For B2B high tech and industrial marketers, Infographics represent an engaging and often viral element of the B2B marcom mix.

Recent Marketing Charts data fom Infegy found that infographics are especially viral on Twitter. So for B2B integrated marcom professionals, infographics can represent an opportunity to convey product benefits in an engaging and easy-to-read way, particularly when integrated within a content marketing plan or campaign.

In the B2B high tech and industrial space, infographics can illustrate complex technical concepts in a more concrete way.  For example, the benefits of cloud computing can be challenging to describe to the lay person.  ReadWriteWeb’s ReadWriteCloud group assembled a collection of cloud computing infographics.  Each infographic illustrates a different message such as what cloud computing is and statistics on cloud computing. And if you really want to get sophisticated and have the resources, then animate your infographic to make it even more engaging like this YouTube infographic by JESS3.

How can B2B marketers benefit from infographics?

Brand reinforcement – when you consider the viral nature of a well done infographic, that alone can be reason enough to develop an infographic as part of your content plan.

Prospect engagement – again, the viral nature of infographics, when purposefully placed in the hands of your prospects, and customers can give your brand and message greater reach thanks to your prospects and customers.

Extended influence – carefully placed infographics on sites including Flickr, SlideShare and YouTube  where others are free to embed your infographic in their blogs and online content, can leverage your infographic investment much further.

So think about your products and services and the benefits your clients will recognize. Then consider any data that you’ve already gathered to support your benefits.  Just ask your engineering team.  I’m sure they have dozens of spreadsheets and data that would make great fodder for an infographic.  Then have your creative team develop an infographic that explains the data in a fun and engaging way.

Lone B2B industrial marcom professionals can integrate social media if they start smart and slowly.

This post is based on an excellent webinar on B2B social media for the industrial marketer hosted by GlobalSpec‘s Chris Chariton, entitled “Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector.”  What’s equally as interesting as the webinar is conversation that’s ensuing on the GlobalSpec’s LinkedIn Group, Industrial Marketing Mavens.  Some of the conversation is centered on the resource-constrained B2B industrial marketer who, in many cases, is a lone marketing or marcom person who’s doing it all and is struggling with the time commitment to integrate social media into the marcom mix.

It got me thinking…  didn’t we have this same discussion circa 1994 with growing use of the internet and websites?  We were asking if this “internet thing” is for real or just a fad, and “do I really need a B2B website?”  Turns out, the “internet thing” was real; and yes, you do need a website. 

Do B2B industrial companies really need social media?

I think social media for industrial companies will be unavoidable.  But do you need a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, etc.?  B2B social media is real and you do need to participate, but the degree to which you participate depends on your marcom objectives and your marcom resources.  When you consider the evolution of B2B industrial websites, at first marketing owned the corporate website, then it evolved to shared ownership by each of the departments represented.  I think a similar transition will occur with social media. 

B2B industrial marketers need to shift perspective from social media as a marcom tactic to a platform for doing business—one in which several functional areas within the company must collaborate and share the responsibility with marketing, though that’s future state.    Perhaps marketing can lead the charge, but you need the support of R&D, product development, sales, tech support, and customer service. 

As Chris pointed out in the webinar, marketing should be listening first to understand where, if at all, their customers and prospects are within the social sphere; and are they conducting business or personal activity.  Sure there are 500+ million people on Facebook, some of whom are our customers and prospects.  However, the reality that Chris mentioned (based on data from the GlobalSpec study) is that they’re on Facebook for personal reasons and not to conduct business. Whereas LinkedIn is shaking out to be a widely accepted business networking platform. (See Paul Gillin’s post “The Other Social Network“  )

Where should B2B industrial marketers begin with social media?

I think there’s enough data to suggest that for many industrial companies, a well-written and relevant blog, coupled with a well-maintained LinkedIn Company page and profiles for all of the company’s colleagues and partners, and a monitoring program is a good and manageable starting point.  It’s true that some B2B industrial and tech companies with a few more resources have had success with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, but if you don’t have the resources to maintain them, a good foundation of blog, LinkedIn and monitoring can at least get you in the game. 

