I had the pleasure of speaking at a Public Relations Society of America conference dedicated to “The Forbidden Dance: B2B and Social Media.” In this video of the presentation you will hear from me on the only number that I believe counts in B2B social media – 150 (nope, it is not Twitter + 10). Watch and see.

No related posts.

I have canceled my Google Alerts for “Capgemini.” I changed the parameters for daily media monitoring to focus more heavily on competitors and industry issues than the company. And I am revising our communication metrics to more heavily weight the % of conversations (share of conversation) we are involved in than the % of mentions compared to competitors (share of voice).

To many in-house marketing and communication professionals, this is heretical. We listen for when people are talking about us and when they mention us, right? I can count on one hand the number of times when real-time monitoring for mentions led to an immediate action. I would need to use the hands of the entire Capgemini marketing and communications team to  count the number of times real-time monitoring for conversations about technology strategy, systems integration, business strategy consulting and IT outsourcing led to immediate and beneficial action.

Brian Solis at PR 2.0 described the goal of online listening in the world of B2B better than anyone else I have interacted with. Here is an excerpt from his post “the Business of B2B Social Media:”

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of listening to focused online interaction, is the ability to breakdown the decision making process and how customers and influencers impact behavior. To say it blatantly, social media makes it possible to identify and segment the specific stages of decision making online and how to in turn, respond in ways that steer interest in your favor.

Put down your clipping report and go cull the “Page Source” view (option under view in browsers) of your competitors. Talk with your SEO people about which keywords you should listen for in social media conversations. And repeat after me – “it’s not about us the company, it is about us the network of people doing research.”

Photo courtesy of Niclindh

No related posts.

Walking into the Capgemini office at 623 Fifth Avenue this morning was quite surreal. After a stint in the PR agency world at Makovsky + Company, I have returned to the company where I cut my teeth on marketing and communications. I decided to return corporate side because I believe social media should primarily be managed in-house. As important, this new communications era demands marketers have a deeper level of industry expertise than they did before. Communication generalists need not apply. Pros with a nuanced understanding of the industry of their business line will thrive.

It might be helpful to outline the top lessons I learned from agency life. Before I go into those lessons, I have to give props to the entire Makovsky + Company team. When it comes to B2B public relations, each and every team member knows whats what.

So without further adieu, and without holding any punches, here are the ideas, beliefs and lessons from my agency journey.

• Skills – The most in-demand communication skills cut across traditional and social media relations and are timeless. If you want to be a great communications pro beef up on writing, interpersonal relationship building and creative brainstorming.
• Competition – PR agencies are now in the same competitive set as advertising agencies, digital media agencies, and strategy consulting firms. Yes, many of you are now competing with McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and even Capgemini to help other firms build a new infrastructure and governance model for the social era.
• Role in Social – PR agencies can add a tremendous amount of value in performing social media audits and consulting on social media strategies. However, day to day execution of the social media strategy is best left those in-house. Conversely, execution of traditional media relations should primarily be the responsibility of the agency.
• Can’t We All Get Along – Agency peeps need to take more time to learn what their in-house partners do every day. And corporate communication managers, go over to your agency more often and work together.
• Finally – What an exciting time for all of us in marketing and communications. This is going to be a fun ride.

How do you delineate the role of the agency and of in-house employees in marketing and communications? How would you want to split it up?

Photo courtesy of Geofftheref

Related posts:

1. Stop Following Yourself Around

Findability use to be a term narrowly associated with SEO. But now findability is the charge of all marketers, as our primary job is to enhance the probability that our content and experts will get found and be shared.

Put simply, findability is the degree to which companies, content, and experts are easily located using search terms and through the process of sharing with networks.

Findability on the internet is not a new concept.  It is about as old as the West Coast offense; Peter Morville wrote the book on it in 2005. But it has been generally confined to the studios of web designers and offices of e-marketing professionals. That’s because, until now, we could effectively get the word out about our whitepapers, studies and announcements through calling, mailing and emailing people.

But today when you pick up that phone, stick on the stamp or press the send button, you do so knowing there are fewer people on the other end and those that are still there are probably ignoring you. Against this backdrop of outbound marketing getting less effective, findability has become the primary concern of the entire marketing department - business unit marketing, content marketing, public relations, search engine optimization.

Take public relations for example. According to an analysis by BusinessWeek , there are approximately 19 percent fewer journalists in 2009 than there were in 2008.  The same article concludes there are 11 percent more public relations professionals. That is a 30 percent swing in the ratio of people pitching to people listening and covering. Oy.

And for the nearly 80,000 journalists left in the country, they don’t need to pick up the phone. They can decide what to cover through an ambient awareness the news through RSS feeds, Twitter, Google and online news rooms.  Just as Facebook allows us to have an awareness of  what our friends are up to (without talking to them), the larger social web allows journalists to have an awareness of what news is happening (without talking to PR).

