Formula | The B2B Formula

Posts Tagged ‘Formula’

May3

For B2B Social Media Virgins: Predicting ROI of Your First Time

By: David Rosen

You can never quite predict what the community’s response will be the very first time you engage in social media. Sure, you can ask other people. You can look at case studies. You can bring in an agency or hire a pro who’s done it before to guide you. But for all that, the first time is the first time. And yet, you can exert more control over the situation than you might think.

First, let’s be clear on the definition of ROI. I prefer the one that CEOs use: revenues and margins. Marketing objectives like “more awareness,” “higher opinion of our product/service” or “fewer people boycotting us” are objectives that put marketers on the path to dollars. With that in mind, social media metrics — like the number of clicks your blog posts get, the ratio of favorable/unfavorable comments, a jump in LinkedIn invites from prospects, total minutes customers spend reading your white papers — are clear measures of your progress on that path. In many ways, they’re the cleanest metrics B2B marketers have enjoyed. But don’t get so excited that you start to think they’re the goal. That’s the mistake PR people have often made counting articles and TV spots. No, it’s the dollars that matter.

Now let’s talk about how to predict the ROI of your FIRST social media effort.

First, you need a benchmark. Then, you’ll need an understanding of what strategies and tactics went into setting that mark. Ranked from most- to least-effective, here are your options:

1. Do a pilot project: Take a page from 14th century alchemists. If they’d never mixed two together chemicals before, they’d start out with a drop of each, not a bucket’s worth. If nothing blew up, they’d combine a little more, and then more again. Each time they’d look for reactions. And not just with their eyes. They’d listen for hissing or crackling. They’d sniff for changes in odor. They’d put prisms in front of the cocktail to look for changes in the color bands. They’d also wait. After all, a reaction could take hours or even days to appear. Social media pros should take the same approach.

Tell your audience it’s an experiment, which gives you permission to mess up and manages their expectations. If something’s working, do more of it and verify how the tactics can scale (i.e. for every three blog posts you get nine pickups, so for every six posts you should get 18, and so forth). If it doesn’t, drop it.

Agree with your team members at the beginning of the experiment that the numbers — not any one person’s ideas or beliefs — will guide the decision making process. That way subsequent steps are taken based on science, not politics. After the pilot, you’ll have your benchmark. You’ll know the amount of time and money it took to make the push, and the audience’s reaction. You subtract the two and see if, quantitatively, it was worth it. With those numbers in hand, you can try something on a larger scale, and know pretty accurately what the ROI will be. Remember, experience removes cost and heightens predictability, so pretty much everything in social media gets cheaper over time.

2. Use a competitor’s numbers: If a company that shares your space is using social media, it’s pretty easy to figure out their key metrics. Sites like Compete.com can tell you how many visitors per month come to their blog. You can also count the number and measure the tone of comments they’ve received over time. With Twitter, it’s even easier. You can easily see how many followers the company has, and there are lots of free analysis tools that will graph the competitor’s progress. Numbers of LinkedIn and Facebook group members, along with how many posts the company makes and responsiveness of the community are all measurable. With those figures in-hand, you’ve got a pretty good yard stick to compare yourself. Keep in mind, you have to have a good understanding of the strategies and tactics that are being deployed to achieve those numbers. That may take an experienced hand to reverse engineer it. And in many cases, the competitor will be using social media, but badly. If you see that they’re making mistakes, and you avoid them from the beginning, you should set a goal for how much above their benchmark you’ll go.

3. Community comparison: If none of your direct competitors are using social media, find a company that shares a similar audience. For example, if you’re an accounting firm trying to market to CFOs, the best comparison would be another firm. But if no company in that space is using social media, see if the industry trade group is using social media and use their numbers. Lacking that, nearly every industry has some passionate soul out there blogging and tweeting. You can use their metrics. It’s not the most accurate of yard sticks, but it’s a heck of a lot better than having no numbers at all.

Anyone else in the hivemind have ideas for how to carefully manage a B2B company’s first time in the social sphere?

