tools and to what extent. For example, I would ask those within B2B and B2C what their level of engagement and commitment to social media is across multiple departments within the organization. I firmly believe that every department affected by outside behavior or those that have the ability to affect it will ultimately benefit from socializing. Therefore, conducting a benchmark survey to capture the state of the industry as it corresponds specifically to service, sales, branding, communications, HR, etc., will help us better surface opportunities and potential strategies. In addition, I suggest introducing one more set of questions that focuses on what I refer to as the “ a ha” vs. the “uh oh” moment, when a company decides to embrace or experiment in Social Media. Are businesses jumping online because they realized the opportunity specific to a network or because they felt it necessary based on a negative discussion or series of negative and public instances.

The Attention Economy and Earned Relevance

Attention is increasingly thinning and as such, it is considered a precious commodity.

Whether it’s B2B or B2C, we are each in the end, consumers. And, as consumers, we seek information online in order to make more informed decisions based on research, the advice of friends, peers, and experts, and the recognition of our questions and commentary directly from brands. In order to make an impact on the bottom line through sales and the ongoing investment in engendering goodwill and earning loyalty, we must focus our time and resources on the attention dashboards of our prospects and customers, as well as those who also influence them. If we do not, we will quickly find ourselves outside of the parameters within every business decision-making process.

If it is one thing that we learn right here, right now, is that Social Media affects every part of the buying cycle. This is why a company-wide SRM program must be engineered and deployed in order to effectively monitor behavior and sentiment to effectively and genuinely shape perception, cultivate meaningful relations, and inspire action.

General Buying Cycle

1. Acknowledging the need

2. Awareness

3. Research

4. Consideration (the short list)

5. Evaluation

6. Purchase

7. Applications

8. The Experience

9. Reaction

10. Opportunity for advocacy

It should also not go unsaid, that while women rule the social web, the buying process in B2C is also influenced by women in a relationship setting. According to Marti Barletta, author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women, when men and women buy as partners, women control at least four out of five stages of the purchasing process. While this isn’t representative of the bigger pitcure, it is still nonetheless interesting and worthy of consideration.

This is why in the world of B2C marketing, women are considered the Chief Household Officer as they’re actively driving and steering purchase decisions.

Five stages of the purchasing process:

1. Kick-off – women
2. Research – women
3. Purchase – men
4. Ownership – women
5. Word-of-mouth – women

It is how we engage at each step of this cycle that determines our place and stature within the inevitable path of attention, analysis, and action. Once we learn how and where to engage, we can then focus our efforts on earning affinity and advocacy. This is our time to garner relevance through the intelligent practice of poignant and relevant listening, understanding, and participation. In parallel, this is also our opportunity to establish authority and attention. Without it, it’s easy to vanish from the cycle of awareness and consideration. Out of sight, out of mind…

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Social Media is fundamentally transformative and is rapidly evolving the architecture of business, communications, and the dissemination of information and influence.

Today, there are businesses that engage in social media and those that do not. Those at least experimenting with the formidable, yet shifting landscape of intelligence and communication are learning how to adapt and connect in a new world of conversation, networking, and influence. Those that have yet to evaluate the opportunities and advantages for socialized marketing, service, sales, and branding will find it increasingly difficult to learn, adapt, and magnetize customers, prospects as well as their influencers.

As markets evolve, consumers gain a greater sense of adeptness and perspective. They too learn and adapt. In the process, individuals and the authoritative communities they form, possess a more sophisticated understanding of media literacy, community support, and prowess in new media communication. Consumers have choices and they’re increasingly practiced through natural selection.

There’s a sense of social Darwinism at play here and while it might sound overly dramatic, it is for better or for worse, true. In the new era of influence, those businesses that understand where and how to compete for the future will earn a genuine and advantageous position to shape and steer the perception, prominence, and impact of the brand. It is this idea of competing for attention where it is focused, as it evolves, that will help businesses connect with people and thus set a new, efficient, and effective foundation for advocacy and community.

In order to earn a place within online societies, we must first recognize where they’re emerging, flourishing, and thriving, and also how to engage through authentic and attested immersion.

