This is one of the speaker presentations from the spring session of summit,"Social Media in the Enterprise", held in San Francisco. This event is sponsored by KickApps and Akamai. You can find the video of this speaker at http://www.kickapps.com/engage/

1. Generating B2B leads using
social media
Heather Burnett
Marketing Program Manager
Large Enterprise | Public

2. Today’s discussion
• Justifying social media for business
• Building a community for IT Expert Forum
• Goals and metrics
• Best practices and key takeaways
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3. Justifying social media for
business
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4. Social media
contributes to
customer
awareness, sales
support and
revenue.
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5. Customer awareness
• Primary goal is always about audience
• Create a community where members can openly discuss the
product/service and “expert” members can comment
• Great way to measure awareness and engage customer (surveys,
contests, points system, etc.)
• Address public concern
• Be relevant and address customer pain points
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6. Can social media support sales?
• Lead generation – help Sales to
“Always Be Closing”
• Augment pre-sales nurturing
• Establish and nurture the
relationship between the customer
and the organization
• Track lead generation in CRM tools
(i.e., Salesforce.com)
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7. IT Expert Forum: a new
community for IT professionals
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8. How we got started
• Traditional generation activities drive sales engagements
– Landing zones
– Online events
– Face-to-face events
– Content syndication
– Telemarketing
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9. Evolving the model: developing a social
media hybrid
Traditional Social
Landing Zone Networking Site
www.itexpertforum.com
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12. Create a
community
that’s ready to
grow and
prosper.
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13. Building the community
• Reached out to existing leads
• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Paid Search
• Rented a list for email blasts
• Leveraged blog and other forum membership
• >100 Members on Day 1
• >350 Members after Month 1
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14. Leveraging other communities
• Integrated existing social media components
• Our blog (www.migrationexpertzoneblog.com/)
and blogger has been consistently ranked in the
Top 10 Windows 7 Influencers*
• We introduced our existing audience to
IT Expert Forum
* Source: December 2009 Collective Intellect Report
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15. Goals and metrics
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16. Define specific
goals and
metrics to
measure
success.
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17. Goal: growth
• Fresh content
• WidgeAds (via KickApps)
• Email blasts
• Paid search
Metric: Number of
members vs. goal
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18. Goal: community engagement
• Email nurturing promotes
fresh content
• Surveys that pique members’ interests
• Promote online events via the
Spotlight section
• Integrate your SMEs into
the community
Metric: Survey responses,
assets uploaded by
members, email blast
metrics
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19. Goal: member interaction
• Use “points” to encourage
member interaction
• Contests, games and surveys
• Widgets help members push and
upload content
• Evaluate data to understand customer
Metric: Email sharing, return
visits, number of groups
and community leaders,
site discussions, blog comments
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20. Goal: leads
• Identify which members fit the lead demographic
• Evaluate custom reporting to identify valid leads
• Conversations and threads can be captured in reporting
• Site-generated email nurturing
• “Points” help rank, prioritize and validate leads
• Telemarketing nurture and sales-ready leads
Metric: Number of leads generated for
nurturing, number of leads generated for
sales reception, revenue in pipeline
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21. Lead lifecycle
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22. Metrics
If you can’t measure it, you can’t
manage it.
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23. Metrics
Community Activity
• Basic Reporting New Registrations
Total Site Discussions
Traffic - Pages
– Metrics can be applied to specific goals Total Page Views
Total Page Views
and ROI Home Page
My Home Pages
– Site traffic  paid search or email blasts Play Pages
Full Comments Pages
Profile Pages
– Registration  email nurturing List Pages
Message Board Pages
Groups Pages
Chat Page
Member Join
Member Login
Content
Total Uploads
Media Files Approved
Photos Uploaded
Videos Uploaded
Text Blogs Posted
Audio Files Uploaded
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24. Metrics
Custom Activity
• Custom Reporting Site Enhancements
WidgeAd Activity
– More robust
Leads
– Registered members may convert to leads Email Nurturing
Total Downloads
– Total downloads  new content Survey Activity
Total Site Impressions
– Confirm brand awareness Home Page Impressions
Client Migration Impressions
– Custom enhancements, surveys or
Enterprise Virtualization Impressions
WidgeAd activity (paid media)
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25. Best practices and key
takeaways
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26. Going beyond
the blog with a
social media
hybrid for lead
generation.
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27. Value-add for marketing plans
• Social media  real results – not just a pretty, fun toy
• Consider the goals and the potential of the site
– Become a thought leader in the industry
– Gain and enhance customer loyalty
– Track marketing media use and popularity
– Build a community of experts
– Lead generation potential
• Publicize messages in the community – promote products and
messaging
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28. Best practices and key takeaways
• Remember audience comes first
• Know that building the community is a main goal
• Carefully consider the goals for your site and plan early
• Create a marketing plan to include activities that build the site
• Set real and measurable goals that map to budget and track ROI
• Leverage knowledge and resources
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29. Best practices and key takeaways
• Encourage interaction and engagement
• Keep it simple; specific and strategic content - no “spray and pray”
• Utilize widgets to keep site fresh, dynamic and informational for you
• Allow organic dialog to take place on the site; don’t police it too much
for reasons like damage control
• Identify your lead demographic and generate reports accordingly
• Track lead scoring (points) and be mindful of constant calibration
• Reward your members to build loyalty so they come back and share the
site with their friends
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30. www.itexpertforum.com
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