I wonder if the real value of social media for B2B marketing is not the external use to drive sales and customer relationships, but to improve marketing capabilities and become more efficient.
In 2007, the company I worked for set up a social network and everyone was commanded to create a profile and connect with our fellow marketers. The reason behind it was that we were expanding the team to China and it was a way that our new colleagues could feel integrated with the marketing groups in the US and Europe. It was all very ‘friendly.’ To be honest, I groaned and only created my profile because I was required. For me, personal life is not what I wanted my marketing leadership to see or the people that worked for me. My profile was tame to the point of boring.
It goes to show that they didn’t really get the value. Outside of the fact that it was a requirement to share you personal self, there was a real missed opportunity to drive marketing effectiveness and efficiencies.
Improve Effectiveness through Sharing
Each quarter regional and program teams were required to review campaigns and programs. For several weeks marketers prepared their slides to show what was working, what didn’t, and next steps. These were long conference call sessions where people presented and we all listened in. Mostly, unless you were involved in the program or campaign, your phone would broadcast the meeting while you worked on what ever it was you had to do. Not a lot of value there.
Social media would have provided the perfect platform to post presentations and create forums for questions and discussions on how to apply what was learned to other sectors of marketing. Discussions on the calls were limited to those that were involved which was required for time sake. But, using Twitter or micro-blogging on a social network would have provided key points to marketers to read as well as offer the ability to shoot over questions. Reviews didn’t have to merely operate within the allotted time slot and webcast, they could be extended, shared, and saved for all to learn from later.
Create Efficiencies in Project Management
Any major project conducted was stored within an internal project management and knowledge management solution called ProjectLink. All documents and images were posted there along with managing the change/revision process. These project environments were huge, messy, and primarily acted as a glorified shared folder. You had to dive into files to truly understand the project and there was no conversational stream to provide insight or background on why something was decided upon.
Setting up a project group using social media could alleviate workflow, sharing, and archiving problems by containing project management. Instead of using email and IM, forums and micro-blogging could provide the communication streams. Content could still be stored, but it would also have notes and comments attached for review and reference of other team members or other marketers. A big benefit is that it could also provide a platform to share assets and content across marketing projects and groups to re-use and re-purpose allowing for reduction of duplicative work.
Efficient Workflow with Other Organizations
Marketing was a pretty silo’d organization. While there was a significant amount of conversation with sales and product management, the reality is that in the end, marketing would go off and do their work. Even in the hand-off process at the lead management stage, the CRM system controlled the process and created a wall of sorts between marketing and sales.
Opening up the door between marketing and key stake holders in other organizations is what social media is made for. As marketing might share amongst themselves in a social network, they could invite others to their groups or set up new groups to facilitate relationships. In the sales process, key accounts could be manages through a joint relationship between marketing and sales through asset and content sharing and communication support. Hooked in with conversations that marketing is having with customers would add significant value to closing business with social media.
Efficient and Effective Marketing Operations
Marketing needs to consider how social media from an internal perspective can help them be effective and efficient internally. Today, too many forms of communication, and silos within the organization drag down ROI. Implementing social media capabilities will spread knowledge, drive operational efficiency, and break down walls between marketing and other organizations.