Social Media: Reporting from the Field

Recently, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth updated its annual study on the adoption and practice of social media by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US.

The essence of the report shares the tools that are carving the evolution of the fittest. At a minimum, Social Media is affecting and shaping the pillars of business.

The study found that most businesses recognize the importance of experimentation and engagement, with 91 percent of companies reporting the incorporation of at least one social media service or tool in 2009. Literacy and awareness was also on the rise with roughly 75 percent stating that they were now “very familiar” with social networking. This was reflective in the impressive drop in Inc 500 companies that did not use social media whatsoever, plunging from 43 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2009.

Messaging/Bulleting Boards

2007: 33%
2008: 35%
2009: 28%

Social Networking

2007: 27%
2008: 49%
2009: 80%

Online Video

2007: 24%
2008: 45%
2009: 36%

Blogging

2007: 19%
2008: 39%
2009: 45%

Wikis

2007: 17%
2008: 27%
2009: 25%

Podcasting

2007: 11%
2008: 21%
2009: 12%

Twitter

2009: 52%

This is the first year that Twitter was asked specifically, which is interesting considering that the network has been discussed as a business application over the last three years.

No Use of Social Media

2007: 43%
2008: 23%
2009: 9%

Social Media is indeed pervasive. Social networking, podcasting, blogging, and Twitter adoption are nothing less than profound. The number of Inc. 500 companies embracing these platforms and networks increased year over year, and most likely will do so in 2010 until we start to see the segmentation of targeted social activity in the networks that reach and connect niche markets or nicheworks.

The rise in the usage of wikis is encouraging. Even though 2009 numbers are slightly lower than 2007, at 92 percent, it is significantly higher than the 2008 reporting of 77 percent. Applications for wikis include user generated content, ideation, and governance, internal employee communication, as well as the organization of collective intelligence.

I am also pleasantly surprised at the growth in recognition of the importance of social activity within message/bulletin boards. In fact, when I conduct a listening and observation exercise to uncover where, when, how, why, and to what extent relevant conversations are transpiring using the Conversation Prism, messages boards and forums rank among the top of the list, in many cases, outperforming Twitter and placing second only to blogs in terms of consequence.

Not surprisingly however, video appeared to experience a small downward trend but 2009 activity still is significantly greater over 2007. What many either don’t yet realize or learn through a baptism by fire experience, online video requires much more than a Flipcam. Content must be engaging and entertaining. You literally have seven seconds to hold the attention of the viewer and without forethought, most videos are incredibly underwhelming. As such, content requires programming and creativity, much like the programming of any television network or motion picture company. We as consumers need something that captivates and holds our attention. Concurrently, online video also requires a dedicated content marketing strategy in order to connect the theme, essence, and value of the videos to those who could benefit from viewing them.

The Sociology of Social Media

The Center for Marketing Research observed that the Inc. 500 is outpacing the Fortune in many social media activities. In fact, respondents believe that Social Media is introducing a competitive advantage, with adoption ensuring survival and success through practice and evolution. As of now, the Inc. 500 documented success by measuring key, and not so important, indicators such as visits, impressions, comments, leads and sales leads and revenue.

As you interpret and process this information, it’s important to understand that the networks and adoption numbers aren’t necessarily reflective of the strategies you should integrate and pursue. Everything is specific to the behavior, activity, and locations of your community and thus requires an initial listening and observation exercise and audit to uncover the answers to the questions you may have or don’t yet know to ask.

This is why sociology prevails over technology when it comes to engagement. Essentially, brand managers become veritable digital anthropologists or sociologists in order to identify and document the culture of a community, gather information, analyze data, report findings, apply statistics and surface necessary communication and listening skills.

Our work subtly reflects that of a Margaret Mead or nowadays, Intel’s Genevieve Bell or Whirlpool’s Donna M. Romeo, Ph. D. – at the very least, we’re inspired by their work to apply their methodologies and learning in new fields.

While brand hierarchy isn’t necessarily established through social media alone, it is a highly concentrated and relevant amalgamation of integrated services, programs, and values that ultimately establish prominence.

