In this ITSMA report, which is based on in-depth interviews with services marketers at ITSMA member companies as well as on ITSMA-conducted quantitative surveys on social media use and services buying behavior, we will outline the steps B2B services marketers need to take to successfully integrate social media into their larger marketing strategies. The report includes the latest data from and about your peers who are working to make social media fit within an integrated marketing strategy.

1. How to Fit Social Media Into your Overall Marketing Strategy and Make it Stick Every day, B2B marketers struggle with the question of how to add social media on top of everything else they’re already doing. We think that’s the wrong question to be asking. Instead, marketers should be asking themselves how they can transform the practice of B2B marketing so that social media become effective channels within a larger, integrated marketing strategy that is focused on relationships. This ITSMA Special Report outlines the steps B2B services marketers need to take to successfully integrate social media into their larger marketing strategies, using the latest data from your peers. * Member $149 Non-member $299 *Single use price. We also offer multi-user pricing. Purchase our report

2. Integration is Key B2B marketing has always been about relationships. Social media offer more ways for making the connection with and among customers, prospects, and other influencers. ITSMA research found that B2B marketers are most successful when they use social media to drive prospects and customers to more traditional marketing channels such as the website and events. That’s why social media must be integrated with other marketing channels.

3. Create Cultural Permission and Engagement Before jumping into social media, marketers must make sure that their companies are ready to deal with negative comments in public conversations online. They must also make sure that employees and subject matter experts are ready to engage in real-time, unfiltered conversations about the company. Even those companies that say they are ready may not be.

4. Develop a Social Media Participation Plan Marketers need a simple, clear way to think about deploying a social media strategy that does not start with technology or the actual channel. Otherwise, social media can become a sinkhole for marketers scrambling to fill all available channels with content. The many social media tools and channels are free, but the time required to master them and keep them running is not. Therefore, we need an overarching participation strategy to determine how active companies should become in social media.

5. Create a Content Engine to Fuel Social Media Conversations Most social media participants contribute little or nothing to the conversation; they expect others to do it. Marketing is accountable for making sure that someone—subject matter experts, practitioners, external contributors, anyone the target audience respects and is interested in hearing from—contributes content. But that doesn’t mean that marketers can just sign up a few bloggers and then walk away. Marketers must create a process for developing promising ideas within the company and then disseminating those ideas through the most appropriate channels.

6. Set Up Formal Governance Companies need ways for marketers and thought leaders to share best practices and coordinate their activities across departments and geographic boundaries. A social media council is a good way to drive the integration of social media into the larger marketing strategy.

7. It’s Time for an Integrated Strategy Much of what you read about social media for marketing today trumpets the need to jump into the different specific channels such as LinkedIn or Twitter, or start up blogs or online communities. We see things differently. We see the need to transform marketing as a whole, with social media becoming valuable channels within a new integrated, relationship-focused strategy that encompasses the entire organization, not just marketing.

8. Begin Planning for a New Chapter in Relationship Marketing There will come a time when social media marketing will no longer be considered separately from other forms of marketing. It will all simply become marketing. Marketers should begin planning for that day today.

9. Learn More For the full story of the new relationship marketing, buy the ITSMA Special Report How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing Strategy and Make it Stick * Member $149 Non-member $299 *Single use price. We also offer multi-user pricing. Purchase our report