An emerging trend in digital marketing is the shift from campaign to relationship marketing. The music industry were early adopters of this. Traditionally a music campaign would look a like this:

- First single released through radio with artist promotion
- Video released with more promotion
- Single available to buy with extra promotion
- (If successful) 2nd single released with promotion and maybe a video
- Album released….with promotion
- (If still successful) 3rd single released with less promotion
- Tour that has X amount of dates

This may take about 8/9 months and once finished the artist would vanish for over a year and then come back on the cycle to promote the next singles and album. The problem in 2013 with having a break for so long would mean a void for fans and an opportunity for other musicians to fill that void. When the artist who is use to the traditional cycle returns, the market would have changed and it can be an uphill battle to regain those fans.

Maybe you are a fan, maybe you are not, but the Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna are masters at this model. They have spent a lot of time building relationships rather than doing the traditional campaign route. Personally, I don’t even know what single is on what album with these guys because every 2 months there seems to be a new song released. What has been key to their success has been that they have stayed front of mind, consistently managed to grab their fans attention and built strong relationships.

The same principle is happening in other industries, especially in the B2B sector. Relationship marketing seems to be replacing campaign marketing and, of course, social media plays an important role in this happening effectively. According to the site searchcrm, relationship marketing can be defined as:

“A strategy designed to foster customer loyalty, interaction and long-term engagement”.

A social media manager’s primary role has been to build and manage communities but is the role evolving? With conversations happening across the Internet at different touch points, it is becoming increasingly harder for one person to stay on top of this. To manage communities is one thing but to listen to all the relevant digital chatter, interpret the meaning for your organisation, measure success, escalate issues, create content and report the important findings, as well as staying up to date in an ever changing industry, is becoming harder.

Where I see the role changing is from managing communities to managing agencies or outsourcers, similar to a lot of PR departments. Managing relationships and setting direction will be essential skills needed for the future social media manager, along implementing strategies with a team of community managers be they internal or from agencies / outsourcers.  Social media managers will need to be more strategic and will flourish once they can answer the ‘so what’ behind social media plans for their organisation and can articulate that to the agencies/outsourcers /community managers to execute.

Written by Andrew Davis

(Image source: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8430/7879655062_299d807e3b.jpg)

The post Is the Role of the Social Media Manager Changing? appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

DJIA Movements from Market Watch

Historically, it has been difficult for traders to access social media sites such as Twitter via their terminals as the site is blocked at most major financial firms given its private messaging function presents a compliance risk. However, many stock analysts, traders and wealth managers keep a close track of Twitter and events online via their personal devices. Twitter is gaining a foothold in the markets as Bloomberg recently announced that it would add Twitter to its trading-floor terminals.

However, events this week have shown just how sensitive and volatile the markets can be to major events on social media. The ‘false news tweet’ from a credible source such as Associated Press which has over 1.9 million follows – many of those in Financial Services and market-movers – highlights the inherent risks. This is complicated by many trading programmes using algorithms that analyse online news and execute trades automatically based on the news. This further reinforces the need for regulators and online security to be further ahead in their thinking and plans. Indeed, Twitter is said to further bolster its security after this hacking episode.

Just out of interest – how much of a market-loss was represented by the sudden fall in the DJIA? It can be estimated to be over $100billion – but given the nature of the DJIA it is impossible to calculate precisely because the DJIA is not weighted upon the market capitalisation of the companies that comprise it. For reference, the DJIA is an index calculated by taking the stock price of the 30 companies in the Dow and dividing it by what is known as a Dow Divisor.

It is clear that social media can and does have an effect on the financial markets and stock prices. Regulators and security firms may struggle to keep up with the pace of social media – but it is inherent on all of us to check the validity of news and cross-check multiple sources when making critical decisions.

And so there you have it, life and markets continue to be volatile – but “Olympus Has ‘Not’ Fallen” and it is not “The Day After Tomorrow”.

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post The Impact of Social Media on Wall Street and the Financial Markets appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) is the busiest fire brigade in the country and one of the largest fire-fighting and rescue organisations in the world. We have previously worked with personnel from the LFB and are delighted to see that LFB is the most liked and followed social media offering of any regional or local public sector organisation in the UK.

