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.

Content curation can be an effective way to leverage channel partner content.

No time to write original content?  Then become a content curator and aggregate existing content that’s relevant to your audience.  It may even inspire you to write content of your own.  Paper.li is an interesting free tool that aggregates Twitter tweets into a newspaper daily format.

So for B2B marcom pros, Paper.li offers an easy way for you to aggregate and customize content relevant to your customers and prospects.  They can subscribe to your daily as well as pass the link along to other colleagues, giving you more visibility.

My copywriting colleague, George Passwater, features “content marketing” in his George’s Content Marketing Daily. George says it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to prepare the daily.

Paul Dunay, co-author, Facebook Marketing for Dummies, produces his Paul Dunay Daily, which covers B2B topics on social media, technology and business.

Lee Odden, founder of online marketing firm TopRankMarketing.com, has a daily featuring PR news  

How can the B2B marcom mix benefit from content aggregators?

If you’re a B2B marketer who works through channel partners, content aggregation can help you leverage your channel partners’ content.   It’s a win-win for you and your prospects/customers, and it can boost your search ranking.

Find out if you’re channel partners have Twitter handles.  If they do, then you can create a daily featuring their content.  For channel partners who are marketing via Facebook, PostPost (not to be confused with social search engine, PostPo.st) lets you aggregate Facebook feeds.

Some B2B marketers are often concerned that their channel partners have adopted social media faster than the principle company.  Content curation could help principles work effectively with channel partners.  What do you think… is content curation a viable means to bring your channel partners’ content into your B2B marcom mix?

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. 

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.

Keywords are the glue that ties your B2B integrated marcom program together. It’s also good “lead gen juice.” Whether you’re running a branding campaign or a product- or market-specific program, leveraging your keywords in the content you develop can have a greater positive impact on search results and helps you provide content that your target audience is looking for. As a result, you generate more qualified leads. The first step is to know your keywords and monitor them.

Google alerts offer an easy and free way to monitor your keywords and phrases. If you already have a paid monitoring service such as Alterian or Radian 6 you can use that too. What you’re trying to discern is what’s being discussed relative to your keywords and phrases. Having this “insider information” about your keywords and phrases helps you better develop content to address the needs of your audience across all the media in your mix.

So for example, let’s say you’re monitoring for your product category, “widgets” and your brand, “Acme Widgets.” Your keyword monitoring tells you that your target is looking to apply widgets to improve production speeds and reduce production errors. If keyword phrases, “improve production speeds” and “reduce production errors” aren’t already on your list of keywords, then include them, and make sure the content you develop includes them as well.

Now, take a look at your B2B marcom mix and see if your keywords are integrated throughout the mix. While you may not have the resources to go back and change a product brochure or existing print content, you can always adapt your online content to include the right keywords. You can create an online campaign including email, PPC ads, landing page, and white paper offer all focused on a group of keywords or phrases. Remember to also include a blog post or two that includes these keywords, Tweet with your keywords and monitor the social sphere for any opportunities to comment on blogs or other communities using these campaign-specific keywords.

Integrated marketing communications based on keywords and phrases can help you drive more qualified leads into the pipeline—especially as more B2B companies place greater emphasis on online marketing.