The Digital Business

Vital Statistics for B2B Social Media

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:27:08 +0000

There’s no doubt about the fact that B2B marketing is changing, especially with the increased use of social media. Would you be surprised to learn that B2B companies are actually leading the charge when it comes to social media? 81% of B2B companies have accounts on social media sites, compared to only 67% of B2C companies.

The above video, produced by Ernest Agency, takes a look at some of the many other ways B2B marketers are tacking social media. There are some impressive and interesting facts in there that also take a look at some of the challenges marketers face with B2B social media marketing. It’s a pretty cool video that acts as sort of an animated infographic.

The point that stands out to me the most is that 54% of Chief Information Officers ban the use of social networking sites in the workplace. I was surprised to see this number so high, since so many more companies are relying on employee participation in social media campaigns to help boost their social media reach. Though I do understand how many employers see social media as a huge distraction for employees. It’s hard to say whether companies will start to loosen up these policies or crack down even harder on rules regarding social media in the workplace. It will be interesting to see how things continue to evolve and change.

Which statistic from the video stands out to you? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think. We would love to hear from you.

What’s the deal with Pinterest?

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:45:27 +0000

Everyone seems to be talking about Pinterest these days. In terms of social media sites, it’s relatively new and is just starting to pick up steam. So, what is it about Pinterest that’s generating such buzz?

For those who don’t know much about the site, it is an online pinboard where users can post (or in Pinterest lingo, “pin”) up images of things they find on the Internet that inspire them. This could be for anything from design inspiration and fashion ideas to crafts and recipes. Like any other social media site, Pinterest lets you add people you know and follow other users who post things you like. People can comment on your posts and “like” them. It essentially serves as a quick and easy method of curation, as users can pull the bits of sites they like together in one place without having to create a whole blog post in order to do so.

So, the question is this: Like other social media sites, does Pinterest have a place in your company’s social media strategy? The answer is complicated. If your business happens to be in the fashion or design space, then Pinterest would be a very good fit. However, if your business involves something much less visually appealing, it might not work so well for you. I’ve gathered a few articles that shine a light on the different ways both individuals and businesses can use Pinterest, to help you see the possibilities of this social sharing site.

A Guy’s Guide to Pinterest – Read Write Web
While it may seem like it, Pinterest isn’t just for the ladies! You might be surprised to learn that only about 58% of the site’s traffic comes from females. Here’s what Pinterest looks like from the male perspective.

15 Pinterest super-users share their thoughts – Communications Conversations
15 of the top Pinterest users talk about how they use the site and give insight on how businesses could benefit from using it.

10 tips to get the most out of Pinterest for your business – The Next Web
Beyond the potential to drive traffic and the SEO applications, Pinterest has the potential to let you connect with your audience in new ways. Here are 10 great suggestions for how you could get started.

4 Reasons For B2B Marketers To Explore Pinterest – Social Media B2B
If you aren’t sure if your business would work with Pinterest, take a look at this. Just like in the beginning of Facebook and Twitter, B2B brands had to get creative and think of new and different ways to apply these new sites to their business. This article gives some great reasons for why the site should be on the minds of B2B brands.

Now that you’ve read a little more about Pinterest, what do you think? Can you see the site becoming part of your social media marketing plan? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

How understanding the brain will help you understand content marketing.

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:45:21 +0000

I recently watched an excellent webinar from BtoB Online called “From Caveman to Customer: What the Evolution of Storytelling Means to Marketers”. (Featuring Lynn Randall and Laura Lear.) This presentation talked about how our brains have adapted to our use of technology and how that has changed the way we respond to storytelling. There were a few points that I found very interesting and wanted to share. Understanding these changes in the way we think and behave is important to making sure you are creating the right kind of content for your audience.

In any form of communication, if something doesn’t grab our attention in the first 9 seconds, we opt out and stop paying attention. That amount of time used to be a higher number, but now that we have become accustomed to having constant access to technology, our brains have adapted. We now expect to receive information much quicker than we used to. We have also become more reliant on technology and people around us to remember information for us. We don’t hang onto information for as long as we used to, because we have the ability to quickly look things up on the go. For this reason, people seem to have an easier time remembering stories rather than information presented as facts and figures.

Another interesting point that was mentioned in the presentation is how people’s brains respond to online relationships compared to relationships that have developed in person. Many people would probably guess that online relationships would be slower to develop and would not be as deep as relationships that have been forged in person. However, this is not the case. Studies have shown that online relationships actually progress more quickly and become deeper than many in-person relationships. The chemical reactions that occur in the brain during the course of these interactions are the same whether you are communicating online or in person.

So what does this all have to do with marketing? Well, it tells us that your online marketing efforts are capable of reaching people in the same way as a face-to-face interaction. Any conversations you have online with customers or potential customers hold just as much weight as they would if they were standing right in front of you. What this means is that you need to really focus on what goes into your content marketing strategy. In order to reach people and be memorable, you can’t just throw information at your audience – you need to tell a story. Whether this story is through the use of infographics, images, blog posts or however you choose to present it, it needs to capture people’s attention quickly and it needs to engage them. Present your online content in a similar way to how you would present it in person, and you will get a better reaction.

