Ask ITSMA: How Do We Take Our Social Media Strategy to the Next Level?

By Chris Koch, ITSMA

Each month, ITSMA receives a number of queries through Ask ITSMA, a resource designed to give members a quick and easy way to get insight on important services and solutions marketing questions they face. In this column, we will publish some of our favorite questions, along with excerpts from our replies.

Q: We’re past the beginner’s stage of social media. We have programs in place but wonder how we can take things to the next level in terms of engaging our audience.

A: As we discovered in our ITSMA social media survey, integrating social media into the rest of your marketing strategy is critical.

One of the most successful ways to integrate social is through events. Social media can be an inexpensive (the tools, anyway) way to engage with your audience before an event and to provide a bridge that connects to the next event, through an online community, for example. We’re hearing that event participants are often eager to keep talking between events, especially since most happen just once a year.

Marketers also use social media to drive their audience to their Websites, where they can track activity and begin the lead management process. This is important because measuring social media in isolation yields little information that the business will be interested in. The business is looking for leads and conversion into sales. You measure that by creating a lead management process that encompasses everything you do in marketing, from events to social media.

	Do you have a sales or marketing question? Visit Ask ITSMA to access our experience, insight, and research results.

Services Marketing News

How to organize marketing, why you shouldn’t take technology out of the CIO, IBM shows off through social media, and CA has a new service for tracking opportunities.

• Why you shouldn’t take the technology out of the CIO.
• Why we need to rethink computer security: young employees view social media as a right.
• Social media engagement lags in B2B.
• IBM has an iPhone app for the US Open Golf Championship that shows off its technical abilities.
• CA taps new service to track opportunities.
• Six types of marketing structures: which one looks like your organization?
• What we can all learn from I Can Has Cheezburger: speed, flexibility, failure.

For up-to-the-minute services marketing news, follow ITSMA on Twitter: @itsma_b2b.

Upcoming ITSMA Events

Integrating Social Media into the Marketing Mix?
Roundtable
September 14, 2010
London, UK

Sales Enablement & the Changing Buying Process
Briefing
September 2010
London, UK; Texas, and California

New Partnering: Innovative Strategies in Collaborative Marketing
Roundtable
September 2010
Boston, MA

ITSMA’s 17th Annual Marketing Conference
The Year of Marketing Transformation

November 2–3, 2010
Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA

Register by July 30 for a $400 savings!

Over the past few years, marketing has weathered quite a sea change: budgets have dwindled, new tools have emerged, offerings have changed, the industry has morphed, and power has shifted. Join us as we hear from industry experts and marketing leaders about the Year of Marketing Transformation and what we as marketers need to start doing to be seen as true business leaders. Top B2B marketers will offer their perspectives, and recipients of the ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards will share their winning practices. Attendees can also sign up for one-on-one meetings with an ITSMA expert or associate during the conference. Get more information and register: http://www.itsma.com/events/2010-conference/.

To view all events, please go here.

ITSMA Featured Research

ITSMA Online Survey: Integrating Social Media into the Marketing Mix and the Business
Social media have value on their own, but they should also be used to complement other marketing channels, such as events, whitepapers, and Websites. In this report, ITSMA examines how B2B marketers are leveraging social media channels in their marketing strategies.
Read the ITSMA social media survey

Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks: 2010 Budget Allocations and Trends
This report delivers a detailed look at the state of the services marketing profession as it exists in early 2010. It provides data on services marketing budgets, budget allocations, and marketing priorities from a range of companies across the technology and consulting industries.
Read the ITSMA Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks report

Recent ITSMA Thought Leadership

Why Marketing Must Be the Catalyst for Social Media
In ITSMA’s recent social media survey, we found that in most organizations, marketing is the catalyst for social media being used by others in the company. In this online briefing, ITSMA’s Chris Koch and Katie Espinola will examine marketing’s role as the catalyst and offer case studies from top B2B technology companies.
View Why Marketing Must Be the Catalyst for Social Media

Globalizing Marketing: How to Sync Headquarters and Field Marketing
Globalization is making it more important to maintain an effective localized touch with field marketing. Marketers must differentiate between the marketing processes and content that can and should be centralized, and what must remain under local management. In this Viewpoint, Peter O’Neill, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester, explains how marketers can localize while they globalize.
Read How to Sync Headquarters and Field Marketing

CSC’s WikonnecT: How to Build a Thriving Social Media Community
Private online communities are the holy grail of social media in B2B. ITSMA research shows that B2B buyers’ most valuable sources of information are their peers—nothing else comes close. Providers that can facilitate that peer connection have an unparalleled opportunity to build trust and loyalty with prospects and clients. In this ITSMA Case Study, we discover how CSC successfully navigated the challenges of social media with WikonnecT, a B2B online community for the insurance industry.
Read CSC’s WikonnecT: How to Build a Thriving Social Media Community

Xerox Global Services’ Competipedia: Using Social Media to Enable the Sales Force
Social media tools expand the possibilities of competitive intelligence by driving collaboration. In this ITSMA Case Study, we show how XGS used social media tools and principles to develop Competipedia, a wiki-based tool that salespeople can use to find and share competitive intelligence on a secure, easy-to-use Website.
Read Xerox Global Services’ Competipedia

This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 7:48 AM and is filed under Ezine AddIns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.