Another important point is that Industrial marketers don’t always leverage the content they and their partners already have, which is ideal for the social media platform. For example, you’re likely to have a plethora of PowerPoint presentations from sales meetings, training seminars, and industry association conferences that could be repurposed on SlideShare and added to your LinkedIn profiles for added exposure and SEO.  You may also produce industrial training videos for sales and technical support.  They can be edited and made suitable to upload to YouTube, which can again lead to added exposure and SEO.

B2B Social media is about connecting the “digital dots”…

It’s not about doing more, although there is more work associated with social media; however, it’s about re-thinking how you’re working within the social sphere and leveraging your colleagues and partners, content, and the social platforms. 

Think of it this way… years ago we only thought of the telephone system as a two way device, but then we shifted our thinking to leverage that two-way conversation into a teleconference shared by more than one, then taken a step further VoIP enabled internet-based calling and video conferencing.  Was it just a phone system? No… it was a communications platform for conducting business.

It is clear that sooner or later B2B industrial marketers will have to adopt social media whether by plan or by default.  My advice is to start small; think in terms of keywords when you post, upload or comment; and leverage existing content from you or your partners within the social platform wherever possible.

Many B2B industrial companies are invisible on the internet because they haven't optimized their sites.

So often I hear B2B industrial marketers say that their customers/prospects just aren’t online.  “Yeah, they have websites, but they’re not using social media and other online marketing techniques.”  The fact is, if you’re a B2B industrial marketer and you think you know all the players in your market because it’s a small niche community, then think again.  Industrial companies are definitely using search, and without an online presence (that’s presence and not just a website or company page), which now includes social media, you may be invisible on the internet.  Worse yet, your competitors may be visible, which makes your absence even more conspicuous. 

B2B industrial marketing case in point… United Linen and Uniform Services is one of the more traditional industries—uniform, linen rental and related services—and they won a B2B Twitterer of the Year (TOTY) Award.  Did I mention that they won the innaugural award back in 2008 when Twitter was beginning to gain traction? 

I’m not suggesting you jump in to social media–get a Twitter handle, a Facebook Page and a LinkedIn company page–and start social media marketing.    On the contrary, I’m suggesting that you start small and gradually integrate social media into your marcom mix based on achieving your marcom objectives.  Mark Ivey from his Marketing Profs post writes that it takes a change in the “corporate DNA” to socialize the company’s communications.  Ivey suggests we “dream big, but think small.” 

Here are three small steps B2B industrial marcom managers can take to improve online visibility:

1. Start with your website.  There’s no point driving traffic to a poor website. Optimize your website so that is shows up in search for the keywords your clients and prospects are using to find you.
2. Add a thought leadership blog that addresses the issues your customers and prospects face–keep it fresh and relevant.
3. Integrate your website and blog with other elements of your B2B marcom mix such as trade shows, white papers, and industry association meeting presentations.

These three steps can help you form a strong foundation for future social media activity and increase your company’s visibility.  Remember, a web presence is more than having a website or company page.  It’s about being present where your customers and prospects are on the web, and being present with relevant, timely information.  

Share what your B2B industrial company is doing to increase visibility.

If there’s one thing B2B companies have no shortage of, it’s PowerPoint presentations.  Why not include them in your B2B marcom mix via SlideShare and help boost brand awareness, search optimization and lead generation. 

SlideShare not only provides an effective way to repurpose your PowerPoint presentations, it also includes social networking links for commenting and sharing with other social networks including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  In addition, SlideShare provides code so that others can embed your presentations in their blogs or websites.  Perhaps one of the most valuable benefits to B2B marketers is the SlideShare “LeadShare” app, which turns your presentation into a lead generator.   There’s also a Slide2Lead app that synchronizes leads from LeadShare into SalesForce.