The LFB opened the conference and highlighted some of their social media successes, such as over 4 million people seeing an image of a set of burnt hair straighteners that it posted on its Facebook page and the impact that social media is having on getting its fire-safety messages out to the public. Initiatives such as this have helped the LFB to target both hard-to-reach and broad audiences. In addition, the LFB has developed original digital ideas such as using Blippar (augmented reality) to promote the World Rescue Challenge and setting up the world’s first 999 emergency Twitter feed (though the LFB stress that people should always dial 999 in emergencies).

Before, we closed the event – there were other presentations given by Greater Manchester Police, Royal Mail, Tweetminster and former BBC news reporter, Sue Llewellyn. The event was excellently facilitated by Neil McNeil, another former news reporter.

The topic that we presented on with was titled: ‘Staff Relations: Raising Our Collective Understanding of Social Media’. The attendees were keen to understand how social media increasingly is focused on building relationships, engagement and ‘footprint’ in the public sector. We also highlighted how social media has become a norm and mass media; impacting individuals and organisations as communities engage both offline and online. In addition, we presented a simple model showing social media maturity in organisations from those that are ‘Traditionally Dispersed’ to those that are ‘Fully Integrated’ – and illustrated this with case studies to aid staff relations and employee engagement.

However, what was most pleasing for us to see was how proactive the public sector organisations are in their adoption of social media and the range of projects successfully implemented making a difference to the communities that they serve. A really good and insightful day – with many thanks to the LFB!

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post New Ways of Seeing Social Media Conference – London Fire Brigade Tuesday 23rd April 2013 appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

What is ColaLife? Well, simply, it is a cause that you must support! I became aware of ColaLife having met Simon at Ravensbourne College about two years ago and was inspired by how he had developed ColaLife. Simply put, ColaLife is working in developing countries to bring Coca-Cola (though this is not an exclusive partner), its bottlers and others together to open up Coca-Cola’s distribution channels to carry ‘social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements to save children’s lives.

The key insight, and very sad fact, here is that ‘you can buy cola or washing powder virtually anywhere in developing countries – even in distant rural areas – but in these very same areas basic healthcare products are not available’. In some of these areas up to 1 in 5 children die before their 5th birthday from simple preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea.

The ‘genius and magic’ of ColaLife is that it uses the ‘triangular space’ between the bottles in a typical drinks crate to ensure ‘last mile’ distribution of its social products and attaches a financial value to them so that all those involved at each stage of its distribution realises some value. This solution has the approval and support from UNICEF and a host of other organisations. Simon and Jane have driven ColaLife with limited resource and maintained a relentless focus on success and the impact of a successful roll-out. Aside from being a great case-study into ‘entrepreneurship’ and dedication; ColaLife is also an example of insight-driven social innovation and leveraging assets and competencies – but more importantly of the tragic, but preventable, reality affecting many families in the developing world.

Just quickly, going back to the Design Awards (which are the ‘Oscars of the Design World’ and showcase the most innovative designs from around the world in categories such as: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Transport and Product) – ColaLife beat off competition such as the Olympic Cauldron. This must be the first time that an anti-diarrhoea kit takes centre stage as a design icon, standing alongside a renovated tower block in Paris, a film on fashion and a UK Government website. The ultimate winner selected on 17 April 2013 from all the individual category winners was Gov.uk (designed by the Government Digital Service as a portal for all of the UK government’s websites).

And so, what of the impact of social media on ColaLife? I had the pleasure of catching up with Simon recently and he informed me that social media allowed ColaLife to build awareness and gain advocacy quickly. It gave him and Jane the ability to engage ‘big players’ such as Coca-Cola and UNICEF in the early days of their campaigning with their community of vocal online supporters.

Another aspect of social media is being able to identify and connect with appropriate ‘contacts’ or resource. In ColaLife’s case they have attracted some of the leading experts in health logistics and global health – who have generously given ColaLife their time, expertise and encouragement.

Social media has also provided ‘open innovation’ for ColaLife – whereby the original concept has been developed and enhanced to a more firm proposition. The community has challenged Simon and the team (and continue to do so) and in responding to these challenges Simon and the team have been able to build upon the original concept. This is an on-going process.

