BtoB, The Magazine For Marketing Strategists, just completed a B2B Twitter Research Reportanalyzing B2B companies using Twitter as part of their marketing programs. Over the next few posts, I’ll present and expand upon some of their key B2B Twitter Research Report findings. To start, BtoB discovered that:
B2B companies who invest in using Twitter for business marketing and use it more frequently, experience greater success and satisfaction with Twitter.
Reminds me of growing up on the Gulf Coast of southern Alabama. Back when the beach sand was white and the water crystal blue, our family would go to the beach on the weekends. We’d often go to the “still water” side where the fresh water lakes were. Dad would launch our boat, attach the ski lines, toss out the flotation devices, and splash the skis in the water to the waiting skier.
The first time I clamped the skis to my feet, gripped the ski rope, and leaned back in the water waiting for the boat engine to roar to life, I was scared to death. Any second the 185hp Evinrude motor would jump from idle to full power in just a few seconds. When it did, all of that power would flow into the ski rope and into my 11-year old body, violently yanking me to the surface.
To successfully ski, I would have to focus that energy away from what felt natural—my upper body, arms and hands, which were clinging to the ski rope for dear life—and toward what felt quite awkward—my feet. I had watched many other beginning skiers go through the same routine. They’d get in the appropriate posture, signal they were ready, the boat engine with roar, thrusting the boat forward and yanking the ski rope out of the would-be athlete’s hands.
The boat would circle around and we’d go through the process all over again. Eventually, the skier would transfer the energy, rise up out of the water, briefly. They’d look like a catapult springing to fire but never releasing its payload. Just as the catapult would smash the unlaunched projectile straight into the ground, the sudden force of the boat engine would propel the skier face-first into the water.
It’d make my story better to tell you I went through the same thing. However, because I studied other newbie skiers from the time I was six, just waiting (and begging) for my chance to ski, I was determined to get up the first time. When my chance finally came, I leaned back against the natural flow of energy and refocused it into my feet. At first it was unbelievably awkward. It was far from natural. I didn’t know if it would rip my arms out of their sockets or simply drag me through the water.
After the few eternal seconds of awkward resistance, I came up out of the water and was soon gliding effortlessly along the surface.
Many B2B companies jump into the Twitter water right away. Though they may have watched a few other firms jump in, they probably haven’t seen too many succeed. They’ll try out Twitter just long enough to have the rope jerked out of their hands—maybe they’ll experience a Twitter storm of angry customers posting negative tweets or links to embarrassing content about the company. When they quit Twitter, they’ll say, “Twitter is a waste of time,” or “Twitter just doesn’t make sense for our company.”
Those that hang in there longer maintain their grip on the rope but begin to feel the unnatural energy of social media pulling them along. The natural energy for them has always flowed out from the marketing department into a mass market. That’s the way they’ve done things for generations. It’s the way the PhD professor in grad school told them (and still tells them, sadly) the world works. (Don’t believe me? Watch any political campaign, for example. Count the number of times a candidate says, “We just need to get our message out.”) Because the friction of the water is so intense, and the movement through the water feels so unnatural, many first time skiers and Twitter newbies purposefully let go before they reach the surface.
Successful skiers hold onto the rope and keep the tremendous energy of the boat engine focused on their feet—the leading edge of contact with the water. The resistance is intense and feels like it won’t go away. I remember feeling that if my arms did stay in their sockets, then my legs would probably snap in two. Eventually all the energy and forces of nature aligned and I enjoyed the exhilarating sensation of water skiing.
BtoB’s B2B Twitter Research Report suggests companies who hold on long enough, and stay focused on giving value to recipients, not only experience greater satisfaction with Twitter, they also get new customers and make money!
If you want to be successful with Twitter for business:
put more into it
stay with it longer
focus on your audience and away from yourself.
If you do, you’ll:
get more out of it
enjoy it more
be more successful.
It really is just that simple.
[The learning to ski story is adapted from my upcoming book Spitball Marketing: Using what you’ve got to get more of what you want.]
