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©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice ©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers Alex Flagg Manager, Social Media and Digital Content

Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

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When you think of social media, do you think of running Facebook contests and videos of cats playing Patty Cake? Think again. Your B2B customers are increasingly using social media to gather product information and short list vendors. This presentation covers 1) How B2B customers behave differently than their consumer counterparts, 2) How to develop and orchestrate an editorial plan to reach your B2B audience, 3) Recruiting your social media ambassadors, 4) The importance of Search Engine Optimization 5) Measuring the Share of Conversation. Alex Flagg Manager, Social Media and Digital Content Enablement HP Enterprise Segment Marketing In HP’s Worldwide Enterprise Segment, Alex leads a unique organization dedicated to increasing HP’s influence and participation in key B2B conversations with customers through social media channels. Alex is a dynamic B2B marketer with more than 18 years experience leading teams and running strategic marketing programs for HP, Sun, Microsoft, and AT&T. In his advertising career, Alex was among the first to buy online media in 1995 and helped shape the industry by proposing the first Internet advertising standards. Alex has a deep understanding of how to create engaging B2B editorial content, how to leverage social media to maximize content reach and how to utilize search engine optimization to ensure content find-ability and relevance.

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Page 1: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice ©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice

Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Alex Flagg

Manager, Social Media and Digital

Content

Page 2: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Introduction

• 15 years in large enterprise marketing and advertising for HP, Sun, AT&T, and Microsoft

• Leads a team of 20 social media, search engine, and digital content practitioners

• Passionate about cracking the code to B2B marketing

• Trivia: grew up in NYC, Broadway actor, fluent in Italian

Alex Flagg Manager, SoMe & Digital Content

HP Enterprise Marketing

Email.: [email protected] linkedin.com/in/alexanderflagg Twitter: @alex_flagg

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 3: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Agenda

• How B2B customers behave differently than their consumer counterparts

• How to develop and orchestrate an editorial plan to reach your B2B audience

• Recruiting your social media ambassadors

• The importance of Search Engine Optimization

• Measuring the Share of Conversation

Page 4: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

What‟s the difference between the B2B and B2C consumer?

B2C - What you might buy for yourself with

your own money

B2B - What you might buy for an entity with many stakeholders using their money

Page 5: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

The B2B high-tech purchase process – generally more complex than consumer

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 6: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Customers have shifted destinations & habits, new opportunity, new approach

Information we control

Information the community controls

Broadcast

Engage

Traditional

Now

Sources: Credibility ratings: ITSMA “How Customers Choose” Study, 2009 EB customers leading in Social Media: Forrester‟s North American Media Survey

Credibility rating traditional channels

Analysts

Publications

Advertising

Peer to Peer

Search

Vendor web

Communities

23%

19%

15%

68%

39%

39%

27%

Credibility rating interactive channels

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 7: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

B2B buyers increasingly going digital

• 81% of customers say digital content improves likelihood of vendor making short-list for purchases

• 76% say digital self service shortens sales cycle, many by up to 35%

• Customers say they have doubled importance of digital info sources from a year ago and will double again

Sources: Marketing Leadership Council, IDG Digital Content Study, July 2010

Page 8: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

B2B customers are engaged in digital Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers’ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011. Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers’ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011.

Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers‟ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011.

Page 9: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Why do business decision-makers participate?

Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers‟ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011.

Page 10: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Social Media channels becoming more influential

Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers‟ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011.

Page 11: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

…but traditional / WoM is still the tops

• #1 Web sites

• #2 Colleagues within your organization

• #3 In-person trade shows, events or conferences

• #4 Vendor salespeople

“Across all stages of the technology initiative, which of the following information sources influence your purchase decision process”

Forrester Research, Inc., The Who And How Of Influencing Customers‟ IT Decisions, August 25, 2011.

Page 12: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

So what can you hope to accomplish through your B2B social media strategy?

A million friends and followers?

Engagement?

Leads?

Sales?