Whilst social media can and does sometimes attract a bad press, generally through its misuse or misapplication –social media has given the ColaLife team a feeling of responsibility and has helped them be transparent. When ColaLife does anything – the team know they have a commitment to report back through their blog/Facebook Page/social media presences to their supporters. Indeed, it is these supporters who have also provided ColaLife with much energy as the ColaLife team can feel that they are part of a ‘movement’ – and not just working hard on a ‘project’.

From an organisational and social media point of view – what does this all mean? At The Worst Kept Secret, we are fortunate to have worked with a number of charities and organisations in the not-for-profit sector. We can demonstrate how having a clear social media strategy with rich content and even supported by crowd-sourcing/crowd funding can help drive: messaging, development, awareness, advocacy and fund-raising amongst corporate and individual target groups. I asked Simon, given ColaLife’s successful use of social media, what would be his five practical ‘top-tips’ that other organisations can use… And in Simon’s words here they are:

“1) There is no rush to build a website. You can start by going to the places where your potential supporters are already and focus your energy into establishing yourself in channels like: Facebook; Instagram, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, commenting on the blogs of others, Delicious, Pinterest, etc.
2) Once these social presences are up and running – then maintain these ‘channels’ effectively with engaging and frequent updates. At this stage a website may be appropriate to capture all traffic and act as a central point.
3) When you do set up a website, then use this as an ‘aggregator’ of the content you have already on these other channels: pull in photos and videos from your social media presences; link to additional blog posts you have; put links to new content (e.g. blog posts) on Facebook and Twitter; and use any widgets that are available to you and place them on your website too.
4) Blog! Tell people what you are up to all the time. Search engines love words, blogs generate words! If you are doing something worthwhile then you should be telling people about it.
5) If possible (and it might not be), try and come up with a unique ‘tag’ or name. The name ‘ColaLife’ is pretty unique and works well. Test the names you come with using a Google search. ColaLife’s channels are: facebook.com/ColaLife, youtube.com/ColaLife, flickr.com/photos/ColaLife/, twitter.com/ColaLife, soundcloud.com/ColaLife – note the pattern!”

Many thanks to Simon for sharing those social media ‘top-tips’. I hope you all follow ColaLife’s development, pilot and ‘scale-up’ strategy through the ColaLife Facebook page or blog. And once again congratulations to ColaLife for being the Product Category Winner in the Design Awards 2013 – and more importantly for making such an impact in Public Health and the lives of children in the developing world.

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post Social entrepreneurship and social media help to drive ColaLife forward and win the Product Design Category in the Design Awards 2013 appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

Aframe is a powerful, yet simple to use collaborative video platform built for production companies, broadcasters, brands, freelancers, archives – in fact just about anyone who produces video content. It simplifies the process of searching, sharing and storing video – offering secure and unlimited storage for these valuable assets. This need is both apparent in video production companies and, more so, in large corporates who traditionally have a lot of video content stored on physical media across many disparate locations.

“It is really exciting to be part of the Aframe story and play a part in redefining video production management as the volume of video content explodes,” said Dowshan Humzah, Director of TWKS. “We look forward to delivering creative and business building solutions using social media and community management for Aframe – helping them to target the key decision makers, have engaging conversations online and solve the difficulties that those in video production or video asset management may have.”

“Aframe gives anyone, anywhere, the ability to realise their creative vision and recognise the value of their video assets by removing the limitations to their success, with a system that is unlimitedly powerful, but is very simple to use.” said Gary Knight COO of Aframe. “We look forward to developing our understanding of social media and community management to help build our business through our collaboration with TWKS.”

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post TWKS deepens it roster of B2B and Digital Brands – and is delighted to be working with Aframe to build their social media capability and help grow their business appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

Previously, we explored ‘Integrated Marketing and How the Old Principles Still Lend Themselves to Digital and Social Media’. All organisations need to ‘invest accordingly’ when it comes to digital and social media, the ‘mobile web’ and their integrated nature – and build upon their existing online efforts – in order to take full advantage of the real-time and relevant insights that can help shape product development and aid profitable growth. The ‘investing’ element is not under debate, but the ‘accordingly’ element is – in terms of value and structure (or Target Operating Models).