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As some social media experts are now starting to realize, businesses need a little bit more than relationships to justify their spend in conversational marketing. Relationships are difficult to forge and even more burdensome to measure. And while participation and engagement are part of a more effective interactive business communications program now, we can not neglect our responsibilities to the bottom line as well as our dedication to existing customers and prospects.

Socialized media affects an organization in its entirety. Any division responsible for outside communication interaction, from marketing and public relations to sales and service, will eventually socialize – it’s a matter of when, not if.

I’m often asked if I can share experiences, examples, and strategies in business-to-business as most individuals asking the question observe the saturation of business-to-consumer examples populating the socialmediasphere today.

Honestly, much of the work I do is focused in the B2B realm.  My experiences to date share similar philosophies, processes, and tactical programs with B2C programs, as almost everything begins with listening and observation. Identifying the new influencers, their reach, and surfacing their channels of influence and interaction are the benefits of research and documentation. The differences between B2C and B2B are represented specifically by the voices, communities, conversations, questions, interaction and their place within the buy and value cycles.

Everything comes into focus by reverse engineering who you need to reach, at what level, where they go for answers and direction, who do they look to for insight, and who are they connected to and why.

Perhaps one of the more understated benefits of social media in B2B is the ability to establish and foster expertise within a given industry or niche. The same tools and services that new influencers leverage to construct prominence and demonstrate awareness are also readily available to anyone with wisdom and vision to share.

I was once asked what it takes to become a thought leader. My answer was short and playfully sarcastic, “it starts with actually being a thought leader.” In all seriousness however, it’s true. Combining intelligence, prowess, experience, innovation, and inspiration into a series of targeted and distributed platforms that are shareable and discoverable by peers, customers, prospects and partners is how we earn mind share and eventually market share.

If you were to ask Charlene Li, Ray Wang, and Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, August Ray of Forrester, or Paul Greenberg author of CRM at the Speed of Light, I’m sure their views would align.

BtoB Magazine recently released its 2010 outlook, which predicts the rise of social media marketing in both importance and spend heading into the new year.

To get a deeper view at B2B social media marketing in 2010, eMarketer graphed the results…

At the top of the list, Website spending is forecast to rise upwards of 71%. I believe that Websites in general, especially in B2B, should resemble the rapid evolution of the social web, as many social media and interactive marketing programs currently engage people in very dynamic communities only to send them to a static dead end.

B2B email and search marketing are also at the top of the list, increasing by 68% and 62% respectively.

Social Media rose to fourth with a dramatic increase of 60% heading into 2010. Surprisingly however, 37% of organizations reported no change in their Social Media efforts, with 3% actually reducing their programs. According to the report, 54% of respondents currently use social media for marketing, which represents a jump of 9% compared to November 2008.

It’s also worth noting that video will increase by an estimated 51%, which we can assume will have a role in social media marketing – as one can guess that a social network will be employed to host and share much of the custom content.

As mentioned earlier, establishing and conveying thought leadership is a valid and promising opportunity in social medial. 60% of polled B2B marketers reported that thought leadership was at the top of the list for reasons they would engage in social networks. Generating leads and customer feedback served as the second and third top motivators for participation with 49% and 46%.

As eMarketer points out however, respondents to a different survey conducted by Visible Technologies and SiriusDecisions held differing priorities when it comes to Social Media marketing.

Generating awareness was at the top of the list with 25%, customer engagement followed with 18%, and engaging analysts and influencers ranked third with 16%. Marketing products and monitoring and responding trailed by only 1-2 points with 15% and 14% respectively. Although, one could argue that monitoring and responding and customer engagement are one in the same, which could theoretically send it to the top of the reasons.

While many run away from the discussion of ROI and measurement, social media is among the most measurable forms of interactive marketing, assuming that you know how and why to employ it in the first place.

Of those surveyed, 31% measure Social Media ROI through Web traffic and response rates. Qualified leads, which to me represent a meaningful metric, are analyzed by 20%. In succession, customer loyalty ranked third with 15%, brand awareness followed with 13%, and perhaps most surprising, revenue accounted for only 12%. In B2B, the sell cycle is much longer than average transactions. Perhaps the extended evaluation process is accounted for in the lower deployment of revenue metrics.

