Earlier this month there was an excellent guest post in the PR 2.0 blog written by Brian Solis. Its theme is how social media is making successful PR today a lot more like digital marketing. While not focused on the b2b market, it’s an excellent read: http://bit.ly/3QWjJy
As I say it’s a good read, but the majority of my b2b clients would have a tough time adopting all of the recommendations listed. Most of them are offering technology solutions that are not purchased based on a search engine result. And they are certainly not ready to abandon “traditional” PR and put all their eggs in the social media basket.
And that’s — OK. No agency right now (at least in the b2b space) can succeed as just a tradition or social media agency — you need to do both well, and Strategic certainly does. Clients don’t need a terribly high level of IT sophistication to begin making sure their PR efforts are in synch with online marketing. I’ve had a lot of success with clients starting with these basic tenets:
- Repurpose content — every company has lots of quality content in multiple forms. Word docs, powerpoint presentations, white papers, etc. The key is tweaking that content as necessary and using it for social media purposes — blog content, Twitter tweets, distribution via user generated areas of publications like Fast Company and CIO.
- Find your audience — the great thing about social media is audiences self identify. In vertical and horizontal social communities, they clearly state what they are interested in. Most companies have a good profile of the target customer, but not necessarily where they there are online. A social media audit is essential to establish how to reach your target buyer.
- Establish a baseline — to get an idea of how many people you’re engaging via social media, get a baseline level of your typical web site or community traffic prior to a new PR program. It doesn’t need to be expensive — for many clients Google Analytics can suffice. You just need a picture of traffic level and where the referrals are coming from.
- Optimize — this isn’t some black magic that only a few can decipher. What we often do is get a list of the keywords clients are bidding on when we start an engagement. Then we look to work these words and phrases into our social media content, gradually improving the client’s organic search results. And eventually, lowering their paid search spend.
- Stick with it — Here’s where the right PR firm can really help. It’s not easy to consistently churn out quality content that engages, educates and entertains. It’s hard work, and having a firm with a track record of success launching social media campaigns for other clients is essential.
My clients are not interested in being on the bleeding edge of social media. They are interested in what works, and what can quantifiably increase customer engagement, thought leadership, lead flow and deal capture. The steps above can put them on the right path.