Many times, I have been asked by those we present to, including recently one CEO and one MD at their respective Board meetings, where the responsibility should sit for digital and social media in their organisation. Both of them inferred and gazed at the Marketing Director. This is probably a typical answer but personally rather short-sighted – viewing the role and impact of digital and social media as only a communications channel. This may have much to do with the fact that in the UK most Marketing Directors, Managers or CMOs only have responsibility for brand and awareness (and in some cases a large advertising spend).

However, if we take the Procter & Gamble definition of a brand as ‘a promise delivered’ and their typical responsibilities for Brand Management and Marketing then a Marketer (with gravitas and impact) should have responsibility for brand equity, the P&L (topline revenue and profitability), strategy (long-term planning), product (development and management) and customer experience. And so, digital and social media finds a comfortable and appropriate home and ‘champion’ that can ‘e-enable’ a whole organisation and let organisational capability develop.

As I said, in the introduction and have illustrated in the figure above – digital and social media cuts across an organisation impacting all departments and most of their objectives. If digital is viewed as communications tool then some believe it could fit in Marketing or PR; if a sales channel or for customer service then it could fit in Operations or Sales – and yet it will have significant impact on Product, Research & Development, Strategy, Supply Chain, Finance and Investor Relations (helping each of these departments to gain greater real-time insights and improve decision making). And so, given this and in the absence of a ‘definite’ home for digital and social media – there is much clamour for new Board level for CxO positions. In addition, we have seen Ecommerce Directors be appointed to boards to bring a focus to digital as a sales and customer experience channel as well as manage its profitability.

Having one ‘digital lead’ is understandable given that most organisations have a broad spread of digital competence and capability – with multiple agencies or external vendors across departments. Other solutions include having a ‘Centre of Excellence’ or ‘Global Team’ (generally serving the major geography and ‘supporting’ via ‘best practice’ other geographies). However, all of this reinforces the need for ‘someone’ to pull together a clear view of the current situation, business challenges, vision and strategy. And so, a short-term solution may be to appoint a Chief Digital Officer or ‘digital lead’ to assist with this and aid any resulting transformation. But, in my view, this should be positioned as only a short-term or interim role.

There is a similar debate going on about the need for Chief Customer Officers or Customer Experience Directors. This seems to be due to the fact that many organisations state that they ‘have the customer at the heart of the organisation’ or are ‘customer centric’. Not many understand what this means or how true it is – especially when times become tough or shareholders question performance. However, given the importance of customer focus – I can see the debate for ‘Customer Experience leads’, but once again I would not endorse it. All departments must be customer focused and could use the model below to deliver a seamless customer experience flowing from the ‘brand promise’ and a typical customer flow/journeys. This further reinforces the need for digital (online) and offline integration and a seamless experience.

And so, ultimately, all organisations must ensure that digital (and an end-customer focus) is spread and embedded across all departments and helps to achieve desired business objectives. This ‘embedded model’ which I fully support would then negate the long-term need for a Chief Digital Officer, Ecommerce Director, Digital Director or one ‘digital lead’ (outside of the CEO) as well as the multitude of other new CxO positions.

I guess all of the significant ‘technology, new media, digital or retail organisations’ set up in the last 20 years or so do not have a digital lead; however, would appointing an ‘Offline Director’ or ‘Chief Telephony Officer’ or ‘Bricks and Mortar Officer’ be seen as ‘retro-chic? I guess not and certainly not needed!

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post Digital and Social Media Cuts across an Organisation (as a Competence, Capability and Channel) – and so, Negates the Long-Term Need for a Chief Digital Officer…? appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

The Method: Creating a Twitter list

Skill Level: Beginners/Intermediate

Time Taken: Less than 2 minutes to create

Who for: Twitter users

What to do: 

1. Log into Twitter and click on the icon at the top of the page: 
2. An option called ‘Lists’ will appear. Click on it.
3. Click ‘Create list’.
4. Add a name to your list, a short description explaining what this list is about, and select if you want the list to be private (for your eyes only) or public (anyone can see and subscribe to the list).
5. Click ‘Save list’.
6. Find individuals on Twitter who you think would be relevant for the list you have just created.
7. Click on ‘head’ icon next to ‘Follow’.
8. Select ‘add or remove from list’
9. Select the list you want to add the individual too
10. To find them, go back to step 1 & 2 and click on your list

So What?

