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.

Checklist helps B2B SEO copywriters boost organic search results.

As a B2B copywriter, one of the biggest challenges of writing web content is writing effective engaging content while optimizing it for search.  For me, it’s easier to write the content with the reader in mind first and then optimize the content for search engines.  I use the following B2B copywriter’s seven-step checklist and tweak the content until it’s optimized for the reader and for search engines. 

If this seems a little cumbersome, don’t worry.  As you become more proficient at writing website content, you’ll automatically think “keywords and phrases” and integrated them more seamlessly. 

B2B Copywriter’s On-page SEO Checklist

1. Optimize the page for 3-5 keywords (on a 300- to 500-word web page)
2. Are the keywords in your page title and description?
3. Are the key keywords located up and to the left on the page?
4. Are the keywords located in a headline or subhead?
5. Are some of the keywords in a hyperlink?
6. Are some of the keywords in a bulleted list?
7. Do your images have keyword-rich captions and alt img tags?

More B2B SEO copywriting resources:

Keywords and keyword density Joan Damico’s Integrated Marcom Minute

Body Text: Where to Use Keywords for Better Search Results  by Bill Egan of Interleado

SEO Copywriting:  The five essential elements to focus on by Brian Clark of Copyblogger

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.

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

Leverage the strength of B2B channel partners while gaining greater visibiltiy to your end-user customers.

In the past, B2B integrated marketing communications (marcom) was about control—ensuring that the marcom mix had consistent brand messages, tone and approach.  Social media is about letting go of control but offering a framework.   

For B2B integrated marcom managers, social media represents a double-edged sword.  On one side you have the outbound marketing communications, which you control; and on the other hand there are the channel partners, who are putting up Facebook pages, Tweeting about the brand , creating YouTube videos and conducting other social media activities that are beyond your control.

How B2B marcom managers can lose control without losing context

Integrated marketing communications in B2B companies with multiple channel partners presents an even greater challenge for marcom managers in the age of social media.  Thanks to social media, it’s even easier for channel partners to publish content.  More importantly, social media creates another opportunity for customers and prospects to learn about your products and services. 

So what does this mean for B2B integrated marcom?

It means that if you’re a marcom manager, you need to at least start monitoring the social media sphere to find out which of your channel partners is participating in social media and what they’re saying.  This is another opportunity for B2B marketers to join the conversations already taking place in the social sphere as well as an opportunity to help frame these conversations in a way that supports the brand message.   You may not be the originator of the posts, but you can still participate in the conversation and provide context.

B2B integrated marcom and channel partners:  It’s not about control… it’s about content and collaboration

Knowing the Twitter handles, Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn Groups and profiles of your channel partners isn’t about controlling the message.  It’s about collaborating with your channel partners in a way that adds value for customers and prospects. 

Think of it this way.  If you’re a marcom manager at an industry trade show, for example, and a prospect walks up to you with a concern, you would try to involve the sales manager, rep or dealer right away.  This may take a phone call or two.  However, by monitoring the social sphere, this type of exchange can occur much faster and at greater scale.

It’s a good idea to engage your channel partners, particularly those who are influential in social media.  You can do this by offering content that channel partners can repurpose in their communities or by your direct participation in your channel partners’ communities.  Likewise, you can feature your channel partners in your social media and content marketing programs.  For example, interview a channel partner and publish the interview on your corporate blog.  Social media enables you to leverage the strengths of your channel partners while gaining visibility to the end users of your products and services.

For B2B marcom managers, collaborating with your channel partners in the social sphere, can help move prospects through the buying cycle and engage existing customers.   Participating with  your channel partners ensures that you maintain a stake in listening to and learning from your partners and your customers and prospects. I’d love to hear from my B2B industrial marketing colleagues.

Here are a few additional resources for collaborating with your channel partners in B2B social media:

Facebook Community Pages – New addition by Facebook to better delineate brand-owned pages from those set up by channel partners/ brand enthusiasts.

Social Media for Channel Partners – Linked in Group specializing in helping B2B channel partners use social media

Channel Enablement Class – online learning modules designed to help high tech channel partners understand how to use social media.

More B2B companies are tweeting, blogging and posting news, but I’m curious… are we really communicating or are we still using a bullhorn disguised as social media?

I’m bringing this up because I’m as guilty as some B2B marcom folks who put out good, relevant content on the various social media outlets, but fail to make a real connection with real people.  In other words, telling your networks about a really interesting article or helpful tweet is a good use of social media, but it needs to go to the next level to really build relationships… the aim of most social media programs.  You need to interact with the communities in which you participate.

Ardath Albee’s blog post touches on the concept in a helpful way for B2B marcom folks.  She explains how to create content that “inspires conversations.”  This is especially important for B2B marcom because without inserting your company into existing social media conversations, your sales people are less likely to be invited to the meeting, not having been involved earlier in the sales cycle.  Robin Teigland, associate professor at Stockholm School of Economics says, “Build relationships before you need them, while making sure you create value and foster trust.” (from her SlideShare presentation, Leveraging Networks And Social Media, slide #72)

This issue is typical of many B2B industrial companies who don’t see the value of participating in the conversations early via blogs (their own or someone else’s) and other social media.  If not for the sake of sharing the company’s thought leadership, B2B companies should at least consider the SEO value of participating.  I often hear from B2B marketers, particularly in the industrial space, “My market isn’t really on the internet.” or “My market doesn’t really participate in social media.”  But they are searching, and the depth and breadth of your company’s social media activity helps drive search results by putting your content in front of the right prospects.

Forget about social media and think about people

My fear is that many B2B industrial marketers with the mindset described above are putting themselves at risk and in a potential reactionary posture, waiting to see if their competition invests in social media.  By the time their competition’s social media activity becomes apparent, it will be too late, and the competition will have garnered a larger percentage of interest.

There’s hope for B2B industrial marketers who don’t think the internet or social media is the right place to be.  Forget about “the internet” and “social media,” and instead, think about people—what they need; how you can help.  Be a useful resource.  If you were at a conference and met with a few prospects talking about a specific issue and later you found a trade journal article, you would likely copy it and send it to the people with whom you spoke.  Social media enables that type of transaction to take place en masse and quickly.  That’s why the first step in social media is listening.  It provides an opportunity to hear on a broad scale what’s being said around a given topic.  Listening helps shape the content you develop in a way that better addresses the needs of the audience and cultivates conversation.  Then, after getting a feel for the social media landscape start connecting with prospects—real people and real conversations—by asking questions, offering answers to their questions, providing content that’s relevant to their needs.

I get social media, but my boss doesn’t…

If you’re the B2B marcom person who gets this, but doesn’t have the support to sell it to management, then here’s what you can do.  First, start listening by setting up a few Google alerts based on your brand name and a specific category.  For example, “ABC Company” is the brand and “discrete manufacturing software systems” is the brand category.   Then do the same for your largest competitor in the same category.  Monitor the activity and draw conclusions that will not only support your overall marcom goal, but also the business objectives.  You’ll need to show management that conversations around your brand and brand category are occurring and whether or not your competitors are participating.  If they’re not, then it’s an opportunity to take a leadership role.  If your competitors are participating, it’s an opportunity to claim your seat at the table. 

Additional B2B marcom resources:

• Burson-Marsteller research report The Global Social Media Check-up (opens a pdf file) pages 11-12 offer a helpful social media summary.
• Visit the links on my Facebook fan page discussion on social media and the B2B buying cycle.
• Robin Teigland’s presentation Leveraging Networks And Social Media, slide #125 has a good list of how to match the social media tool to the purpose.