In the end, the dynamics of business and the role of influence share similar attributes that significantly benefit from socialized media and active and informed engagement. We earn the business and relationships we deserve. This is, after all, just business.

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Blogging is nothing new. It’s already propelled many of whom used it as a part-time platform for their opinions and observations into the stratosphere, or shall we say blogosphere. Many bloggers and blogerati are rock stars, regardless of industry and journalistic background. Their intelligence, words of wisdom and associated niches attract legions of loyal readers.

The technologies available today allow writers to easily publish, link, feed, and market globally – all with a bit of simple HTML code on their page. There are even tools to help others launch blogs within minutes – without requiring any technical expertise whatsoever. Many have even left their “day jobs” and have jumped headfirst into the ocean of full time blogging, enjoying advertising and external investments as a means of newfound, lavish support. For many, it’s equivalent to winning the lottery – at varying levels, whether it’s money, influence, networking, career advancement, etc.

However, many of these same tools that make blogging so contagious and wildly popular have already opened-up a new channel of business-to-business communications that is largely untapped, but still set to explode. This represents a tremendous opportunity for B2B companies looking for a voice; searching for a way to communicate with customers; desiring an untraditional platform for grassroots branding; and unmasking predispositions and helping to mold perceptions.

Blogging has become a viable, respected and even, desired channel for corporate communications and customer relations. Some businesses today are experimenting with executive and corporate blogs as a means to tap into this rich and evolving vein of CRM.

What’s new?

After all, blogs are already implemented on many corporate sites right? Well yes, a small percentage of B2B companies are utilizing blogs as part of their sales and marketing strategy. However, many of them fall into the category of online newsletters and sales pitches.

But this isn’t about using the Web as a one-way medium. Blogs integrate several basic principals of Web 2.0 (before 2.0 evolved into its own ecosystem, which could be an entirely other article unto itself.) Most importantly, however, the idea of making web sites interactive, allowing visitors to read, communicate and share with company executives and peers make corporate blogging very 2.0.

Companies truly concerned with their customers at an emotional level (in addition to business of course) will build a bridge without toll booths, increasing traffic and ultimately, sales and loyalty.

Dedicate a portion of the company website to speak to your business audience directly. Remember that your audience is layered by employees, peers, channel partners, customers and competitors. As a CxO, it’s critical to speak to each of them, acknowledging that the crossover is there, but still designate posts to each one your customers, frequently. Frequency + quality + focus = loyalty, sales, and resonance.

The key is not to propagate or pontificate. I can not stress this enough. Instead of using the corporate blog as a typical arm of marketing, i.e press releases, newsletters, and email blasts, etc., I highly recommend identifying the pain of your customers and delivering the painkiller in a direct, personal, and believable fashion.

This is all about opening up the corporate kimono. Expose the soul and personality of the company.

There are several books on this subject, many of which take 200-300 pages to explain what is completely distilled in this, and many other, articles regarding how to leverage blogging initiatives to transcend online text into future sales and customer loyalty.

Blogs are seemingly anti-establishment, yet the good blogs are anti-complacency and pro commincado. They are personal, candid, irreverent, and informal.

Naked Conversations, authored by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, explicitly spells out why and how to leverage a corporate blog to cultivate target markets at national, and even global levels and its associated ROI. Scoble was formerly with NEC and a blogger who frequently criticized Microsoft. Microsoft, in turn, hired him, and encouraged him to continue blogging without censor. Many credit his blogs, along with Lenn Pryor and others, with the humanization of Microsoft among business partners and customers– helping to shift views away from the evil empire facade.

According to the Economist, “Impressively, he has also succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing abjectly for years: he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world, and especially to the independent software developers that are his core audience. Bosses and PR people at other companies are taking note.”

Think about a blogging strategy. Sit down with the executive and marketing team, including PR and Web. Chart-out an official plan, identify prospective participants and writers, and dedicate time to making it happen! Work with sales and customer service to learn the real pain-points and needs of the market. Capture it, distill it, and publish often. Most importantly, read the comments and interact. It can only help.