So B2B marcom managers, take an inventory of PowerPoint presentations that are relevant to your target markets.  Good sources of B2B marketing presentations include:  webinars, industry conferences and events, sales meetings, etc.  Remember to contact your sales channels for additional presentations. After you’ve categorized your presentations take the following steps to optimize your presence on SlideShare:

1. Sign up for your branded SlideShare channel so the url should read www.slideshare.net/your_company_name.
2. Give your presentation a keyword-rich title.
3. Write a keyword-rich description.
4. Use keyword-rich tags or tags relevant to a product or solution for which your prospects/customers may be searching.
5. Apply consistent brand look and feel to all the presentations you upload.

From my B2B marcom experience, most B2B industrial companies don’t have the budgets to produce video content for YouTube, however, they do have the resources to produce PowerPoint presentations.  Slideshare provides an easy, affordable alternative to online video that can effectively leverage your company’s thought leadership and engage prospects and customers in online conversation.

Think about it…  how many PowerPoint presentations do you have right now that could be generating leads?

Here’s an excellent B2B presentation on social media via SlideShare embed feature. 

Social media isn't forcing B2B marketing communications (marcom) to cede control of the brand to customers.

The reality of branding from a B2B perspective is that marketers were never really in control. The only control marcom exerts is in communicating the framework for the brand—identifying what the image should be, articulating the brand promise, etc. However, it’s the customer perception that either validates what we communicate or denies it.

B2B social media enables customers to validate or deny the brand message en masse and in a public, transparent forum. Customers don’t control the brand, the company does in its behavior throughout the buying cycle and beyond. If what marcom is communicating about the brand is consistent with the experiences of the buyer, then that should be reflected in the social sphere.

Is B2B Marcom Staying True to the Brand?

Where brands get into trouble—seemingly “lose control”—is when there’s an inconsistency between what’s being communicated and the company behavior. If you say you offer great service and you really don’t, then your customers will communicate your lack of service in social media. Does that cede control of your brand to the customer? In my opinion… no. Customers aren’t controlling the brand. They’re simply reacting to an inconsistency between what marcom is saying and the company’s behavior. eMarketer points this out in a recent study where a “majority of respondents agreed that the brand must define what a company or product is, and that message should be communicated via various PR and marketing channels, including social media, and that the most effective way to communicate about a brand was to stay true to its message.” The study also mentioned that when it comes to social media, marketers strayed from the brand message in superficial attempts to create a presence in the social sphere that was inconsistent with the true brand message.

If marcom is saying one thing and the company is behaving contrary to what’s being communicated, the gap will likely be bridged in the social sphere. I’m not talking about isolated incidents where someone wasn’t happy with the company’s service and complained on a social media site. There will always be instances where a customer wasn’t completely satisfied, but it’s how the company handles the dissatisfied customer (or not) and the overall long-term satisfaction of all customers that either supports or rejects what marcom communicates as the true brand message. Aaron Pearson (@apearson) says it best in his blog post, Integrating Social Media with Corporate Website: How Far Can We Take This?, “…ultimately your customer decides what your brand really stands for.”

Are B2B Organizational Silos Preventing Social Media Success?

Because social media impacts more than sales and marketing, organizations need to integrate the stakeholders of social media, such as customer service, tech support and R & D. As Aaron suggests, “There needs to be a better spirit of cooperation between IT, marketing, advertising, public and corporate communications, sales, and customer service.” That’s a tall order for large B2B companies where social media is often owned by different groups within the organization, each of which firmly maintains its silo.

So much of the brand image depends on the experience of the consumer and the behavior of the company beyond marcom messages. Social media quickly uncovers inconsistencies in brand image and actual behavior. That’s where strong B2B brands have an advantage–they practice what they preach.

Share what your company is doing to integrate social media stakeholders?