So go forth and find. Focus your marketing on making your content more relevant and more extraordinary. Make it easily shareable. Use it as a response to the content of competitors. Yes, actually talk openly about how your conclusions compare to that of others. Take the time to Google your experts and see if their digital footprint matches up with their point of views. Are they easily found? Are they easily connected with?

Put the phone down (no one is picking up)  and find out how findable your company and its points of views are.

Picture Credit: Niznoz

No related posts.

Source: Edelman Trust Barometer

Keyshia Cole re-released her hit song “Trust” earlier this year and it reached #5 on the Billboard Hip-Hop Chart. Unfortunately, trust has not made it anywhere near the top of the charts in 2009 for business. According to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer people trust business less than they ever have in history. Anyone remember Enron?

The relationships between business and buyer, business and the market, and business and society are tenuous at best, and getting worse. Realizing people do not buy from companies they distrust, a significant number of companies are embarking on what BusinessWeek recently described as “the great trust offensive.” This must read article (for PR and marketing professionals) highlights the work of American Express’s Open Forum, Ford’s social media investment and McDonald’s initiatives with PETA.

It is time for more B2B companies to join this list of the who’s who of “we’re going to earn your trust back.” Too many consultants are being showed the door because businesses view them as little more than providers or powerpoints. Too many banks are withholding badly needed business loans because of this trust deficit. Too many social media marketing firms are being “unfriended” because they fail to sell more than a Facebook app, a Twitter feed or a LinkedIn profile (see the Dachis Group or Altimeter Group for firms that provide more than this).

This is our charge in B2B – regain trust. This is a charge to both those who design products and services and those who manage a businesses different publics (that’s you marketer or PR pro). What a terrifying challenge and great opportunity for those of us in B2B marketing and communications. Either we restore trust or capitalism’s role in society continues to diminish.

Here is how I believe people will generally describe a trusted B2B company:

XYZ company has a purpose which is deeply important to their employees. Based on this purpose, their people provide us with thoughtful insight into the industry and helpful advice. Their people are more front and center than any logo or brand statement. Oh, and all of this insight and these interactions are free. We then trust them to lead projects, provide us with supplies and partner with us to improve our business.

How do you define trust in B2B?

Bring us home Keisha:

I’ll give you everything that I’ve got
I won’t stop until you get it right
All the trust and all the love
You know we got a lot, baby

No related posts.

I have been asked a couple of times over the last few weeks about the relevance of the name “B2B Coffee Shops.” It’s apropos I explain it on the opening day of the NFL because my philosophy on the changing communication landscape is all about stadiums and coffee shops.

When it comes to communication, I believe people are filing out of the stadium and entering into small coffee shops. I will go into a little more details since the connection between communication, stadiums and coffee shops is not self-evident. And it has nothing to do with Bengals Wide Receiver Chad Johnson legally changing his name to Ocho Cinco to better communicate with his fans.

For the past 50 years we have all received our news about the world and brands in a stadium. We read and watched whatever was on the Jumbotron whether that be a New York Times article or a commercial on NBC or a speech at a major trade show. We couldn’t talk to each other because the stadium was too loud and the sights and sounds of the Jumbotron overwhelming. B2B marketers could reach every possible prospect by interruption the regularly scheduled broadcast with well placed coverage, an advertisement or sponsoring an event.

Then suddenly in the early 2000s, people started to realize new places were popping up that could entertain as much as the game being played in the stadium. These places allowed us to post, share, comment, friend, follow and review. We were no longer the silent audience.

As a society we have traded in the single stadium for thousands of small niche coffee shops. We sit down and talk with people that have similar occupations, interests and problems to solve. In these coffee shops we can listen to the conversations of the best and brightest in the subjects we concern ourselves with. And people are friendly enough that you can join in the conversation if you have something helpful to add.

The “coffee shop” is a timeless desire to connect with others and contribute in a meaningful way to a community. In this coffee shop we explore how traditional event and bullhorn marketing can effectively be replaced by community building. In other coffee shops people trade tips on improv comedy and in others people opine about the Patriots comeback. And we’re back to sports. Definitely time to conclude this post. But the larger point is we’re back to phone conversations where one to one interactions mattered. However, unlike in the time of Bell, these one to one conversations happen in public places where others can listen and interject.

Pull up a chair. There’s an open seat my table.

Stadium Photo By kla4067

Coffee Shop picture by Loop Oh

Related posts:

1. Stop Following Yourself Around

Here is my video review of the book Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. I think it is a good summary of the developments in social media over the last couple of years. Go human web.

No related posts.

I am calling “all in.” I realized this weekend there is one trait I admire more than any other in friends, acquaintances, mentors. This is the same trait I hope defines my personality – for better or for worse. Drum roll please – passion.

Passion for something, anything: advancing sustainable energy practices, crafting a new line of clothes, becoming an improv comedian, being the kindest person in the neighborhood, knowing more about dogs than any other vet in the clinic. What that passion is for is less important than the existence of a fire in the belly. PS, I like to think my belly is its current size because it needs a lot of space to hold my fire.

