B2B’s social media superstars
Nov 4th
Success stories in this space are few and far between. A recent report showed just 14% of the largest industrial companies have a social media strategy, let alone a good one. There are many good reasons for the slow adoption of SM at the industrials, including the perilous economy and a customer base that could care less about your freakin’ tweets if their railcar of chemicals is an hour late.
A few months ago I spent time assessing the state of SM at B2B companies and overall, my research showed that B2B companies don’t seem to get the notion of community and are trying to fit traditional marketing stereotypes into the new media. Here are five breaking the mold and leading the way:
Number 5: Ingram Micro — Ingram Micro is the world’s largest technology distributor to the IT industry. You would think with a geek-fest customer base they would have all of the sweetest social media apps – and they probably do, behind a secure firewall where it belongs! Ingram makes the list for the very cool open Facebook sites connecting employees among its far-flung global operations. Recently used Twitter to “broadcast” from a partners meeting.
Number 4: Boeing — The time-lapse YouTube videos of planes being built are impressive but the cornerstone of Boeing’s social media presence is a longtime blog, started by their VP -Marketing Commercial Airplanes, as a way to expand the conversation of commercial aviation to the Web. In its first two years, Randy’s Journal, saw more than a half million individual visits. They have a secure presence on Twitter. Any good? Don’t know — I wasn’t allowed through the gate. Let me in! I have an appointment to see the wizard!
Number 3: Cisco Systems — Extraordinarily good community-building on Facebook, including a blog, message board, news and open membership for employee sites around the world. Proving to be a real B2B social media innovator as they launch products only on digital channels. They even launched a product through Second Life. I don’t know if anybody actually saw it, but they did it.
Number 2: General Electric — I’ve found that when a company is well-managed, it tends to do EVERYTHING well. GE is no exception. They have a thoughtful, integrated social media presence that is informative, professional and … fun. GE distinguishes itself as the only leading industrial company that places an actual face with its SM efforts — Megan Parker. She effectively mixes effective press release reporting with 140-character wit. The real hub of the SM wheel is GEreports.com, a blog-style information center making effective use of videos and search-by-topic capabilities. You have to love a company that has a post on its Facebook page titled “I’m over 30 and still think it’s OKAY to get hammered from time 2 time!!”
Number 1: IBM — For years their print and TV ads have puzzled me, but they seem to be getting social media right. IBM is a great example of a company with a real interest in community – a logical move since their tech audience loves online forums and bulletin boards. Check out their blog for proof of that. In fact, the IBM corporate social media presence is minimal as they let customers and employees tell their story. They’ve created the conversation and then they’ve let go of it. IBM’s social media portfolio includes virtual worlds, podcasts, video and the use of Twitter to keep its 380,000 employees (in 150 countries) connected.
B2B’s biggest social media screw-ups
Nov 3rd
While the case for social media as a marketing channel is compelling for consumer products companies, I’ve been particularly interested in how it is being used … or not … by mainstream industrials. Earlier this year I assessed the social media presence of most of the major Fortune 500 B2B giants looking for case studies.
I found some great examples, but for fun, I’ve decided to start out with the WORST companies I found out there. With few exceptions, major industrial companies are not utilizing – and in many cases ignoring — social media as a stakeholder connection point. A few fun facts:
- Number of Top 25 B2B companies with more Twitter followers than me (None)
- Worst B2B corporate Twitter-er (by far) — DuPont. An example: “Back off weeds! 4 new herbicides are coming to get you …”
- Most popular corporate social media platform: Facebook
- Percent of companies with either Facebook or MySpace pages: 75%
- Percentage with both: 25%
- Most popular use of social media: A place to post press releases
With no further delay, let’s take a look at the Top Five biggest B2B social media screw-ups.
5. 3M Corporation – I love 3M. I’ve always cherished their heritage of innovation and product development. If any company in America could take advantage of the awesome power of global community it should be 3M. Where are you guys? We need you out here.
4. General Dynamics — There is a not-very-good techno rock band called General Dynamics who dominates the social media bandwidth. That’s a problem for a Fortune 100 company with the same name. This is the time for the company to flex some legal muscle and tell them they were there first! In the corporate world, this ID theft is tantamount to a porn starlet naming herself “Pepsi.” You have to take action on this, General Dynamics! Go kick some techno butt!
