Twelve top tips for integrating social media into B2B selling

While social media is now a proven and important element of many digital marketing campaigns, there remains a dearth of information on how social media integrates with and supports selling and engagement activities. Kim Tasso of Practical Marketing Consultancy offers a dozen practical pointers.

1. Understand the sales and relationship development processes used by your organisation, teams and individuals before you attempt to see how social media might support them.
2. Develop standard policies and procedures to protect against inadvertent problems with client confidentiality, brand and reputation management, disclosure of valuable know-how and ownership of critical contacts and network. See Managing your online reputation elsewhere in this issue.
3. Assess which vertical markets externally, and which professionals internally, are most enthusiastic about social media, and work with your champions in a pilot project. This will allow you to bring early adopters (and potential mavericks) under the umbrella of your organisation’s criteria for effective use. Those of a more cautious disposition might first wish to explore social media using an internal tool, such as Yammer, for internal communications campaigns.
4. Look at existing marketing, sales and account plans and try to develop measures by which social media activity, when incorporated into more traditional activities, may be assessed.
5. Provide introductory training on appropriate social media tools. This may involve working alongside colleagues as they perform their day-to-day work, and delivering training on an on-going basis.
6. Monitor activity and results carefully. Be patient, provide regular support and encouragement, promote successes (however small or anecdotal) and allow social media use to develop in line with experience. Update best practice guidelines and systems regularly.
7. Use social media to learn more about markets, organisations and individuals. Treat it as a targeted form of listening. Doing so will allow you to gain insight into trends, needs and opportunities, and to map client-side relationships.
8. Use location-based social media, particularly those providing information on different aspects of individuals’ preferences, habits and places frequented, to learn about and connect with different members of the decision-making unit.
9. Integrate social media contacts and connections with traditional ‘centralised’ databases, sales automation and CRM systems.
10. Ensure that corporate brands and personal profiles are aligned so that key messages about strengths and expertise are consistent across all channels.
11. Adopt the traditional networking mantra ‘givers gain’. Use social media to add value to every interaction with existing and potential clients via a shared content strategy.
12. Use status updates, particularly on professional and business networks such as LinkedIn, on a regular basis to ensure that you remain ‘on the radar’ of large numbers of contacts. Provide hooks to encourage interaction.

Download a free copy of the report Social media and relationship development in professional services by Kim Tasso and Econsultancy (2011).

 

This feature is reproduced in abridged format by kind permission of Kim Tasso. It was first published on Econsultancy.com.

Author Kim Tasso is managing director of Practical Marketing Consultancy and a guest blogger on Econsultancy.

 

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