Here are more resources on social media-driven organizational changes

Gaura Mishra shares six “seismic shifts” in marcom that are the result of social media. http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/360-degree-marketing-redux-how-the-social-web-is-changing-the-marketing-communications-ecosystem/

Bob Liodice explained in Advertising Age how the practice of integrated marketing communications (IMC) is impacted by social media and why marketing needs to remove functional silos or at least interconnect them. http://aaasite.org/conferences/2010/Liodice.pdf [Link opens a pdf doc]

Cisco attempted to break down its silos and became a more collaborative organization, after which, John Chambers was named CEO of the year.

According to an eMarketer study–courtesy of David Deans’ post on MarcomProfessional–B2B marketers are laggards when it comes to social media.  The study indicated that half of B2B marketers surveyed are not even using content marketing tools such as blogging.

Forget about social media tools and focus on social media strategy.  Social media is not optional for B2B marketers.  It represents a fundamental shift in the way your prospects and clients communicate and interact on the internet and is quickly spilling over into the offline world as more people invest in mobile devices and location-based services such as FourSquare. 

Social media cannot be ignored, nor can it be relegated to an experimental grass roots effort.  B2B marketers must consider social media when developing their marketing and marketing communications strategies–even if your strategy begins with a small phased-in approach such as setting up listening posts to at least monitor the social sphere.

Ok… but I’m still not convinced of the ROI of B2B social media

In December 2009, I discussed why seeking the ROI of B2B social media was like seeking the ROI of a brochure.   The post featured the popular Eric Qualman video, “Socialnomics:  Social Media ROI” based on his book Socialnomics.   Here we are six months later and the pace at which social media is gaining adoption has accelerated significantly.  Eric Qualman has created a refresh of his original video which emphasizes the accelerated pace of adoption and goes as far as to suggest that the ROI of social media is “will your business exist in five years.” As radical as that may seem to many B2B marketers who haven’t even begun to consider a social media strategy, it’s not far-fetched at all.

Perhaps the question B2B marketers should be asking instead of “what’s the ROI of social media” is how much longer can I ignore social media before it will begin negatively impacting my business?  Watch the video and let me know what you think.

B2B mobile apps can be an effective marketing tool.

It’s predicted that nearly 6 billion mobile app downloads will occur in 2010 according to Marketing Charts and ABI Research.  Of course the growth in smartphone sales (up 20% in 2009) is driving the development of apps. 

So I started thinking about how B2B marketers could benefit from apps beyond increasing brand engagement. A more powerful use of B2B apps is to enable greater personal productivity and connectivity.  Find out what would make your customers and prospects more productive.  Based on my work with B2B high tech and industrial companies, the following list offers ideas for B2B mobile apps:

• Let’s say you provide a B2B software application.  Is there a dashboard or other view that would simplify a process for your customer?  For example, a busy plant manager spends a lot of time working throughout the plant.  Could an app connect that person to his or her desktop and your software application from a mobile phone or device?  Most likely, the answer is yes.
• In a similar manufacturing setting, could a mobile app enable more efficient equipment reliability and maintenance?   For example, the use of a mobile application that would allow a machine operator to connect to the equipment manufacturer for troubleshooting.
• In regulated industries such as food and pharmaceutical, could a mobile app help streamline regulatory compliance or avoid non-compliance for processes such as commissioning and qualification, hazmat handling, etc.?
• Connect your app to location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, where it can enhance productivity by optimizing support resources and improving customer response time.  (Ok… that one may seem like a stretch today, but not in the near future.)  Read more on Geo Location Trends from Mashable.
• Calculators and reference tools are popular B2B apps, especially for the technical audience.  Whether it’s ROI, popular engineering formulae or productivity/efficiency calculations, calculators can be an effective B2B app for boosting your brand and your customers’ productivity.

How much does a B2B mobile app cost?

