Successful execution of social media programs is an issue for SMB B2Bs, but it can be done. Post Four in our series is Content Strategy. This is timely in that I’m doing just that – developing a content strategy and a blog post (editorial) calendar for a client this week. They didn’t understand the need for this step. I convinced them that what seems like an additional task will actually save significant time and effort over the long run. It is SO MUCH easier to come up with useful and relevant content each week when you’ve taken the time to map it out up front.

Development of a content strategy plays a key role in successful execution of a social media program. Whether you communicate to your audience via a blog, Twitter or social networking sites like LinkedIn, the only true way to build relationships with a growing network is to listen, engage and provide content they find valuable.

Capturing insight about your audience in a social media context can be accomplished through:

• Participation in appropriate online discussion groups,
• Social media monitoring tools, and
• Surveys and polls.

If the objective for your social media efforts is to sell more products and services, become a resource to help your audience make smart buying choices regarding configuration and integration. Give them information re how to leverage your products and services in ways that will make them heroes in their companies. Give them information that’s relevant and useful to them in their business. Over time your knowledge and tools will help them accomplish their goals and, in turn, they’ll see your company as a valuable resource.

In this age of Web 2.0, those who are active in social media are essentially publishers. Content creation plays a key role in your social media strategy. One way to ensure you publish consistent, unique content that:

1. speaks compellingly to your target audience,
2. extends and amplifies your marketing messaging, and
3. aligns with your target keyword concepts;

is to create an editorial calendar. Social media publishing platforms like blogs can use content schedules (aka editorial calendars) to serve as a guide and keep messaging aligned with your overall content strategy.

In my last post, Getting Over the Social Media Content Hump, I listed all the ingredients of a successful social media campaign (that I could think of at the time). My intention is to take each of them – one per week – and delve deeper in an attempt to answer, “How can this facet of social media be leveraged to help develop and/or distribute quality, highly readable content.”

This week’s topic is Market Research.

Social media is a great tool for market research. You can research your clients and your competition, and improve your products and services via crowd sourced surveys. Knowing what your prospects and clients are saying, as well as what your competition is up to, is highly valuable in itself. Anticipating and validating product changes through social research, polls and surveys can be of extreme value. And these polls and surveys will also develop user-generated content.

This is a tactic that market research firms (e.g. Forrester, Frost & Sullivan, Gartner) have been using for decades. It’s no small task to develop a survey questionnaire that elicits valuable information, but there are consultants who specialize in this.

Can’t afford a consultant? Send an email around to your department heads: C-suite, Customer Service, Engineering, HR, Marketing, Product Management, Sales; and ask them for two or three market-related questions that each would love to have the answers to.

Then place these surveys on relevant sites like Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Twitter, and industry specific networking sites. The answers will give you a treasure trove of information that is, by definition, relevant and useful. The information came directly from your target audience!

Use this user-generated content to feed your blogs, group discussions, tweets, etc. And take another sheet from the research firms’ playbook – every year (or quarter, or month) update and re-post your polls and surveys. You’ll get more fodder for your content needs, and more up to date insight into the needs and wants of your clients and target market.

Beneficial side effects may include tighter alignment between your social media people and the rest of the company (and a new found respect for what social media can accomplish), and a closer digital relationship with customers and prospects. This blog post by Scott Frangos makes a crucial distinction between content and true connection (the kind needed to close high ticket B2B deals).

1. Include input from Sales. If you haven’t already, align Sales and Marketing. You can’t afford not to. Sales should be immersed in the conversations taking place with prospects offline. That information is critical to success in migrating, extending and amplifying those conversations online.

2. Be no longer than six months. You can’t plan beyond that. The conversations you need to be having with suspects, prospects and leads is influenced to a significant degree by the environment. Things change in a hurry. Your plan should define how you’ll adapt, not predict the future.

3. Develop and define target personas. Who are you trying to reach? What are their interests, needs and wants? If your content isn’t relevant and useful to that person; it won’t be consumed, remembered or acted on. You have to know, specifically, who you’re engaging in conversation. What’s relevant and useful to one person is irrelevant and useless to the next.

4. Include search engine optimization (SEO), link building, and probably paid search, too. Place your QUALITY content where your targets are congregating online; and take the extra step to PULL others to your blog and website. If they can’t find you on Google, you don’t exist.

