Social Media Tools

–By Justin Albano, Director of Business Development at Bonfire Social Media–

B2B marketers and business owners often ask me if the benefits of social media only exist in the B2C realm. The answer is a resounding no. The core concepts of social media: establishing your brand as an industry influencer, engaging with your customers, leveraging brand advocates, and nurturing leads along a sales cycle are just as powerful in connecting with companies as they are with consumers. In fact, B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not [1], and 57% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn [2]. However, just like any other marketing tools, here are some best practices that will get you started in the right direction.

1) Know Your Objectives

What do you want? More customers? A better relationship with your customers? Both? As a biz dev guy I love “to do lists,” strategies, and most of all accomplishing objectives. Often, companies that I talk with are either focused on driving more leads or improving their brand’s perception and share of voice. Dependent upon your company’s objectives, you need to understand which, or both, of these categories your company falls into. Without defining your objectives, you stand no chance of measuring success or understanding the effect of your actions.

Action Items:

• Start macro and go micro. What do you really want out of your business? Do you want to grow a secure company that can be passed on to your kids? Do you have a quick profitable exit in mind? Start with your vision and let it set the framework for your strategies in every business facet. Then develop your bottom up action items, i.e. what will it actually take to get there?
• Set success metrics and milestones and review your progress regularly, not just at the end of the year.

2) Understand Your Demographics

It may seem obvious, but it never ceases to amaze me how few companies actually understand who their demographic is, what their buying cycle looks like, what motivating factors/events cause them to take action or where they get information on products and services.

Action Items:

• Create customer profiles that allow you to examine your demographics in a more intimate way. For example, Suzie is a mother of two who works full time, loves to play tennis and hike, cares about the environment, and prefers to watch movies rather than TV. Setting up these profiles gives you a great demographic snapshot and helps to focus your marketing efforts.
• Once you understand your demographic’s buying cycle, what info, education or resources can you provide to make their buying decision easier? This is not only important for brand awareness and brand perception, but should be the driving force behind your lead nurturing cycle.
• It is crucial for you to understand your industry’s keyword landscape. Which keywords are your demographic using to search for the products/services you offer or information related to your offering? Which keywords are obtainable? How do you currently rank for those keywords? Google provides some free tools for the Do-it-Yourselfers, but any digital marketing shop should help you build the list and give you the analytic insights that will enable you to make sense of it all.
• Discover which social platforms your demographics are already engaged with and focus your efforts there. Currently, there are over 800 million users on Facebook, 300 million users on Twitter, 116 million users on LinkedIn and only 60 million users on Google+ [3]. If you currently have an email database, run it through some social networks to discover who is already using which networks. This could save you mountains of time in the long run and allow you to target your unique demographics.
• Listen via social networks like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and forums, as well as online news sites. Once you know your demographic’s hangouts and keywords, you can listen to social conversations via CMS platforms like HootSuite/TweetDeck and by setting up Google Alerts that monitor articles, blogs and forums that are currently talking about your keywords.

3) Create Value Based Relationships

Social media is not the place for old-school messaging tactics, and the concept of protecting your secret sauce is dead. Company decision makers typically go to your website, not social networks, to learn the benefits of your products or services. Companies and consumers alike are actively searching for value-based content that makes their lives and their buying decisions easier.

Action Items:

• Offer value-based content. If you help companies streamline their processes, don’t just talk about how you do it; offer them free templates or How-To whitepapers that teach them how to be more efficient. Providing this type of value will convert prospects in to fans of your company and customers in to loyal brand advocates.
• Understand the difference between relevant content (e.g. interesting articles, company update s, etc.) and compelling content that provides value and motivates visitors to take action (either by providing contact information or requesting a demo).
• Monitor conversations within social communities, like LinkedIn discussion threads, and offer advice or input wherever possible.
• Don’t be afraid to give away the secret sauce. As we all know, understanding how to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. Some of Bonfire’s best clients are those who tried to do it themselves first and quickly realized that their time and resources are much more effectively spent doing the things that they already excel at rather than learning how to develop custom Facebook tabs, constantly managing social networks, writing blogs or producing webinars.

4) Leverage Your Current Marketing Mix

A common and dangerous myth is that social media replaces traditional and costly marketing channels with free messaging. This is simply not true. Social media is at its best when it is amplifying other marketing efforts or when integrated in to a well thought-out campaign.