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized1 comments

April16

The “Glow, Slow, Grow” Formula for Building B2B Communities

By: David Rosen

So far this week, we’ve taken three hammers to the toughest nut in B2B Social Media: Selling in an environment that hates sales pitches. Today’s cudgel? Organizing an industry-changing movement through a network like Ning.

There’s already a lot out there about creating movements through social media. So let’s hit the one topic that’s overlooked: getting management to sign off on this experimental and pricey technique. How to do it? Try the “Glow, Slow, Grow” formula.

I admit you can create comprehensive communities using Ning’s tools and basic graphics. But B2B-class Nings will require pricey customization — meaning coders — and high-end design elements to attract your discriminating audience. How do you get around it? Skip it for the moment. Just go for a “Glow:” a great looking skin that dresses up Ning’s already impressive usability. The look communicates what the site could be, and you lower expectations proportionately with the next step: “Slow.”

“Slow” refers to community member recruitment. Start really small with a graduated pilot. First with five people, then ten, then 20, and up to a couple hundred. You tell people from the start (people who already know and trust you) that this is an experiment. They’ll find that aspect intriguing, and it lowers expectations about bells and whistles. Run the community for a couple months, or just long enough to gather metrics and have a proof of concept for the bosses. If the proof is there, the funding will follow.

Once sign-off is secured, go to the “Grow” phase. Big time. Build out the customized features, add beautiful layers to the skin and community experience, and then open the doors to the wider world.

Glow, Slow, Grow. You’ll have your community, your thought leadership position, new connections to test drive and a long list of qualified leads to pursue.

Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April15

How to use Social Media to Crowdsource Your Way to B2B Sales

By: David Rosen

In this third in a week-long series of posts, we continue to tackle the toughest problem in B2B Social Media: How to generate sales in an environment that hates sales pitches. Solution #3? Set up a wiki to crowdsource research that contributes to the industry.

Before we proceed, a note on ethics. It’s unethical to set up a front group. It’s perfectly fine to set up a group where everyone is working towards a common goal and everyone recognizes that there are business benefits to rubbing shoulders. Thankfully for all of us, there’s a self-correcting mechanism with this type of activity. If your group isn’t truly focused on a mutual goal, or if it’s more about you than it is about them (customers, stakeholders, etc.) it will fail. Fast. So the only way to do this right is to follow the ethical, transparent, virtuous path.

In B2B land, this is pretty straightforward. Executives frequently join groups that are trying to do something worthy while enjoying the relationship building opportunities and intellectual stimulation.

Oh – if you sped through the text after the word “ethics,” go back and re-read it. The ethical stuff isn’t a disclaimer. It’s the most important part of your campaign.

Great. Don’t you feel better now? Here we go…

In the olden days — you know, 2006 — getting industry elites to gather and get something done was very hard, expensive, or both. You had to create a formal group with rules, pay for gathering places, hope that two or three times a year wasn’t too much to ask of your volunteers to meet. Generally, it’s herding cats. If you were a big company, you have the resources and cachet to pull it off occasionally. But now, no matter what size the organization, the tools available to B2B social media pros make the process a breeze. Consider: geographic barriers? Gone. Scheduling barriers? Gone. Cost barriers? Non-existent. And with wikis, people already have a good idea of how they work from Wikipedia. Everyone’s pre-trained in the process that will be used. Talk about low friction.

So first, you need a common goal. Some never-fail options include:

1. Creating a new industry standard

2. Charting an industry’s future

3. Ethics

4. Educational standards for the field

5. Outreach to other sectors where cooperation would benefit everyone

6. Compiling the lost history of the industry

7. Intra-industry groups (think retired execs paired with interns)

Of course you have to run some litmus tests: you must pick something that’s unique, represents a real need, and taps an existing vein of passionate participants.

Make the mission simple, technical and as narrow as possible. As with yesterday’s method of spurring debates, the more fine-tuned the mission is, the more dedicated its participants and the easier it’ll be for people to find their work product through search.

Now go get a wiki. Browse to wikia.com and you’ll find everything you need.

