This document discusses using social media for B2B marketing. It notes that 93% of social media users believe companies should have a social media presence and interact. The key elements to a social media strategy are branded social media channels, publishing content, and integrating across channels. The document provides examples of Cisco's social media presence and strategies. It emphasizes listening to conversations, finding influencers, and stimulating conversations. Metrics and active participation are important. The conclusion is that social media may be harder than expected but openness and authenticity are important. It can go beyond marketing by engaging employees.
4. And they expect us to participate….. 93% OF SOCIAL MEDIA USERS BELIEVE A COMPANY SHOULD HAVE A PRESENCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA 85% BELIEVE THEY SHOULD INTERACT Cone Business in Social media study (September 2008)
17. Europe Social Marketing Reach CISCO COUNTRY SITE 4,300 fans + 50% m/m 11,900followers + 10% m/m 12 pages 19 handles Country FB fan pages integrate & aggregate content Amplify and promote local content/ leverage US content Blogs Registrations / Special Events 106,000 views + 10% m/m 19,000reads + 10% m/m 16 channels 13 blogs Local country channels – subtitled or local video Country & topic blogs, with RSS & notificaitons
18. Ustream.tv – LIVE social broadcasting Integrates live social streaming with video for Q&A
36. Learnings to date: It may be harder & take longer than you expect Experimentation Openness, honesty, willingness to take on tough topics Authenticity “What’s in it for me?” Value Exchange Traditional business rules have not been suspended Governance, Metrics Employees are great amplifiers; inspire & guide them Beyond Marketing - engage employees
38. Can any business be social.......?? Choose example of a company who is an unlikely candidate..... Your company is launching a major new product/service in January 2011 You have to build a social campaign strategy to drive awareness of and participation in this launch Discuss in table groups for 20mins, present back for 2-3 mins each Here’s how we do it............
41. Measurement – detailed by channel e.g. Total clicks on registration page driven from Europe tweets 1800
42. Can any business be social.......?? Choose example of a company who is an unlikely candidate..... Your company is launching a major new product/service in January 2011 You have to build a social campaign strategy to drive this launch Discuss in table groups for 20mins, present back for 2-3mins each your plan Include: objectives & targets, audiences, launch day activity, content, venues, schedule, measurement
Notas do Editor
So, why such growth?Why does FB have ½ a billion users? That is nearly 10% of the global population. Social media is not new, but the blend of advancements in technology, and the normalization of quasi-tribal behaviours, the critical mass, have made for some truly earth shattering statistics.
Not only does social media allow for the formation of digital tribes, it is a tribe in itself. Being “on” certain social venues is now AS important as anything else in life.What is also really interesting is that things that were normally reserved for private or closed group or family use – photographs, video, opinions, thoughts, likes, habits, - you name it – people feel free to share virtually anything. Why? Because they can – the barriers to global conversations have been totally removed. Its become a tribally accepted behaviour to SHARE very openly. This, I think from an anthropological perspective, is completely new. And it will be very interesting to see where it goes, also.I read yesterday on New Scientist - "The data revolution is here for social science," says Albert-LászlóBarabási of Northeastern University in Boston. "For the first time, scientists have a chance to study what humans do in real time and in an objective way. It's going to fundamentally change all fields of science that deal with humans."
So of course, all brands and businesses, which are comprised ultimately of people, are expected to participate too. We are expected to interact, we are expected to join in with this new behaviour. But will we act like businesses? Or like people?
Everyone is talking about “joining the conversation” - I would say that it is extremely important to understand the types of conversations you were having PRE – social media. Your business model may very well inform your conversational personas. Or you may choose to model your business around a conversational persona, like Zappos, Best Buy or Jet Blue. So, a legal firm for example, would be having very different types of conversations than Starbucks. So there is obviously not a one-size fits all cookie cutter solution for engagement. You’ve got to be very clever, and very organized to be very good – at social media.
Presence is not just about being there, but it’s about building a consistent social media identity for engagement that accrues trust and confidence. This with the caveat that people have trusted business less and less over the last 10 years. They don’t want to hear from business... They want to talk to PEOPLE!Planning is key, and we have found that using a multi-platform approach to campaigns, using email, SEM, video invitations, video teasers, twitter, blogs and facebook, and online chat, can work very well, but of course this is not casual it is very well-planned.So, while this does take a lot of planning and management, it has to be human. A phrase I like which I have coined articulates this well “Just because its Social doesn’t mean its casual”The dialogues that happen afterwards of course can only be partially planned, but you have to plan to have them!
One of the simplest channels to use we’ve found for awareness, buzz and amplification is Twitter…….Padmasree Warrior is our CTO, and something of a superstar in the TwittersphereShe uses her Twitter Community of over 1.4M followers to:Amplify Cisco’s voice on our technology strategyShare technology insights and future directionGet feedback on her ideas and presentationsBut she also makes it personal, as you can see, which makes it more real, not just a faceless BrandBut you don’t need a celebrity to attract a good following…….
