Last updated on October 29th, 2015 at 03:55 pm
If your B2B firms need a refresher on how to rock it in the social media landscape, this Podcast Recapper is for you.
Today we look at an episode of Marketing Smarts, via MarketingProfs and hosted by Kerry O’Shea Gorgone, Instructional Design Manager of Enterprise Training at MarketingProfs, who’s also a speaker, writer, attorney, and educator.
This episode features Eric T. Tung, a social media manager, strategist, consultant, advocate, speaker, and blogger. By day he’s a social media manager at BMC Software, responsible for event strategy, growing social media communities across several lines of business, and leading employee social media training. He explores getting the most out of social media in business, and loves helping companies empower their employees to do social media “the right way.”
Eric recently presented at MarketingProf’s 2015 B2B Marketing Forum, where he spoke about executive and employee activation, and advocacy for B2B social media. This podcast features a great talk between Kerry and Eric about his presentation, including nuggets of wisdom such as:
- How B2B social media requires planning and preparation, given that they’re probably got multiple campaigns running at any one given time.
- Why it’s important to have a social media policy to help guide employees when they want to help share brand info on social.
Here’s How B2B Companies Can Rock Social
Eric mentions that getting B2B firms to success with their social media accounts is a three- or four- step strategy, depending on the industry and size of the company involved. At a basic level, all companies should have the following:
1 – Social Media Policies
Policies and guidelines can be difficult and time-consuming to create, however they’re essential for B2B on social media. It lets everyone know exactly how they can behave on social media, both in a professional and personal capacity. The policy covers everyone from the official social media team to the VP of a business unit or the team member who’s excited about the company’s products.
Kerry was curious to know how BMC manages to keep a unified voice for their brand on social, given that they are such a large company. “Each business unit has a Twitter handle that deals with those subject areas, and each one has a different platform strategy. Cloud platform unit is different than the Help Desk unit,” Eric explained.
“The voice should reflect the people that work in the business unit. What are the people like that work in this area? Are they cool and techy or more into the product side?” Eric advised B2B firms to keep this in mind when developing their programs and policies.
2 – Employee Training
Eric mentioned that about 70 to 85 percent of employees want to help their brands on social media, so it’s important to give them the tools and training to let them do it properly. For example at BMC, Eric does a lunch-and-learn every couple of weeks so employees get to know what BMC’s policy and strategy is. It lasts only about 30 minutes long, so it doesn’t take too much out of the employee’s day.
One point Eric was quick to stress was the notion of employee disclosure. If a B2B company is going to use employee advocates, it’s important that their audience knows they work at the firm in question so their messages and behaviour are more transparent.
Why give employees social media training? Because they will engage on behalf of your brand. @EricTTung #mpb2b pic.twitter.com/cYsPXoH0hK
— Leadspace (@Leadspace) October 23, 2015
3 – Approved Sharing Platform
When Eric first started at BMC, they used some pretty basic tools to keep track of everything, including spreadsheets and regular emails. But that can be hard to scale as your efforts grow, so you may be looking to invest in an employee advocacy platform. These platforms act as a central gateway for your social media efforts, covering everything from publication to monitoring and reporting. Tools include Dynamic Signal, Sociabble, and PostBeyond.
Listen to the Podcast to Get All the Details
To find out more about Eric’s presentation, check out this timeline on Twitter.
Learn more about Eric at EricTTung.com or follow him on Twitter @ericttung.
Photo via Flickr, Creative Commons
