Is your small business looking for proven B2B social media marketing tactics that generate leads and sales? Read on! You may like this business-to-business marketing case study. IBM shares their experiences with social media roles for subject matter experts, sales reps, and results metrics. Clark Fredricksen at eMarketer uncovers valuable social media best practices from Ed Linde II, who is in charge of Internet presence at IBM.
According to Linde, IBM’s social media efforts have uncovered millions of dollars in sales.
I think the aha fact shared here is the four classic metrics IBM uses to track social media leads: number of leads created, lead value, win revenue and win rate. These basic metrics sound a lot like traditional marketing measurements to me.
B2B Social Media Marketing Excerpts, Tips from IBM interview:
Who in the business should participate in social media?
Experts are best to lead social media marketing in the B2B space. Not sales reps. Use your subject-matter experts with established authority on key topics. They have credibility in their area to help buyers that are looking for more information in order to make informed decisions on equipment purchases.
Note: According to IndustrialInterface, a BtoB startup using social media marketing to grow, it’s all about sharing on social media—not talking about your products and services. Brian Jones, co-founder at IndustrialInterface.com says, “Internet users can smell marketing speak a mile away…Social media marketing is all about people sharing with other people.”
Sales Reps (Do) Blog
Sales reps use individual blogs to deepen relationships with their own customers. Many IBM sales reps have blogs with RSS feeds that are connected to LinkedIn and Twitter. Sales reps’ customers can follow them and have an individual relationship.
How to Listen for Leads
The Listening for Leads program consists of IBM employees that are volunteer “seekers” who monitor particular social media sites. They listen to online conversations and determine whether there’s a potential sales opportunity. “Seeking” is not a full time job.
”Seekers” visit government agency sites where RFPs (request for proposals) are posted, and there are discussions about proposals. In the tech space, they frequent blogs or discussion boards about the new Intel chip for servers.
“Seekers” listen for clues (leads) that someone is in a buying mode:
- “I’m about to issue a RFP. Does anyone have a sample RFP that I can use?
- “I’m looking to replace my old server”
- “Does anyone have any recommendations on what kind of storage device will work in this in type of situation?”
Then “seekers” try to get these leads to a telephone rep that qualifies and validates the lead then passes it to a sales rep.
Events are Tweeted
IBM uses Twitter to inform customers about Webinars, podcasts, virtual trade shows or physical trade shows and to advertise some promotions. Individual reps keep their customers updated about interesting news and events via their own Twitter accounts.
Right Keywords are Key
Key to B2B social media success: knowing what the right keywords are so that you can search the various blogs and other sites where people are talking about your products. Using Google tools that filter the conversations that are happening within blogs or on Twitter will help you locate the best websites.
In my next post, I’ll suggest next steps for business-to-business owners and marketers looking to use the IBM approach.
Have any thoughts on the IBM social media successes? Share them below in comments.
Photo: iStock
You can read more of the IBM interview here.
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