Lists can help you segment your potential audiences. If you want a list just on ‘trade press’ to keep up to date with what they are doing then you can create and import Twitter handles into that list. A few popular lists people have created include: journalists, bloggers, influencers and their competition. If done correctly, you will find a lot of your research, insights and engagements through your lists.

The post How to set up a Twitter List appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

My first experience of the ‘marketing mix’ and media was when I started my career in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble in 1994 – leading the Hugo Boss fragrance brands in the UK. This was in the pre-digital days: the Internet was pretty much unheard of (15million users worldwide compared with 2.5billion today); webmasters were yet to evolve; Google was a very long number… and a certain Mark Zuckerberg had only just passed his 11^th birthday and was yet to enter high-school. Me, well I was on the development team for P&G’s new designer fragrance (Hugo by Hugo Boss) and was also responsible for launching it in the UK. We had managed to secure the world exclusive launch for it in London, a first for any global P&G designer fragrance at the time and also deliver many other firsts such as launching it with the new fashion sub-brand of the same name; gaining agreement to a female franchise; and launching the fragrance above-the-line building equity not via TV but initially with targeted cinema, magazines, radio and sampling. The media strategy led by Mediacom was award-winning and I named it the rather unscientific sounding ‘trumpet strategy’ based on its visual representation – a strategy which I still use today (Figure 1 above).

I recall a pre-launch meeting for Hugo where the German brand team (who were leading product development along with the US brand team and ourselves in the UK) were talking about using a ‘new, innovative, digital medium for launch… called CD-Roms’. Many of us in the room just did not buy it let alone understand it – and so, I passed over on my ‘first digital marketing’ activity. Needless to say this early digital activity would have been at the mouth of the trumpet targeted to the core-target audience. The German brand team used it – much as we all use targeted digital media today. However, back then we still talked about vertical segments: ‘age group 16-24 years of socio-economic demographic ABC1’; however, for Hugo we added ‘horizontal’ psychographic elements of ‘young, hip, urban trend-setters interested in music, fashion and technology… (figure 2 below shows a model used for targeting). We built early interest, buzz, awareness and sales through ‘word of mouth’ and sampling fragrance sachets. How much easier would this have been in today’s social media world where you can identify and target audience groups by the more pertinent ‘horizontal’ elements of values, beliefs and opinions that can more readily drive consumer behaviour. In essence, today ‘you are defined as much as by what you share as opposed to what you say or click’.

We must have done something right back then as the typically riguorous P&G analysis and financial modelling using @risk (yes, we have significantly more advanced programs today but these still work!) showed that we only had a 55% chance of a positive net present value (NPV) in the UK. In addition, the Financial Times had stated that most new designer fragrance brands had a shelf life of less than 3 years. Well, it’s more than fifteen years on – and Hugo remains P&G’s most successful fragrance launch and still is a top seller in the UK and globally. A significant part of this success was due to: 1) listening in as much as real-time as possible to the core target audience by being directly with them and gaining insights quickly; 2) developing a product and marketing strategy based on what they were saying in their distinct geographical and trend-setting groups in their own environment; and 3) then getting them to spread the word quickly. Effectively, that real-time listening, quick development and encouraging word-of-mouth is what marketers are doing for organisations today using online listening tools and digital and social media sites to spread the word.

Indeed much credit is due to Procter & Gamble who wrote the book on Brand Management and Marketing – as many of those early principles that I learnt and used are just as valid today. As I mentioned, the ‘media trumpet’ strategy of targeting a core audience defined by horizontal segments, their ‘likes’ and broadening out over time is used successfully by many brands. Indeed the original advertising strap-line from the Hugo launch of ‘Don’t imitate, innovate!’ still resonates today and the innovation in product and its digital marketing strategy is evident.