Page 13: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

B2C Social Media Strategies

13

Consumers

Syndication through social

channels

Community Creation,

Publishing & Management

Strategy

•Build communities

• Influence perceptions

•Drive sales

• Lower support costs

Metrics

•Community members / engagement

•Positive reviews / net sentiment

•Revenue

•Support calls saved

Page 14: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

B2B Social Media Influencer Strategy

14

B2B customers

Industry Influencers

Social Channels

Subject matter experts engaged

in HP communities

Strategy

• Influence perceptions / Word of Mouth

• Provide answers /shorten buy cycle

• Build communities

• Lower support costs

Metrics

• Share of Conversation/ Influence

• SEO traffic / blog links

• Community members / engagement

• Support calls saved

Page 15: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Required for success – organizational support

Social Media Enablement • Training Subject Matter

Experts to engage, use tools and platforms

Organizational Commitment • Social Media Manager • Support from key execs • Willingness of Subject Matter Experts to make

time

Content Enablement • Content creation &

editorial support • Listening/trend reporting

Page 16: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

16 16

Key activity – leverage your people

Recruit

Who: Content team writers, bloggers, Industry comms leads, Portfolio/service line comms leads, fellows

Train

What: Provide training webinars and session on blogging policies, best practices, and content creation tips.

Enable

Where: Dissiminate intelligence about where SoMe conversations are taking place, links to blogs, COE Resources, cross-EB aliases and internal groups

Page 17: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Orchestrating your ambassadors

Social Media Listening

Media Coverage

SEO/SEM

Key Messaging

CIO Agenda

Market Intelligence

BU NPIs, Launches, Events

Relevant Content

Competitive Response

– Orchestrates content across Web, social media, eMail

– Align with solutions/BU‟s

– Managed by editor in chief

– Flexible to respond „instantly‟ to input from listening tools

– Feeds community members

Inputs Social Media & Editorial Enablement

Coordinated Syndication and Activity

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 18: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

If Facebook is the barbecue, LinkedIn is definitely the office—and Twitter is the Happy Hour after work!

-Social Media Training Camp invitation

Page 19: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Social media channels Channel B2B strengths Activity

Blogs & Communities

Thought leadership, Support

Blogging, moderation, commenting, outreach

Target audience engagement

Groups, company pages, campaigns, recommendations

Additional reach (awareness)

Promotion, company pages

Reach, immediacy Promotion, updates, engagement

Video format, SEO Branded channel, video library

Lead generation

Company channel, leads, network, custom content

Awareness, SEO Monitoring for accuracy, editing

Page 20: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Content optimization is critical

20

HP Confidential

Blogger submits

content for review

Optimization data points evaluated

Keywords added

Scorecard provided to

blogger

Published by Blogger

Blogger # posts Title B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 Error Rate

Blogger1 10 7 1 10%

Blogger2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 75%

Blogger3 3 5 3 33%

Error scorecard

Before After

Page 21: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Title testing and optimization – results

21

HP Confidential

The key ingredients

Issue relevance

Optimized for highest volume search keywords

Focus on customer problem

Time value, does it seem worth reading?

Reclaim 1,350 IT staff hours for new projects - HP Converged Infrastructure

Focus on customer problem

High volume keyword

Reader time value proposition

Capitalizing on Converged Infrastructure: A Case Study—A-dec

Original title – 60 page views, 1st 45 days

Optimized title – 300+ PV‟s, 1st 7 days

+400% page view

increase in 7 days

Page 22: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Share of Conversation

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

5/1/2011 5/15/2011 5/29/2011 6/12/2011 6/26/2011 7/10/2011 7/24/2011

HP DELL EMC IBM Oracle Cisco

29th June: Case Study: Health Care Giant McKesson Harnesses

HP ALM; HP Invests in China towards Cloud Computing ; HP

Discover Videos

7th June: HP Discover; 83%

mentions through Twitter

10th June: HP Discover + Falconstor Software,

announcement of being selected for 2011 HP AllianceONE Partner of the Year Award in category of

HP Converged Infrastructure Solutions - Government

19th June: HP, Toshiba collaborate on cloud computing

CIO Forum: access to top Panel to submit live questions. Top dog w/in HP.

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 23: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Meet the new homepage

Why all this matters

June 23, 2011 – “Google Hits the

Billion Monthly Unique Visitor Mark”

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 24: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

Keywords mapped to the buy cycle

Search strategy

24

HP Confidential

Customer Buying Cycle

SEO/SEM Competition

Awareness

Maximum

Purchase

Minimum

Searc

h V

olu

me

Tier II Keyword optimization Deeper Product / Services page optimization

Purchase most competitive keywords

Tier I Keyword optimization Gateway pages, content creation focus

SEM

SEO

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 25: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

How it comes together

Listen Plan

Engage Optimize

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Page 26: Leveraging Social Media to Reach B2B Customers

©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice ©2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice

Thank You!

Alex Flagg

Manager, Social Media and Digital

Content

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderflagg

@alex_flagg