The Changing Social Role of Employees.
The Naysayer rockband from Richmond, VA.
(Image Source: Reaper Records)
Employers should expect their employees to be active on social media in the interest of the company. Employees should see this as an inherent part of their job.
The times when “being active on social media” was reserved for the boys and girls “at the marketing department” are gone. Today everyone in the organization has a role to play. Especially people that are somewhere involved close to a customer touch-point.
What’s a modern employee to do on social networks, in the interest of the company? Read more 
Sharing Company Secrets: Can you trust your Engineers on Social Media Networks ?
Image Courtesy of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Is it a good idea to have our engineering department be active on social media? That’s what Thomas asked me lately.
Thomas is a hardware circuit design engineer. I’m just calling him Thomas. It could be any engineer.
He had just followed one of the training sessions I organized around the increasing need for change towards a digital, social and content oriented company.
I’m into the bad stuff
“Very interesting stuff, Tom”, he said. Maybe the first hour a bit too much marketing stuff for him as an engineer, but still.
But that’s not why he came to me. He said : “Usually social media is all about the good stuff. But we engineers (support engineers, hardware developers or software developers), we’re also into the bad stuff: we actually fix problems! For some of us that’s even a full time job.”
Should he be active on Social Media if all he does is fix problems? And can you trust the guys on social media networks who sit on our intellectual property and secret roadmap information? Read more
What it takes to become a Digital Marketer
What does it take to become a digital marketer?
(image : http://conqueranycourse.wordpress.com/)
This is my story of what it took to become a digital marketer…
My story is not unique
My story is not unique. Hey, I’m sure if you Google a bit, you’ll find other people like me. Truckloads full of them.
But what I want to share with you is what it took for me personally to get to a level where I felt that I knew enough to start with digital, social and content marketing.
And then actually start doing that across the organization. And getting results.
A massive request for change
When I became convinced that digital, social and content was the way to go, the first step was to convince my management. Change was needed. Lots of change.
And that’s what we’ve gone through the last 2 years. And when looking back, the change that I was asking was massive: Read more
Why would you want a lot of followers? I don’t, and I know why
Image via @DCantuBiz
A few weeks ago I was training some people on social media. When I told them that having a lot of followers doesn’t make sense, they looked at me as I was from another planet.
As a person, would you want lots of followers?
I’ve always wondered what it would be to have thousands of followers. And somehow I now have thousands of followers on Twitter.
And what is it bringing to me? In the course of the last year I have come to know some fantastic people on Twitter and LinkedIn. They have shared with me some great content. They have taught me what books to read. And they have given me more insights into how digital and social marketing works. My networks amazed me at times: when I had a question it responded and gave me answers.
What I also noticed is that only the followers that I care about, care for me. I think that’s the type of followers you want. Having a network you care about, and a network that cares about you.
Having lot’s of followers that don’t understand that caring is the most important thing on social media, is like asking a question in the desert. Nobody will respond.
But when you have a network of peers, people like you, people you trust, and they trust you, that’s the type of network you want.
Check out the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer, which confirms what I’m saying. I recommend it.
As a company, would you want a lot of followers?
I can imagine that you as a B2B company want lots of followers. After all, social amplification can be extremely powerful.
The Ultimate Content Marketing Implementation Plan: Pragmatic, Powerful, and Guaranteed Success
Atomium in Brussel by night, or at 5 am…
(picture soure : http://www.lightcatch.nl/)
If you are interested in a Content Marketing, implementing it, thinking about it, or living it, then this is for you. I can tell you, this is for you because I’ve been pondering about this post for a long time.
Ever when I started this blog, I wanted it to be a blog which give my fellow marketeers information, education and advice coming from real life experiences. That’s why this blog is called B2B marketing experiences in the first place. No bullshit, just usable stuff. I don’t need to see my blog post on Huffington, Financial Times or whatever other big and famous website. I don’t want to use high level talk and difficult concepts or difficult words. No bullshit, just usable stuff.
Imagine what happened this morning when I woke up at 5am.
Yes indeed, ^é#@!, too early. I could not sleep anymore. My mind was spinning like hell, thinking about this blog post. And here I am sitting behind my computer writing this blog post. It’s exactly 7 am. I never thought I would be doing this, because I am usually not an ‘early bird, rise-n-shine’ kind of guy.
I need to get this out of my head, this is powerful stuff.
How to Implement Your Content Marketing in a pragmatic, do-able way, which is acceptable to your organization, which educates your organization on how to do it, which delivers quick win’s and is built to be embedded for ever in your organization? Now that’s a mouthful.
So this is what kept me awake. But I think I’ve cracked it. And I-me-personally, I think it’s powerful. Maybe arrogant, yes, but if it’s useful to you, you probably don’t care.
Ready? I am sorry, this is what you call a #longread…
So here it goes… Read more
What should happen if you remove Marketing from Social?
Source : Flickr @robpatrick
What would happen if your marketing department stopped being active on Social Media? Or what should happen?
When companies develop their presence on social media, it is usually the marketing department taking the lead by creating accounts on social media networks, a social media policy, a digital marketing strategy…
Then they become active on these networks by answering their questions, inspiring them with great content, and listening to their needs.
Smaller companies have only 1 or 2 people developing these social relations, larger companies have whole teams of “conversation managers”.
Limited presence
Although I understand the approach, and support the approach, these teams can only be present at a limited amount of networks, or “circles” as I call them.
- They just cannot be present in all the social places where your customers, partners, suppliers, investors, or competitors are present.
- They just cannot be aware of all the different domains of expertise that are required to have a holistic approach to social networking.
- They just cannot be authentic about every topic they are involved with on these networks.