B2B mobile app development costs vary widely.  Apps can range from $10K to $300+K depending on the complexity of the app, number of platforms on which it will operate (iPhone, Android or Blackberry) and interface with other platforms or systems such as a CRM sytem, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Typical rates for developers range from $50 per hour to $100 per hour.  Despite the wide range of pricing, the average cost to develop a robust app appears to be around $30K, although I’ve heard of less robust apps coming in at around $5K.

Consider how the app will be used to determine whether it should be free or fee-based.  If your B2B mobile app is designed to help further engage prospects within the buying cycle, then a free app may be justifiable based on the potential return on investment.  If the mobile app is an integral part of your product offering or a value-added service, then consider a fee-based mobile app or a free trial period.

When determining the cost of a B2B mobile app, you should also factor in promotional costs.  After  your app is developed, you’ll need a marcom plan for promoting the app and driving users to download it.

Should you be “app agnostic”?

With more than 125,000 apps and growing, the Apple iPhone is one of the most popular destinations for apps .  However Google’s Android OS is quickly gaining popularity along with Blackberry and other devices.  As B2B marketers, consider what device your customers are primarily using for business connectivity.  The Blackberry is a popular device among enterprise users and a likely destination for B2B apps.  You may wish to consider other devices such as iPads and Windows Mobile OS devices as viable alternatives.  You’ll have to weigh the development costs of each to determine what is feasible. 

Measure the success of your B2B mobile app

The number of downloads  is one metric, but it only tells part of the story. Consider the category in which your mobile app will reside and seek to be in the top for your category.  For example, the “lifestyle” category is one of the most popular. Of course, the more specialized the app, the less crowded the space.  When developing your app, consider building in tools to monitor usage such as AppViz,  Heartbeat,  or Pinch Media.

A B2B mobile app can be another element in your marcom mix designed to move prospects to the next step in the buying cycle or as an added value to your product.

I’d love to hear more from other B2B marketers and mobile app developers on what you’re seeing in B2B mobile apps.  Thanks!

More information on mobile apps for B2B:

BEST PRACTICE: Seven rules for developing iPhone apps – James Hepton shares practical advice for developing B2B mobile apps.

What Offers a Bigger Opportunity Than Paid Mobile Apps? – Paid or free mobile app?… Rob Weber offers advice.

Marketing Mobile Apps – Davis Brewer offers good suggestions on marketing your mobile app.

Mobile Ad Campaigns More Effective Than Online – If you’re a MarketingProfs member, you’ll be able to read these excellent recent stats on mobile ad campaigns.

Marketing Your App is More Important than You Think – iCombat provides a good review of how to market your mobile app from a gaming perspective… worth a read.

The folks at B2B Voices hosted a group of marketing and communications professionals to discusss the topic   “Social Media and ROI: Dare We Talk About It.”  One of the most important outcomes of the meeting was the fact that metrics used to determine social media ROI should be money-focused such as increased sales, lower cost per acquisition, etc.   However, what often are reported as ROI metrics–number of followers, likes, subscribers, etc.–don’t really cut it when talking to marketing execs… especially when it comes to asking for more money for your social media program.

The following slide show by Weber Shandwick’s Aaron Pearson (@apearson) and Andy Keith (@andykeith) shares helpful information on where most B2B marketers are when it comes to measuring B2B social media effectiveness.  Interestingly, most B2B marketers are still struggling with where to begin.  The 20-slide show offers a practical good start.

B2B marcom managers solve the content conundrum with a social media workflow.

Content , links and trust are the currencies of the internet. Relevant, useful content provided on a regular basis across multiple social and online media helps build trust. This same content can also generate the links that boost search traffic, leads and sales.

Whether you’re a B2B marcom manager who’s taking on social media as a grass roots effort (you and one or two colleagues) or you’ve enlisted a team, content creation can be daunting, even meeting the bare minimum frequency. A blog alone takes a minimum of 12 posts per month, and it’s recommended that you have at least two months’ worth of blogs already in the queue to ease the pressure of developing content on demand. Like many B2B marcom managers who are beginning a social media program, you and your already burdened staff are responsible for creating most of the content in addition to your day jobs. Before you read any further, make sure you have a content marketing plan and a conversation calendar.

