B2B Social Media Value: Twitter and Monitoring Conversation

Well, well... it's been a while. My life is pretty hectic and I'm juggling quite a bit both professionally and personally, so my blogging keeps taking a backseat. I'll try to remedy this in the coming weeks.

As you may or may not know, I work in marketing communications for a B2B transportation software company. It's not a fast-paced agency or B2C company with a product I use, but it's very interesting. I've learned a lot about my company's products and modules by jumping head-first into sales literature and product documentation. It's very challenging, but I'm proud of my new-found knowledge about the products.

Part of my job involves managing our company's social media presence. Do you know of any transportation software companies using social media? Yeah, I don't either. My company is huge in our industry, but we don't have the presence of other giant B2B software companies (Oracle, for example). Our closest competitor uses Facebook to repost press releases, but that's an awful use of social media. So I've really been experimenting with our social media presence. Here's a recent example demonstrating the value of Twitter for my B2B company.

Monitoring the social media conversation isn't just about mentions

I monitor our Twitter feed using HootSuite every day. I set up HootSuite to let me know when our company or products are mentioned on Twitter. Many people think this is enough to qualify as monitoring social media. It's not. You need to actually read these tweets and pay attention. Why? Well, let me tell you:

(Note: Company name has been redacted. We'll call it 'XYZ.')

Last week, one of our customers (who we follow) tweeted something similar to this: "If you were an XYZ driver, call us! Let's get them back to work!"

XYZ must have went out of business or had something major happen, but I didn't know if XYZ was our customer. So I checked our customer database and it turns out XYZ was a customer. Further digging online showed XYZ went out of business the day before in the late afternoon. I saw no mention of this in any industry news source. I contacted our general manager (GM) for the product line XYZ is on, to let him know about XYZ's sudden closure. Guess what? The GM had no idea XYZ closed and I was the first to tell him.

This is why you must actively monitor your social media sources. A keyword search for trucking or my company wouldn't have told me this information. Actively reading what customers were talking about was the only way I would have found this information in a timely fashion. By doing this, I've shown a GM at my company the value of social media.

I plan on sharing more B2B social media experience as more happens.

Do you have any stories demonstrating B2B social media value? I'd love to hear them!

My B2B and social media approach

We all know B2B and B2C marketing and public relations require very different strategies. Most B2B companies can't simply sign up for Facebook and Twitter and automatically attract a legion of loyal followers. If a B2C company has a good product, they'll easily attract fans. If a B2B company has a good product, that can mean nothing in the social media sphere.

Why? Well, if Susie has loves muffins from Muffin Company X, she's very likely to follow them on Twitter and like the company on Facebook. If Susie works for a clothing store and uses a program to help her do inventory in five seconds, while she's happy inventory takes her no time, she won't run off and find the company on social media. Hence the B2B challenge with social media.

I work at a B2B software company right now and I had a big social media dilemma. The consensus I've read is B2B companies aren't sure how to make social media work for them. B2B companies can't give discounts at checkout because pricing is very situational. B2B products often don't get much mainstream attention.

How am I, an entry-level employee right of college, going to use social media to help my company? Besides monitoring industry news and discussion on LinkedIn, how else do I use social media?

It took me a while, but here is how I am approaching social media (LinkedIn is exempt from this strategy since it's already being utilizing):

1) Use social media channels as two-way communication.
This is all about relationship management. I want my company to use social media and engage prospects, current customers and industry players. We need to interact with them and be a good social media neighbor (retweeting, sharing information from others, etc...). Obviously we're not going to promote our direct competitors, but we'll pay attention to the industry magazines, government agencies and other players.

2) Provide compelling content.
There's only so much talking you can do without providing the goods. I want my company to post relevant articles related to our industry. I also provided links to new classes and resources our company provides to customers. New customer case studies will also be content to share.

3) Position company as an opinion leader
My company is pretty well-known in our industry, but we have no social media presence. One of the ways we're going to change this through blogging. I've stated my feeling about blogging before, so I am going to make sure my company doesn't fall into the trap of updating the blog once in a blue moon. My company has people with a ton of industry experience and have fantastic insight to share.

A company can't half-ass their social media effort and expect it to grow overnight. My focus is on cultivating relationships, sharing content and giving our take on the industry. I want the return of investment (ROI) of our social media approach to be better customer, prospect and industry relationships.

This is just the start of my approach. I'm sure it will evolve as time goes on. Does anyone have any advice for a B2B approach to social media? Am I heading in the right direction or am I off my rocker? How do you measure social media ROI as a B2B company?