About The B2Bblogger: Trey Pennington (@treypennington) uses technology, marketing, and stories to connect businesses with the people they seek to serve. With an educational background in marketing, including an undergraduate degree in marketing management and an MBA, combined with a masters in education, Trey understands the need for businesses to discover and develop their core story and to engage their marketplace in making the story their own.
His book, Spitball Marketing: Using What You’ve Got to Get More of What You Want is due out in 2010. You can read more from Trey now at his blog www.treypennington.com.
Today, I thought I would run a little blog post experiment. I picked a topic – content marketing – and gave myself 20 minutes of writing time.
Start 4:20 PM EST
Content Marketing is:
An approach for interacting, influencing, and attracting today’s modern working professional that sources products using search engines, social networks, industry specific web sites, word of mouth and more.
A methodology for developing helpful, useful information that can be used to market your products and/or services during the multiple stages of today’s B2B buying process.
Driven by the fact that sales and marketing organizations can do very little to hasten today’s B2B buyers. Today’s buyers move at their pace – content marketing enables your organization to have the right information available at the moment they are ready.
Designed to help you produce information for all the people involved in the buying process. For years, we’ve instructed sales people to get the DM (decision maker); this approach ignores the vital roles of the users, influencers, and project champion. An effective content marketing strategy speaks to all the people involved in the buying process.
A discipline that requires study. It’s not a fad, a buzzword, or anything like that. It’s a skill that needs to be developed and mastered.
Personal. It educates. It’s marketing that (by way of buyer personas) speaks to someone, not everyone.
We are all faced with growing responsibility/client load, and not enough resources. Or having the resources, but not feeling that you are getting the best bang for your buck. It’s all about setting expectations and tracking results.
In today’s #B2Bchat, we’ll tackle the tricky issues of resource management and utilizing outside contractors and agencies.
If you are looking for job/projects now, what skills are most in demand? What are the best ways to find new business/job?
What does it mean to be a great client? A great agency?
Have you parted ways with an agency? What is the best way to go about that?
On the agency side, have you ever ‘fired’ a client? What are the reasons to do so?
What are the benefits of using contractors vs agencies? Employees vs interns?
What is the best use for a marketing intern? What’s the balance of learning vs getting the results?
What tools have you found useful to manage workloads and teams?
Join fellow B2B marketers for a discussion on B2B Marketing Resource Management.
About the B2Bblogger: Ksenia Coffman is senior marketing manager at Firetide, a wireless infrastructure mesh company, where she is responsible for Firetide’s marketing strategy and technology solution partnerships. Her articles on wireless infrastructure appeared in various publications, including Security Products, Law & Order, SecurityInfoWatch.com and Communications News.
An ASIS member (an international association for security professionals), she is a frequent speaker at industry events, including ASIS workshops and IWCE conferences. Ksenia launched @Firetide – with 800+ followers, it’s is one of the most active Twitter accounts in physical security and wireless infrastructure space. You can read more from Ksenia at Mesh Without Wires blog.
Mayday – a distress signal used to signify an emergency and need for help
Caffeine – something I use to give myself a boost quite regularly
Seem like harmless words that have nothing in the world to do with B2B social media and content marketing, right? Think again.
In recent weeks, Google completed two rather significant changes; one, Mayday, is related to how Google handles search queries and the other, Caffeine, deals with how Google indexes the web. If you are outside the world of search engines, the only Google changes you may have noticed over the past couple of weeks were either the Google Pacman doodle or the day Google choose to be like Bing.
However, Mayday and Caffeine have meaningful impacts on search results, both from a relevance and real-time perspective that in my mind further solidify the need for you to begin participating in B2B social media and content marketing.
Without getting technical, I’ll do my best to highlight the changes and why this is important to you as a B2B marketer, who may be either struggling with the B2B social media decision yourself, or working to gain executive buy-in for your B2B social media strategy.
MAYDAY
Think; search quality. Think; provide users a better search experience by improving results through better matching of websites with user’s search queries.
The project was completed by Google’s search quality team and is independent of Caffeine. A wee bit of technical talk – it is a change to Google’s algorithm – i.e. the code that determines the relevance and ranking of a page. It was rolled out April 28th – May 3rd (around May 1st – hence the name – credit to Webmasterworld).
