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A presentation on how an equipment finance and leasing company may use social media and social networking for marketing and communications purposes. Findings from original grant research conducted in summer 2010 are included.
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Social Media
Web Seminar December 1, 2010
Real-World Social Media for the Equipment Leasing
& Finance Company
Social Media
Today’s web seminar is based on
the Equipment Leasing and
Finance Foundation’s Study
“Social Networking for the Equipment Finance Industry”
and brought to you by the
ELFA Academy and the
Equipment Leasing and Finance
Foundation.
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Presenters
Suzanne HenryFour Leaf Public Relations LLC
Steve GuidoOracle Financing
David WienerThe Alta Group
Social Media4
Suzanne HenryFour Leaf Public Relations LLC
Social Media
“Monologue has given way to dialogue.” ~Brian Solis*
*Brian Solis. “Social Media Manifesto,” (11 June 2006)
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What is Social Media?
Online social interaction that is relatively•Open & public•Where the users are in control•Where the purpose is connection, sharing and influence
• Twitter• Facebook,
MySpace• YouTube• Blogs• LinkedIn• Flickr• Digg
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The Social Media Realm
Attribution: Brian Solis http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/2735401175/sizes/l/
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Strong Growth• 1.9 billion people worldwide are active Internet users. 77.4% use the
Internet in North America
• 80% of U.S. Web users now regularly making use of social media tools
• 43% of the 2009 Inc. 500 reported social media was “very important” to their business/marketing strategy
• 91% of the Inc. 500 were using at least one social media tool in 2009 (up from 77 percent in 2008)
• Facebook: 500 million users // LinkedIn: 75 million members // Twitter: 106 million accounts
• 51% of social media users are age 35 and older
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B2B Marching Toward Social MediaAccording to a study* of chief marketing officers:• Businesses currently allocate 6% of their marketing
budgets to social media
• Expected increases:10% during 2011 and 18% over the next five years
• B2B services companies reported the largest planned increases in social media spending, from 7% to 11% of overall marketing budgets, over the next year
*Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business/American Marketing Association. CMO Study (February 2010)
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Equipment Finance Industry
Survey results from the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation
Survey on Social media, summer 2010
1,000 equipment finance professionals surveyed, 14%
response rate
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Social Media
Equipment Finance Industry
• Late adopter/ Lag best practices
• 35% of respondents just got started in social media usage in the last 6-12 months
• 51% block at least some of the social media channels
• Yet, in the next 12 months– 41% of recent survey respondents report their
organization will be more active and expand into new social media
– 40% believe they will maintain about the same level of social media activity
– No one said they will reduce their social media activity
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Social Media
We maintain a fan page on Facebook or another social media site
We distribute press releases and other company information via Twit-ter, RSS Feed or other social media channels
We’re active on Twitter
We actively maintain a company page on LinkedIn and/or Plaxo
We encourage employees to actively maintain a personal LinkedIn or Plaxo profile
We host customer/fan forums where they can discuss our products and services
We host customer/fan forums where they can discuss our products and services
We solicit customer reviews on our web site
We use mobile applications to reach fans/customers
We monitor company mentions on social media sites
We maintain a company blog
Employees participate in social media on the organization’s behalf
We monitor equipment finance industry social media sites to see what our competitors are doing
We monitor and comment on industry blogs
We post video on YouTube
We post pictures on Flickr
We run special promotions for our social media channel fans
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45
What specific social media activities does your organization engage in? (Select all that apply)
Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation Survey on Social Media, Summer 2010
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Social Media
Increase awareness of our brand and image
Create a community for our customers to learn about our company, products and services
Collect information about our customersGenerate sales and marketing leads
Gather information about what our customers think of usInteract with customers to address their needs
Enhance customer satisfactionSell direct to customersIncrease website traffic
Raise visibility about our organizationRaise visibility about our employees
Employee recruitmentBuild our employee community/morale
Advocate support for organizational issuesI don’t know
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0%
What are your organization's goals for its social media activities?
Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation Survey on Social Media, Summer 2010
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Four Horsemen of the Social Media Realm
• Blogs
• Private, online communities
Facebook and Plaxo have a place on a case-by-case basis
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More Important to Note• Tools, channels and venues will change• Understanding social media culture will ensure a nimble and
effective effort
The new culture:• Is transparent & personal• Operates on “lethal generosity”• Has redistributed influence among “the people”
– Individuals have power for both developing content and as a consumer
• Includes various “payment forms,” including connections, referrals, praise, promotion, knowledge, competitor intelligence
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Power to the People• Individuals valued over corporate entity
• Employees considered most credible
• Social media users want “thinking” individuals talking, posting, tweeting
Social media has unleashed a level of individual empowerment that many believe will be impossible to
retract
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Return on Investment Still Elusive. Yet…
“69% of survey respondents reported that their companies gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.”
~2009 McKinsey Global Survey report on Web 2.0 usage
Deploying social media technologies “to foster collaboration among employees, customers and business partners is highly correlated with market share gains.”
~A September 2010 McKinsey Quarterly report on a survey of global executives on the impact of “participatory Web 2.0 technologies (such as social networks, wikis and microblogs)
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Engaging the Four Horsemen
Twitter, blogs, Private communities, LinkedIn
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Six Phases of Involvement• Prepare• Listen• Plan• Invest• Engage• Learn
No template existsOrganizational goals, objectives and company characteristics
mean a custom social media program
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Prepare
• Understand the new culture
• Form a cross-functional social media team
• Identify goals and objectives
• Know thyself
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Questions to Ask• Do you have individuals on staff
already involved in social media/networking? (SMN)
• Who are your current SMN evangelists?
