Getting a handle on Twitter handles early on in the decision to add Twitter to the B2B marcom mix, can avoid potential pitfalls later.

If you’re a B2B marcom pro considering extending your social presence to the Twittersphere, you need to think about how to set up your Twitter handles—the @name—to avoid future issues. I advise clients against using colleague names for two reasons. One, you need to consider what happens to that person’s handle when they leave the company and use their personal name to continue tweeting; and two, the handle offers a branding opportunity for the company.

Consider the following when setting up your Twitter handle:

• Remember that social media is about people and not brands or companies, try to work the person’s name into the Twitter handle when it’s not awkward to do so, i.e., @companymike or @mikeatcompany
• Some associates may prefer to keep their personal names for their personal Twitter use. It’s better to allow them to separate their personal Twitter profiles from your company profile. If you allow associates to post on the company’s behalf using their personal Twitter profiles, then your social media policy should instruct associates to include a disclaimer in their Twitter profiles.  i.e., “I am [an employee of] [a Contingent Worker for] Company Name. The statements or opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Company Name.”  I like @anetah‘s disclaimer:  “(btw: thoughts expressed here are solely mine)” @anetah is the social media strategist for Pitney Bowes (see below).
• If you plan to extend Twitter activity beyond marketing and PR, then you may wish to have a handle that describes the functional area represented, such as @companytechsupport or @techsupportcompany. This method allows you the most flexibility should someone leave the company. However, you may also add a person’s name. Such as @companytechsupportmike or @mikeatcompanytechsupport. The downside is that at 25 characters, nearly 20% of your 140 characters is taken up by your handle. This is o.k. if you can offer simple answers or if you can redirect customers to a help file or other resource that will solve their problem in 140 characters or less.
• Channel partners’ Twitter handles can also provide B2B companies with extended branding opportunities. If your channel partners represent multiple lines and prefer to use their own brand, then at least have them add your company name in their Twitter profiles.

When it comes to images, my personal preference is to see a person; after all, social media is about people. However, when people are tweeting on behalf of a company or brand, it can be effective to use the company logo to help customers better identify with the brand. A good experience in the Twittersphere, can support and even elevate brand image.

Finally, if you have a number of people tweeting on behalf of your company, leverage the Twitter profile to describe the role of each Twitter account. Use keywords too. It’s another opportunity to brand your company and associate it with keywords on which your company wants to rank.

Here are examples of how several B2B companies handle Twitter handles:

• Dell uses its logo, but it also leverages the profile to promote other handles. i.e., the @Dell handle represents the official Dell communications team; however, their profile lets you know the handles for Dell support and Direct2Dell.
• Indium Corporation @IndiumCorp is operated by Rick Short, who also has his own personal handle, @rickshort21, that he uses for his music business.
• B2B agency, MLT Creative, @MLTCreative, uses its company logo; and the company’s associates tweet using their first and last names as a Twitter handle. In the Twitter profile, each associate includes the company name and his or her role in the company. Such as @gtaylor57, @billymitchell1 and @martinehunter Note that each handle includes unique content… social media good practice. MLT Creative also tweets “all things B2B” under a unique handle @B2BLaunchPad using targeted keywords and hashtags. The avatar has the MLT Creative branded look, but attracts a generalist audience.
• Pitney Bowes took an interesting approach by linking their @PitneyBowes account to a Twitter list of “Pitney Bowes Tweeps” who use their own names but reference Pitney Bowes in their Twitter profiles with a disclaimer, of course.

Additional Advice on Twitter Handles:

Twitter Handles Do’s and Don’ts  - This is a good primer from @HubSpot.

Twitter help explains how user names are used in conjunction with your handle. This explains what people will see in your Twitter profile. Good advice when you set up or change your Twitter account.

Tell us how you handle Twitter handles.

Thanks!
Joan
@copywriter4u

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.

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.

Optimizing B2B landing pages for SEO can improve brand recall.