At the end of the day, any company reaching business customers should take the time to understand how their products and services can help them succeed. Blogging is about embracing this unique technology and strategically and carefully opening up windows to expose the corporate culture. Acquiesce the successes and failures of your corporate evolution, in order to prove that your experience and leadership skills are legitimate, respectable, and most importantly, in line with your customer’s objectives.

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Marketing to electronics companies and electronic engineers requires than marketing to other audiences/industries.

Q. What’s unique/different about marketing to IT?
A. 1st of all, the marketing landscape is completely different than just a few years ago. The channels of influence are varied and in many cases, traditional platforms for influence have shifted in favor of more p2p (peer to peer) aggregation networks emerge. The difference is extreme. Electronics companies and electronic engineers work within a different paradigm. Their produce development lifecycle is constantly expedited, developing products according to Moore’s law as well as expected market demand. The lifecycle for most electronics are unbelievable short compared to other products in most industries. Product mangers and engineers have their blinders on in order to meet goals. They’re looking for solutions that will help them. They simply don’t have time or interest in hype.

Q. What are the obstacles marketers have to overcome to reach and engage this busy, skeptical group?
A. Yes, this is not just a skeptical group, they’re a highly intelligent, sophisticated audience. Simply put, they’re not looking for bull S#!t. So it takes a marketer with a bit of engineering and product development savvy in order to determine the pain and deliver the pain killer – effectively.

The primary obstacle to overcome is the learning curve. Effective marketing to this channel requires a unique, and rare, ability to understand technical capabilities with effective, cutting-edge marketing strategies and tactics. Marketers can’t be effective simply because they’re greater marketeers. As well, engineers aren’t the best source for compelling and creative marketing campaigns. But find someone who can become a jack of both trades, and you’ve got yourself a credible candidate who can unite both fronts.

Q. Are there any special opportunities today for would-be suppliers to this industry?
A. Yes. But they’re not special, they’re just mostly overlooked by people who do not take the time to train the marketing staff in charge of broadcasting the supplier’s capabilities and solutions. The opportunity is education. For those who take the time to truly understand the product and how it fits into the greater scheme of product development, development cycles, budgets and ultimately market requirements, will be successful. You have to take the time to understand how the technology will benefit every stage of development to customer adoption.

Q. What products or services are in high demand by electronics engineers/companies?
A. Smaller, faster, better, oh yeah, enable wireless in multimedia at the same time. Wireless HDMI and UWB are the next big thing for consumer electronics.

Q. What major trends can savvy marketers take advantage of?
A. I’m not sure that there are trends per se, but marketers can benefit highly from painting the end-game picture. How is this stuff ultimately going to be used and how is it going to make life better.

Q. What are the best marketing tactics/strategies for b-to-b suppliers to use to reach and engage the electronics/engineering community? What media work best? What types of marketing messages and creative work best?
A. This is a great question, as really, it could be a book, or a real-time blog. Really though, B2B suppliers need to apply all forms of marketing campaigns that help electronics execs/engineers develop killer products. Whether it’s through direct sales, direct marketing, PR, and/or customized print and online advertising, the message has to be consistent. Why should they care about what you do…how do you help them be more successful…how does what you provide help them? Print media is still important. Email can’t be ignored. However, the online community is the next wave to ride. Web 2.0 isn’t just about publishing companies extending print entities online…it’s about the opinionated, educated, grass roots entities out there gaining ground and increasing their audience. All of these outlets combined – along with compelling stories, customized by audience and channel, will help marketers be successful.

Q. What mistakes do you see marketers commonly making in reaching and engaging this audience? How can they avoid them?
A. The biggest mistake is that they apply what they learned in marketing 101, PR 101, and advertising 101 to everything they do. It’s so much more sophisticated than that today. Who knew, that along the way, you’d actually have to study. Marketers often forget that their messages and campaigns are aimed at real people with realword needs. So most messaging is the victim of corporate “kool aid” which usually falls flat. This tactic relies on the hopes that savvy recipients will hear their messages and act.

These mistakes can be avoided by doing homework, competitive research, market analysis and thinking like the target demographic.

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