PJA Blog: The Complex Brand

Recently two clients, both leaders in their industries, have started to ask very basic questions about social media, and asked PJA to help answer those questions.

That’s not so surprising, given the follow-on ramp-up nature of many BtoB companies. From a marketing perspective, crossing the chasm takes longer in a consideration-intensive purchasing and business environment. Add to that the one- to two-year gap in marketing technology innovation among BtoB companies, especially those in regulated healthcare spaces, and you’ve got the situation today: a lot of BtoB companies still wondering where to make the best investments in social media.

In general, here are the top 5 questions we are hearing:

1. What are other BtoB companies doing about social media? Where are the shining examples?

2. What is our assessment of the power, reach and influence of social media?

3. What capabilities do we need in house to get started? For example, what are the requirements for doing a corporate blog? Is it a full-time employee, or 50% of an FTE’s time? Who should play editorial moderator?

4. What kind of return should we expect? How will we know if we’re successful?

5. How do we get our toes wet? What’s the best way to get started given what you know about us?

There’s a lot to say on this topic (you could do worse than start with our very own podcast on the topic), but here are some short answers:

1. BtoB companies are responding at varying levels to social media, and in part that depends upon the nature of their information. Heavily regulated healthcare players and more conservative companies have yet to authorize a blog or a single podcast. At the other end of the spectrum is Cisco, whose news@cisco landing page is flat-out terrific.

2. Social media is digital word-of-mouth, and therefore is part of the brand conversation. Too many BtoB companies still operate as if their brands were monologues blasting out of some bullhorn. Brand management as a discipline hasn’t changed, but tools like wikis, content aggregators and social media simply mean you have more to manage. Buyers and prospects want and deserve much greater control over the conversation.

3. The first thing you need to start a social media initiative is some consensus: will Corporate or eMarketing or a product group lead the charge? Once you’ve divided up the world, it typically comes down to tweaking the job description of current employees, or hiring a new team member. But before you go any further, align tasks with compensation. Is someone being reviewed based on a success metric around social media that lives in their job description or annual goals? If not, you can expect that the new corporate blog will run for a month, then skid into oblivion.

4. Success in social media is continuous, and should rise over time as long as you continue to feed the well with fresh information and insights. You will find your blog linked to others, your podcast downloads spiking, your readership ballooning, your search results rank creeping skyward: again, as long as you feed the well with fresh content. Success depends on how you define it, but considering, for example, that Jupiter Research recently reported that among technology buyers, 53% of blog readers were influenced on what to buy by what they read in blogs, and that the 2005 Columbia School of Journalism report found that journalists equate the validity of blog content with that of corporate spokespeople, it would serve every BtoB company well to stick its toe (hey, why not try a whole foot) into the social media waters.

5. The best way to get started is to start. Like many an IT implementation, success begins with a pilot. Move $50,000 from your ad budget to social media and launch an initiative, even if it’s only for a quarter. We can almost guarantee that you’ll be so heartened by the results you’ll want to climb into your very own Evel Knievel rocket and cross the chasm. Consider it seriously, or your company may soon look like it’s jumped the shark instead. Anyway, who wants to broadcast out of a bullhorn all day?

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Interactive, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.