It’s been tested, and there is no turning back. This is a permanent change.
Here’s Google’s Matt Cutts with an explanation:
CAFFIENE
Think; search timeliness.Think; provide users a better search experience by improving results through providing the freshest, most recently published content about the user’s search query.
Source: The Official Google Blog
This project was completed in an effort to better enable Google to handle the increasing amount of content (video, images, news, blog posts, etc) that is being published every minute and make more of it available as close to possible when it is published.
Today, we’re announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.
Why it matters to you as a B2B marketer
Mayday and Caffeine is Google’s way of telling us that quality, relevant, real-time content is what matters to their users (and your buyers) and content published today is far more meaningful to their users (and your buyers) then content published months if not years ago.
Kinda makes you think about your static HTML website that was last updated a few years ago, no? Adds a bunch of weight to the need to be producing regular, ongoing content too, right?
If or When
That’s the question. I think you know my answer, what’s yours?
You’ve just been handed the job of setting your company’s B2B Social Media Strategy and gaining executive buy-in across the leadership team. The job is often handed to the PR pros, online marketing executives, customer service managers, or anyone who recognized the power of social media early on.
Early on you saw the potential power of social media through direct engagement with customers – and now you’re tasked with setting the social strategy and direction for your company. After all, who else can lead your company down the path to social media success but you?
The good news is that you are not alone! There are numerous articles and tips out there to help you. In this post, I will try to break it all down to help you get started with a step-by-step approach.
Step 1: Help them see the new reality.
The world has changed – almost overnight. Social media is powerful in its numbers, influential in its reach, and has gone beyond the so-called “Tipping Point” according to this latest eMarketer report.
Executives like hard numbers and facts but they also like to be entertained. Show them the popular video Socialnomics: The Social Media Revolution, now in its 2nd release.
Are they still unconvinced? According to this Hitwise Intelligence report, social media is now bigger than search. And according to Morgan Stanley, social media users surpassed email users in July of 2009 but social media usage surpassed email in November of 2007 (based on time spent). Bottom line message: social media is important, is here to stay, and your company risks falling behind.
Step 2: Demonstrate that social media is influencing business decisions.
The discussion should not be about the technologies or the tools. It is about relationships. And because of the connections they are making online, your customers are using social media now more than ever to make business decisions, according to this report from Forrester. Or you can check out this report Inside the Mind of the B2B Tech Buyer from Chris Herbert, B2B Specialist & Founder of Marketing Integration firm Mi6. In the report, Chris condenses research from Forrester, IDG, and others on the influence of social media on B2B buyers.
Step 3: Be ready to answer the hard questions.
A good pitchman is ready for the standard objections: “Yeah but where’s the ROI?” is usually the first. You can see my answer to this and more in The 7 Burning Social Media Questions but don’t take my word for it. Show this B2B example: How IBM Uncovers “Millions of Dollars” Worth of Sales Leads with Social Media. It is important to convey that the opportunity cost of not participating in social media is real, but the bottom line value is in what can be gained from customer interaction and engagement.
Listen – Report the news by monitoring the conversations as they are happening on social channels.
Respond – Be prepared to mitigate brand risk and employ crisis management, resolve customer complaints, or even deliver on a request for a proposal.
Amplify – Gear up your internal teams to share good news, success stories, or customer passion about your brand.
Engage – When ready, begin to orchestrate across all departments to incorporate social media into the fabric of all customer outreach in campaigns, events, sales, and support.
Step 5: Social media adoption.
The biggest leap of all may be convincing your executive team to not only embrace the power of B2B Social Media, but to use it themselves to bring a more open and authentic image to your company and brand. You can cite Altimeter Group’s founder Charlene Li who has recently written a book on the subject called Open Leadership expertly reviewed by Jeremy Victor. Or better yet, invite Charlene or Jeremy to work with your company. Nothing can humanize your brand more than getting the top leaders of your company to speak in an authentic way straight to your customers.
With executive buy-in of your b2b social media strategy, you are now on your way to becoming a social media rock star.