• Do you understand the culture around SMN?
• What are you willing to talk about (or not talk about) in a public forum?
• Why do you want to get involved in SMN? Brand development? Sales and marketing? Employee recruitment?
• Is there anything related to SMN that you already know senior and middle management cannot get behind?
• How much time are you willing to allocate to SMN activities?
• Do you trust your employees to be spokespeople?
• Do you have policies and procedures in place that will affect SMN activities?
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Listen
• Gather intelligence– Engage in social network anthropology– What is valued?– Who are influencers?
• Get your “data house” in order– Devise way to get employee’s observations and
experiences in the mix– Incorporate CRM– Use Web analytics and other tools
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Questions to Ask• Where are the customers? What
do they want to talk about online?
• What is being shared online? What is the overall tone of the conversations?
• Who is influencing others? What triggers meaningful reactions or responses?
• What are you trying to find? Sales leads? Brand mentions? Competitor intelligence?
• Who and what discussions are gaining traction and interest, and why?
• Who is going to do the intelligence gathering?
• What is transpiring online that would impact or inform business objectives?
• How will it be shared with others within the company?
• Where would your presence be most advantageous (to both you and the online community)?
• How should the data be synthesized? How and where will the data be housed? How will you synthesize what individual employees are finding online?
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Plan
• Have a plan and a strategy
• Identify what to measure
• Identify risk areas
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Questions to Ask• How deeply are you going to
get engaged?
• Where are the high risk areas?
• Which channels will you commit to?
• What is going to be shared online? What will be contributed?
• Who is going to be involved in the effort, from strategic decision-makers to main, corporate spokespeople?
• Who will do what, when? And, who is responsible for content making its way to social channels?
• Will departments and support individuals have their own online presence?
• What needs to be in place, technology-wise?
• How will success be determined and measured? By profits and revenue, risk management gains, brand improvements or increases in digital IP?
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Invest
• Become discoverable, searchable, shareable
• Determine the need for new communities
• Select the right channels and tools
• Dedicate resources
• Identify “real” content
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Questions to Ask
• Are you engaged in SEO and optimizing the corporate web site currently, and to what extent?
• Is there a need for a new, private community of customers?
• What are the right SMN channels to invest in?
• What kind of resources can you dedicate?
• How much time are you reasonably willing to commit to, and is it enough?
• Are you willing to educate yourself and your employees to SMN and the desired outcomes of the company being involved?
• Are you “open” enough? Do you allow SMN during work hours?
• What is your story? What parts of your story are applicable to SMN activities? What do you have to contribute?
• Are you willing and able to produce in the way of multi-media content, and over time?
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Engage
• Let the brand personality shine
• Determine level of participation
• Understand the four B2B social media horsemen
• Promote the effort
• Reward success
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Questions to Ask
• What will be your level of participation?– If we choose LinkedIn: Who is
most important in the company to have a presence?
– Do we want individual or corporate Twitter streams?
– If blogging: Who will do it? What will we say?
– How are we going to reach influential bloggers?
– How will we contribute to private online communities?
– Does Facebook make sense for us?
• What is your brand’s personality?
• Who are you talking to online and what voice should be adopted to reach them?
• How will you recognize and reward success?
• What will you do to ensure sustainability?
• How will conversations online be handled?
• How will you handle missteps, failures and negativity that may arise?
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Learn
• Adjust, abandon, change
• Analyze, monitor
• Calculate ROI
• Optimize
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Questions to Ask
• Did you reach your goals and objectives?
• What occurred? What were the results?– Feedback that led to positive
change?– New ideas and markets?– Cost savings?– Process improvements?– Increased brand awareness?– Connections, especially those
that led to sales and marketing gains?
• What activity and content have influence online?
• Did you meet anyone new that led to a positive outcome?
• Are your customers talking to you differently now?
• Are you reaching prospects?
• What needs to be changed immediately?
• What processes are helping/hindering?
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When Social Media Does Not Make Sense
• Companies that have–Small number of customers–Unhappy employees –Significant upper management cynicism or disdain
over social media–Unclear strategic imperative for social media
• Companies in highly regulated industries where communication is dangerous under any form
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Social Networking for the Equipment Finance
IndustryA report commissioned by the
Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation, produced by Four Leaf
Public Relations LLC
• What is today’s B2B social media landscape?• What are the equipment finance industry’s
social media attitudes, behaviors and activities?
• What are current strategies, tools and channels being used today by B2B industries?
• What are the best practices and what results are being produced?
• Who is successfully using social media for marketing purposes?
• What do I need to do to incorporate social media and networking into my marketing and communications efforts?
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Thank you for your participation today!If you have any additional questions or comments,
please feel free to email Alexa Carnibella at [email protected],
or to the presenters listed below:
Suzanne E. HenryFour Leaf Public Relations LLC
[email protected]: @SuzanneHenry
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehenry
Steve GuidoOracle Financing
[email protected]: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sguido/
David WienerThe Alta Group
[email protected]: @dwAdvisory
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wienerdavid
