A Practical Guide For CEOs On Using Social Media – B2B Edition

“Some CEOs say they’re too busy for social media. I say it’s part of the job.” Jack Salzwedel – CEO of American Family Mutual Insurance Company

Salzwadel’s advice seems to be falling on deaf ears if a Domo and CEO.com study is to be believed. The report, published earlier this year, found that fully 61% of CEOs of the Fortune 500 had no presence on any social channel and the usage of social media by even the other 39% is underwhelming. No one is saying this is a good thing, though, and digging deeper into the “why” of such low CEO participation reveals that many of the reasons are internal to them rather than business-driven. Apart from a belief that social media is a young person’s game and a fear of repercussions from sharing something inappropriate, among the chief causes cited by CEOs was a lack of understanding of what to do on social platforms. At Midas Touch, we work with a bunch of B2B clients. As we go about getting their company on the social media wagon, the question of how the CEOs in these companies should use social channels often comes up. Let me use this post to share the recommendations we usually end up giving.

First some caveats. In keeping with the “practical” nature of this guide – this is a “nuts and bolts” set of suggestions intended for CEOs of mid-sized companies looking to leverage social media to help their business get ahead. We are not really addressing loftier goals like branding or creating thought leadership. Using social media for personal branding is also a story that will have to wait for another day.   

LinkedIn

A TrackMaven analysis of content shared by B2B brands across the leading social media networks over a 12-month period starting mid-2015, revealed that across several measures LinkedIn was the most popular and effective platform. That’s reason enough to have it front-and-center in our plans too. Here’s what the time-strapped CEO should do on LinkedIn.

1. Networking really is LinkedIn’s primary raison d'être. As soon as the, hero of our blog, CEO connects (meet, emeet etc.) with a customer, prospect or influencer, we recommend connecting on LinkedIn as well. As a matter of practice, the connect should occur very soon after the meeting so the interaction is still fresh in their minds. This also means that the LinkedIn profile of the CEO should be complete, with a professional head-shot and the relevant amount of information about the organization they represent. 

2. This CEO should post occasional, but regular LinkedIn status updates from their profiles. Except to share significant news, preferably the updates should be to about the industry at large rather than about their own company. This is to get into the eye line of a wider audience, positioned as someone with an interest in and a contribution to make to the space.

3. Our, now emerging from social exile, CEO should follow the company’s LinkedIn company page and like and share the content being posted there, especially if it leads back to the company website. This will help the visibility of the posts.

4. Keeping in mind that the CEO, who is the subject of our post, is time-strapped, having a regular blog may remain an ambition only. That being the case, blogs from the company blog absolutely can be posted from the personal profile of the CEO (with attribution). The topic of the blog, their tone and message and even the frequency of posting has to fit in with the overall positioning and network of the CEO. This helps to showcase the thought leadership of the company.

Twitter

Last year Social Media Today reported that B2B Marketers who used Twitter generated twice as many leads as compared to those who didn’t. Most B2B Marketers rate Twitter as the 2nd most effective social platform behind LinkedIn. Here’s how the CEO can work Twitter like a (near) pro.

1. Well, of course, create a Twitter handle and tweet regularly. Yeah – we already agreed that the CEO doesn’t have a lot of time so this does not have to be a flood of tweets daily. Let’s start with a measured, steady, sustainable pace. Remember, the tweets cannot all be promotional. We suggest a mix of personal thoughts that relate to the business, company news and content and also relevant content from the industry at large. People will follow the CEO if they see the twitter channel as a worthy source of informative content.

2. Something that should please the sales team - this is also a good way to connect with senior prospects, customers, and decision makers directly. I’m fond of saying that if you start a tweet with @BillGates, it will reach the man – he won’t react to it in all probability but really which channel gives you that kind of direct access? With such great power comes great responsibility, though – these connections are not to be milked too blatantly, be slow, be sure and don’t be salesy.

3. This is also a great place for our, now socially-savvy, CEO to listen. The aim is to participate in ongoing conversations by searching for #s (sorry – I should explain that is this an easy way for those in the know to identify tweets across the Twitterverse that refer to a particular topic) that are relevant. This gives great insights into what others have to say about the area you work in, or even what customers, prospects, and competitors consider important at the time.

4. Now that our CEO has become quite the social media pro let’s up the ante. Next on the agenda – live tweeting. Think of the many events and occasions CEOs attend. This is the time to make the handle more active – live tweeting the occasional relevant impression from the event floor is a great way to contribute to a larger conversation and gain some visibility for your own and your company’s point of view.

I think our CEO is now ready for the social world – right? In closing a word of advice. Not from me, but from Marketing and Customer Service thought-leader Jay Baer. He said, “Focus on how to be social, not how to do social.” That’s sound advice for all CEO’s looking to dive into social media.