You will certainly have many more questions along the way. So for additional support, I have included some of my favorite experts’ tips in the links below:
About the B2Bblogger: Michael Brenner is the author of the B2B Marketing Insider blog and serves as Regional Director of Online and Social Media Marketing for SAP, the worldwide leader in enterprise software. Michael has been working in marketing and sales for over 16 years in various roles with companies such as the Nielsen Company, software start-up FullTilt, and International Communications Research (ICR). Michael’s sales, product development, online, search and social media marketing expertise provide him with the unique perspectives that today’s market requires.
This post is brought to you through a partnership between B2Bbloggers.com and the B2B Search Strategy Summit.
LinkedIn is just one of a myriad of popular tools available in today’s rapidly growing and evolving social media world. So how do you justify the effort required to sow and nurture your presence on LinkedIn, especially the time and resources that could be invested elsewhere?
In this week’s #B2BChat, we’ll share ideas and thoughts about LinkedIn. To help lead the discussion, we’ll be joined by three leading LinkedIn pros, Lewis Howes (@lewishowes), Viveka von Rosen (@linkedinexpert), and Eve Orsburn (@linkedinqueen). Some questions we’ll pose to help guide the conversation include:
Do you have a LinkedIn strategy?
How much time do you spend on LinkedIn each week? Is it enough?
Do you maintain both a personal and company profile on LinkedIn? Why or why not?
Do you use LinkedIn for prospecting?
What automation tools do you recommend using with LinkedIn?
Has your investment in LinkedIn (time, money, or other resources) paid off? How?
What’s the greatest benefit of your activity on LinkedIn?
Do you plan to increase or decrease your LinkedIn activity in the coming weeks and months? Why?
What’s your best advice about how to get the most out of LinkedIn?
Join us for this week’s #B2Bchat about LinkedIn on Thursday, June 10 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.
About the B2Bblogger: Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless, America’s only nationwide wireless equipment dealer and integrator. Kent is the Co-Publisher of a new digital publication for marketers, Social Media Marketing Magazine. He is a published author and has been featured in Forbes, Marketing News, BtoB, Computerworld, and Texas Technology magazines. Kent also serves in advisory roles for the CMO Council, MetricsBoard, and Social2B. You can follow him on Twitter at @KentHuffman.
Well this week’s #B2Bchat on print advertising and where it fits into today’s marketing mix was a lively discussion. Based on the conversation and what you will read below, from a B2B perspective print advertising (publications and direct mail) has a place and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.
That’s good news for publishers, and as you will read, marketers are using both channels, print and online, to compliment one another.
Enjoy the read and special thanks go to @KentHuffman for moderating this week for me.
Where should print advertising fit into today’s B2B marketing mix?
@NathanRKing: Print advertising should be there along side of the digital elements – everything should work cohesively.
@lewiswebs: Still finding some old-school thought that print is necessary in the marketing mix.
@b2bento: Nowhere! Without exceptional creative use (like augmented reality, QR) – print advertising is dead.
@fearlesscomp: Print should be in the mix for one simple reason. The mail box is empty today.
@NathanRKing I see @fearlesscomp’s point – less clutter in the mailbox = more visibility for direct mail.
@kseniacoffman: I treat print as a way to support the pubs in our space; sad I know. Though research @chuckmartin1 shared today suggests 66% of b2b buyers rely on trade press for information – http://bit.ly/d2JKr3.
@joezuc: Print remains important as one of several media available to marketers that can be optimized for a particular opportunity. With variable print publishing, the same level of personalization that goes in web based communications can now be in print.
@mentormarketing: I have seen @Vocus use Print to drive Social Media to some success [from my outside perspective].
@anetah: Understand your customers/prospects preferred marcom channels … Print may or may not be a right fit. Must know your audience.
@MikeTek: Depends on your market. Some are best reached online. Print has its place, but its shrinking.
@evoklarry: Print advertising is not dead. Many choose to reach industry professionals through their trade publications.
@BrennerMichael: Print will always be part of integrated mix but influence is down for sure.
@martinehunter: Print not dead. Trade pubs still relevant to many b2b buyers, should be in the cohesive mix.
@ChuckMartin1 Anyone look at the thinness of the B-B pubs lately? Not sure there is a strong print fit.