Action Items:

• Install social plug-ins throughout your site. These allow visitors to share your content on their preferred social network quickly and with a minimum of effort.
• Utilize landing pages to capture leads and initiate your lead nurturing cycle.
• 59% of B2B purchase decision makers have used their smartphone to research products and services when they are considering purchases [4], so optimize your content and landing pages for the increasing number of mobile users.
• Include QR codes on in-print advertising and articles with compelling calls to action.

This is not rocket science and it’s not revolutionary. Instead, this is a new application of what the heart and soul of American business was when companies took the time to connect with their communities and develop relationships with their customers. As a B2B marketer your audience might be smaller than your B2C counterparts, but that means you can be much more targeted and strategic with your marketing. While a B2C marketer may segment their demographics down to niche communities, you can target specific decision makers within your target companies and develop a value-based relationship that not only nurtures the current sales cycle but also sets a positive framework for a long and supportive business relationship.

—-
Stat Citations
[1] Source: Hubspot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010
[2] Source: http://www.hubspot.com/social-media-monitoring-in-10-minutes-ebook/?source=hspd-affiliate-PID-3701805-txt-ad-social-media-10-min-day-ebook-20110819&AID=10933127&PID=3701805&SID=skim1024X498223X8a5f920e568fa93e07c8561649950bf2
[3] Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/b2b-social-media-marketing-statistics-to-ponder-099980
[4] Source: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/09/b2b-decision-makers-smartphones/#ixzz1jmUIeJul

Behold: the mighty infographic.

From flowcharts to certain installments of webcomics like Randall Munroe’s xkcd.com, infographics distill data and facts and present them in a way that we can all understand. 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) is impossible to conceptualize, but infographics can show 1,000,000,000 in context and scale, using images and captions, in a way that helps us grasp that knowledge.

We’ve compiled 11 great infographics from 2011, plus two fun bonus graphics, and arranged them by topic. What are your favorites?

Economics

The Science of Salary – Shaun Saunders and salarytutor.com showed us in September the comparison between job satisfaction and salary in various professions, from fast food cooks to surgeons. The most satisfied employees, as it turns out, are firefighters. Where do you fit on that scale?

Money – Randall Munroe’s webcomic XKCD is required reading for any self-respecting geek/nerd. His chart of “money (almost) all of it, where it is, and what it can do” takes an entirely incomprehensible concept and makes it accessible and understandable.

Social Media

The Growth of Social Media – If Facebook were a child, it would be in first grade this year. If it were a country, it would be third largest in the world, behind China and India. This infographic from Search Engine Journal puts the most popular social networking sites, and how they’ve grown over time, into perspective. Which sites do you use regularly?

Major World Events of 2011 and their Impact on Social Media – Flowtown takes us through 2011, from the Arab Spring to Charlie Sheen’s breakdown, and ranks whether or not they mattered, as measured by their impact on networks such as Twitter.

Social Media’s Best Bacon Dishes – Using data from social media ratings, infographicsarchive gives us the low-down on everyone’s favorite dessert of meats: bacon. Have you eaten any of these dishes? Are some of them too out-there for you?

Science and Technology

Radiation – After the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan this spring, people all over the world started worrying about radiation exposure from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Randall Munroe took data about exposure from every day events and compared them to the risk from Fukushima.

The Insanely Great History of Apple – Steve Jobs left an unparalleled legacy in the world of computers. The folks at PopChart labs bring us a complete family tree of Apple’s products, from the Lisa to the iPhone 4S.

Politics

This is Not My Beautiful House – What would Congress look like if it were, proportionately, comprised of the same demographic as the United States? The results might surprise you.

School Cafeteria Food vs. Prison Food – GOOD collaborated with Column Five Media to show us the similarities and differences in cost, content and nutrition of the food fed to prisoners and American public school kids.

Entertainment

The Illustrious Omnibus of Superpowers – Another great piece from the folks at Pop Chart Labs. 300 superheroes and their powers, from Superman and Spider-man to lesser-known heroes like Ant-Man and Matter-Eater Lad. Who’s your favorite superhero? What power would you want to have?

NPR’s Book Flowchart – 60,000 NPR listeners submitted their favorite sci-fi and fantasy book titles, NPR compiled them into a list of 100 must-read books, and SF Signal turned it into a flow chart. An interactive flow chart. It’s endorsed by Neil Gaiman and contains everything from World War Z to The Princess Bride. Are your favorites on that list?