More Bang For The Tradeshow Buck For B2B Startups

Tradeshows are expensive and as a startup our participation is completely un-affordable. The ROI for B2B events is uncertain. Does this sound familiar? As a B2B focused social media marketing agency we at Midas Touch get pulled into this argument often but somewhat contrary to expectations our response is not always an outright rejection. We believe that there may well be a case for B2B focused startups to seriously consider tradeshows as a part of their marketing mix.

Why should my startup go at-all?

The benefits of participating in Tradeshows are well known. For starters – where else can you access such a large, reasonably homogenous group of target customers together? The opportunity to engage with them and start the long process of relationship building, what old timers called networking, is apparent. Such a focused gathering also offers a great opportunity to craft a very specific message and broadcast it in a “gatekeeper” free environment. There are also undeniable benefits to visibly being a part of a community your target customers obviously care about. In most cases merely attending the event can also deliver acceptable returns provided some tactical steps are taken.

The importance of specific content

First understand that a lot of preparation is involved – generally the larger the event the longer the time you will have to spend in the groundwork. The first step starts well in advance of the actual event – define the message likely to appeal to the audience at the event and start creating high quality content to reflect that. This includes informative blogs on your website, thought-leadership oriented articles in online publications that target the same audience and more salesy “hard-copy” collateral.

The next step is to start a structured effort to get that content in front of the people it is intended for. The aim should be to associate your startup with the chosen subject in the minds of the target audience and the best way to do this is for them to “find” your content as they go online to answer their questions or to seek information. To do this we can turn to social media as well as some more “direct” action.

Getting the content “found” – social media

Twitter and LinkedIn are the weapons of choice in the B2B Social Media space. Most trade events these days invest in building a social trail – on Twitter this may take the form of a dedicated Twitter handle and a hashtag associated with the event and on LinkedIn long running events may have Groups of past and prospective participants. This presents startups an opportunity to become a part of a conversation larger than their own circles by associating themselves with these online properties.

One approach would be to start with teaser mentions on Twitter about the event that use the appropriate hashtags and in the period leading up to the event increase the mentions. Live tweeting impressions and opinions of proceedings during the event will grab some eyeballs and continuing the tweets in the immediate aftermath of the event will help your startup stay in the eyeline and linked to the event.      

On LinkedIn the approach has to be different – updating your company page to reflect your participation is important to inform those who already follow your startup. Going into the LinkedIn group associated with the event and in other groups of people likely to be similarly interested is also worthwhile but has to be approached sensitively. These forums are not the place to shamelessly promote oneself or one’s participation – a more subtle approach is called for. For eg. a mention of something newsworthy from previous conferences or your own expectations from the upcoming one is a good way to invite opinions from other people who would also be in attendance.     

Direct action- The role of email campaigns

Email campaigns should be planned as the tradeshow approach. Here step 1 is to identify the people attending the event that you would like to connect with. The list of the speakers at the conference could be the first port of call. The next stop could be the list of sponsors and exhibitors – chances are the top people in those companies will be in attendance. A carefully crafted email to these people referring to the tradeshow in the subject line stands a better chance of being read than other “cold” emails. The email should set out crisply what you hope to achieve from attending the event and seek an opportunity for a conversation while there. Following up, both with people who have confirmed meetings and those who have not, is critically important but a fine line has to be toed here so you don’t cross over into spammer territory. The timing of the emails is important – too early won’t work and too close to the show won’t do.

Following this script in prep should both improve your chances of meeting people that matter at the event and also in getting the word out to the rest of the people attending about your startup’s relevance in the space. After that it’s off to the races – make sure you have loads of business cards to hand out!       

Note: This article first appeared in more-or-less this shape in Yourstory.in under my byline.

An Event To Remember - Pune Digital Marketers

On the 6th of Sept., 2014 my partner in crime at Midas Touch, Radha Giri, and I had the honour of presenting our thoughts to The Pune Digital Marketers. This group is an extremely active and enthusiastic group of professionals from the, no prizes for guessing, Digital Marketing space. We decided the session would be the perfect opportunity for us to present our oft-talked about but seldom exposed to the outside world idea - The Integrated Approach to B2B Lead Generation. 

In conversations with our clients in the BB space over the last year or so we have been trying to put in place a mechanism that allows each of the distinct functions within the Marketing, Inside Sales and Sales organizations pull in the same direction with the objective of increasing the effectiveness of all of them. There was also room for several popular social media techniques in the mix - social listening, social selling, content marketing, influencer marketing and the like. 

The session was wonderfully organized and well attended - standing room only as the picture shows. Radha & I were struck by the quality of the audience and the sharp questions. The entire interaction lasted close to 3 hours and while we cannot capture everything that was covered in that time the PPT we used may serve as a pointer. Some more info. can be found on Twitter by searching for #PuneB2BSocial - the official hashtag for the event. 

We look forward to more such events in the future - this was buzzing !    

http://www.slideshare.net/SanjeevNambudiri/an-integrated-approach-to-b2b-lead-generation-and-social-media