Social Media
By Katie Martell, Director of Buzz, NetProspex
How many BtoB marketers know which social networks their customers use, and who their most socially influential clients are? How many have solid data from which to justify social media marketing?
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It's difficult for marketers to justify their monetary or time investment in social media, because it's been difficult to gather data that proves it's a worthy venture. Whether it's a new social monitoring software, a new position dedicated to social media, or simply convincing your sales team that social media matters, what many marketers need is solid data that supports their gut feelings about social media.
The truth is, our BtoB customers are on social networks. A study we released this summer shines light on the social activity of corporate America by showing which companies have the most socially active businesspeople. Our study measured the social media penetration across 100,000 businesspeople at the nation's largest organizations, and showed that over 40% are active across social networks, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It's no surprise that Microsoft and Apple were at the top of our Social 50 list, but social media use is high within many other industries; Walt Disney and Electronic Arts also appeared in the top 10.
It's now possible to append your customer and prospect CRM database with social media addresses. It's not only a reality; it's an important first step in figuring out how to create value through social media.
Here are four insights to help justify your social media spend. It starts by mapping your customers and prospects to social media.
- How many of our customers are using social media? Map your customer database to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and find out what percentage are using these networks. If it's similar to our study, you'll see that almost half of your client base is active on these networks. Shouldn't you be where they are?
- Which social network is the MOST widely used by our customers? This is key to understanding the potential for engaging your customers on a new level, and connecting on their network of choice. One major criticism of social media is that it's a time-suck. Learning where the majority of your customers are online helps you save time by concentrating on the right networks.
- Which of our customers are the most socially influential? The holy grail of effective marketing is when it's spread by word of mouth. Today, it's about the social amplification of your story across social networks. The most influential members of your customer database are key to reaching a larger majority of social network users. Identify those with the most Facebook friends, tweets and/or followers—these figures identify influencers, those with the potential to reach many more in their network. What would it do for your brand awareness if you made these socially connected individuals brand evangelists?
- Salespeople are more effective when they're more social. A social profile adds personality to what was previously only a name, job title, lead score or customer history. A twitter feed or Facebook profile offers unique insight about interests, background, concerns and more to help your sales and marketing team have a more authentic conversation with the people with whom they’re doing business.
Finding exactly which of your customers and prospects are on which social networks and who are the most socially connected are the first steps to figuring out if and how to integrate social media into your marketing mix. For Sales, this information, integrated with your CRM, opens the door for new possibilities of engagement through instant access to the social profiles of your customers and prospects.
We can help: Contact me at kmartell@netprospex.com or (781) 290-5712 to find out more about mapping a list of customers or prospects to social media, and get direct social profile URLs, follower/following counts, and more insight directly from our database of millions of BtoB contacts.
I'm happy to hear your comments and thoughts, and I'm always listening on Twitter @NetProspex.
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Katie Martell is director of Buzz at NetProspex.
Marketing Watchdog Journal is a monthly newsletter from Bulldog Solutions, an online marketing agency that changes the way BtoB companies define demand-generation strategy, engage prospects and convert leads to customers. We welcome your feedback on this newsletter's content and design, and encourage you to share your ideas for topics you would like us to cover in future issues. Please send your comments or questions about Bulldog Solutions to Amy Bills, director of Field Marketing.
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