If you’re a small business owner or marketer in the business-to-business space, successful social media examples are hard to come by. But I have unearthed a sterling example for you! Well, I actually did my reading over the weekend thanks to the Groundswell team…
In their newest book Charlene Li (formerly of Forrester and founder of Altimeter) and Josh Bernoff (Forrester Research), Marketing in the Groundswell include an example of a successful B2B blog. While this popular business-to-business blog is from a large company, I think small business owners and marketers can learn from its success factors. (Marketing in the Groundswelll is a must-read if you’re considering adopting social media to grow your business. Charlene & Josh share their extensive insights, conversations with executives and useful case studies.)
Emerson Process Management is a large company—manufacturing automation systems for other manufacturers—but it still demonstrates a key blog success story for small B2B businesses.
The marketing communications manager for the Process System
s and Solutions business unit of Emerson Process Management and self-proclaimed “Chief Blogger”, Jim Cahill publishes their blog, Emerson Process Experts.
What the blog takes:
Jim Cahill blogs for a select audience, plant managers and automation engineers and buyers. According to Groundswell, the blog takes about 30 percent of Jim’s time and that means about two to three posts per week. (Okay, you’re saying that’s a lot of time—agreed.)
Results:
Jim gets three to five contacts a week via the blog. These contacts can turn into early leads that can result in million dollar sales. The process automation systems they sell are huge.
Success factors:
- Jim Cahill really enjoys blogging and expresses his own opinions
- He really knows his audience. His posts tell stories from the trenches of process automation.
- Readers connect with Jim’s posts
- The authentic posts build credibility for Emerson with customers and prospects
How would you like to have over 600 people interested in your products and services following you on Twitter? Here is Jim Cahill’s Twitter.
Related posts you may find useful:
Hi Cynthia, Thanks for spotlighting our Emerson Process Experts blog! I continue to enjoy the blog and connecting with people throughout our small world of process automation for process manufacturing companies.
From the time when I spoke with Charlene and Josh until now, the number of contacts I get from email, phone, VOIP has grown to 6-10 per week, not counting Twitter, which is a whole communications medium unto itself.
Take care! Jim
Thanks for the update Jim! Real world B2B results are so helpful for business owners debating about jumping on the blog-bandwagon.
Best,
Cynthia