How have your expectations from print advertising changed?
@lewiswebs: Never expected much from print – such a low conversion rate – wouldn’t expect that to improve now.
@fearlesscomp: Print should be part of the mix, but a small part. Buyer personas should drive media selection. Again, buyer personas should drive media selection. Go where buyers go.
@joezuc: Once again, with variable print publishing, we can have higher expectations again. Anyone here get a postcard with a PURL on it?
@anetah: Must be relevant w/ print advertising… Targeting, personalization, geo targeting…RELEVANCY is key.
Will the percentage of spending in print advertising increase or decrease in the next 12 months? Why?
@Karimacatherine: It will decrease but I see print become more relevant because they are competing with so many other media.
@NathanRKing: Less advertisers could mean better placement in publications for the same cost. Better visibility.
@Renbor: Stay about the same if you consider pubs and direct mail.
@fearlesscomp: Print is declining and will continue to decline. I recommend we develop personas and allow users to set preferences. Want print – ok. Want Twitter-OK, want email-OK
@joezuc: I believe it will decrease, but the money that remains in print will be optimized as it is integrated with online campaigns.
@EVOKLarry: Print medium doesn’t allow for the same level of creativity as interactive, nor immediacy of return.
@NathanRKing: @evoklarry but keep in mind that good print has such high visibility, thus better brand recognition.
@BrennerMichael: Down for certain! Not dead. I still read print and I have a budget!
What is the main benefit you get today from print advertising?
@ToniGoSaintsRou: The value of print ads is not always in immediate sales, but more in reputation & trust building.
@lewiswebs: Reaching that lead you haven’t reached otherwise, but that’s fading fast.
@janetdmiller: Print helps establish brand. As a search marketer, without traditional media, it’s tough to get brand searches.
@NathanRKing: Print is still reaching customers and allows you to target by location (local pubs) & interests (industry/trade mags). Print also allows businesses to reach consumers who aren’t that into social media. (not everyone checks facebook daily).
@EVOKLarry: Prints biggest benefit may be the targeted approach.
@mentormarketing: I see the benefit in the shelf life of a print piece which exceeds the tweet lifecycle just started tracking.
@ckburgess: Longer attention span for print! Longer shelf life.
@ cuferg: Print increases brand awareness if done well and into targeted trade pubs.
@EeeGeee You can’t click the escape button… Print is visually friendly, but the downfall is its price efficiency.
What drives the continued decision to advertise in print? Safety? Target Audience? Results?
@lewiswebs: Target audience should dictate using print and should drive the results you want.
@EVOKLarry: Clients who invest in their brands, invest in print. Those who are willing to forgo long tail for short gain don’t.
@ChuckMartin1: Well-accepted measurements (BPA audits, etc.) and habits.
@ Karimacatherine: What drives print advertiser is known territory. they’ve been doing it for ages.
@phylliskhare: For my clients still using print – it’s about age demographics
How do you define the success of a print campaign?
@Renbor: Success is always defined in terms of sales and/or new customers.
@janetdmiller: Tough to measure offline (print) to online, but I like to try to measure via offers and online signup.
@cuferg: Most print, the results are nearly impossible to track. WOM results play into it, target audience readership most certainly.
@lewiswebs: All roads lead to lead gen – did it bring the prospects we expected.
@fearlesscomp: Measure results against business goals.
What ways do print and online advertising work best together?
@lewiswebs: Integrated approach with consistent message and branding is best
@eeegeee: As mentioned before, direction to website & also print ads can have promotions and benefits (as well as special online promos)
@NathanRKing: Print can work brand awareness, digital can help close the sale.
@b2bspecialist: Print & online will work well if they are integrated. Ad in print goes to ad on site/ Article in print goes to article on site
@janetdmiller: I think print (and other traditional media) do a nice job at driving awareness and brand searches.
@SUPPORT2point0: Q9: Print and digital like PB&J. Can’t make a quality sandwich with half.
Has the introduction the iPad had any impact of your thinking?
@Renbor: It will enhance print ads as more people read traditional print on iPad.
@fredmcclimans: Yes, the iPad has me rethinking the way that journalism is created (melding of medias). Can’t wait til the markets full of iPads, dPads (droid pads) & mPads (msft pads). New energy for publishers!
