Social Situations: Should your business use social media? by Aspin

Social Situations Should your business use social media?

Marcus Pullen, director for New Media and eCommerce at Aspin, highlights how social networking can be a useful B2B marketing, communication and customer service strategy.

At the moment, Twitter and Facebook are often seen as the latest magic bullet for marketing success. How many of us set out with every intention of utilising these new online services with high hopes only to find a trickle of a response? It’s hard to tell sometimes when some things are fad or actual benefit, and there’s no doubt that Social Networking is considered to be one such fad. However, despite the glitzy ‘Twitterati’ of celebrities with millions of followers, there is now a serious approach to highly targeted business-to-business communication using a wide range of social networking services.

What is social media? The concept of a Social Network may appear to be new, but it’s a fundamental aspect of society that’s been studied well before the arrival of the Internet. Predecessors of Twitter and Facebook were blogs and before that the online forum (1994), and even before that were electronic bulletin boards systems (BBSs are as old as 1974) and of course, email (that can be traced back to 1965) and of course there was the telegraph (mid 1800s). While email has become an overloaded cumbersome communication method that is now swamped with the dreaded spam, social network communication is, by its very nature, permission based and can be highly focused. Why Facebook and others have become so successful is down to being easy to setup, use and connect to other people who share interests and want to share that experience with other people. That’s pretty well it. What is so attractive to deep pocketed investors is the potential information that can be gathered from not only the users creating content on the system but their relationships and habits on a global scale. Social networking creates a goldmine of information on an unprecedented scale and as the adage goes: knowledge is power. But for us mere mortals, being able to communicate our views and ideas to a responsive global network is seen as a next generation marketing strategy that people want to be part of and, in theory, more receptive to.

Can social networking work for a business? So why is that when those of us who have dipped the corporate toe into the online water by setting up a Facebook or Twitter page, we can be disappointed with the results? Can social networking really be a benefit for your business? Yes… and no. That is something that you can and need to determine. Don’t waste time blindly setting up a Facebook page if none of your customers or prospects ever use social networking in their business. If your competitors don’t use social networking think about why that is. True you may need to become a trail blazer and lead your customers to it. If that’s the case you need to measure the success of your strategy every stop of the way. If every time you broadcast your Facebook page in your email marketing and website and no one signs up, perhaps after the fifth attempt it’s time to focus on other marketing strategies.

Choosing a social network service There’s a long, long list of social networking services, they also cover a range of diverse concepts in terms of sharing content…

Sharing pictures: Flickr, Tumblr, Photogram Flickr lets you create albums and share photographs with other users and is one of the oldest social network services around. It is in decline but it’s very comprehensive in its service. Tumblr is a cross between a very simple blog and multimedia album. Pictures can be and will be shared quickly across the network. According to the WSJ it’s currently valued over $800 million.

Sharing videos: YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia YouTube, the social TV website now owned by Google has everyone connected to the internet as a potential viewer. You have a very large audience to reach out to. Teen media success stories are all over this. Vimeo started out to be more an open community of artists wanting to share the work with the world and would not be for commercial business operations. Then it turned into a site for showreels and now there’s a business service for companies to spout and sell. It looks more classy than YouTube, but for how long? The High Definition video service is excellent. Wistia aims itself very much to the business orientated market. They charge a subscription fee but provide services for marketing as well as a very good video hosting service. The most interesting aspect of this service is that it provides detailed analytics on the user’s interaction with your video (hotspots).

Michell Phan was an art student who was spotted by Lancome and is now a video producer with 1.6 million subscribers. www.aspin.co.uk/ecommerce All content, concepts and visuals © Copyright 2011 Aspin Interactive Ltd. except for rights held by copyright holders of third party material and trademarks | Page 6 of 17

Sharing documents: Scribd, Issuu People seem still to be able to read and in big number. Both Scribd and Issuu offer great ways to add your own documents to your website but of course, it’s the sharing content between other network users that’s important. Issuu while looking perhaps more design lead is aimed at independant magazine publishers

Have something to say: Twitter The internet is often treated as the infinite talking shop, but Twitter kept it short and “sweet”, a bit like SMS for the web. It’s still sporting a massive subscriber base and like Facebook it has a ubiquitous app. Twitter has invested heavily in a number of services but is struggling to compete with competition from Facebook which is really taking over.