Have you seen any evidence of this with your own content? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments. Also, I highly suggest checking out the full presentation if you have time. It is full of great information and is really quite interesting.

2011 – The Year in Review

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:35:07 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone! We’re back from vacation and are already hard at work on a bunch of really cool projects. Before we get too far into 2012, we thought it would be good to reflect on some of the things we learned and discussed in 2011. Here is a breakdown of our top 5 most popular blog posts of 2011.

1) How Cold Stone Creamery Made Money on Facebook
The fact that this post was our most popular post of the year makes sense. 2011 was the Year of Social Media, and people spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to use these channels effectively. So, of course people were interested in reading about how Cold Stone Creamery managed to not only use Facebook to get attention, but also figured out how to actually turn it into a revenue source.

2) Audi – A Lesson in Brand Investment
Our second most popular post of the year was about a company who managed to take a brand that had seen better days and turn it into a success. It’s not easy to change people’s perceptions of your brand, but Audi has proved that if you stick to your guns and target the right people, it can certainly be done.

3) The Importance of Having A Mobile Strategy
If the predictions are correct, in 2012 we will see a greater focus on mobile marketing. The use of smartphones is skyrocketing and mobile is quickly becoming something that can’t be ignored. If you don’t have some sort of mobile strategy, this is a must-read.

4) B2B Marketing – Does your brand creative have to be bland creative?
In 2011, we saw some big changes in the B2B marketing world. There’s a shift in thinking that is starting to happen and I think we’ll probably start to see many more examples of B2B companies starting to become more inventive with their websites, print marketing, and especially with video and social media.

5) A Visual Aid For Understanding Content Marketing
2011 was also a big year for content marketing. We talked about it a bit more in depth here, but this cool visual aid we came across (thanks to Social Media Explorer) explains the concept of content marketing in a way that’s really clear and easy to understand. Check it out.

So that’s a little taste of what we were talking about in 2011. Many of these trends will probably continue to grown in 2012, but we would like to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think will be the big marketing trends in 2012? Leave us a comment and share your predictions with us.

Happy Holidays from SterlingKlor!

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:17:45 +0000

Happy holidays, everyone! We’re taking a break from the blog over the holiday and will be back to share some cool things with you in the New Year. See you in January!

Is social media automation awesome or awful?

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:30:34 +0000

Setting your brand up on social media is a pretty quick and easy job. The tricky part is maintaining your presence. To do it the right way, it takes time. You need to take a chunk out of your day and dedicate it to monitoring, creating content and engaging with your audience. For many small business owners, it’s hard to find enough time to focus on social media and they can’t afford to pay someone else to take care of it for them. One possible (and popular) solution is marketing automation software.

What is marketing automation software? Basically, it gives you a voice on social media when you’re not actually there to provide it. It allows you to do things like create an auto response message that gets sent out any time someone sends you a direct message or an @reply on Twitter, auto follow when a user follows you, send auto posts to other social media sites when one is updated, and auto retweet any mentions of your brand on Twitter. Some software also performs your social media monitoring functions for you. It sounds like an awesome solution, right? Well, for some it can be, but there is one big potential problem with relying too much on marketing automation.

The key idea behind social media is that it is social interaction. Relying too heavily on automation can take away from human qualities of your interactions with other users. If your messages are all the same, your brand will be perceived as inauthentic, which, in the social media world, is the kiss of death. People enjoy interacting with brands that seem real and human. The moment you start to sound robotic, your audience will start to shut you out. Even if you think you’re being clever about it, people will notice if you are letting a robot do the talking for you and they will think your brand is awful. (Awful at social media marketing, anyways.)

Marketing automation can provide some great options for those who are under a big time crunch, but you have to remember that your social media efforts can’t be fully automated. If you want to get the best results, you are still going to have to commit some of your time to your social media activities. People will respond better to a real person who is truly paying attention to them than they will to a marketing robot.

Have you used marketing automation to manage your social media activities? Did it work for you? Please share your experience with us in the comments.

A visual aid for understanding content marketing.

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:36:33 +0000

I came across this great image on Social Media Explorer and I wanted to share it with you. Content marketing is something we have talked about a fair bit in the past year and I think it’s great to have a visual representation of what it really means. The burger is a great way to think of the concept, because a good content marketing strategy needs to have layers. Each layer on its own is not enough, but when you put them all together, you have something that really works.

I think the key thing to remember here is that your audience is the meat of your content marketing burger. Your audience is the most important part of your content marketing strategy, because if you don’t have a clear idea of who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about, your strategy will fall apart. Take a look at your content strategy. Is your content marketing burger missing any ingredients?

Generating leads with LinkedIn

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:32:32 +0000

Marketing on social media sites is not a new thing. With sites like Twitter and Facebook, marketers seemed to figure out how to use these networks to reach people fairly quickly and have been quite successful at it. However, there is one social networking site that has been a bit of a tougher nut for marketers to crack: LinkedIn.