If you can, use ancient technologies like the telephone, or even — shocker — physical get togethers to kick things off. Never underestimate the communal binding power of handshakes. Real-time chats and video chat also make people feel they’re in a room together. It definitely doesn’t need to happen all the time, but once in a while will help build cohesiveness.

The rest of the process is classic community management. Set clear milestones so people feel that they’re accomplishing something. Recognize group members for their contributions. And don’t be afraid to declare victory and disband when the goal is met.

Oh, and you DID make a relationship or two — or 10 — that led to sales, right? And the de facto industry leadership standing that will lead you to tons of other relationships? That’s in your right pocket now. And the ability to charge a premium, shorten sales cycles and even expand into a new field at a lower cost? Make sure you check that box as well.

Have you seen a wiki that follows the principals above? Link to it in the comments and we can ask the group members about their own experiences and benefits reaped.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April13

How to use LinkedIn Groups to Create Communities and Drive Sales

By: David Rosen

In yesterday’s post, I addressed the most difficult question in B2B Social Media: How do you sell in an environment that hates sales pitches? Strategy #1: Use a LinkedIn group to bring together experts and customers online in ways that would never happen offline. Here’s the five-step process that I’ve used with very solid success:

1. Identify a “latent community.” This is a term I use to describe a group of people who are in a community, but won’t know it until you tell them. They have a lot in common, and are facing similar problems, but don’t yet know that there are other people out there like themselves. This takes a decent amount of creativity, and it’s worth taking a lot of time to consider. If you know a targeted market well, look for its its conversational pain points. ”If only the R&D guys would talk to the lawyers.” Or, “There’s a big problem coming for people in XYZ position and they don’t yet know it yet.” Another would be, “This is an emerging field that should have a trade group but hasn’t hit critical mass yet.” The lists of people that flow from these types of questions are your latent community members.

2. Come up with a snazzy name for your group. Something that sounds interesting and leader-like that people will feel proud to join. Remember, people join communities as a way of expressing their identity. Focus your group on something that brings out an element of their aspirations. You’ll need a good logo. No one wants to join a group that looks unprofessional or would cause their peers to judge them badly. Do a search for “logo” and a relevant keyword on iStockPhoto.com and you’ll find some stunning pics to work with, and they’re all relatively cheap — under $20.

3. Prepare the invitation. The invitation is everything. It explains the problem, introduces the person to a community that is tailor made for them. It expresses the group’s need for this person’s participation. It also need to come across as somewhat established or certain to be established so that they don’t think they’re the main draw.

4. Once people accept the invitation (as the moderator you control various settings that open or close the virtual gate), send an introductory email. I recently got one from the B2B Social Media group that was outstanding. It made clear that spammy comments wouldn’t be allowed and reserved the moderator’s right to delete them. Beyond that it set high expectations for participation, all of which made the group seem more special, serious, and worth my time. In that moment the group became even more valuable to me.

5. You’ll need a content strategy. Hopefully you’ve read up to this point before setting up your group! But be careful. Content strategies that rely just on you are sure to fail. You’re not running a magazine here. You’re creating a community. In the beginning, communities need to be cultivated. Water them with introductions between group members, industry news to debate, recognition of contributions, and throwing out interesting questions for the group to discuss. Although you’re the group leader, the role you want to achieve is merely group member. Equality breeds trust. And trust is the basis for sales. Don’t forget that most of the group’s value isn’t what’s being discussed, it’s the connection to the other people discussing it. To that end, keep membership requirements tight. Don’t let in people who aren’t perfect for your group. Just as perfect members make a group’s value rise, imperfect ones will make it fall.

Congratulations! Having followed the steps above, you’re a thought leader and trusted member of a highly targeted community. Now start making direct connections, use the phone, meet in person and make some sales.

