Agenda
Increase audience engagement through a more advanced social media strategy that inspires brand interactions - and creates industry buzz
32% of B2Bs now use social media to engage with clients, customers and communities on a daily basis – about half the proportion of B2C companies. The divide is clear – B2Bs lag behind.
But there’s absolutely no reason this should happen.
The opportunities that the huge shift in corporate-consumer interaction that social has engendered are just as viable for B2B businesses as their B2C counterparts. If B2B companies are truly to leverage the benefits of social, they need to shift from a ‘declarative’ model of communications – shouting to the masses – to a conversational model.
In this session, our distinguished panel of corporate experts will spell out how you can use social to leverage engagement to build real relationships and profit in this new social world.
- Move beyond one-way push marketing to become a conversationalist and build lasting end-user relationships
- Create compelling content that generates online discussions about your brand to maximize social interactions
- Find out how to humanize your brand through clear mapping and understanding of your customers’ social journey
Union Pacific, Tim McMahan - Senior Manager, Media Technology
Schneider Electric, Tanya Donnelly, Global Social Media Director
Ariba, Debbie Curtis-Magley, Online Community Manager
Which social platforms are right for your corporate goals? What you need to know to make the right choices for maximum efficiency
An ever changing and evolving social media landscape has meant that conversations about your brand are now happening in multiple social media spaces – across multiple platforms.
34.6% of you are most active on Facebook, 25.3% on Twitter and 25.6% on LinkedIn – which also delivers the higher visit to lead ratio. But where should your focus lie?
With B2B online discussions often occurring on more diverse smaller business forums, it is critical for your business to make the right choices to get involved in the right conversations. You’ve got to fish where the fish are.
In this session, we will look at the most effective platforms for your B2B business to engage on – and how you can judge which networks and communities will deliver most value to you:
- How many networks should you be on? Ensure that you choose the right conversation locations to deliver strategic business value
- Analysis of the latest platforms – Google+, Pinterest and others – how should the rise of these new networks affect your engagement strategy?
- Future-proofing: Techniques and tactics to determine your response to emerging social platforms so you don’t waste time in the wrong places
Sage North America, Greg Tirico, Senior Social Media Manager
BAE Systems, Steve Field, Director of Digital Media
Cost-effective lead generation through leveraging Social Media: the benefits and how to do it right
As a B2B company, you need leads to survive – without them your future business success may be under threat. They’re also an essential metric to help measure the effectiveness of different marketing channels.
And with 51% of B2Bs saying that they use social media to develop new leads – you’re going to have to get your own plan in place to avoid being left behind by your competitors.
But lead generation though social media requires a completely different set of tools and tactics to lead generation on more traditional channels. The expectations of your stakeholders for interaction over social networks are fundamentally different to those over email, over traditional static websites and even in the offline world.
For your lead generation to work over social, you need a new skill set. In this session, we’ll equip you with it:
- Define your customer: build a clear picture of what a hot lead looks like, and how you can find them
- Learn the key engagement tactics to push your leads down the sales funnel
- The social pipeline: Understand when a community is ripe for engagement and lead generation – and when it’s too much of a risk to engage
SAP, Gerry Moran, Director, NA Social Media Marketing
SteelMaster, Michelle Wickum, Director - Marketing
Case Study: Utilize social tools to maximize opportunities & relationships in real-time
ADP, Chelsea Marti, Director, Social Media
ADP, Christine Talcott, Vice President of ES Global Sales Operations
Use business influencers to generate brand impact, and become an industry thought leader
Your ability to create industry ‘buzz’ and positive brand reputation has never been greater – it’s one of the major opportunities that social presents. And one of the most effective ways to create this ‘buzz’ is through the creation – and leveraging – of brand ambassadors
Creating brand ambassadors is a two-pronged attack. Internally, with clever management, you can position your own employees as key influencers and brand champions. Externally, by reaching the right person with the right message, you can generate more traction.
Both forms of brand ambassadors will benefit your brand and boost your bottom line. But both require a different approach.
Part one –
Your internal ‘key influencers’ are often found in R&D or sales – usually placed under lock and key and unlikely to talk on behalf of your company. Resulting in your most knowledgeable and effective assets (and those best placed to become key influencers) not typically engaging externally on social channels.
If this is the case you are missing a huge opportunity to benefit from the knowledge at your fingertips.
Calvert, Annie Cull, Senior Manager - Sustainability Marketing
Part two –
Spotting the right external influencer and getting them involved is tricky – and it’s a delicate process getting buy-in without alienating them. But if you don’t engage with these key players, you can be sure your competitors will.
In part one we’ll…
- Help you identify the unidentified. You will learn how B2B companies are identifying the right people to act as brand ambassadors on your behalf
- Give you the tools and proven methodologies you need to convert these internal experts into productive brand ambassadors
Part two of this session will demonstrate…
- How you can influence conversations about your brand to ultimately create industry ‘buzz’.
- Techniques to effectively reach your biggest external influencers and convince them to support your brand online
Calvert Investments, Annie Cull, Senior Manager - Sustainability Marketing
AT&T, Trish Nettleship, Social Media Lead
Nielsen, Matt Anchin, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing & Communications
Cisco, Speaker TBC
The value of B2B social media: Is there a clear impact on your bottom line?