How to develop a B2B social media workflow

One of the biggest hurdles to social media adoption in B2B is adapting the B2B marcom workflow to allow for social media. For starters, you need to develop a sharing mindset and integrate it into your daily activities. Any media that you consume or develop has the potential to become “social media fodder” that can be finessed into a tweet, blog post or comment on someone else’s blog. For example, when you’re monitoring your news feeds, copy one or two articles/posts and quickly post them to your social media status updates or your Facebook fan page, and then bookmark them on Delicious or Digg them. Social bookmarks serve as a good reference for future blog posts and Twitter tweets.

Note: If you’re not monitoring the social sphere and you’re new to social media, start by setting up your listening posts. It will save you a lot of frustration and embarrassment later.

As you develop the social media workflow, you’ll need a repository for all the content you collect (The new buzzword for collect is “curate.”) You’ll also need a system for managing content. Your repository can be as simple as a “content” folder on your desktop and a Delicious social bookmarking account or a Digg account. There are many other social bookmarking sites; so sign up for one, and as you come across content, bookmark it.

Organize your desktop for social media success

Begin each day with a blank document on your desktop. Then, as ideas come to you, add them to the document. If your idea came from something online, remember to copy and paste the URL for future reference. The blank document approach also works well when an opportunity arises to comment on another blog. I find that you can write your comments more freely in the blank document, than the blog comment box. Plus, you can run spell check before copying and pasting your comment into the blog and do a character count to make sure your post is suitable for 140-character status updates. Remember, comments posted on other blogs often become good fodder for a blog post of your own. So save the document each day and revisit it for future blog posts.

Then, organize your browser to optimize time spent online. Save tabbed groups for the social media-related sites you visit such as productivity tools (mentioned below), your listening posts, bookmarking sites and your company’s social media venues.

Take advantage of the free productivity tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Seesmic which allow you to monitor your followers’ and your activity in the Twittersphere and on other social sites. These apps also allow you to schedule tweets as well as simultaneously update statuses on other social networks. Be careful with this one. The idea behind social media isn’t to batch and blast status updates, but to connect with real people real time. Although it’s perfectly acceptable to post what I call reference content—something that you read or saw that may benefit others in your community, but be mindful of the social idiosyncrasies of each community. For example, some posts are more suitable for Twitter, while others may be better for LinkedIn. Remember, not everyone has a Twitter account. So @replies and hashtags, although perfectly acceptable in a tweet, may appear confusing on another social media platform.

Effective B2B social media marketers are masters of time management

In the world of B2B social media, busy B2B marcom professionals must make every minute count. It helps if you think of time in smaller chunks. You may have five minutes before a meeting, which is plenty of time to post a tweet or two. While you were in the meeting , did any discussion spark an idea for a blog post or even a series of posts around a given topic? Make sure you capture those thoughts in your “content” document for future reference. An extra 15 minutes is enough time to outline a blog post. Then carve out a little more time to complete it and post it. Most B2B marcom departments have plenty of existing content that simply needs to be adapted to social media—usually that means shifting from a company focus to a community focus. There are numerous blog posts on the topic of repurposing content. I’ve listed a few below.

You’ll find that as you become more proficient at writing for social media and more comfortable with your workflow, you’ll become more efficient at managing social media, making it less of a burden for an already burdened marcom staff.

Here are a few tips culled from the advice of top bloggers and content creators that will help you overcome the B2B marcom content conundrum:

13 Ideas to Inspire your blog by Denise Wakeman

What’s your social media diet by Paul Dunay

Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2010 by Michael Seltzner answer the question, “How much time does social media take?”

Warning Signs You Might be a Blogcrastinator by Michelle Russell