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Which Social Network is Best for B2B Marketing?

May 14th, 2013

Search Engine Watch

Which social network is the best for B2B marketing? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube each offer B2B marketers value. Let’s review these top sites from a B2B social marketing perspective so we can crown an undisputed champion.

The Keys to Social B2B Victory

When it comes to using social media as a marketing tool for B2B organizations, which have an end goal of qualified lead generation, the underlying key to success is to drive thought-leadership and credibility around a desired market position that will yield target engagement. To do so, a B2B organization must first have a solid social media plan that defines the market position and a review of the online competition.

The online brand that will be delivered in social must align with a B2B organization’s brand promise, mission, and value proposition. Choosing the appropriate channel(s) depends on a number of factors including:

Continue reading… 

Categories: Advertising & Marketing Blog, Digital Media Blog, Social Media Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social marketing reaches critical mass

March 7th, 2013

BtoB daily news

New York—Social media marketing has reached a stage of maturity that places it firmly in the mainstream of marketing channel activity, with fully 96% of marketers engaging with social media in some fashion, according to a new report by BtoB. In addition, according to BtoB’s “Social Media: From Marginal to Mainstream,” 47% of b2b marketers are “very involved” or “fully integrated” with social marketing, up from 28% last year. Social media now commands 6% of the average b2b marketing budget, a figure that rises to 9% among best-in-class marketing departments, according to the report.

However, only 41% of marketers reported that they make any attempt to measure social’s return on investment. Further, respondents rate the performance of social media as a marketing tool at just 6.4 on a 10-point scale.  BtoB’s report is based on an online poll conducted in January and February 2013 that drew 432 b2b marketer respondents.

Continue reading…

 

Categories: Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NEW REPORT: B2B Lead Generation Trends 2013

February 27th, 2013

B2B Technology Marketing Community

Our B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn conducted the 2013 lead generation survey to better understand how B2B marketers are adjusting to new challenges, and to identify new trends and best practices.

Here are the Top-5 Trends in B2B Lead Generation (for more details download the report):

(1) The number one challenge for B2B marketers: Generating high quality leads.
(2) The most effective lead generation tactics used by marketers: Company website, email marketing and SEO.
(3) The greatest barrier to lead generation success is lack of resources: Staff, budget and time.
(4) B2B marketers’ top metrics to measure marketing ROI: Cost per lead, revenue and lead volume.
(5) The secret to B2B email success: Provide compelling content for each stage in the buying process to move buyers from first touch to purchase.

View full report

 

Categories: Lead Generation Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Crain’s BtoB Announces Its Social Media Marketing Award Winners

February 26th, 2013

Cisco Systems Wins Two awards; People’s Choice Online Voting Open Now

NEW YORK & FRAMINGHAM, MA – February 26, 2013–BtoB editors have selected 20 companies as winners or runners-up among 118 entries in BtoB’s fourth annual Social Media Marketing Awards program.

First-place honors go to the following 10 companies:

Integrated (technology): Adobe Systems; Integrated (non-technology): Aon;  Facebook: Emerson Climate Technologies; Twitter: GE Intelligent Platforms; LinkedIn: Dell Inc; Best Use of Pinterest: Constant Contact; Viral Video: Dun & Bradstreet; Mobile: Cisco Systems; Corporate Blog: Intel Corp.; and, Closed Community: Cisco Systems.

            Submissions were accepted last November into January 2013.  All the editors’ selections are online at http://bit.ly/13bx6vv, and will be reported on in the March 2013 BtoB print issue.  John Obrecht, editor of BtoB, said: “We’ve entered a new era of social marketing, The sophistication of programs has reached a new level as exemplified by our People’s Choice nominees.”

For the fourth consecutive year, IDG Communications is the Premier sponsor of the BtoB Social Media Marketing Awards.  “Marketers have come a long way since the first awards program where social might have been a small part of a campaign.  Now, marketers must include earned media exposure if they want to reach prospects who rely on social networks for information and purchase decisions,” said Matthew Yorke, president, IDG Global Solutions.  “We congratulate the winners and runners up who excelled in their use of social media marketing.”

 Online Voting for People’s Choice Awards Continues Through March 1
BtoB editors selected three entries from tech and non-tech categories for the People’s Choice awards.  Online voters can choose between tech entries: Adobe Systems:  “Metrics, Not Myths;” Deltek: “Connect More;” or, Dell: “LinkedIn Page.”  On the non-tech side the nominees are Aon: “Global Service Day;” New Cities Foundation: “DeusM Social Media Campaign;” or, Emerson Climate Technologies: “Painted Copeland Scroll Compressor Program.”

