According to a recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, adoption of social media is soaring. Today, one-third of American adult Internet users have created a profile on an online social network, four times as many as three years ago.
But these numbers are deceiving. While three-quarters of adults age 18-24 have a profile on social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, the numbers are reversed in adults over 35. Only 19% of adults over 45 and a paltry 10% of adults over 55 ever visit social networks. The median age for an S&P 500 CEO in 2007 was 55. That’s one of the big challenges utilizing social media within the B2B space.
For communicators, harnessing the power of social media is difficult enough where the message is aimed at the youth market. B2B PR practitioners, whose audiences tend to be in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, have a considerably tougher time deciding how to engage, which social media tools to use and what size of budget to allocate. This challenge is compounded by the fact that, like it or not, the B2B sector is being dragged into the social media age. Google’s decision in December 2010 to offer real-time alerts by streaming Twitter and Facebook messages means that even if your clients are not using Twitter directly, relevant tweets may now show up on their Google searches.
B2B CHALLENGES
Key to the success of social media has been its seemingly low cost of entry. It requires no money, no technical expertise and only a few minutes to establish a Facebook page, a LinkedIn group or a Twitter handle. But, for many in the B2B space, this simplicity is also deceptive. In many ways social media has simply replaced “old” costs such as outright financial investment with new costs—in particular, time. According to a survey by the Social Media Examiner, 72% of marketers polled only began to use social media in 2009, yet nearly 40% of them already spend 10 or more hours a week on social media. Incredibly, 10% invest over 20 hours on social media where they may have spent no time at all 12 months ago. For B2B PR executives who are stretched already thanks to the down economy, these additional time requirements could be onerous.
On top of the time crunch, PR efforts, like any craft, requires mastery of certain fundamentals; understanding one’s audience and one’s product, being able to clearly define and pitch benefits and developing creative ways to capture an audience’s imagination. The exponential growth of available media channels has done nothing to diminish this. From a B2B perspective, the addition of social media as a communications platform places even greater pressure on B2B PR practitioners to develop highly relevant, nuanced and compelling content and dialogue.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Based on those challenges, there are a few basic things to consider before leveraging social media within B2B:
1. Thoroughly research your customers: For B2B communicators, more even than B2C, really learning the specific nuances of a customer’s industry is the only chance you have of engaging them in meaningful conversations. Only focus on those venues where you know a critical mass of your target audience engages actively (in the B2B world, LinkedIn is an obvious place to begin), start with one and add more venues as you see your clients’ participation increasing.
2. Be realistic about costs: B2B companies usually invest less in marketing and PR, as more of their business is driven by the human network. Many C-level executives at B2B firms have been attracted to social media by its seemingly low cost, but PR executives need to properly factor in the time needed to maintain consistent outreach and what that time will ultimately cost you.
3. Determine your ROI goals: Recognizing that social media marketing comes with a cost, think carefully about what you want the return on that investment to be. What are the criteria by which you are going to judge success? In a B2B environment key measurements are going to include qualified leads, improving lead conversion and quality of engagement with existing clients.
4. Get creative: The downside of giving everyone the power to publish is that the social media landscape is becoming noisier by the day. Over a billion tweets were sent in December 2009. Therefore, the quality and ingenuity of the content you deliver has to be able to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace. As an example, showcase your customers and partners through your corporate blog and tweet about it.
In conclusion, avoid setting your social media strategy based on what you are ready for and think of what would best serve your customers and prospects. PRN
CONTACT:
Dan Simon is managing director of Cognito Americas, a financial PR and marketing firm. He can be reached at [email protected].