Sharing stuff you find interesting: StubleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Bit.ly Making your content easy to share is an effective way to allow people to do just that. The other benefit to opening up your content for open third party distribution is that while you are letting other people populate their social network with interesting titbits, you are collecting information on who and where your information is being shared. Service providers such as Addthis.com make the process easy to setup, in fact we provide this within all our InterSell 3 eCommerce solutions. As a product is made available on the website, the AddThis button will enable the website visitor to share on one of many different social networks and sharing services.

Sharing anything and everything: WordPress (Blogging), Facebook, Google+, MySpace, LinkedIn, Diaspora, Anybeat Blogging was the next step from forum posting: a diarised entry that people could discuss. WordPress for me is simple to setup and easy to use and is a great way to setup your first website in a hurry. Many companies run blogs to discuss what they’re doing and their industry in more depth. Facebook is at the moment a confused mess as far as its business model and service

Create your own social network Many companies and communities of people like the model of Facebook but are put off by either the sheer scale, misuse, the founder or just the general ‘vibe’ of these kinds of service, they have been looking to create their own networks of likeminded souls. So now there are a range of solutions for groups to setup their own social spaces. But for a business these give you control of the network, and create an opportunity of direct revenue opportunities for subscriptions and advertising that Facebook can’t provide. 

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Social Go - http://www.socialgo.com Monetisation of subscribers is a main theme also provides an AP for integration with other services. Ning - http://www.ning.com this is being used by a range of brands and Ning are aiming at companies wishing to develop bran loyalty. Socialengine - http://www.socialengine.net/ aiming more for community based websites.

to business is concerned but that doesn’t seem to stop them being the big name at the moment. They capture a heck of a lot of user information and they provide a very simple advertising system that works well. Google+ is an interesting hybrid which has a rapid growth that has already overtaken MySpace which I can’t see coping in the heat brought on by the competition. However, Google+ is still a collection of a few nice ideas that are waiting to get serious. LinkedIn however has finally become more than just a glorified business card exchange. They provide users with the facility to pull together lots of content from other social networks services the user has subscribed to and there are a range of professional groups to join and have meaningful discussions with. Those businesses looking to advertise to other companies have a more focused and attentive audience to send messages to. Diaspora is widely hyped as being the next generation of social networking but it’s only on a very restricted access at the moment so no one really know what all the fuss is about. Anybeat is so new that as of writing this I’m beta testing it and talking to Anybeat CEO Dmitri Shapiro about the service.

Most, if not eventually all, of these services factor advertising at the heart of their incentives to business but there’s a more long term and measurable benefit to a business thinking about signing-up and that’s being able to have dynamic interactions with highly targeted and receptive audiences.

Top 10 tips for setting up social media 1.

Find out if your customers and prospects actually use social networking! So the obvious point to start is to sign-up and look around for your customers and see what they are doing. Consumers will be already there and while you do want to reach out to them, your retail customers are there to be talking about you and with you. It’s a good opportunity to pick up the phone and talk to your contacts to ask them, try a survey to see if there’s a specific website or network people in your industry tend to use.

Support your customers’ social networking strategy. If you have retailers doing a good job representing your brands, it may pay to support them and provide them with resources for their social networking as well as yours. That’s the same thinking with their websites. Provide them with PDFs, videos (YouTube or Vimeo) to link to and… what about a competition?

Find out what social networks your prospects and customers use. You also need to consider that if your contacts do not use social networking in their job, there may be no point investing in it just yet. If there’s no one out there relevant to engage, you could be wasting your time. However, if you see your customers or prospects have LinkedIn accounts or are running Facebook and Twitter pages, it’s time to reach out.