5. Have a content strategy that doesn’t assume ‘existing resources’ will do the development. Beyond the strategy itself, this is the most important piece of the plan. Hire someone (either permanent staff or an outside consultant) as a dedicated resource… someone who is an expert at content development. That means not only an excellent copywriter, but one who has SEO skills, and one who understands how to deploy multimedia to communicate your messages quickly, clearly and persuasively.

6. Include distribution, outreach and socialization… the mechanics of how you’ll get your quality content in front of your target audience (which includes not only prospects, but influential people in your industry, in the blogging world, in the media, etc.); and give them the tools they need to comment and distribute.

7. Build in an analytics plan. List key performance indicators (KPIs). What are your goals? They should include traffic, blog comments, retweets, and conversions. This last, conversions, are where the rubber meets the road. What action(s) do you want your targets to take after consuming your content? That must be clearly defined up front. Google Analytics will give you reams of data for free. You don’t want reams of data. You want the half dozen or so stats that will give you a good idea of how well the plan is meeting its goals.

8. Serve existing customers. It’s easier to keep existing customers than it is to obtain new ones. Does your social media marketing plan lay out how you’ll keep your current customers informed and happy? Social media isn’t only a marketing tool. It’s also an excellent research, customer service and PR tool. Make sure your plan leverages it across all those departments.

9. Include Facebook along with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. There are so many people on Facebook you’d be crazy not to try to reach .01% of them. Also look at niche social networks that may aggregate your targets. Once the content is developed, there are tools that automate the process of distributing to these platforms.

10. Follow through. After the content is distributed, you have to follow through. Your social networks must be monitored; and questions and comments must be answered. That’s the essence of  conversation. Listen.

11. Build your house list. It’s your most valuable marketing asset. Your plan should include integration of the various social media platforms into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

12. Include a feedback loop. You developed relevant and useful content for your target audience. You distributed it. You socialized it. You listened and gathered intelligence re what your target thinks of your messaging. You’ve seen which content drives traffic and conversions, and which doesn’t. Feed that information back into the plan. Tweak, and repeat.

13. Be reasonable. There’s a perception that social media is low cost. The price of admission is practically zero, but social media marketing is a process. It requires a significant investment of time. You must listen, participate, and converse over time. Budget money and other resources accordingly.

14. Do the math. The easiest way to check on #13 is to do the math. Your social media plan should put a dollar value on a customer, and provide a worst-case cost estimate for acquiring that customer. Your customer acquisition cost, using social media, should be no more than a few percentage points of the lifetime value of that customer. If it isn’t, something is wrong with either your plan or your pricing.

Complex, high-ticket B2B solutions have long sales cycles. If you have a qualified lead (they have the need, budget and authority), keep them engaged and nurtured. There are right and wrong ways to do this. I’ve seen clients waste time and money on what they think are ‘nurturing’ activities, only to end up with annoyed, tuned-out prospects.

Here’s my list of Lead Torture vs. Lead Nurture:

Lead Torture – calling leads just to ‘touch base’ (“Are you ready to buy yet? I need to make my quota.”). Lead Nurture – calling leads when you have something to talk about, something that is of interest to that individual. Having a valid business reason to make the call.

Lead Torture - Tweets about mundane or arcane (too techie) matters; salesy, obviously self-serving Answers and Discussions on LinkedIn; invitations to become a fan of your company page on Facebook. Lead Nurture - a thought through, coordinated social media plan that has an objective, is congruent across platforms, and consistently delivers interesting, meaningful and/or entertaining information.

Lead Torture – sending the same, tired brochure (or case study or white paper) over and over again. Lead Nurture – sending new, relevant and useful information on a regular basis (blogs are a great way to accomplish this AND improve your SEO at the same time).

Lead Torture – sending weekly emails, written by whichever technician wasn’t billed out at the time, containing technology feature dumps. Lead Nurture - sending a weekly email that curates news items from the Net; items that are of interest because they’re related to that prospect’s industry, business role, etc.

If you’re going to do it, do it right. Otherwise you’re training your leads to dismiss your messaging and your company.

When B2B purchasers were seeking potential new suppliers, Twitter and blogs were considered  more influential sources of supplier information than any other channel, including word of mouth, seminars and industry press.

However, the most popular sources of information remain web searches and supplier websites. In fact, when asked how their information gathering behavior had changed, procurement professionals cited the greatest increased use of web searches (up 64%) and supplier websites (up 61%). Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter experienced 6% and 10% net increases respectively, and LinkedIn saw growth of 19%. Online videos/webinars/podcasts were also a strong source of information with an increase in usage of 36% – that coming off a small base, though.