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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
This week our topic is Social Marketing & Media. It’s one of those topics that there is much to write about, but my discussion today will focus on how to make sure it is well executed.
What are your thoughts on Social Marketing Excellence? Share your feedback on The Buzz Community.
And, of course, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for being part of the Buzz community. This endeavor is not possible with you -- our readers. For questions, comments, and feedback, please don't hesitate to let me know.
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3 Ways to Ensure Your Social Is Well Delivered
Leading social at larger B2B brands is challenging. There are too many competing priorities; not enough understanding of business value from leadership; and not enough resources to do all that a social leader wants.
Over the years I collaborated with several large B2B brands ($1B+ in ARR) on operationalizing their social investments (both organic and paid) to help them improve the way they deliver social media (paid) and marketing (organic) to improve the way they execute their social marketing and media programs. Here are 3 of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way from those journeys.
Way #1: Measure Social Properly
All too often, I look at the reporting for social marketing and media (sometimes provided by a client’s agency) and it is very, very tactical. Mentions, Comment Counts, Reach, Impressions, etc. For Social Marketing leaders this is a huge misstep. Firstly, Engagement is the key tactical metric for social. And a B2B brand that does marketing measurement well will have a compound engagement metric that they use across all their comms and marketing.
But even that isn’t enough. If social leaders want social marketing and paid social investment to be taken seriously at the leadership level, social must be connected to Revenue (Sales / Pipeline / Pipeline Acceleration) and NPS (by ICP, Customers, Geo, etc.).
A third point is that organic and paid not only be measured separately, but also be reported together, since both tactics deliver a business outcome from the same user experience (e.g., the feed). And to align social’s impact to the top line, we need a measurement framework that both tactics can and do contribute to that outcome. Then this framework should tree up to your overall marketing performance and accountability.
Way #2: Engage Your Executives
Social is human. And as such, we need to engage our executive team in learning, understanding the value, and using social platforms to drive sales, client engagement, shareholder value, employee value and the company’s industry positioning. A B2B brand’s exec team are the personification of the brand. They must be engaged on Social to drive the business forward.
For executives, there are many archetypes they can follow to ensure their social reflects them as humans (3 are shown in the graphic above). Many executives will fit into multiple archetypes, but with the right evaluation you’ll quickly see that each executive will “lean into” a certain archetype and will feel most comfortable using social for that manner. This archetype identification will also help define which social platforms that an executive should incorporate in their day to day and the messaging, vocabulary, mode of messaging they should use.
Way #3: Bulk Up Your Social Ops
Many B2B Brands struggle with the volume and always-on aspects of social. In fact, before social - yes, there was a time before - the only real time comms activity at this level of craziness was crisis management in the PR world. Today’s social marketing requires significant operations excellence.
I see too many B2B brands at about $100M to $2B ARR without sufficient ops to support the needs of running a social marketing and media program at scale with excellence. Typically, relying on a few social folks and an agency with little technological, data and operational tools or acumen in place to deliver the cadence needed across several lines of business or product categories with excellence. As with all marketing programs, without the foundations built properly the entire house is a house of cards.
Delivering Social poorly is a missed opportunity for B2B Brands, as LinkedIn shares regularly, “More than 50% of revenue across 14 major industries is generated by social…” Think about that in the context of your own business. Even if the number is closer to 40% of sales (which is what I’ve seen over the years with clients) this is material for any organization. Think of it another way, if you could improve your social efforts so it delivers an incremental 2-3% of revenue by cleaning up the ops, for a $100M brand that means an incremental $3M. That would make any executive team smile.
What are your thoughts on Social Marketing Excellence? Share your feedback on The Buzz Community.
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