Bonus

Inside a Toddler’s Brain – If you’ve been on Facebook, Pinterest or Tumblr lately, you’ve likely seen this diagram. Not scientific, but so close to the truth as to cause giggles that will make your co-workers wonder what you’re looking at.

The Visible Tom Waits – Again, not scientific, but Jim Lockey brings us a good visual explanation for the cause of Tom’s trademark sound. Do you have a favorite Tom Waits album?

“Google+ skyrocketed to 40 million users in 2 months. It’s the Facebook killer.

I get more comments on Google+. It’s just, so much cleaner than Facebook.”

If you’re like me, you’ve read dozens, if not hundreds, of these type of statements over the last 4 months. Worse yet, step away and do a Google search for “Is Facebook Dead?”. You would think the platform disappeared overnight. People are actually starting to make these type of claims.

My intention here is not to bag on Google’s new and much-hyped platform. In fact, I love how clean and intuitive Google+ is; you don’t have advertisements, you don’t feel bombarded with messages and it isn’t inundated with spam as many other platforms are.

The issue I have is that we are running real businesses here. “Shiny Object Syndrome” isn’t allowed. Being cool and new is not enough and we can’t just bank on potential or assumptions. We have to look at the actual data or we could find ourselves investing our dollars in the wrong places and doing a serious disservice to our clients.

In MarketingChart’s latest set of social media data, we discover that Facebook is still far and away the most popular social network, both in terms of users and time spent.

As you can see, it’s not just that Facebook has 800 million users. People spend infinitely more time on the platform compared to all other web brands. When this is narrowed down ONLY to social networks, the differences are even more astonishing:

When we look at this broadly, it’s basically Facebook and everybody else. As we see “Like us On Facebook” right next to “Follow us on Twitter” everywhere we go, we often forget that a very high percentage of Twitter users don’t check back regularly despite having hundreds of millions of “users”. This isn’t the case with Facebook. Ironically, the number of active users is likely the reason people spend so much time on Facebook. You’ll probably find co-workers on LinkedIn, people who watch the same sports teams as you on Twitter, and people who share the same TV interests on YouTube. But you’ll find everyone on Facebook. Everyone.

And it doesn’t stop there. Although the market for new Facebook users has shrunk to the point where growth is nearly impossible, Facebook is still climbing in overall market share:

But let’s go back to Google+ for a brief moment. In terms of market share of visits, the platform has an extremely long way to go:

I hate to say the M-word, but it’s worth mentioning that MySpace still has them beat.

So what can we take away here? Does this mean Google+ is a dud? No. Does this mean you should re-invest everything into Facebook? Of course not.

The bottom line is, speculation is just speculation. Certainly there is reason to believe Google+ will be a big player at some point. But now? Unless you’re targeting a narrow group of early-adopters, it’s just another social network. It’s cleaner and easy to use, yes, but it doesn’t do anything Facebook can’t at this point and chances are your customers are not using it.

Everyone loves a giant killer and we’ve seen massive platforms fall in the past (tempting to use the M-word again here). Just remember to keep your focus on real data, avoid the hype, and focus your efforts where your customers actually are.

Videos can quickly grab a customer’s attention and stay in their mind longer than a photo or even the written word. But how can you make your videos more interactive? Allow users to not only view your videos, but become immersed with them.

Annotations are a trusted, but under-utilized YouTube tool that can boost both page views and subscribers for a channel. A video’s power can be enhanced by using this simple (and free) tool.

Two examples of annotation creativity:

Interactive Promotions/Games

Annotations can be a fun way to promote products. Instead of a video showcasing a new line of toys, Hot Wheels used annotations and turned their YouTube videos into an online game. Users can choose both the type of car and add-ons to race. While it takes a lot of planning and video production, the end product is a seamless use of YouTube Annotations.

‘Choose Your Own Adventure’

Many adults remember growing up with ‘choose your own adventure’ stories. The digital versions of these use YouTube annotations to create a fun story. Fun and interactive, they can be a nice way to promote products or services in story-form.  And, unlike their hard-copy predecessor, you can’t skip ahead and change your mind!

More Practical Uses
While creativity is key to utilizing annotations, this tool can also be used to increase the number of subscribers.