@NathanRKing: iPad will allow for more interactive ads in digital publications.
@jeremyvictor: It certainly has impacted my thought process relative to contributing content to publications – more interested now.
As I said, it was a lively discussion, and a lot of good thoughts were shared. Thanks to all who participated. Join us for next week’s #B2Bchat on LinkedIn, Thursday, June 10th at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific) by following the hashtag #B2Bchat! Follow @B2B_chat for updates.
It’s been just about two weeks since the social media conference and round table that I attended in Memphis. The event was headlined by Chris Brogan and organized by Amy Howell (@HowellMarketing) of Howell Marketing Strategies.
It was my first opportunity to experience the benefit of the time I have been investing into social media marketing for Make Good Media and B2Bbloggers. Here are the main B2B social media lessons I learned by going to Memphis.
Chris Brogan’s presentation and my interactions with close to 100 B2B marketers and business owners reaffirmed my belief that B2B social media is just now moving from innovators to early adopters along the adoption curve. The majority of B2B companies are just now beginning the learning process. We have a long way to go before market adoption and I’m happy to be along for the ride.
B2B social media starts relationships that will grow your business. (It is happening for me and the great group of people I went to Memphis to meet.)
Make connections, start relationships, and grow … this is the promise of B2B social media. But that promise will go unfulfilled without effort. Like all relationships, personal and professional – you only get out of them what you put in. Connecting to the social web does nothing; listening, engaging and interacting is the fuel that moves the online contacts into offline relationships. (My comment on Mark Schaefer’s post about the event).
In his presentation, Chris Brogan mentioned he spends 60% of his time in Twitter search; listening. That’s right, LISTENING. He listens for opportunities to help, ideas for content, conversations to join etc. B2B social media is not about broadcasting … it is about conversing, interacting, and engaging.
If you take any steps with B2B social media, a very wise first one is to begin with listening (or monitoring). You should be aware of what (and where) people are talking about you, your brand, and your products. If you don’t believe it is happening, please just take this first step and see for yourself.
The value of B2B social media has to be communicated to c-level executives in a way that answers this question, “Can you make sense of what you are doing with a dollar sign attached?” I know there are rants about ROI out there, but facts are c-level executives focus on results of efforts. You won’t be able to sell the benefits of investing in B2B social media if you can not answer this question.
The creation and use of a Twitter hashtag adds context, connection, and relevance to an event and the benefits of using one are experienced before, during, and after. Do you have an annual user group meeting or something similar? Consider a hashtag for it. We used #BroganMemphis for this event and it was a very good idea.
You can learn a lot about a person on Twitter before meeting them in real life. But don’t allow that to affect how you present yourself when you do in fact meet in real life. From a B2B standpoint, every interaction impacts the impression people have of you and your company. So keep it buttoned up and don’t loose sight of the fact that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
To close, there were several themes that developed between the group of us that met in Memphis (Where in the world is Trey Pennington? or Spontaneous Combustion), but the one that remains with me is: we are just getting started. Sure there are companies that are getting it, but for every one of those there are thousands still asking whether or not a blog would actually help there marketing.
It’s truly great a time to be a marketer and experiencing this evolution of how B2B social media and content marketing fit into an integrated marketing plan, don’t you think? I am sure looking forward to the next several years.
This post is brought to you through a partnership between B2Bbloggers.com and the B2B Search Strategy Summit.
The amount of money companies spend on Search is forecast to double within five years, from $16bn to $32bn between 2009 and 2014, based on a recent study by Forrester Research. And according to a survey by Sapient Interactive, 33% of CMO’s and senior marketing professionals state that Search campaigns deliver the best results, ahead of email (23%) and display advertising (14%).
How are B2B marketers incorporating SEO and PPC into their demand generation strategy? In which ways does search engine marketing drive customer acquisition? What are the challenges and where are the opportunities?
In our next #B2Bchat event we’ll dive into these questions, including:
How do Search and Social Media work together?
How do you calculate the ROI of a search campaign?
What is different about SEO and PPC for business-to-business marketing?