Online voting for the People’s Choice nominees is open until Friday, March 1 at 4 pm eastern.  Vote at http://bit.ly/URZPGs.

Awards Lunch at Digital Edge Live Conference
The People’s Choice awards, selected by online voters for tech and non-tech entries, will be announced on Wednesday, March 20 at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco.  The category award honorees and runners-up will also be recognized at the lunch.

Speakers at the all day conference include executives from IBM, SAP, Intuit, Intel, Cisco Systems, USG, and IDC.

To register for the conference and awards lunch, please go to http://bit.ly/YU0Qe6

About BtoB
BtoB, a Crain Communications publication, is the magazine for marketing strategists. It is the only publication dedicated to all disciplines of business-to-business marketing. In print and electronically, BtoB delivers the latest trends, best practice case studies, research, and analysis that senior marketers need to develop a winning integrated marketing strategy.

About International Data Group
International Data Group (IDG) is the world’s leading technology media, events and research company. Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, IDG products and services reach an audience of more than 280 million technology buyers in 97 countries.

IDG Communications’ global media brands include ChannelWorld®, CIO®, CSO®, Computerworld®, GamePro®, InfoWorld®, Macworld®, Network World®, PCWorld®, TechHive, and TechWorld®. IDG’s media network features 460 websites, 200 mobile sites and apps and 200 print titles spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment, and video games worldwide. The IDG TechNetwork represents more than 500 independent websites in an ad network and exchange complementary to IDG’s media brands.

With expertise in branding, lead generation, and social media marketing, IDG marketing services programs are strategically designed and implemented to influence technology vendor prospects worldwide.

A recognized leader in conference and exhibition management, IDG produces more than 700 globally branded technology and entertainment conferences and events in 55 countries.
International Data Corporation (IDC), a subsidiary of IDG, has more than 1,000 analysts who provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in more than 110 countries.

Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at http://www.idg.com.

 

Contacts: For IDG:  Howard Sholkin, 508-766-5610, howard_sholkin@idg.com
For BtoB: John Olbrecht, 312-649-5326, jobrecht@crain.com

Trademarks and registered trademarks are owned by International Data Group, Inc.  All product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies.

 

 

Categories: Advertising & Marketing News, Social Media News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Only 18 percent of CEOs use social media—but why?

February 6th, 2013

Ragan.com

The big boys and girls still aren’t playing on the online playground, a Weber Shandwick report says, but the reasons for their reluctance remain murky.

Social networking, when done well, can be an extremely powerful marketing and sales tool for businesses of any size. It can put a human face on a company. It can establish thought leadership. It can be a great way to understand and serve the interests of your customers (and potential customers). That’s why a recent report from Weber Shandwick, the global public relations firm, was so stunning. The Weber Shandwick team looked into the social media activities of the CEOs from the top 50 companies listed in the Fortune Global 500 rankings, measuring everything from participation in social networks to inclusion of the CEO on the company website.

Their report, Socializing Your CEO II, included key findings, including the fact that only 18 percent of the CEOs studied participated on social networks and not one of them had a company-affiliated blog.

Among their other findings:

Continue reading… 

Categories: Social Media Blog, Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twitter Seen Outpacing Facebook, LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

January 28th, 2013

Marketing Charts

While social media remains somewhat of a bit player in driving B2B website traffic, it accounted for about 5% of leads in 2012, per results Please or in order to access this content. from an Optify study. Comparing the largest players within the social media space, Facebook was the dominant driver of site visits, at a majority 54% share, followed by Twitter (32%) and LinkedIn (14%). But, when it came to leads, Twitter was far and away the most important social media source, generating 82% share of leads, compared to just 9% each for Facebook and LinkedIn.

Twitter not only was best for generating leads, but it also showed the highest conversion rates. Compared to the 1.22% average for social media (which was below the 1.6% average for all site sources), Twitter had a 78% higher conversion rate (2.17%), easily outperforming LinkedIn (0.8%) and Facebook (0.74%).

Read more… 

Categories: Lead Generation Research, Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Marketers Dive into Mobile

January 9th, 2013

eMarketer

A mobile-first mentality is taking hold

There is no question that social media has gone mobile, as more and more consumers access their accounts via smartphones and tablets. Now, marketers are racing to catch up with consumers where they connect, employing a variety of strategies for outreach, according to a new eMarketer report, “Social Media Marketing on Mobile Devices: Turning Challenges into Opportunities.”

