InsightIQ Blog

Social media strategy: Three lessons learned

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Aug 6 2009

Here at Quaero, we've been slowly increasing our use of Web 2.0 tactics (e.g., blogs, social networking, social media) in an effort to improve our level of engagement with both current and prospective clients.  I hoped that you could benefit from reading about a few key lessons we've learned along the way:

  1. Marketing should not be (solely) responsible for a company's social media program.  Sure, marketing folks can define the strategy, do the analysis and participate, but companies need front-line social media evangelists who do most of the listening and contribute regularly to the conversation.  Take Miguel Barrientos.  A senior member of our professional services organization, Miguel writes regularly for our blog and is active in several social networks.  His blogs reflect what he hears, sees and reads online and focuses on some of the most pressing issues our clients face.  
  2. Crawl. Walk. Run.  Sure, everyone says that about anything new, but it's even more important when it comes to social media strategies. We started by figuring out what would be most helpful to our clients and found that most  still use company Web sites to get information.  So we built a blog to give our clients a place to learn more about what we do and to gain some valuable advice as they tackle their marketing challenges.  Turns out, we have quite a few content "consumers" in our customer base.  Our blog is well-read and subscriptions via RSS have increased exponentially since we launched in February.  Now with our 100th post under our belts, we're adding new social tactics to the mix in an effort to drive prospect interest.  You can find us on Twitter and on Facebook.  Make these two words hyperlinks to your pages
  3. Don't abandon traditional or Web 1.0 tactics.  We've found that traditional tactics when combined with a social networking/media component work even better.  As example, we've increased our search campaigns to drive more people to our blog.  Our monthly e-newsletter contains links to relevant posts and encourages people to subscribe to our news feeds. 

We recognize that our clients want to consume content in a personalized fashion - whether through a feed reader, via Twitter, on Facebook or various other social communities and tools.  Our goal is to provide them with a rich experience and the ability to communicate with us (and not just the marketing department!) when they're ready.

Fellow B2B marketers - what do you think?  Did I miss any important points?  Please post in the comments section.

 

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