Give people a reason to contact and follow you. If potential followers see you are interesting and something you say or share means something to them – they are only a click away from joining your network. The time/effort ‘cost’ to them is very low to allow you to send them information. However, that’s why it’s important that you present information to them that’s appealing.

Target your customers and prospects with relevant content. Once you know who is out there and where they are ‘hanging-out’, you need to think about what you want to achieve when you start to connect to people. And remember the first goal is getting people to ‘follow’ you.

Your company is made up of people, so make messages professional but personable. Don’t just broadcast your share price. It may be useful to your shareholders but your customers will not be so interested. Try to avoid wording that sounds like it’s been vetted by a legal team, even if it needs to be. Computers may be driving social networking but it’s humans that make the network. Don’t try to be clever and generate automated broadcasts on twitter. Think about what you intend to tweet and even use tools to schedule messages, but avoid tweets that are obviously robotic. Be prepared for feedback!

Understand how people use your brands/products and what they say. That’s just as valid for retailers as it is for end consumers. Be aware of what people already say about you and your products. If it’s good, share what they say. If it’s bad – talk to those people who complain and understand what their issues are. You may also find that there are collectives of people online in various networks who love your brands. If you’ve found them or already know about them, they are to be cherished, because they are voluntary champions for what you do. This is where you can put them to good use and spread the word. Remember to look after them.

Don’t be afraid to engage with end consumers online as well as your customers. Many distributors worry about dealing with end consumers. They worry that they may upset their customers by dealing with them. Or they don’t want to know and leave it to their retailers to deal with them. That’s missing an opportunity or in old fashioned terms – you’re missing a sale. So what to do? If you find a lot of consumers come to you, help them to find your products through the proper channels, but keep an eye on how well your customers service them. Here’s another useful side to social networking: keeping a finger on the consumer pulse helps understand the relationship of your customer with the end consumer. It may help you and your customers explore better ways to manage the supply chain process.

Get Creative! Try different networks and content. B2B marketing has changed rapidly over the last two years. Now businesses are engaging with other companies through social networks such as LinkedIn not just to ‘network’ as in the traditional use of the word, but to market. What has been seen as the realm of movie stars and big brands such as Coke and Nike, has now been used by companies wishing to provide customer services, product updates, market research and permission based communication with their business customers. Even games have been developed aimed at engaging the people within businesses. This reflects the nature of the audience; a video watching, console playing, texting and chatting group of people who are now buyers, managers and directors of your customers. Soon company managers will be those who know how to post a video on YouTube, update their Facebook status and level up in WoW – for those of you non-gamers, that’s World of Warcraft an MMORPG. With me? So think about creative photos, videos, games, tweets and posts that connect with your audience in a way that they would appreciate and respond to.

10. Invest, keep it up and grow your network. Does this cost? Yes. Is it worth investing in? That’s dependant on the level of research you put in to finding the right audience and channels, then the quality and level of response feedback you receive and finally how you then re-engage that audience – quantifying performance. Revise your goals in the process if necessary. Start small and work your way up towards perhaps more expensive but imaginative ideas. Usually a good offer – a discount is the best incentive to start a relationship.

Something to talk about Creating masses of information, brochures and corporate videos will not, in all probability, get people flocking to your digital door. What will is information that is valuable to them and even more so, something that they enjoy. This is the biggest challenge to anyone creating content for an audience who is impatient and wants to put very little effort into getting and then consuming your carefully crafted tweet or blog. 