• Subscribers: By using the Subscribe link type, your video can have a great call-out for viewers to subscribe to your channel, allowing for more video views and greater channel reach.
• Linking : If your channel has a lot of content, annotations can link these videos together. It not only keeps viewers on your channel longer, but also allows for a deeper understanding of your services, products or mission.
• Promoting Other Channels: Does your company have more than one YouTube channel? Annotations can help link these by promoting another channel in a relevant video. This can help to promote smaller channels from a large, central channel.

Where to begin?
Start by mapping out your annotations. Whether they are simple links to other videos, words of wisdom, or interactive elements, planning is key. Try to create a virtual path where users will be compelled to spend more time on your channel.

The actual creation of new annotations is relatively easy. Be sure to keep in mind both the placement and type of annotation.

Like anything, however, annotations can get out of hand. It is important to remember what makes videos great is the actual viewing experience. Annotations should be used to enhance and not detract from the experience. By having timely call-outs it can help increase the amount of time users both spend on your channel as well as the amount they share your content with others.

Learn More

Here are a few great resources for getting started on a YouTube annotations project:

How To: Use Annotations to Promote Your Brand on YouTube – A great step-by-step guide on YouTube annotations.

YouTube Help Guide - A simplified guide that can be used as a resource when getting started.

I LOVE Gowalla! But I wasn’t born that way. I started off using Foursquare, gobbling up all my mayorships before that platform had hit critical mass. Just as my quick love affair with the square hit a plateau, I was forced to sign-up with Gowalla as research for my article on LBS deals. I was skeptical and resentful that I had to spend time on yet another platform. On top of that, Gowalla had the smallest user base (just under 500K) – so from a marketers perspective, my thoughts were ‘why bother?’ Well, that initial research was almost 6 months ago and I have been avidly using Gowalla ever since.

Questions to Consider Before You Commit

There are some great reasons to try Gowalla for yourself and I have them outlined below. But before I dive into why Gowalla works for me, I’d like to review what to consider before committing to a check-in platform. The idea for this post actually originated from a discussion at a recent May 5th shindig. A digital marketing student asked me which check-in platform she should be using. She wanted to make sure to choose the “right one,” in order to prevent managing multiple check-in accounts. A lively discussion ensued with most participants falling into 2 camps: Gowalla and Foursquare.

My take-away from that encounter is that each platform meets different needs. Understanding what you want to get out of the tool and the reasons you want to engage are key to determining the right tool for you. Some questions to ask yourself before making the commitment:

• Are you only looking for discounts, deals and promotions?
• Which platform are your close friends using?
• Are you interested in discovering new locations?
• Do you want to be actively marketed to while using the application? continue

Find any great April Fool’s pranks on Facebook last week? I had some difficulties spotting them. I was hoping to report on brands playfully posting outrageous updates, wacky profile pics and basically playing their community for fools.

One of my clients did have some success with this April Fools prank: The Mauve Power Ranger! (Image below) The community LOVED it and engaged with the Facebook update throughout the day.

Pranks aside, what I did find on Facebook last week was an array of businesses attempting to engage. Looking for the most creative uses of the coveted 520 pixels on a tab, I started with allfacebook.com’s most ‘Explosive Facebook Pages’ of the week. I figured that Facebook pages quickly recruiting ‘likers’ must be offering up great content. This assumption was proven to be incorrect with just a few exceptions.

continue

by Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media
Deals. They are everywhere these days. With our economy in a serious recession, consumers are laser-focused on getting the most for their money and EVERYONE loves a great deal.

With the advent of location-based applications like Foursquare and Facebook Places, deals are becoming more relevant than ever before. The ability to geo-target a consumer walking into your store or down your block is a marketing first so it’s not surprising that many platform developers are jumping on the ‘location-based’ bandwagon.

All the hype surrounding these new tools makes it difficult for business owners to make informed decisions about where to put their efforts. So let’s examine the facts and compare some of the more popular applications side by side.

I chose to report on the most popular applications for location-based deal creation as well as those I have the most experience with. These include Facebook Places Deals, Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp. I implore readers to comment with any information about additional platforms they feel have offered value to their business. continue

By Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media

Let me start off by announcing that none of the platforms mentioned have compensated me in any way or asked me to promote their products. I simply hoped to find a good tool for a reasonable price that would allow me to track metrics associated with campaign goals. I would also like to add the disclaimer that with the dozens of great tools available, there was no way to include them all. If you have experience with a great tool, PLEASE SHARE with the community by commenting on this post.