Social media ‘Return on Investment’ is a question that has been around since the dawn of social – and shows no sign of being answered satisfactorily yet. 77% of B2B companies admit they are not confident in attributing ROI to their social efforts.
However, social is no longer an experimental marketing channel. For you to get the resources and budget you need, you’ve got to show the board that social engagement will bring in the $$$
In this session you’ll learn from those who can attribute $ to social engagement – and how you can too:
- The Social media ROI formula: How to assign $ to specific campaigns and engagements
- Learn how to set a productive equilibrium between demanding an impact on your bottom line and driving business success – and align your social goals accordingly The broader question:
- Is ROI actually the true measure of success? Or should you be looking for more qualitative forms of social media value?
Adobe, Lori DeFurio, Sr. Social Media Strategist, Digital Media
Black & Veatch Corporation, Jonathan Mast, Senior Manager Emerging Media Global Marketing & Communications
Best practice: Track brand sentiment and engagement through effective data management
Social media delivers a wealth of data – some of it relevant, some not. The real challenge is not to measure everything, but find what data delivers business critical information for your brand.
It is tempting to just focus on the $ and cents – but this is a too simplistic, and ultimately a counterproductive approach. But to find the right data sets, you’ve got to have the right listening and monitoring tools in place.
With 68% of B2B brands confessing that their current measurement tools are infective, This is a common problem. But one we’ll help you solve.
In this session, you will:
- Determine your priorities: what should your company be looking for through the wealth of social media data?
- Measure your social effort with B2B-specific metrics to show progress to your C-suite
- Finding signal through the noise: cut through social chatter to find the information that is relevant to you
Citibank, Lara Ruth, Senior Vice President, Social Media
3M, Gregory T. Gerik, Social Media Leader
The responsive corporation: Use data generated through social interaction for better corporate decision-making
Analyzing social media data correctly is critical to the future success of your brands decisions. By understanding the data that social media delivers you will be able t0 1) spot emerging market trends, 2) make informed business critical decisions and 3) stay one step ahead of your competitors.
More importantly for you, by analyzing social data fully you can crowd source decision-making that will directly affect the future of your business.
But social generates huge amounts of data. In this session, we’ll help you to manage it, manipulate it, and turn it into useful insights that will help future-proof your business:
- Use the right tools and techniques to analyze the data you collect accurately – and ensure you don’t miss a thing
- Internal set-up: Create free flowing information channels so the right information reaches the right person in your company
- Internal innovation: use social data to help improve your product development – and match it better to consumer needs
Siemens, Stefan Heeke - Head of Digital Marketing
Get the board on board with social: The secrets of achieving genuine – and enthusiastic – B2B social media buy-in
Getting buy-in from key internal stakeholders is a still a daily challenge. And now cost is increasing around social, there’s more pressure on you show progress to your C-suite than ever.
It is critical to get the people that matter on board. Otherwise, you simply won’t have the support – or resources - to make your social efforts a success. But to do so, you must speak on their terms and in their language.
- Transform your social insights into a language your board understands - to get the backing you need
- Nurture social media competency internally to help your colleagues understand its value and buy into your social media strategy
- Tactics and tips to combat scepticism, negativity, hostility and plain-old fashioned fear from the older generation of senior management
Caterpillar, Kevin G. Espinosa, eBusiness Platform Manager
ARAMARK, Tom Carusona, Senior Director, Digital & Social
Become a social business: Embed social throughout your organization to lay foundations for long term business success
As corporate social media matures, it begins to permeate throughout your whole business. Limiting social to marketing limits social’s full power – and its ability to create real value for your business. But unless you have robust and future-proof internal structures and policies, you will limit this impact – whether you like it or not.
It is no longer effective to have social media siloed – either into an individual department or as a segment of your marketing team. Things must change. But how? Is a hub and spoke model best for you? What about a Command Centre/Centre of Excellence?
One thing is clear – it’s thinking that you need to do, and do fast:
In this session, hear experts from Wells Fargo on how they embed social throughout their organizations.
- Improve your internal communications channels to ensure your company’s social media deployment is productive rather than profligate
- Decide which social model works best for you – the pros and cons of the hub and spoke, centres of excellence and empowered employees across the board
- Efficiently assign your time and resources in your organization’s daily social media activities to make sure you don’t waste an hour
Wells Fargo, Nathan Bricklin, Senior Vice President - Head of Social Business Strategy
Case Studies: One corporate speaker, one topic, 15 fact-filled minutes
#Gamification: Use gamification in a B2B context to boost customer interactions, train staff and improve stakeholder engagement
#CustomerService: Is social media customer service relevant for B2Bs? If so, how do you create a more robust and responsive customer service function capable of turning critics into brand ambassadors?
Citi, Frank Elison, Senior Vice President of Social Media
#MarketingIntergration: Create synergy between social media to truly boost your digital marketing mix
Siemens, Stefan Heeke Director, Online Marketing