People who are using LinkedIn are primarily there to network, not just to hang out like they do on Facebook or Twitter, which can make it harder to reach your audience. So if LinkedIn users are resistant to being marketed to, how can you reach them?

While I was researching this question, I came across this excellent case study over at Social Media Examiner. It showcases the LinkedIn marketing success of a postcard marketing company called “PostcardMania”. Their marketing efforts on LinkedIn have generated about $72,000 in sales since they started. I thought it was a great example of how to approach people without scaring them off or annoying them, so I thought I would share my favourite points with you.

1) It’s all about content.
On LinkedIn, you can’t hit people with a hard sell. It annoys people and can get your messages flagged as spam. So how do you reach them? Give them information for free. Post links to your blog posts or other valuable content such as videos, reports or white papers. You need to show them what you’re offering them, not tell them.

2) Establish your voice.
You can create company pages and post status updates under your company name, but when it comes to interacting in other ways, someone has to serve as the face and voice of your company. This actually helps, because people respond better to interacting with an actual person as opposed to a logo.

3) Engage with your contacts.
When you connect with someone on LinkedIn, send them a personal message to help establish a relationship. Keep it friendly.

4) Join and contribute to groups.
This is a great way to find potential leads and get your information out there. If you are only posting things to your profile, only your connections will see them. By posting links and sharing your knowledge in groups, you are putting your content in front of a huge audience.

5) Don’t be salesy!
Seriously. Stop it. LinkedIn is not the place for a hard sell. The best way to get people to engage with you is to be friendly and share your knowledge.

These are great tips to keep in mind when you are launching your LinkedIn marketing efforts. Be sure to read the full case study to see exactly how PostcardMania got such great results using LinkedIn.

Is LinkedIn part of your social media marketing plan? Have you seen positive results? Please share your experiences with us in the comments.

Does anyone really want to be friends with your brand?

Sarah Robinson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:05:20 +0000

Social networking has exploded in popularity in the past few years, so it makes sense that marketers would want to follow consumers to this space. I’ve seen some great examples of campaigns that have been very successful with reaching fairly large audiences through social media channels, but I wonder how responsive people are to most everyday online interactions with brands. With so many brands present in the social media space, one would guess that people must respond well to interacting with brands in this way. If people were resistant to this method of communication, brands wouldn’t be participating, right?

It seems like a logical conclusion to reach, but apparently, it’s wrong. According to a recent study called “Digital Life”, (conducted by Kantar Media’s TNS) people aren’t as open to engaging with brands online as we may have thought. This is especially evident in developed markets. The results indicate that in developed markets such as Canada, the US and Europe, people are more resistant to finding out about brands or purchasing products on social networks. When it comes to finding out about brands through social media, 6% of Canadians, 9% of Americans and just 1% of people in the UK are more open to interacting with brands than they are resistant to them. When it comes to buying products, 18% of Canadians, 12% of Americans and 20% of people in the UK are actually more resistant to brands than they are open to them. If this is the case, are brands wasting their time with social media?

Not necessarily. People may be resistant to brands appearing in their online social spaces, but they still interact with brands. While they might not appreciate brands approaching them or having branding messages shoved in their faces without warning, they are still open to communicating with brands online. People are starting to use social media to seek immediate response to customer service issues, and are also likely to use social media to talk about positive (or negative) brand experiences. This is why it’s still important for brands to have a social networking presence. You still need to be monitoring what people are saying about you online, and looking for opportunities to help create positive brand experiences where you can.

Social networking does need to be part of your marketing strategy, you just have to be careful about how you’re using it. This requires a more gentle approach and is more about being there, without being up in people’s faces. (Or in this case, up in people’s Facebooks.)

Check out the rest of the results from the study and let us know what you think. Should brands be part of social networking if people are still resistant to them being there?

Social Media Strategy 101

Sarah Robinson — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:01:22 +0000

When you talk about developing a social media strategy, it can sound quite complicated and a little confusing. I was searching for an example to show visually how the flow of information works within a company’s social media/content marketing strategy, when I came across this awesome video by a company called IdeaPaint.

IdeaPaint is a B2B (and B2C) company that makes paint that allows you to transform any wall into a whiteboard. In the video, IdeaPaint Chief Marketing Officer Marcus Wilson explains how the company uses social media to get the word out about their product. The basis is content creation, where they use YouTube, Flickr and their blog to post their original content. The content is then pushed out through Twitter and Facebook, which push traffic back to the blog. All of this traffic is directed towards landing pages, which is where the leads come from.

Using the product itself to show a map of how the information flows, he illustrates how a social media plan works in a very simple way. The best part about the video is that it actually plays a part in the social media plan itself, because it shows off the product really well without a direct sell. It’s like Inception, but with content marketing. Brilliant.

Have a look at the video and let us know what you think. Do you think this type of social media/content marketing strategy works? (We do. In fact, we just put up a whiteboard wall in our boardroom using IdeaPaint!) Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.