Apr 11 2012

Pinterest: The latest “hot” Social Media Tool

by Kathy Barton, Senior VP of Social CRM

Pinterest is a social photo sharing website based on the old-fashioned bulletin-board. You “pin” photos on your virtual board based on a given theme, such as Pets or Things I Make. The site’s mission statement is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” Pinterest has become the go-to site for women 25-34.

Pinterest has been attracting a lot of attention due to reports that in February, Pinterest beat Google Plus, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter for referral traffic to online publishers (i.e. stores or brands). Granted, Pinterest at 1.05% of referral traffic pales in comparison to Google at 49%, but since Pinterest is still invitation only, this is a big deal, and has caused businesses to sit up and take notice.

So, should Pinterest be your next marketing project? Maybe. Here are some things to consider.

1. Is your product or offering visual? Clearly, it’s a lot easier to pin a picture of a pair of shoes or a dress than a piece of software to the board. If you are a B2C company, with women 25-34 as a target, then invest in some compelling images of your products, and add a “Pin it” button to your product pages. Create your own boards with themes that will appeal to your buyers, and pin great photos of things that match this theme, including your products (but not just your products.)
2. What about images of the results of what your company does? If you are a non-profit, or have a strong affiliation with a charity event, or if your employees participate in these events, strong photos of this participation might serve as a good recruiting tool on a company Pinterest board.
3. If you are a B2B services company, without a strong visual element to what your company does, then Pinterest may not be the best place for you to invest your time.
4. Finally, make sure you read Pinterest’s Terms of Use. Pinterest’s members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin. They must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything. An individual person may not be worth pursuing for copyright infringement, but your company might be.

Tags: , Posted by - jennifermq @ 11:15 am

Apr 07 2011

Social Media for B2B – Stand Up and Take Notice

I’ve been fascinated by some statistics around B2B use of social media vs. B2C.   According to White Horse Digital Marketing Agency:

•       32% of B2B marketers are active within social media daily, as opposed to 52% of B2C marketers.

•       46% of B2B marketers say internal decision-makers view social media as irrelevant, compared to only 12% of B2C marketers.

•       60% of B2B marketing companies have no full-time social media bodies as opposed to 46% of B2C companies.

•       Only 10% of B2B marketing companies have 5 or more part-time staff involved in social media compared to 19% in B2C.

The number that really hit me was the second one:  46% of internal decision makers at B2B companies think social media is irrelevant?  Really?  This makes me wonder how these decision-makers are defining social media.  If they are looking at social media as Facebook and Twitter, than I can understand that.  However, if it’s using social media tools to engage their clients and prospects in a conversation about how their company can better serve them, and how their products and services can be better tailored to meet their needs, then it makes no sense.

It’s easy to lose sight of the real value of social media.  If you look at social media as a specific tool instead of a strategy, then you are missing the forest for the trees.  The power of social media is in transforming the conversation between an organization and its clients or members from a one-way conversation, to a two-way conversation, and then to a multi-dimensional conversation.  A multi-dimensional conversation creates a community, where clients and members are talking to each other, sharing ideas and best practices.  The organization then becomes a contributor to the conversation and the moderator, making sure everyone plays nice and providing factual information as needed. The value of this can be hard to measure, but the numbers are getting better.  One client discovered that members of their community were almost 50% more likely to buy additional products then non-members.  Numbers like this should cause B2B decision-makers to sit up and take notice!

Tags: , , , Posted by - Kathy Barton @ 5:09 pm

Mar 16 2011

Social CRM – People, Process, Technology – What’s Your Opinion?

In the first quarter, ISM hosted a three-part webinar series – “Best Practices in Social CRM – People, Process and Technology.”  The turnout and stay-through rate was tremendous for each webinar, so we know we are onto effective learning.  The top three takeaways from the series include:

-People: (1) Legislate – have a well-stated social media policy, (2) Communicate – set clear expectations and goals for the community, and (3) Motivate – use your community to energize employees.

-Process: (1) Contemplate – ensure that your social media/social CRM plan is in place with excellence, (2) Navigate – map your strategy regarding how you intend to drive your customers to the optimal point-of-sale, and (3) Calibrate – utilize metrics from the outset and be ready to test all kinds of new ideas on the community to keep it vibrant.

-Technology: (1) Automate – monitor, listen, engage and respond, (2) Integrate customers view with your CRM application, and (3) Educate – use social media to learn all about your customers’ preferences.

As we look ahead, we want your opinion on the following ISM premises and questions:

  • Social communities need to be tightly tied to business metrics in order to be profitable ventures with meaningful ROI.  How are you measuring?
  • Social media/social CRM is as relevant for B2B as it is to B2C applications, yet the majority of applications focus on building B2C communities. What can be done to level this uneven playing field?
  • The most effective social media/social CRM efforts tightly integrate community feedback to customer profiles in CRM applications.  Yet, few companies have mastered this integration? Why?
  • Organizations need to own the social community (and thus the data). Yet, owning social community is the exception not the rule, today.  What is your organization doing to take ownership?

For those that missed any of the vibrant webinars, you can still view the series in its entirely on our website. We look forward to hearing from you as we move the needle forward in the area of best practices in Social CRM.

Tags: , , , , , Posted by - Barton Goldenberg @ 2:28 pm