Social Media for B2B – June NYC IABC Presentation by Eric Chandler
At the June International Association of Business Communicators New York Chapter meeting, Eric Chandler, Senior Consultant at CJP Communications illustrated how a B2B industry can implement social media by expanding their brand through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Chandler served as senior director of communications for Platform-A, the former division of AOL’s advertising functions, and was director of trade public relations for Bauer Publishing and is also an adjunct professor at New York University’s School of Continuing & Professional Studies.
Eric presented the following:
– If you are not doing social media personally you will not feel comfortable talking to upper management convincing them to use social media as well
– 35% of Fortune 500 firms have active Twitter accounts
– 20% of Fortune 100 firms use YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and have a corporate blog as per emarketer
– Facebook overtook Google in March 2010 proving that sociability has surpassed searchability
– Marketing spending on social networking sites is predicted to rise 43% as per UMASS study
– Brian Morrissey from Adweek has a unique tweeting style and communicates well in the medium by building his brand on Twitter
– Use Tweetdeck to follow reporters
– Many companies now believe it is a risk NOT to be involved in social media (ROI = Risk of Ignoring)
– Social media is not: A new method of push marketing, a replacement for using discipline in your messaging strategy
– The benefits of using social media for your organization: Expands brand awareness, generates leads and builds the business, keeps customers and partners in the know on company news and information, encourages website traffic, and shares meaningful content
At this point in the presentation Eric took some questions from the audience. One member asked, “I am in a heavily regulated industry, what information can I share on our blog?” Chandler advised for this person to not tweet/speak about anything that would be heavily regulated, and to figure out what you and your organization can talk about in the social media realm. You have to ask yourself, how willing am I (and your department or organization) to push the envelope?
Eric wrapped up his presentation by offering the following:
Ideas and strategies your organization can implement tomorrow:
1. Use Twitter for brand building: Launch a Twitter presence to syndicate press releases and company news, create ongoing connections and conversations to promote business leads.
2. Use LinkedIn for recruiting and lead generation.
3. Use YouTube to reach a mass audience and share information with policymakers, the media, and the consumer.
4. New hire video series – Develop a library of online videos that highlight company culture, values and thought leadership.
5. Launch an online newsroom.
6. Optimize your press releases with SEO to improve release pickups, improve client traffic with key search terms, and improve search engine rankings in Google and Yahoo news.
Social media words of wisdom:
– It is not about the quantity of visitors, but the quality
– Connect with those that leave comments on your blogs, videos, posts, etc.
– Put yourself out there by reaching out and being open to others coming to your blog and posts
– For internal communications: Yammer, which is Twitter for companies, allows users to exchange short messages between various company groups and acts as a corporate social network, discussion board and knowledge base all in one interface
– Two companies Eric mentioned making use of the social media space: American Family Insurance and GEreports.com
– American Family Insurance can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia
– GEreports.com is a news site run by General Electric that was created when GE was getting bashed by the news media and traditional public relations was not working to improve General Electric’s image so GE took control and created it’s own news channel on YouTube and Twitter
You may also be interested in these posts:
Allison Fine and Beth Kanter The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
Gary Vaynerchuk and The Thank You Economy
Gary Vaynerchuk and Robert Scoble Discuss Business and Social Media
Ray Jordan on Johnson & Johnson’s Social Media Strategy
JetBlue’s Social Media Strategy with Jenny Dervin
David Meerman Scott, Author of Real-Time Marketing and PR
John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine
The Mike Johnson Blog 
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