Can you link sales and revenue to individual search transactions?
Should a company bid on its own brand name?
What tools are recommended for search marketers?
Should search marketing be outsourced?
What are the pros and cons?
How do you sell the value of SEO internally?
Join us for this week’s #B2Bchat on Search Engine Marketing and B2B, Thursday, May 20 at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific). by following the hashtag #B2Bchat! Follow @B2B_chat for updates.
About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth leads marketing strategy at Enquiro, a search marketing agency specializing in b2b marketing, usability and marketing research. Enquiro has a client roster comprised of some of the world’s top online brands and its research has helped shape the way marketers and search engines work today.
He is also a speaker at eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and related industry events, and a contributor to the Ask.Enquiro blog. You can follow his thoughts on marketing, technology and social media at www.marketingfinger.com or on Twitter at @andrewspoeth.
Attend theB2B Search Strategy SummitJune 23rd, 2010 in San Francisco, to share ideas, case studies and determine strategies with experts from Enquiro, Google, Business.com, Marketo. Learn proven ROI-boosting solutions for Online PR, Social Media, Landing Page Optimization and more.
Register with the code: B2BBLOG and save $300!
How Social Media is Driving Evolution in the Human Condition
On November 9, 1989 the people of West and East Berlin ushered in the end of an era of distrust, misinformation and control by tearing down the Berlin Wall and uniting the German people. It was a revolution not just of government and people, but of thought, commerce, society and the human condition.
I cannot help but marvel at the parallel between that monumental event in human history and how Social Media is destroying the impassable brand walls companies have maintained for decades. Now you have people, united through Social Media, driving massive change in the way we relate and communicate in business, society and government much the same way the people of Berlin did twenty-one years ago.
The real coffee-soaked revelation came when I realized this new era of consumer social dominance just may have been created by big business.
What happens when we replace human relationships with technology?
As human beings our strongest motivator in life is to build relationships that help us achieve our goals – personal, political and business included. No king ever gained power without the help of an army or political allies, no president ever took office without the help of millions of voters and no one ever married without first building a relationship with their betrothed. What I am really trying to say is that relationships are very, very important to us in every aspect of our lives.
But two points really hit me:
This transcends our personal and business relationships to affect brands as well and the people that represent those brands.
Communication is the most important ingredient in every relationship – it is the enabler and without it relationships wither and die on the vine.
Sacrifice communication in the interest of efficiency and profit
Here is where I start to see some problems… In the mid to late 90s companies started changing the way they communicated with their customers. Companies began to think about how to improve efficiency (read: cut costs/head count) of communication between them and their customers introducing some wonderful web technology (such as e-commerce, online accounts, etc) and complex phone systems able to handle almost any customer issue. These system improvements had some wonderful upside to help manage customers but what was the human cost?
I am a firm believer in balance and that in this case the negatives of efficiency improvements were gradual, unseen and with severe impact on customer relationships and brand loyalty.
Is Social Media to the Relationship (r)Evolution what a Cough is to a Cold?
My greatest fear for my clients is that the intense focus on Social Media is missing the big picture. It’s the proverbial cough of a long, miserable cold for every large enterprise out there.
Consider this…
When we eliminated human-to-human connections in business or at the very least made them difficult, we forced customers to evolve how they developed relationships with our brands – this was possibly the catalyst for great change.
They had a powerful new medium, the internet, at their disposal; a medium that enabled them to connect with thousands of others who shared their point of view.
The need for relationships spawned social media, but as technology advances and people adapt, so too will the vehicle they use to build relationships.
Being social is a human need. So doesn’t every medium that meets the criteria for human relationships become a social medium? As marketers we so easily get stuck on “the big thing” and right now that’s Facebook and their ilk. But we missed it I think. What if social media is just an early stage symptom of the relationship revolution?
We now, more than ever, need to look past the obvious and begin asking new questions.
Why, how, when and where do my customers want to build relationships with me?
How is their life changing and how can I make building a long term relationships easier, more relevant and more valuable to them?
Has social media changed human behavior?
What might really help is understanding how relationships and communication have undergone fundamental change over the past decade.