I probably can think of a number of others reasons, but you probably get what I mean.
Now think of a small company, let’s say 10 people. What’s the impact of one, usually part-time, marketing person, on all of this? You guessed it. Not a lot. He/she just doesn’t have the time to do a descent job with social media.
And now imagine a bigger company, 1000 people. Here you’ll have a team of, I don’t know, 20-50 people working in marketing and being part-time or some full-time occupied with social media. Again, the impact is minimal.
Taking away the marketing department
My point is, I don’t think social media is the sole responsibility of the marketing department. Oh yes, they play a guiding role in aligning the efforts with the company strategy, and making sure all the mechanics like a policy, processes, training, tooling, etc… are available.
But in essence, everyone in the marketing department should be aligned with a number of objectives which could look like this : Read more
The power of Twitter for B2B marketers – and what it must mean to you personally
If you are like many businesses around the world, and not working for a marketing department ;-), the idea of being active on Twitter is crazy.
Let’s face it: why on earth would you want to invest time in a “communication platform” that can only handle 140 characters, and has an average life time of 1 to 3 hours per message? Yep, indeed, crazy. What on earth would you make decide as B2B marketers to start using Twitter for B2B in for your marketing?
Let me tell you my story on how I started understanding Twitter, how I started using it, and what it means for every B2B company out there.
The initial spark
Like many B2B marketers out there, I knew about Twitter. But as I didn’t really see the value of the platform for my job, and for my company, I only shortly looked at it and dismissed it quite quickly. It wasn’t until I read “The Conversation Manager”, a book from Steven Van Belleghem, after which I started realizing that this social stuff is something I needed to investigate (yes, painful to admit it is).
Somehow, I can’t remember exactly how anymore, I ended up reading “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” of David Scott Meerman (@dmscott). This book literally blew me out of my comfy marketing chair ! It gave me insight into how to do modern digital and social media marketing. It is still one of the best books I ever read, and I can highly recommend it to anyone.
It was time to leave my comfort zone.
Which social media network brings most success in B2B ?
Source : Flicker @cuppini
2013 is almost there. What will 2013 bring? most probably another social media network.
Who knows, they come and go as Marcus Sheridan from @saleslion wrote about it on his blog. (by the way, I am a big fan of his work, check him out if you don’t know him).
Looking at the big ones, which ones will bring you the most success in B2B? I have seen many blog post about this subject: Facebook is better for this, LinkedIn is better for that. Twitter is only useful for this and that…
When developing a social media strategy, many companies start thinking which social media networks they should start developing. Developing means to create a presence, invest in time and maybe money to fuel that network with relevant content, and then organize actions to grow your follower base. Companies start hiring “conversation managers” that monitor the conversations, trigger the discussions, answer questions, be helpful where they can, and get the conversations going.
Should we do Facebook ? LinkedIn ? Whatever network ?
It’s definitely an important question. And on the other hand it’s not an important question. It’s even a simple question.
I’ll tell you : it doesn’t matter. It’s not up to you or me to choose which network you will develop. If your customers are there, you better be there. It’s as simple as that.
But how do you know if your customers are on that particular network? Mmmm, difficult question, that much I agree.
Then maybe we should jump on every network that sticks its head above the ground?
Should we be on LinkedIn?
In the case of LinkdedIn, there should be no doubt : if you are in B2B, you need to be on LinkedIn.
Almost all B2B professionals are on LinkedIn, using it for personal branding reasons, personal networking but also increasingly to find information.
Linkedin is changing from a pure B2B networking site, towards a site that is positioning itself as an information portal: updates from your contacts, the companies you are following, and more recently thought leaders like Richard Branson or Pete Cashmore.
The Orchestrated “Like” : The Social Power of Your Organisation
It struck me. One of our best sales guys didn’t understand social networking. Yes he was on LinkedIn. Yes he was part of groups. And most probably also on Facebook.
But he didn’t understand the power of social networking.
He just didn’t get it what happens when he would “like” an update of the company he was working for.
But there is much more to understand how this sales guy, and the rest of the reach of your organisation, can have a massive resonating impact.
In this blog post I’ll show what a simple, orchestrated “like”, can do for your company.
How social marketing works
image source : www.comscore.com/like2
Fan or Follower Reach : For brands to resonate on social networks, the first step is literally to be seen. While brands have the opportunity to communicate directly with their Fans through the News Feed, not every brand message delivered results in an exposure to a follower or a fan.
Facebook uses an algorithm to help optimize the messages users see in their News Feed, and while the exact algorithm is not public information, it is clear that relevance plays a role in message visibility.
LinkedIn is probably using a similar algorithm, you can see this yourself when checking the updates on your companies LinkedIn page. You’ll notice that the number of “impressions” vary.
So brands in which consumers engage more regularly, whether through a comment, share, like, or check-in, have a greater likelihood of being seen on the News Feed, otherwise known as Fan Reach (or “cut-through”).
How do you act as B2B company in social networks?
One of the first questions that almost immediately pop-up when you as a B2B company start using social networks in your marketing and communication is : how do we act on these social networks ?
Keep it human
Don’t start a Google+ page that is managed by “administrator” or “Your Company Name”. Instead, posts should be done in the name of real employees of your company.
Cut the crap
If you were to engage in social media, here is some behavior that you most probably not want to do, like the metaphor I used before where I see social networks as a cocktail party:
- Do you go into the middle of room during the party, and shout “BUY MY PRODUCTS”?
- Do you let them know that you had great fun during a tradeshow presence?
I really do not care that my B2B contacts or B2B suppliers, who you are trying to market and sell to me, had great fun at a tradeshow they participated to. Really, your customers don’t care.
