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By Liam Dowd - February 25th, 2015
The politics of Instagram. Why multi-channel customer services is critical and B2B marketing in an increasingly mobile market.
B2B Marketers Ignoring Mobile
New research from Regalix and reported by eMarketer suggests that B2B marketers are not paying enough attention to mobile channels, as a distribution medium for their marketing messages. In fact, 80% of those polled didn’t have a mobile strategy for their content distribution.
Commenting on the findings eMarketer said: “A silver lining appeared when B2B marketers were asked about mobile apps, despite the fact that just 12% were leveraging these for content at the time. Among respondents, 83% said mobile apps were important to content marketing. However, just 32% labelled these as very important or critical, while 51% acknowledged they were somewhat important, indicating room for growth.
“Interestingly, B2Bs are set to spend more dollars on both content marketing and mobile apps this year. In November 2014 polling by Salesforce Marketing Cloud, 66% of B2B marketers worldwide said they planned to increase spending on content marketing in 2015, and 65% said the same about mobile apps. Whether or not they use these mobile apps to enhance their content expansion remains to be seen, but they’d be wise to catch up sooner rather than later to avoid falling further behind in today’s mobile-dominated world.”
There is clearly more room for growth within the mobile space that all B2B marketers can actively pursue. Corporations must have a mobile strategy, as this channel will continue its inexorable rise to dominance.
Multi-Channel Customer Services is Vital
A new infographic from West Interactive lays bare the fact that customer services support is now a multi-faceted affair. The use of phone, email and of source social media is covered in detail. Social media is as expected continuing to expand its reach across the customer services space, but nearly 60% of these communications still go unanswered.
“Ninety-nine per cent of brands are present on Twitter, where, within the hour, 72% of customers expect a response to complaints and 42% expect answers to questions,” commented West Interactive. “However, only 10% of companies on Twitter satisfy these expectations; the average response-time is closer to five hours.
“Creating a dedicated customer service handle has been shown to improve response time by 43%, double the total rate of response, de-clutter brands’ main pages and encourage viral marketing. By listening intently to communication preferences, your brand can go above and beyond to improve the customer experience across multiple channels.”
Social media now has such a profound impact on your corporation’s customer services delivery that increasingly businesses are developing special teams to handle this channel of their customer services response. What is clear is that those businesses that can efficiently respond to customer services queries over the social networks will become destinations brands.
The Social Toaster?
For corporate marketers the coming age of the Internet of Things (IoT) could transform the relationships they have with their customers via everyday objects. According to Cisco there will be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by the end of this decade, which they estimate will translate into a potential revenue of $14 trillion.
Says David Isaacson Senior Strategist at Omobono: “Technology will augment relationships and help excel the buying cycle but we need to remember it’s about people doing business with people. Technology must not replace the human experience. Think audience not technology. Understand the person by using technology to get closer to them. The human experience drives relationships and as B2B marketers we know that relationship and experience are pivotal in truly engaging audiences.”
Deborah Hanamaura, Metia director of marketing also commented: “There’s a natural synergy between marketing automation and IoT. It’s entirely plausible to use a connected device to trigger a marketing message. For example, when your printer is low on ink, it could trigger an email to the purchasing department with an alert and possibly a coupon code. Tying connected devices to purchasing cycles or subscription renewals is a natural marriage between marketing automation and IoT.”
Cisco concluded: “Social media is perhaps the single most impactful development of the last decade. Now, various appliances, objects, and devices can “use” social media as well, to post data about their state in the social networks of humans, interact in social networks with humans and other objects, and to build a social communication network with other objects.
“The socialization of objects data will provide more accurate and contextual information, which can be used to offer value-added services to users in their social sphere. The cooperation between smart objects will create trusted, dynamic communities that enable insightful data that is beneficial to people and organizations.
“The social IoT will aid companies in augmenting their customer service models with creative possibilities involving cost savings and enhanced user experiences. The difference is that engagement will now be tied to things, sensors, and information intertwined via social channels. These channels will have the visibility and transparency to create touch points between businesses and customers—creating their own vibrant ecosystem.”
The Politics of Social Media
Understanding the demographics of your corporation’s customers is vital to ensure marketing messages reach the right people at the right time. Research by Pew reveals that: “Today, about eight-in-ten Latino, black and white adults who are online use at least one of five social media sites – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter. Among these, Facebook stands out as the most widely used platform, regardless of race or ethnicity: About seven-in-ten adult Internet users (71%) say they use the site.
“But there are differences by race and ethnicity in the use of other social media sites, in particular Instagram. The photo-sharing site is more popular among Hispanic and black Internet users than among white Internet users. About one-third (34%) of online Hispanics use Instagram, as do 38% of blacks. By comparison, only 21% of whites use the network.
“Instagram’s popularity among younger adults is notable. For example, roughly half (53%) of online adults ages 18 to 29 use the service, compared with 25% of those ages 30 to 49, 11% of those ages 50 to 64 and 6% of those 65 and older. This is worth noting when looking at social media use by race and ethnicity since Latinos are significantly younger than other groups. More than a decade separates the median age of Latinos (27) and whites (42), while the median age for blacks is 33.”
Until next time….
The Useful Social Media team.
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