Many of us read in Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book, Outliers, about the 10,000 hour principle – a consensus among researchers that it generally takes about 10,000 hours of performing a task before you are a master at it. As I have learned in playing baseball, competing at debate, performing improv and delving into social media public relations, it takes a deep drive to get through the inherent dips and overcome obstacles.

Besides putting you on a path to success at a job and guru status at a hobby, having that “that person is crazy” passion makes you a more interesting person. That’s why I refuse to answer the question “what do you do?” with the name of my employer. I am a storyteller. I perform improv comedy. I am committed to developing a niche in B2B community building. My friends and family are at the heart of everything I do. That’s what I do. If you think that’s cheesy or meaningless, you can go back to your desk and log hours for a paycheck. I am going to log my 10,000 hours in my passion.

Photo Credit: Jam Adams

No related posts.

The executives we report to recognize many people are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social mediums. However, to justify the budget and resources we need to have a sufficient presence online, we must provide executives with more hard data. For your use in presentations to bosses and colleagues, here are the three most important B2B social media statistics. Under each statistic is an explanation of how you can use the data to counter common myths or arguments.

No obligation, but it would be helpful for others to hear how you use this data. Leave an explanation in the comments section. Here’s to “lies, damn lies and statistics.” Oh Mark Twain, what would you think of this information.

• First, a high propensity of B2B decision makers use social networks for business purposes. 69% of B2B executives and managers use social networking for business purposes. (Forrester Study: B2B Buyers Have High Social Media Participation). February 2009. If executives say “only consumers make buying decisions from social media,” use this statistic.

• Second, C-Suite executives trust the Web more than other sources. 55% of C-Suite Executives cite the Web as the most important source for business information. This is in contrast to 20% who say the same for newspapers, 12% for magazines and 5% for trade publications (Forbes Insights: The Rise of the Digital C-Suite; June 2009). This helps make the case for prioritizing digital over print.

• Third, clients and prospects continue to opt-out of consuming traditional B2B publications in droves. Ad pages in B2B publications plummeted 30% in the first quarter of 2009, compared to a year earlier (American Business Media Statistics; June 2009). It counters the claim social media is just a fad. Also, suggests there is an urgency to action. As prospects move away from newspapers and magazines, we need to be there to greet them.

For more statistics broadly on social media, check out the Social Media Revolution video below.

Related posts:

1. The Social and Emotional Side of B2B

Social Media has finally traversed from the basements where our teenagers surf Facebook and MySpace to the 45th Floor mahogany boardroom where Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Executive Officers converse about go-to-market strategy. If you’re skeptical of this conclusion, look no further than a survey by Forrester (B2B Buyers Have High Social Participation) that suggests 69 percent of B2B professionals use social networks for business purposes. Now that we got that business justification out of the way, lets get straight to the point. B2B executives are looking to reboot their marketing functions after their pipelines dried up during the recession and traditional marketing approaches failed to jump start discussions with prospects in any significant number.

Yes, it is time to throw the baby out with the marketing bath water and rebuild B2B marketing around the social web. And yes, I said social web, not social media. This is not about producing more white papers or putting on more webinars or standing on more stages at trade shows. This is about B2B companies facilitating more fruitful conversations on whatever issues they purport to help solve. And consequently having people trust the company when time comes to invest in a partner. There is a place for direct marketing, traditional PR, email marketing, and event management, but B2B marketing needs a new foundation. I know I need to go further in justifying blowing up entire marketing departments. And rest assured there will be posts dedicated to explaining this point. For now, I want you to know what I stand for. That way you can decide whether to enter the conversation here on B2B social media marketing (I’ll use the term social media instead of social web because it of the general acceptance of the term).

I firmly believe in three tenets:

• B2B companies should showcase their value propositions through emotion. Get emotional about your purpose. Get angry about the issues that confront your clients and prospects. For example, the cost of maintaining data centers is extraordinarily high and impedes growth. Without this cost, a company could conceivably afford to hire more workers. Get angry that data centers stand in the way of sustainable growth. Inefficient supply chains inhibit companies from providing exactly what customers want exactly when they want it. Get angry that supply chains should be more efficient.

• Personal brands will eclipse the power of corporate brands. Even at B2B companies, contracts will ultimately be signed because someone outside the company trusted someone inside the company. The dawn of B2B becoming People2People is upon us.

• Marketing should be held accountable for sales. Marketing can do more than just focus on the initial phase of the sales funnel, awareness. With social media, marketing is armed with the data necessary to do more than we have in the past in the phases of consideration, action, loyalty and evangelism. Marketing’s goal used to be to get maximum exposure. That was the best we could do with the tools of measurement available. But now, because of cookies on IP addresses, we can track how many people went from <insert social medium here> to the company website. From clips to clicks.

I am Jonathan Blank, a B2B Marketing Professional that believes in business showing some emotion. What do you believe in?

Stay tuned for an explanation on why this is called B2B Coffee Shops…

Related posts:

1. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics for B2B Social Media