A client recently asked me why he should apply SEO copywriting techniques to a landing page when an email is driving visitors to the landing page instead of search.  Good point.  However, I think anything worth putting on the web is worth optimizing for search—particularly longtail keywords, which tend to have lower clicks, but higher conversions.  That said, I think the first priority when writing landing page content is landing page optimization—write copy that has continuity with the marcom elements that are driving visitors to the landing page.  For example, if you’re using email, then the subject line, call to action and overall message should be echoed on the landing page first and foremost.  Then as a secondary objective and where it makes sense, optimize for search. 
Why?…  message recall.  

B2B SEO Landing Page Example from the Mind of a B2B Copywriter

Let’s say you’re a B2B company specializing in network security applications.   You’re running a campaign targeting the mobile/device market. Though I recall seeing an ad in a trade journal or vaguely recall receiving an email, I can’t remember your specific name, so I turn to search.  I may search for network security for mobile devices or something similar.  If you’re landing page is optimized, chances are I’ll find you.

In the above example, the campaign keywords could serve both landing page optimization and search engine optimization.  Here’s a totally fake example to illustrate the point.  Let’s say the message is to convey to corporate IT folks that they can allow colleagues use their iPhones, smartphones and other devices besides Blackberries to connect to the corporate internet without compromising the security of the network.  The B2B copywriter writes the headline/subject line, Connect More… Worry Less.  With good targeting and wide distribution, it could make a memorable campaign-wide slogan.  But at a tactical level, the lack of keywords makes it less likely to drive search. So a good copywriter would ask whether or not there was a way to accomplish both—boost open rate and search results.  The answer lies in keywords. 

The copywriter’s next headline iteration includes the keywords “network security” More devices; less network security hassles.  It’s a better headline, but for search, typically it’s better to place keywords at the beginning of the headline.  So, if the headline still reads well, is persuasive, and encourages readers to open and click, then try an even greater search optimized version:  Network Security—more devices; less hassles.  The copywriter’s newest version headline is optimized for search, fits the 40-50 character count for an email subject line, and achieves the target message. 

The landing page should contain the same headline—enclosed in html H1 header tags, of course—and the subsequent landing page content should support the headline with keyword –rich copywriting and a strong call to action above the fold and below the fold.   Good copywriters should also consider writing a landing page url that includes campaign keywords and is memorable.  In the example above, an effective landing page URL could be www.fakecompany.com/network-security-more-devices-less-hassles. 

Optimize Landing Pages for Search without Compromising Conversion

Again I can’t emphasize enough that copywriters should always write email campaigns, PPC ads and landing pages with the objective of driving the desired outcome whether opens, clicks or conversions.  This is first and foremost when writing content.  However, good SEO copywriters are vigilant about writing content that’s relevant to the people searching for it.  That means knowing the keywords and using them persuasively and strategically.  Striking a balance between persuasive copy and optimized copy is the sweet spot for B2B copywriters.

What are your thoughts on SEO copywriting for landing pages?

PS  Any good post on landing pages should include a link to Ion Interactive, the landing page gurus.  Here’s a good  landing page technique for  B2B marketers targeting several industry verticals.

PPS And another good post by @level343 on the art of landing pages from Search Engine Journal.

Develop an effective B2B social media marketing program based on the 5 P's.

B2B Social media marketing has evolved into a pattern of five P’s based on what I’ve seen from client work and networking with other B2B marcom professionals. Remember, before embarking on the five Ps, you should have spent a significant amount of time listening to the social media sphere to gain an understanding of the types of conversations taking place, where they’re taking place and how you can participate effectively.

1. Policy
   Most B2B corporate social media policies are an extension of existing policies such as trade secrets, privacy, and codes of conduct; however most companies expand on such policies to cover social media. Kirk Maltais wrote a helpful article on government social media policies (8 Essential Elements for Crafting a Social Media Policy). The eight elements, summarized below, are found in many B2B social media policies.
   