The 3A’s of online human behavior
The 3 A’s represent 3 key ways the internet has changed human behavior.
Access: The internet has given everyone access to more information, good, bad and everything in between, than human society has ever had before; and it keeps growing rapidly each year.
Acceptance: Whoever you are and whatever you do there are more people out there that share that with you. This has given rise to one of the key benefits of social media, acceptance by others. It is a powerful ingredient in human relationships.
Anonymity: Probably the most potent and empowering characteristic available to people is the ability to be anonymous. This empowers and changes the way we behave online because it frees us of an important restraint – Accountability. And when we are free of accountability human beings are capable of many wonderful and horrible things.
Paying it forward works
I am not the first one to say this and certainly won’t be the last. The web is full of conventional wisdom on how to approach people, so maybe I can offer a different perspective to help advance the understanding of online human behavior in juxtaposition to Social Media and online relationships in general.
First, paying it forward is a simple, but powerful concept for a selfless act to benefit another human being or group of human beings. The belief is that paying forward will eventually reach back to us in some positive form. The key to paying it forward is to be selfless; in other words sincerely not expect anything back. A tough call for any business to make, let alone a single person…
Second, what does “Paying it forward” do?
It creates a good feeling in the recipient and if you believe like i do that emotions are contagious, this is a good thing. (I point back to Connected by Nicholas Christakis for an even more defensible argument on emotional contagion). A single person can help dozens of people feel good, but a company can help thousands.
It builds a subtle kind of obligation. Obligation, even subtle obligation, is a powerful emotion; its the glue that binds a marriage together through all adversity. When you do something nice for someone, there is a natural tendency or feeling in the recipient to return that favor. Now, this doesn’t apply to everyone because a lot of people will just keep taking without giving, but it is worth it.
It creates a positive, memorable experience. Try it our for yourself – Remember back to some interactions with others that were truly memorable – you will find some incredible acts of selfless service behind those memories.
It can potentially create brand evangelists. Brand champions or evangelists spread the word for us. This is the ultimate payback of paying it forward. Does it happen every time? No. But, the more powerful the act you pay forward, the greater the chance you will create evangelists.
The rise of marketing immunity
One undeniable thing that the internet and most recently social media has delivered is easy access to the knowledge of many. Think of the knowledge of many as a loosely organized library of knowledge on your brand with thousands of people contributing randomly to it on an hourly basis. This knowledge is out there for everyone to access in dozens of different social media groups, blogs community forums, and websites anytime time they want.
So has this given rise to marketing immunity? Well, think of this as the sledge hammer beating away at your brand wall to discover the truth past all your carefully planned marketing. It has two distinct characteristics:
Customer enablement: Knowledge is enabling them to see past the brand wall and take action on their own or with others
Bull shit radar: Being exposed to the experience of others is arming customers with enhanced BS radar – trust is no longer given the way it was, now the customer has the power to dig for truth in everything you claim.
The result – A savvy, knowledgeable customer that is immune to most, if not all, of your marketing hype – a customer no longer afraid to say “I don’t believe you”..
If you can’t beat em, join em
When you look at your customers, united in one voice, tearing down the walls of your brand – don’t fight them, join them. Join them in tearing down old barriers to your brand and customer relationships. Enable them to build new ways to reach your brand and harness the power they are giving you to drive your brand to social dominance.
While this is a scary and risky proposition, imagine the opposite. Can any company survive in the long term by resisting this evolution? Does fighting it risk turning evolution into revolution?
I don’t have the answers to this, but what I do know is that as businesses we need to begin looking at how we build relationships with our customers from a whole new perspective.
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Love this article or hate it, I want to know. Always appreciate good discussion, comments and feedback to continue to try and answer these questions.
For more in-depth reading on human behavior check out my series on www.themountaintop.ca
About The B2Bblogger: Jeff Wilson is the founder of Sensei Integrated, a customer experience design firm working with leading global B2B enterprises for the past 12 years. Jeff and Sensei’s work is based on a deep understanding of human emotional behavior and how to influence people online in social media environments and demand generation programs. Find out more about Jeff at www.themountaintop.ca.
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Hi, I'm @jeremyvictor, the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com.
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