After P&G, I joined Orange and yes ‘the future was bright, the future was Orange’ as the millennium was approaching. With an unrelenting focus on the customer and innovation, Orange was delivering great products and service. This was reflected in its valuation (by France Telecom in 2000); its per subscriber value was at a significant premium to the other three UK mobile operators. Prior to all the takeover activity, I was responsible for International Products and Services. It was actually easier to gain a mortgage approval than it was to have roaming on your mobile back in 1998. One of my first wins was to change the credit criteria to enable the whole base (only1.5m at the time) to have IDD and over 60% to have roaming from a standing start. From a digital perspective, we actually had a debate on whether to build a website for the new products and services… oh, how times have changed! There was only one person responsible for the whole Orange website at the time as opposed to the large teams, many agencies and multiple-millions of pounds in budget today. Obviously, online has become a significant sales and customer service channel today. The parallel I see today is with social media – much as back then as we all debated the importance of the Internet and websites, their relevance to business goals and the need for resource if online became a significant channel. Many organisations are having the same debate today about social media and online community management. If we believe that social media can deliver against typical business objectives (such as: profitable growth, great customer service, gaining recommendations and advocacy, managing costs and increasing investor sentiment) then as with the early Internet days we need to plan and resource for it accordingly.

When we have seen the impact of the Internet and websites on many organisations – we should not be myopic, but invest accordingly when it comes to social media, the ‘mobile web’ and their integrated nature. Industries such as music (given file sharing and disaggregated online purchases), retail insurance (given direct online sites and price comparison aggregator sites) and high-street stores (given online sales channels) have been redefined in only a decade and have seen core profitability decline as they were not ready or accepting of the consumer and technology changes.

The two figures illustrated here show the media trumpet strategy and target audience segmentation – both of which can help organisations and marketers today. The big change is with digital media especially social media and mobile providing the real-time and relevant insights that can help shape product development and add to a marketing strategy throughout the ‘trumpet’ providing greater engagement. In addition (as previously discussed elsewhere on this website), they act as channels in their own right (supporting sales, advocacy and service).

As business development and marketing have developed with the changes in consumer behaviour, technology and distribution channel – so has our view on measurement. Particularly in B2B environments – where there is an increased focus on ‘conversation’ as opposed to ‘pure conversion’ or ROI. The typical marketing flow seems dated and too short-term on immediate conversion when customer lifetime value is the better measure now – with ‘engagement and intelligence’ being used to convert at the appropriate time in the purchase cycle.

To help address some of the issues raised here and help us move forward do we need digital departments, digital champions or both or board level officers responsible for digital or customer experience officers across all channels? The next blog will deal with this… and the rise of or the need for the Chief Digital Officer…?

Written by Dowshan Humzah

The post Integrated Marketing – How the Old Principles Still Lend Themselves to Digital and Social Media appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

Recently we have worked closely with many B2B companies and helped them understand where social media sits within their organisation or for specific projects. Based on some of the biggest challenges they faced, here are four areas for B2B marketers to focus on right now:

Have more appropriate content online

Content is the lifeblood of social media. Without content it is difficult to have a digital strategy linked to your business objectives. It is important to identify:
• What content resonates with your potential customers and objectives
• What content works with particular sites that you want to use

A common mistake is concentrating on one site and then trying to make the content fit within the parameters of that site. The focus should be content first and then deciding which main sites are relevant for that particular content.

Ensure a strong focus on the ‘context’ behind content

One of our clients had an interesting fact: there is as much content uploaded to the Internet in one day now than in the whole of 2003. If this is the case then you need to ensure people can find your content. A common mistake marketers make is to upload a lot of content with no understanding of the importance of context. Before, or during, your content creation you need to ask yourself:
• How are people going to find this via search?
• Would my potential customers share this content with their other contacts?
• If I am using a site (LinkedIn), how can someone discover my content if they are looking at something similar?

We believe context is as important, if not more important, than content creation in 2013.

Ensure buy-in from senior management

Marketers this year should spend a portion of their time persuading senior management about the correct and most efficient use of applying social media. This year it is all about answering this question: So What?

Senior management wants to know how it can help improve objectives like retention, sales and customer service. Justifying with numbers is only a small part of the equation. Once you define your goal, tested your strategy and proven it works then it is an easier conversation to have with senior management and get their buy-in. Most senior managers now understand social media can help their organisation but still struggle to see the ROI. It is your job to prove that.

Yes – you need a mobile strategy!

