{"id":20481,"date":"2015-10-19T14:48:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T06:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=20481"},"modified":"2015-10-19T14:50:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T06:50:14","slug":"9-starting-points-for-b2b-social-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2015\/10\/19\/9-starting-points-for-b2b-social-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"9 starting points for B2B social marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Atul<\/a>Atul Tuli, Oracle APAC Senior Sales Director – Sales, Social & Marketing Cloud Solutions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Are businesses still debating whether or not there\u2019s a role for social in B2B?\u00a0 Sure you\u2019ll still find pockets of resistance (and nostalgia), but the marketing dollars being moved to social say the debate is all but over.\u00a0 It says at the very least, serious businesses do not intend to get left in the dust as their competitors build relationships and start ongoing dialogues with buyers via social.<\/p>\n

Better that you be the one to beat your competitor to the punch in establishing a comprehensive, integrated social marketing strategy.\u00a0 And if you\u2019re going to do it, you may as well get started on the right foot with 9 foundational principles.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Know whom you want to talk to.\u00a0<\/strong> If your answer is \u201cGolly gee, anybody and everybody who might even remotely be interested in what I have,\u201d you\u2019re going out there untargeted and smelling desperate.\u00a0 Know who the likely prospects are and act on where they live digitally.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Use social to offer your prospects something they genuinely want or need.\u00a0<\/strong> They don\u2019t owe you anything and they don\u2019t care if your company does well.\u00a0 They only care about solving a problem they currently have and making their jobs & lives easier.\u00a0 Speak to that.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Track how the content you\u2019re giving your prospects does with them.<\/strong>\u00a0 Did they consume it?\u00a0 Did they visibly react to it (engagement)?\u00a0 Or did they find it immediately skip-able?\u00a0 Don\u2019t keep giving them stuff that fails, you\u2019ll start looking tone-deaf.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Hire the most exceptionally gifted channel managers<\/strong> to run your social efforts and empower them with the social technology to maximize their greatness.\u00a0 If your brand were a person, your channel manager is that person.\u00a0 So it\u2019s critical to get this right.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You should listen for signals from your prospects as intently as SETI listens for alien signals from space.\u00a0<\/strong> And you should get just as excited if you get something.\u00a0 Respond in a rapid, constructive manner\u2026even if the signal you got back was negative.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Be a thought leader in your industry or sector.\u00a0<\/strong> If you\u2019re tired of the term \u201cthought leader,\u201d be a professor, an educator, or a researcher.\u00a0 If you can teach a prospect something they didn\u2019t previously know, you\u2019ll achieve an elevated status in their minds.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Be consistent.\u00a0<\/strong> If you start posting on social then disappear, what good did that do you?\u00a0 If your blogs are published randomly, or only come out when you can serve the brand\u2019s interests, you\u2019re sending some very bad messages.\u00a0 I\u2019m selfish and I can\u2019t be counted on.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Use social to supplement your overall marketing efforts.\u00a0<\/strong> Integration is a big topic in the marketing world.\u00a0 It\u2019s what everyone is racing toward even though frankly, it\u2019s not that easy.\u00a0 Go with a tech partner that\u2019s most likely to get you to true modern marketing.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Somehow, some way, acquire patience.\u00a0<\/strong> B2B selling is a process, and one that will never move as fast as you need it to.\u00a0 Social will not get you to the quick B2B close.\u00a0 So you not only have to be consistent, you have to be persistent and keep the steady social drumbeat going.<\/p>\n

Those B2B prospects are a tough bunch, much less likely to give you quick trust or the benefit of the doubt like consumers.\u00a0 But B2B is made up of real people (people immersed in a labyrinth of proposals and approval processes, but people nonetheless), so value can be given and relationships can be built thanks to social B2B marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atul Tuli, Oracle APAC Senior Sales Director – Sales, Social & Marketing Cloud Solutions Are businesses still debating whether or not there\u2019s a role for social in B2B?\u00a0 Sure you\u2019ll still find pockets of resistance (and nostalgia), but the marketing dollars being moved to social say the debate is all but over.\u00a0 It says at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[3644,290,3645],"class_list":["post-20481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-b2b-social-marketing","tag-oracle","tag-social-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}