Pennsylvania
State University’s Institute for the Studies of Business Markets (ISBM http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/ and part of
the SMEAL College of Business) is
another example of academic thought leaders who are working directly with
industry to understand and capture competitive advantage in B2B marketing.
Ralph Oliva, the Executive Director is what I call a “cosmic bondini” in that
he connects the dots between what industry needs, and addresses those needs by
building his network and foundation on rocks called research and B2P networking.
Ralph, brother of my friend Vinnie Oliva at Gartner, assembled one of the first
ever B2B conferences focused on social media. This ISBM conference was genius
in the sense that it not only presented research that clearly shows where
social media is going; but also provided speakers and practitioners that are
actually doing it! HELLO!
Those
practitioners included myself and Robin Carey of Social Media Today, Rick Short
of Indium, Jeff Hayzlett of Kodak (see him on YouTube) and Cisco’s Doug Webster,
in addition to several consulting organizations. One particular consultant/social
media guru, had the audacity to actually get on stage and admit that they don’t
even blog, wow are u kidding! This conference is one of the first I have ever
seen that provides insights into how to execute a B2B social media strategy
that addresses the bottom line, sales.
For background reading on thought
leadership see Thought Leadership is Key to Marketing Communications Today at: http://www.thesocialcustomer.com/blog/PeterAuditore1/site/posts/
Net/Net: The Barrier to Executing B2B
Social Media Strategy= Company & Org Culture
As Drucker
always said “there is no strategy without execution,” and after spending last
week with 100 marketing CMOs, directors and managers from more than fifty
companies and organizations, I can tell you that most of them are far from
executing any social media. Although many of the companies were from the
manufacturing and the services industries they don’t get that B2B social media
is simply another way of getting closer to their customers, partners and
suppliers. Their company cultures are stuck in the mud of the antiquated four
Ps of marketing, intellectual property protection discussions, and are
threatened by the change of represented in the social media landscape that is
downright scary to them. This again
harkens back to what I said multiple times last year about how social media can
drive competitive advantage and most importantly sales. Get it!
I had the
pleasure of keynoting this conference at the Houstonian hotel last week with my
partner in crime Robin Carey. We presented SNCR research on how social media
peer groups are rapidly becoming trusted decision support tools, and discussed
the development of our famous MyVenturePad best practices in social media
marketing case study. Here is a quick overview of the most important
presentation that hit the spot.
Best Conference Presentation: Rick
Short of Indium
Imagine if
you were the marketing guru for a company that makes solder and solder paste how
would you leverage social media? Well
Rick has been doing it for nearly five years now, Rick and I presented last
year at the BMA conference and his formula for success with social media can be
summed up in what he calls the three Cs and I love this:
- CONTENT 2 CONTACT
2 CASH
Rick’s story
is indeed a best practice in B2B social media and he provided a roadmap to
executing it. Rick has now convinced seventy of his company’s engineers to blog
regularly on their areas of expertise and they are driving revenue from the
people that read their blogs. He used one specific example of how an engineer
was blogging on an obscure metallurgy topic and as a result the potential
customer came to them because Indium has more content on the Internet about
this area through blogging than any competitor, so they were viewed as an
expert. In spite of the fact that Rick Short was there to tell them just how
his company, Indium, makes money from social media, many conference attendees still
did not get it, amazing.
A Chance Meeting with George Bush
Senior
It is not
often that I meet a President and have a conversation with one, but it was
indeed fun to meet President Bush one of our kinder and gentler Presidents in
Houston. While sitting out front of the hotel having my afternoon cigar, I
noticed two secret service people open the door to the veranda I was sitting on,
and out of a side door to my surprise emerged George Bush and his cane. For an
older guy he looked great and vibrant and as I arose to shake his hand as he approached
me and said “hi I am Peter from California, nice to meet you President Bush.”
He looked at me and said, “You are enjoying a cigar” and I said “yes my
grandfather told me that the man who smokes the big cigar has his life and
plans well in hand.” (That is because usually when you light up a cigar
everyone around you that does not smoke exitsJ) George laughed and said “nice,” and then I
said “we need to change this Cuban situation.” ‘George said why? George W likes
cigars what should I tell him?’ I said “tell George W this, “Cuban cigars smoke
up to twice as long as others, and they often taste like chocolate, nutmeg and
other wonderful flavors and they are really smooth.” President Bush said, “I
will, nice to meet you Peter.”
There is an
awful lot more I could tell you about this conference but the net/net is most
companies even today don’t understand the value of social media and don’t know
how to use it, their competitors will. Until next time I wish you great
marketing and selling in the millennium.
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