Social Networking: The Be All and End All?

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This ITAC Marketing and Sales Executive Think Tank was hosted at Capgemini by Vito Labate, North America Internal Communications Leader.
  1. Determining the best lead generation approach.
  2. Measuring the value of social media as a target market tactic.

 What we learned

  • Incorporate social media into marketing budgets and block calendar time to follow up and investigate
  • LinkedIn is the social network for business (everyone has – or should have – an up-to-date profile). Be familiar with its capabilities
  • Continue to explore social media tools like Twitter for Business, Radian6, FastPitch, TweetDeck, Media Mix and bit.ly

How to find and close leads with limited resources

  • With the right content, social media can be used to promote thought leadership
  • Use social media to “take a pulse” on what’s happening. For example, check out YouTube to see what competitors are up to
  • Treat social media as an add-on tool for traditional marketing
  • Use social media to communicate with prospects, customers and employees, and to develop your company’s personality and enhance brand profile
  • Beware of social media groups. Many may be competitors

Marketing budgets simply aren’t growing.  What to cut in order to incorporate social media into your budget

  • Media Mix is a useful tool to measure results; inject funds into successful campaigns and pull funds from under-performers
  • Cut face-to-face events and direct marketing; blogging may be a better choice – more time investment but more effective
  • Cut back on sponsorships if target market varies
  • Cut telemarketing; inject more funds into pre-qualifying activities
  • Cut exhibiting at trade shows; instead, attend alongside prospects

Social media – poll of attendees

  • 100% have LinkedIn profiles
  • 20% use LinkedIn for sales lead generation
  • 90% follow blogs
  • 20% have company blogs
  • 50% have Twitter accounts
  • 25% are active Twitter users
  • 50% have Facebook accounts

LinkedIn challenges and ideas

  • LinkedIn is not designed to sell, but to build relationships
  • Update your status to advocate white papers, etc.
  • Use network to advertise blogs
  • Use filter mechanisms to protect your network
  • Amend your profile to promote organization/product instead of experience
  • Look into FastPitch for B2B leads instead of LinkedIn
  • Banner ads have low click-through rate
  • Consider ads for events/webinars

Twitter challenges and ideas

  • Use blog as “home base” then Tweet to attract readers to blog
  • Target “following” in same target market
  • Get a TweetDeck to facilitate your followings/conversations
  • bit.ly, a URL condenser, shows your URL hit rate when posted in Twitter
  • Share your voice with media/journalists; may lead to editorial coverage

Blog challenges and ideas

  • Use your blog as “hub”
  • Consider using blog for readers to connect with industry experts
  • Use forums like Radian6 to promote blog
  • Do not use blog as a publishing platform

Setting expectations about investment in and ROI for social networking

  • Use LinkedIn to enhance database
  • Use Search Engine Optimization to measure blog usage
  • Radian6 trolls web for keywords; use it to track prospects
  • Dunbar #150 is the maximum number of relationships with whom one has regular communications; social media has the ability to break this number

Attendees

  • Farah Bunni, Marketing Specialist, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions
  • Rob Daleman, National Marketing Manager, Avaya Canada
  • Jonathan Blank, Social Media Leader N.A., Capgemini
  • Frederik Martin, Senior Account Manager, FlexITy Solutions Inc
  • Jassie Aujla, Digital Strategy Team, Hewlett Packard
  • Susan Smart, Marketing Director, Intelliware
  • Italia Corigliano, Senior Marketing Manager, KPMG
  • Chris Stoate, President, Laser Networks
  • Jeffrey Steinberg, VP, Operations, NexJ Systems
  • Selda Uzunmehmetoglu, Field Marketing Manager, SAS Canada
  • Michael Turney, Manager Strategy & Market Development, SAS Institute (Canada) Inc.
  • Deborah Brown, Independent
  • Douglas Long, Independent

Posted By: SMA

2 responses to “Social Networking: The Be All and End All?”

  1. Alan Kay says:
    March 1, 2011 at 9:28 pm

    If we de-emphasize the ‘media’ part of SM, we think of it as more than a marketing/sales tool and responsibility.

    The ‘social’ part is more significant. SM is socializing change by brining the customer – B2C and B2B – into the organization. Yes, it is only a tool, but it’s the customer’s tool and it allows them to influence the direction of the business.

    It will de-silo everything, in particular sales ands marketing which will devolve across the organization. The opportunity lies in asking how this customer tool can be used to enhance our customer focus efforts across every part of the organization.

  2. Geoffrey Milos says:
    April 6, 2011 at 11:50 am

    Please provide a reference for the statement that SM “has the ability to break” Dunbar’s limit.

    Note that Dunbar’s number relates to something more than simply the number of “followers” one has. Dunbar speculated that it was based on the structure of the human neocortex — something that is unlikely to be changed by SM in the short term.