Right now mobile is where SEO was in 1999 and social media in 2007. Many business leaders/marketers have said that they wish they had a SEO/social media strategy earlier. This is where mobile is and we need to avoid that conversation in a few years time. Make sure you have a mobile strategy that combines other elements of marketing. This is essential in the B2B world as most employees have a mobile phone with them at all times. And it is safe to assume that some type of business is done on the phone whether it is researching or emailing. Mobile is essentially putting your business in your client’s pocket so why would you not want to grab that opportunity.

So there you have it. Some of the biggest problems from last year and early this year that we believe need to be addressed. If you are interested in further information or knowing how we can help your organisation then please do not hesitate to contact us.

The post 4 Focal Points for B2B Social Media Marketing appeared first on The Worst Kept Secret | Social Media Agency | Bespoke Training, Strategy Consulting and Community Management.

Furthermore, the impact of social media is also seen at the more specialist end of business-to-business i.e. in the traditional professional service firms (such as management consultancies, the big 4 accounting/audit firms, legal practices, investment, wealth & brokerage houses, etc). Many professional service firms use digital and social media for a variety of purposes such as: research, identifying specific target audiences, developing conversations, building thought leadership and generating sales leads.

The real-time and ‘conversive’ nature of social media lends itself well to management consultancies. For instance, McKinsey & Co do a great job of spreading relevant and engaging content through social media and creating conversations that help to build its market ‘thought leadership’ while supporting lead generation. However, given social media is built on immediacy and openness, some of the traditional professional service firms who are risk averse are wary and are more concerned with control as opposed to potential influence. Clearly, the challenge for them is to take advantage of social media and its benefits whilst managing the associated risks. This can be achieved through simple common-sense policies, adoption of best practice and having digital champions in the business to help build capability, confidence and comfort in using social media tools to aid business objectives.

There is challenge in that many professionals working in these firms (regardless of function) do not endear digital and social media to their Boards; they do not show the value of it against core business objectives. For instance, my company was engaged by a major professional services firm to help it understand digital and social media. We were able to deliver a series of workshops covering a broad range of digital and social media tools to assist with their core business drivers (articulated from the Partners in the firm) which we summarised in three words which resonated with all stakeholders and senior personnel: sustainability, pipeline and innovation.

Under the umbrella of these three words (drivers), we were able to show how our ’10 Elements of Digital and Social Media’ framework could assist with: providing thought leadership; identifying and targeting decision makers; generating real-time research and insight, deepening business relationships; maximising lifetime value of contracts; supporting and differentiating in bids; and assisting with innovative proposition build. And so whenever a marketing lead, Director or a Partner talks about digital and social media they now have an appreciation of its relevance and impact on core business objectives.

Indeed many professionals (be they marketers or other functional executives in all organisations) used to wrongly see digital and social media as being on the periphery to support marketing/PR or as project work for junior members. Many organisations now recognise that digital and social media is far more important and see it supporting and driving some of the core objectives that flow down from the Board. And so, increasingly digital and social media is giving them faster and more poignant insights into the vertical markets in which they operate helping with growth outside of just the traditional business building methods.

Furthermore, with another client of ours in the business-to-business technology distribution sector we have seen how they have used digital and social media to aid both business growth and enhance customer service. Here, the distributors are rewarded by their suppliers on their delivery of outstanding customer service. For them, we used our simple ’4Cs of Content’ framework to show how content Creation, in the correct Context with appropriate and essential Conversation can support and lead to their eventual required Conversion (be that a customer self-service or cross-sell). Ultimately, what senior personnel in these organisations wanted to see was business impact, prospects talking about them and clients advocating them.

It is clear that digital and social media cuts across all functions be they client, supplier, media, internal or investor facing – providing pertinent and timely insights, helping to target specific audiences and generate customer advocacy – all driving profitable growth, customer lifetime value and service for any organisation.

And so, let’s ditch the cliché bandwagon of “it’s all about Facebook, Twitter and now Pinterest” and take a step back, apply a ‘digital and social media lens’ to see how the different elements of digital and social media support core business drivers at a Board level and then set the strategy across the organisation as opposed to social media being an add-on or ‘being the perfect project for junior members’.

Written by Dowshan Humzah

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