3. Oracle Corporation – You would expect an ego-laden company like Oracle to be sucking up the social media space, but not so. The Twitter account is exclusively a press release machine and their other sites are ill-attended placeholders. Larry, look at what SAP is doing with social media. Work it baby.
2. Johnson Controls — This Fortune 50 titan has had their name usurped on Facebook by a bunch of disgruntled employees. An example of social media gone very wrong when you’re asleep at the wheel.
1. Dow Chemical Company. The pinnacle of social media mayhem. The first search result for Dow on Twitter is called “spillspill” and the largest company-related Facebook page is called Fuck Chemical Valley and Fuck Dow (42 members). The MySpace presence has also been hijacked, complete with fake logos, fake employees and a mission statement that includes: “minimizing damage by angry citizens who have been affected by our pollution through legal suits and PR campaigns, making sure scientists who find our products to be dangerously toxic are not allowed to publish.” Dow has a proud history of PR fubars. The legacy continues.
Disclosure: My ex-wife had family ties to the chemical industry. While clinical tests have shown she is toxic to humans, she is not associated with the Fuck Dow campaign.
Finally! A B2B social media success story
Oct 19th
At long last, I bring to you my valued {grow} folks, a true B2B social media success story that can really be measured by MONEY. I believe this is the only one in the world. ; ) And it is GENIUS!
Best of all, the success comes from one of our very own {grow}-er’s, Nathan Dube aka @DubiousMonk, a frequent comment contributor.
Nathan works in the marketing department of Expert Laser Services of Southbridge, MA. The company is a managed print services provider and provides printer/copier sales, service and supplies. Nathan’s challenge was to increase awareness for his company through social media initiatives.
His idea was to let people release their technology angst by finding the most creative ways to destroy their printer — on video. The “Destroy Your Printer Video Contest” was promoted through the company’s blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. The oddball humor of the contest gave it a great buzz and more – web traffic more than doubled and the company gained more than 100 new inbound links. Recycler magazine did an Internet TV special about the contest as well as an article which was the most-read topics on the site for several weeks.
The submissions can be found here and they are hilarious. The winning entry involves a backhoe (but I think the dynamite should have won: “We’re approaching the target!”).
Momentum for the contest picked up as people fell in love with the crazy ways people destroyed their printers. One fan was an employee of nearby Telesian Technologies, who called up Expert Laser Services and asked them to be their new service provider.
That’s right. New business. Money in the bank from a social media victory.
Nathan said getting a new customer was just icing on the cake. “The focus of the contest was not ‘let’s get customers’,” he said. ” The focus was to drive more traffic to the website, build inbound links, and create good content. The fact that we landed a new service and repair customer was not our goal, but it happened.”
And to make a happy ending even happier, the winner of the contest, Cottage Revolution of Wales, MA, donated their winning toner cartridges to Catholic Charities.
Is Twitter business success “in the cards” for you?
Sep 18th
My friend Jayme Soulati sent me a great little story about getting new business through Twitter. I thought you might enjoy it! Here’s Jayme:
The name of the game, as they frequently say, Mark, is developing relationship for ultimate Twitter success. I began tweeting for Cardthartic, a 16-year-old private greeting card publisher, in June. Currently, we have merely 130 followers and 200 tweets. Because the web site relaunch was not slated until September 2009, I knew I needed to establish a presence, build reputation and tweet about our passionate greeting cards in a sincere way.
Content is king. No doubt about that. While I could not drive traffic to the antiquated Web site, all I could do was tweet about the greeting within each card. To gain followers, I reviewed trending topics for “florists” who carry our cards that are nationally distributed and kept following people oriented to moms, grandmas, pet lovers, gift givers and florists. In a little over a month, I got my first authentic sale from Twitter!
Here’s Jayme’s list for Twitter success:
- Establish yourself with relevant and sincere content.
- Do not directly sell with offensive marketing gimmicks, like teeth whiteners.
- Personify yourself; a human is tweeting so who are you?
- While tweeting for a company brand is acceptable, come out from behind the curtain and be accessible.
- To convert a lead into a sale, ensure you pull in the traditional troops to close the deal.
- Monitor, monitor. Had we not been in close touch with the Tweets, we could easily have missed potential sales.
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