Have you set up a group along these lines on LinkedIn? Share your story and the lessons learned below.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April9

PR Pros Must Unlearn Brevity to Win in B2B Social Media

By: David Rosen

Limited print space and air time trained generations of PR professionals to keep things short. Complex topics are crammed into one-page press releases; sound bites are substituted for detailed Q&As. But if you’re speaking to the exact right audience, you can go on for pages of text and hours of video. They’ll read and watch for hours and thank you for it. This content is your intellectual hook for sales. But don’t confuse it for your bait – the 140 character tweets, the 50-word blog posts, the three sentence comment under other people’s articles — that attract your audience to the hook. Those must be shorter, sharper and more prolific than ever.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April8

Stir 1 Part Google, 2 Parts Guile

By: David Rosen

Though B2B PR professionals are adding blogs, Twitter, Wikipedia entries and other social mediums into their reputation audits, they often omit a critical medium: search results. Even if a company has someone focused on SEO, their mission is probably sales and increasing customer flow to the website.

But are they doing searches like “Company Name” and “CO2?” Or “Company Name” and “strikes?” How about “CEO Name” and “DWI?” These aren’t searches that customers perform – they’re searches that investigative journalists, angry bloggers and political staffers looking for an example to make.

The good news is that these searches are easy to perform. The bad news is that the total list of terms to search with your company’s name is known only by Google. The best you can do is be creative and suspicious. Just like those journalists and bloggers you’re trying to get ahead of.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April7

What Every B2B Executive Should Learn From Conan’s Mistake

By: David Rosen

The NY Times has a good piece today that reveals — shocker — that Conan O’Brien — wasn’t managing his brand online. Like Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon, their name domain names point back to either their show’s website or to those held by squatters. The stars in the B2B world are executives — and nearly all of them are making the same mistake.

On the social web, companies don’t speak, people do. Their professional standing is a line of reputational credit that companies can draw on to advance their causes. But to do this right, executives must be managed as the brands they now are. That means applying the same rigor in messaging and positioning that you’d apply to the company, and expressing them through bios, videos, blog posts, Twitter feeds, Q&As on YouTube, pictures on Flickr, and any channel it takes to make sure that if someone like a customer is looking for them, they will be found.

Don’t forget the metrics. Just as every magazine’s reach is measured by its circulation, so are executives measured by their number of followers on Twitter and readers on blogs. These “circulation” figures are public, so people can also tell if an executive is NOT ranked among the thought leaders for an issue.

Full disclosure: I’m a loyal member of Team CoCo.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April7

Monitoring Sentiment: Don’t Send a Computer to do a Human’s Job

By: David Rosen

The social media world is awash with new technologies that promise sentiment dashboards and real-time intelligence. That’s fine when the toughest tonal conclusion you’re seeking is signaled by a smiley face or frown. But what about a blog post that compliments the company’s products and then slams its environmental record? Or a tweet that says the CEO gets paid too much, but the figure cited is wrong? How about a picture on Flickr of employees standing arm in arm, smiling over the carcass of a deer they just shot? Or my personal favorite, a video of world leader visiting a factory, saying its technology is an example for the world to follow, and the comments underneath are written by workers who just got laid off?

The judgment calls needed for B2B analysis are just too complex to trust to a computer.

Yes, use the latest tools to find the citations, but only trust a human who knows the sector – a lot – to do the analysis.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments

April6

For Social Media Audits, Think Topography, Not Chronology

By: David Rosen

Traditional media audits usually cover a certain time period, like a quarter or a year. That makes sense because the media publishes the news as closely to the time in which it happens and it is read within that very same period. But time is a funny thing on the web. There’s no daily edition of Google. Just a search box determined to show you what’s most relevant, some of which is timely. So in a social media audit, you want to look at what’s most visible, rather than most recent. In some cases, that’s a blog post from five years ago that has received a lot of traffic over time.

Approached this way, social media audits are more like topographical maps (think of how Google Earth shows your neighborhood from above). The mountain peaks are the most visible/important; the valleys are the least noticeable. The cool part is that the topography can change in response to your proactive efforts.

You can knock the tops off of certain mountains. You can build up new hills. But it’s impossible to do either until you approach social media audits on the medium’s own terms.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Posted in: Uncategorized0 comments