   1. Employee Access – who will be allowed to use social media.
   2. Account Management – who will set up, manage and monitor the social media accounts.
   3. Acceptable use – how will social media be used.
   4. Employee conduct – what are acceptable social media behaviors.
   5. Content – how much editorial control will be exerted. (Usually companies require a disclaimer for employees—even former employees—who blog for personal use.)
   6. Security – password management.
   7. Legal issues – how to enforce policy without infringing on freedom of speech, etc.
   8. Citizen Conduct – more of a government requirement involving how to handle the interactions between civilian users and the public.Remember that your social media policy is only as effective as your social media education program, so offer a few training sessions.
2. Plan
   Planning your social media strategy should start with a business objective. For some B2B companies, a phase one objective is to increase their brand presence in the social sphere. While that may be enough to start in social media, it won’t satisfy the long term business requirements for such an investment… namely ROI. So your plan should have measurable objectives, such as 10% increase in web traffic within six months or 200 new LinkedIn followers within one month. Then, align the website metrics with marketing and sales metrics such as a 5% increase in qualified leads or a 5% increase in sales. More B2B social media measurement guidance.
   
   While I’m an advocate of aligning social media with revenue, it doesn’t directly correlate in lengthy B2B selling cycles. As with most B2B marketing tactics, the goal is to collaborate with sales to generate and nurture leads in order to drive sales. It’s the combination of marcom tactics and sales activity that drives sales, not a specific tactic alone such as social media. But you have to be in social media to know whether it will work for your situation. So my advice is to follow trends in leads and sales for the first six months to monitor the impact of social media. Be prepared to sacrifice. Without a concrete ROI, you may need to take marcom budget away from other marcom tactics to fund your initial B2B social media endeavor. I’ve seen clients take money from the event and print ad buckets… even the brochure bucket to fund social media endeavors. More on B2B budget trends from former Forrester Research analyst, Laura Ramos.
3. People
   From my experience, many B2B marcom departments lack adequate people resources to gain traction from their social media efforts. Here’s where B2B marcom folks need to get creative. Yes, if you’re a B2B marcom manager, you’ll likely bear the brunt of the workload when it comes to social media. However, look beyond marcom for content providers such as sales, tech support, product management and even R&D. Remember, your channel partners are a good source of content; they may have their own blogs and social media outlets that you can leverage. It’s helpful to have a content marketing plan and a conversation calendar to help you better determine your resource needs and ensure that you’re participating effectively at a level that will positively impact your business objectives.
4. Persona
   You need to decide how you/your company will appear on the various social media sites. For example when you’re signing up for Twitter what will your handle be; what will the handles be of those contributing? Will you follow the same naming convention on other social sites, your blog etc.? The goal here is to create a consistent persona across the social sphere. You’ll want to avoid what I call a “fragmented persona”—representing your company differently on different sites, e.g., LinkedIn.com/ABC Company, @bigbusinessbranding on Twitter and ABC Branding Blog. Establishing a consistent online persona is similar to establishing your brand guidelines for tone and approach of marketing communications elements such as brochures, newsletters, presentations, etc. You’ll want a unified voice across all media.
5. Patience!
   Finally, you’ll need to give your B2B social media initiative time to produce results. Remember, social media is about establishing relationships and that takes time and regular interaction. It’s not just about blasting out content, it’s about making an online connection with your clients and prospects.

Summary of B2B social media resources mentioned above (plus a few more):

• 8 Essential Elements for Crafting a Social Media Policy) by Kirk Maltais
• 5 Steps for Measuring Social Media for B2B by Kipp Bodnar, Social Media B2B
• Practical Social Media Measurement for B2B by Ksenia Coffman via B2Bbloggers
• 2010 B2B Marketing Budgets and Mix Trends Research Published by Laura Ramos
• Creating Consistent Content – A Content Marketing Plan by Russell Sparkman via Junta42
• Creating a Content Marketing Plan—Without Any Content by Mark W. Schaeffer, {grow}
• New B2B Marcom Tool: Conversation Calendar by Joan Damico

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.