The European Theatre has successfully implemented a policy recommendation of one YT / FB /Twitter handle per country. We manage:16 YouTube Channels – 1 per country – most started Q3FY0919 Twitter Handles – 1 per country – most started Q3FY0912 FB Pages - most started Q4FY10
Ustream is another venue where Cisco is getting social. With Ustream you broadcast live over the internet, and a social stream accompanies the broadcast so you can answer questions from social media streams as you go along. Use crew! You need a decent camera (or two) and a decent director / producer. It is low cost, but depending on what you expect of your production value, this will determine how you work with U-Stream.Here’s an example of a social stream, on the right, of tweets related to the event. I LOVE Ustream – but it has to be right for what you are trying to achieve, obviously and your production value has got to be spot on. You know, this reminds me of the early days of cable TV in the US, when literally anyone could broadcast. So exciting.
But beyond being present, Cisco’s social media strategy is also about identifying, engaging and influencing the influencers
Then we build a map of the main sites in a market where conversations are happening on those topics, and can identify who the most influential people are in those conversationsOnce we have this we can follow the conversations and seed relevant content to interest them, similar to how we would engage traditional pressBut we now have a new group of influencers to engage with, and we have developed programmes to grab their attention…….
A different tactic all together is something like Digital Cribs. In this case we ran a competition, with a prize of $10,000 for the most popular 3 minute video showing how great their home network is, or how challenged they were in achieving greatness. So, heaven or hell. We used social voting for the public to choose their favourite videos, and the winners were the ones with the most votesThis was a great way to create buzz and stimulate conversations about the brand Cool video with Martha Lane Fox on that site, so check it out.
Listening actively - One way to do this is by creating our own venues for conversations – company blogs, forums and communities
The Platform is Cisco’s Corporate Blog space - a place for us to engage our customers in conversation so we can hear first hand about their interests and sentiment.From this channel we can provide access to all our other social media channels, to give our customers choice on how to engage with us
And perhaps the most successful conversing with our customers has been our technology community, NetPro, one of the oldest and largest technical communities in the worldNetPro originated as a marketing idea but is now managed by our support organisation as they can get the direct feedback on product issuesCustomers are very active in this community and help each other troubleshoot and solve problems - we have estimated over 70% call avoidance to our support line from customers getting answers from the communityWe now integrate community capabilities into other online activities we do, such as virtual events……NetPro has over 185,000 registered users, increasing by ~500 registrations per week. There are over 20,000 unique visitors a week and roughly 4500 - 5000 posts per week (not counting employees)Of visitors who came to NetPro with a specific issue to resolve, 83% received some level of resolution89% of those surveyed found an answer to a question by simply reading current conversations61% of surveyed visitors were influenced to buy Cisco products based on something read on NetPro93% indicated that NetPro contributed positively to their opinion of Cisco and its productsRespondents visit NetPro to…90% Troubleshoot a problem60% Gather information for installing or configuring equipment 36% Gather information for purchase decisionsHad respondents not been able to resolve their issue through NetPro they would have taken one of these more inefficient actions:70% Open a TAC case61% Attempt to solve problem themselves29% Contact Cisco SE23% Have a colleague address issue16% Contact Cisco Partner 9% Contact Cisco AM
Recent Forrester Research indicates that business decision makers expect to do more things virtually, with rich media and social experiences, even if they have not done so before. Whew!We are now building communities of interest around attendance at our key corporate events, so that we can continue conversations with and between our customers long after the live event happens.
We’ve also used social media to get direct input from our customers on our product development, with the iPrize competition.This was ran globally to ask our customers to come up with ideas for a new product in one of our key technology areas, again with social voting for the best ideas, with the winner creating a new business unit to develop the idea into a real product that we would build and sell. 1st I-Prize - The winning team, based in Germany and Russia, presented Cisco with a business plan that improves energy efficiency by taking advantage of Cisco’s leadership in Internet Protocol (IP) technology – they won from a group of more than 2500 entrepreneurs and innovators in the contest from 104 countries.2nd I-Prize announced in June - Five Mexican Students Selected from 3,000 Participants for 'Life Account' Idea that Bridges the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Worlds
We can now follow what our customers are saying in public forums, social networks and blogs, to track and measure what is being said about Cisco and our products
So let me finish with some important things we’ve learned in our use of social media……….
Now lets look at how we bring this all together to build an integrated campaign across social media
E3 – an example from Spain, all countries did like/like executions using all available venues.
New metrics dashboard allows for reporting at country and at Theatre level. Gives a view into specific activity and contribution by / through social media to each campaign or conversation, country by country.Looking to integrate with Omniture when possible