148536 Social Marketers Dive into Mobile

Continue reading… 

Categories: Mobile Research, Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Interest in Pinterest, Google+ Climbs

December 17th, 2012

eMarketer

Facebook and social media management technology top marketing dollar investments for 2013.  With two-thirds of the US internet population expected to belong to a social network by the end of 2013, according to eMarketer estimates, the majority of brands are now actively using social media to manage their digital presence.

Q3 2012 findings from media buying and solutions provider STRATA showed 91.9% of those surveyed were using social media. The vast majority (82.4%) of US agencies reported using Facebook for clients’ social media campaigns, nearly double or more the number using the popular platforms YouTube (41.9%), Twitter (36.5%) and LinkedIn (23%). Emerging platforms Google+ and Pinterest saw significant growth in reported quarter-over-quarter usage with roughly one in four US agencies likely to use each of these networks for clients’ social media campaigns.

 Continue reading…

Categories: Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Power of Paid, Owned and Earned Media

November 7th, 2012

Matthew Yorke, President, IDG Global Solutions
The Power of Paid, Owned and Earned Media bb spacer The Power of Paid, Owned and Earned Media
 Matthew Yorke is president IDG Global Solutions and is responsible for a sales organization that serves IDG’s largest technology vendor customers worldwide. In addition to major accounts responsibility worldwide Yorke leads marketing and communications programs in the US.

 

In my last blog, I emphasized the importance of social media for marketing and business. A global study by IDG found that nine out of 10 tech B2B buyers engage with social media sites and services.  It takes a potent mixture of paid, owned, and earned media working together to interest prospects and convert them to customers. The best description I have seen is from a 2012 report “The Converged Media Imperative,” by the insightful folks at Altimeter which stated:

“Converged Media utilizes two or more channels of paid, owned, and earned media. It is characterized by a consistent storyline, look, and feel. All channels work in concert, enabling brands to reach customers exactly where, how, and when they want, regardless of channel, medium, or device, online or offline. With the customer journey between devices, channels, and media becoming increasingly complex, and new forms of technology only making it more so, this strategy of paid/owned/earned confluence makes marketers impervious to the disruption caused by emerging technologies.”

Social Media Plus

By this definition, social marketing is not just advertising on Facebook or Linkedin, posting blogs, tweeting, inviting visitors to comment on a website, or running engaging digital ad units.  Multiple elements that are planned in concert are needed to interest and influence people. In our experience, socially optimized ads work best when supported by other social activities that allow us to make decisions in real-time on where the ads should appear, what type of content themes we should develop for the tech marketer, and what kind of language should be used.

A key part of a social program is identifying and engaging influential bloggers based on client topics of interest such as cloud computing, security, mobile, and big data.  Then, how do we, on behalf of a client, respond to comments and tweets?  As a marketing partner, a publisher needs to think about all these things from the outset across all social and media platforms.

The various social and interactive pieces can be complicated and they do not fit easily into established advertising and media processes but when done right, you can expect  CTRs and engagement metrics that are two to six times greater than traditional digital campaigns.  CTRs, by the way, I believe are an outdated metric.  What is more valuable a retweet or comment compared to a click through?  I would take the former any day since social equity is far more useful in brand amplification.

In summary, of course your plans can be structured but the reality is so much of what you do will be unstructured in terms of how you engage in a social, real-time marketing world.  Think beyond advertising, blogging, or tweeting. Appreciate the enormous power of social platforms, co-opt those platforms, and use advertising that is supported by socially optimized content that is always changing.  A B2B marketer can build deep and meaningful relationships with prospects and will in turn receive insights that can shape communications strategy and lead to new business opportunities for the marketer’s company.

Categories: Digital Media Blog, Mobile Blog, Social Media Blog, Tech Business & Marketing Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Referrals to Facebook Spike 1000% After Twitter Cuts Off LinkedIn [CHART]

September 20th, 2012

Mashable

After severing ties with LinkedIn, Twitter inadvertently helped opponent Facebook snag 1000% more page referrals from the professional social network. PageLever, an analytics tool for Facebook pages, points to Twitter’s June 29 decision to stop syncing updates with LinkedIn as an explanation for the spike. “The spike happened because without Twitter, there is now a significantly lower volume of content in the LinkedIn News Feed, and therefore less competition for clicks and attention,” Brendan Irvine-Broque, PageLever’s director of growth, tellsMashable in an email. “So any non-Twitter content (including links to Facebook Pages and Page Posts) is performing much better than before.”

Read more…

Categories: Social Media News, Social Media Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,