Archive for February, 2009

Let’s start at the beginning.  Day one, after some networking meet-and-greets, Laura Ramos‘ presentation, titled “Move Beyond Customer Reference Programs To Engaged Communities”, to the Customer Reference Forum attendees was spot on.  Most of what Laura shared with us was not a huge surprise to me but it really helped to have it laid out like she did.  I hope her presentation changed some mindsets on using Social Media in the B2B environment.  Here is my take and the overview:

• Customer Reference Programs are growing and being asked to more with less.
• Organizations need to recognize the value of Web 2.0 – yes, even in the B2B space.
• Community Marketing is the future.  Follow the POST (people, objectives, strategy, technology) methodology to successfully create a social media strategy.
• 95% of business decision makers and influencers are active in social media (to varying degrees)*

I need to stop here and stress how important that last bullet is.  95%!  I can not count how many times colleagues have balked at the idea of using Social Media to reach customers.  Those days should be gone.  This is all the proof we need. The other point to stress here: take your time and develop a solid strategy.  Do not underestimate this step.  Forget the technology until you have a solid strategy.  As you implement you will constantly refer back to your strategy to make some key decisions. That said, there are things you can do now to prepare.  Laura’s presentation dovetailed perfectly into the workshop I presented with Rhett Livengood on Thursday.  I advocate the same basic process in developing a Social Media Strategy.  This can take a little bit of time, so in the meantime start preparing.  None of us have the budget to go out and create loads of new content.  The content you have now is not bad, it is sort of invisible.  Start by doing an inventory of your current library of collateral and refresh the content and, by all means, tighten it up if you can.  Then make sure it is meta-tagged and indexed so when you do start posting it, it reaches the largest audience possible. In the end, we can build tremendous credibility with our customers and prospects by meeting them where they are active online.  It’s not always easy but it always pays off. Questions, comments, need help?  Let me know.

*Source: Forrester Research, Inc. global survey of business decision makers and influencers, Q4 2008, 1217 respondents.

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