The information provided on each tool below is only PART of the equation when searching for a good social media monitoring solution. The MOST important question that should be asked is – what do you need to track and why? Most tools out there will report on endless amounts of data; the real trick is finding the tool that will report on the data you need to determine if campaign goals are being met.

Goals

The first step to finding a great tool for my client was taking a look at campaign goals. The primary goals included growing their Facebook fan base as rapidly as possible (BAD GOAL) and tracking – that is, which social media platforms and influencers were the most active for their brand terms. A good goal is measurable and time-sensitive, but not many clients come to the table armed with goals that include this level of detail so I made a few changes and came up with these working goals:

• Grow Facebook fan base by 100% over the next 3 months
• Increase overall fan page interactions by 100% over the next 3 months
• Identify the most active social media platforms for brand terms over the next 3 months
• Identify the most influential and active brand advocates on social media networks continue

For the first time, social media platforms were included in recent reports on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The platforms included Facebook, MySpace, Wikipedia and YouTube. ForeSee Results recently released their Annual E-Business Report that  highlighted the surveys key findings. continue

by Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media

Last week Facebook began reporting on some interesting data within their ad platform. They are now including ‘Social %’ within the campaign data table (highlighted below) and ‘Social Impressions’, ‘Social CTR’ and ‘Social Clicks’ within exported reports. (Use the highlighted button to export a report and access the new social data.)

Facebook defines ‘Social %’ as:

The percentage of your ad’s impressions where the viewer saw at least one friend who likes your page, event, application or ad.

Targeting friends of Facebook page ‘likers’ has been around for several months and savvy marketers have been touting the power of such targeting. Until now, we had to guess at just how successful endorsements from friends were at boosting campaign results. I have to admit that this technique has coaxed me into liking some items on Facebook that I may have otherwise overlooked.
However, can social impressions make a significant impact on ad campaigns? Facebook is now reporting on data that can help marketers make this determination.

Targeting friends of page fans or ‘likers’ is as simple as ensuring that you have added the relevant page to the ad settings when creating a new ad. Within the ‘Targeting’ section of the ad creation or editing platform there’s a box where you can ‘Target users whose friends are connected to’ your page. If you are running Facebook ads, I would recommend checking to ensure this feature has been added to all of your campaigns. This will provide you with additional ‘social’ data and allow you to make more informed management decisions.

After taking a closer look at the new social data, I was a bit dissapointed with my findings. I didn’t see a clear relationship between campaign performance and Social %. Here are my key findings:

• Highest CTR for the month, 1.15% occurred on a day with NO social impressions. The same day also had the highest Action rate, again with zero social impressions.

• Social CTR trended towards being SLIGHTLY higher than overall CTR.

• Data fluctuated greatly depending on the client, leading me to believe that the ad image, copy and industry were more influential than social endorsements.

For example the lifetime stats of  two  B2C clients compared side by side pointed to little or no correlation between increased CTR and Social Impressions:

Client 1 -  Impressions: 1,864,982  Social %:  78.6% CTR:  0.041%
Client 2 -  Impressions: 1,451,355  Social %:  2.9%  CTR:  0.046%

• Actions didn’t appear to get a boost from social impressions either. Using the same example as above, the client that had the highest percentage of social impressions had the lower action rate. If social impressions were successfully sending more targeted and qualified users, it would follow that the action rate would be higher for accounts running a higher percentage of social impressions. When comparing all our client accounts this wasn’t the case.

• When comparing data there seemed to be little to no correlation between Social % and a lowered CPC. There was an apparent relationship between campaign CTR and CPC. Our clients running the lowest average CPC also had the highest CTR. But these same clients DIDN’T have the highest Social %, in fact our client with the lowest CPC ranked in the bottom when it came to social impressions with only 2.4% of all impressions being served to friends of page ‘likers’.

Overall, I feel this analysis points to other campaign factors as influencing campaign success more than endorsements from Facebook friends. I have seen the most drastic improvements coupled with compelling promotions and strong ad creative. With all the hoopla and hype over social endorsements, it’s easy for some marketers to overlook the basics. It’s still important to build a strong foundation focusing on the tried and true principles of ‘The 4 P’s: Product, Price, Place and promotion.

I’m eager to discover if other Facebook advertisers are making similar conclusions or if they are seeing more of a lift from the elusive ‘Social Impression’. Comment below with your own campaign results, trends or tips.