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Become newsworthy – If your news is an annual statement from the Chairman, don’t bother sending it out except to the shareholders (that’s targeting). If your news to customers is about offers saving money on their next order or invitations to something cool, then ears will prick up. Start a discussion – clever social networking campaigns will involve people doing something. Whether it’s asking someone for their opinion, filling in a form, voting, passing information on, or asking for an RSVP to a seminar or Webinar, your network of followers will do lots of things if you ask them and reward them. Reaping rewards - Run a competition, prize draw or give them a discount; give them access to something most people do not get unless they open their digital doors to you. Catch the viral – My kids love something called Nyan Cat, a cat made out of a Pop Tart leaving a rainbow trail flying through space. It has spread like wildfire; a simple silly animation with silly music that has been shared around the world. The original video on YouTube had over 38 million views. Business is taking this very seriously. A similar effect with Angry Birds, a silly little game that’s now being very effectively monetised. It’s not new idea to marketing or advertising, it’s widely used by consumer brands, but now B2B marketing strategies are exploring ‘Gamification’ as a way of reaching business audiences.

Net-working Once you have followers you need to treat them like friends. Keep talking to them, give them things to talk about, involve them in discussions – share things with them. They will in turn, share things with their friends and the ideas is that they will tell their friends about how good your company and brands are and that they should think about hiring you, or buying your products. Remember that their ‘friends’ may well be your next customer. So with a growing network of users in your network comes a wealth of data from behaviour to interests.

Watch what you say There are some lessons to be learned from the business community trying to get to grips with social networking. Many have fallen fowl of either inappropriate tweets or embarrassing retracted comments from staff to CEOs. Business is also weary of finding out that their customers are not happy and have vented their frustration online only to be threatened to take down their comments. These are all things that cannot be ignored. Companies need to set out clear guidelines for online conduct in the same way as internet usage should be taught to employees. But businesses need to understand this new landscape. If you make a promise or say something online it will be www.aspin.co.uk/ecommerce All content, concepts and visuals © Copyright 2011 Aspin Interactive Ltd. except for rights held by copyright holders of third party material and trademarks | Page 13 of 17

very hard to take away. You may stop the person saying something, but that very action can cause more ripples than the original comment. So embrace and take a positive, considered step towards sharing and communing with your customers and prospects within social networking spaces. Social networking is really just another tool in the armoury of business communication, marketing and sales. It does need to be combined with other more traditional forms of interaction, but for those companies with the right product and message, it can really hit with other like-minded people or businesses and the feedback you will receive is live.

Times they are a changing One last thought: social networking is a bellwether of the changing times that every generation sees. It wasn’t long ago that companies were seen to be trend setters by having a website with an ‘About Us’, an electronic brochure and a little picture of the chairman. Then it was having video on the homepage. Well now it’s having everyone in a company including the boss tweet about how great Friday is and next it will be the CEO starting an ‘Hangout’ (Google+ feature) with other CEOs to share cool stuff, then analysing the data. If you are laughing and you’re an FD or CEO or MD thinking this is silly nonsense, I bet you are doing so sitting somewhere reading this on an iPhone or even an iPad. Fancy that.

Creating a strategy This example shows the concept of different channels for promoting a new product to trade. Note that the social networking elements enable a wide broadcast of a messages and they overlap to reinforce communication.

New Product Launch

Product Preview Promo Video

YouTube

Marketing Plan

Product Preview Press Release

Product Preview Email

Product Preview Factsheet

Product Preview in News Letter

RSS News Feed

Product Preview Tweet

Twitter

Trade eCommerce Website Post on Facebook

Blog

Retailers’ eCommerce Websites

Customers

Customers’ Facebook

Customers’ LinkedIn

Retailers’ Customers

Simple complexity This diagram shows how working hard to add ‘friends’ into your network, an idea can be transmitted to a vast number of people who have, by virtue of joining to your friends network, given permission for you to say something and for it to appear directly before them. Behind one new ‘friend’ maybe 1,000 others interested in the same thing.

Get in touch Contact us for a discussion on how your business can take advantage of social networking. Already planning on starting something or need help with improving activities? We can help. Twitter - @Aspintweets LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/thenetrix Website: www.aspin.co.uk/social Tel: +44 (0)1794500 200