This presentation was delivered to the Sales Operations Group of the UW E-Business Consortium - and generated an active conversation of offline sales success and how integrated social media can accelerate the sales process - even in highly structured traditional environments.

1. Social Media Strategy
for B2B Sales
Crea4ng Context and Debunking
Myths So You Can Win

2. “People don’t want to connect with
brands. They want to connect with
each other. Fascina8ng companies
create more opportuni8es for
people to connect with each other;
through the brand.”
— Sally Hogshead, Author of Fascinate

3. Finn Digital
• Digital Agency
• Regional clients with
global reach
• Where marketing
and technology
strategy meet,
we’ll be there
• B2B and B2C

4. Our Rules of Thumb
• Consider the audience first
• Reflect offline success, online
• Extend reach with technology
• Strong online experiences
have strong purpose

5. Social
Media vs. Networking

7. Social Media Value = Your Value
• Networking event
• Tradeshow
• Prospec4ng
(please, not this guy’s idea of value)

9. Listening at the right keyhole
• Use LinkedIn, but how?
• Where do I start to
iden4fy my audience
online?
• Fish where the fish are,
and find the right spot
on the shoreline

10. B2B isn't different, is it?
• Marke4ng vs. sales
• Lead genera4on vs. "interes4ng trends" (both can be
valuable)
• The online‐all‐day office worker vs. the field engineer in
the middle of a strip mine
• Differences in accessibility

11. Listening Tools
• Establishing relevance
• Social
• Analy4cs ‐ a gold mine
socialmen4on.com
search.twi[er.com
Google Reader
Viral Heat
h[p://socialmedia‐listening.wikispaces.com/Tools

12. Human (personable)
Authen4c (believable)
HARM Relevant (why I should care)
Message (story, benefit, ac4on)
Text

13. There's No News Sir, But the Old News
• Campaign
• Integra4on of communica4on channels
– e‐newsle[er
– personal email
– print (it's not dead)
– a[en4on‐ge[ers and door‐handle warmers
– the telephone (it's so 1983)

14. Par4cipate!
Share Your Examples of Successful Sales ‐ OFFLINE!
Where can social media make a difference?

15. Real Life with the Clients
• Mining Equipment Manufacturer
– What is that for?
– No.
– Wait, maybe…
– No.
– Okay, maybe. But no.

16. Financial Services
• Now what?
• Policy
• Mavericks

17. Anguil Environmental
• LinkedIn Groups

18. B2B Agriculture
• Farmers are social
• Veterinary Science
• Devices of media consump4on
– iPad
– iPhone

19. Tools You Can Use
• Shoutlet
• Scribd‐whitepapers
• Blog
• Slideshare.net
• LinkedIn
• HootSuite, TweetDeck
• Gist
• CRM integra4on ‐ SalesForce.com plugins
• Phone Apps
• Social listening free tools (Google it.)

20. People You Should Take Donuts
• Analy4cs guy in‐house
• Webmaster
• The Marke4ng
Department
• Everyone with a story
about your product

21. What You Can Do Tomorrow
• Search for conversa4ons and listen
• Build rela4onships
– in‐house
– customers
• Build the bait ‐ Content forward
– Video
– Images
– Informa4on

22. Word To The Wise
• Consistent Brand Representa4on
• Nothing online is deleted
• Be a maverick, but only a li[le

23. Recent Industry Sta4s4cs
h[p://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyWW/the‐future‐of‐selling‐6010688

24. Your Comments?
Bill Finn
bill@finndigital.com
h[p://finndigital.com
Blog.finndigital.com
@billfinn
@finndigital