myi: How effective has social media been as a way of generating business for you?
As we offer internet marketing services to Finance and Insurance companies we have to practice what we preach. We have found social media a good, useful tool to connect with prospects and also to find out what they require. It is still a growing part of our business but runs as our third best source of business after SEO and direct referrals.
myi: Do you believe that now is the right time for intermediaries to include social media as part of their marketing strategy?
I believe anytime is the right time if a company understands what they want from social media and develops a plan. Just being on Facebook is not the same as just having a website used to be. You need to understand what you want to achieve, be it to communicate, use to market, or use as a client support tool. That said, with the right plan and some dedicated time and effort - social media can pay dividends.
Also understand your expectations and think about the marketplace. If you are a loan or debt management company, do you think you can get people to share their experience with you to their friends and family via Facebook to help boost referrals? I very much doubt it. We have tried this for clients and it simply doesn't work. So we find other ways of utilising the media.
myi: What advice do you have for other marketers who are looking to integrate social media into their marketing strategy?
Plan and then plan some more. Then research your target market - find out how they consume social media. Notice I have not said choose a social media platform - you should not be choosing the platform - your market will choose it for you.
Also do it for the right reasons, don't do it because everyone else is doing it. They may be doing it but are they doing it well? Probably not.
myi: Which social media platforms are best for your type of business?
For our B2B service offerings, we find LinkedIn and Twitter work best for us. LinkedIn groups are a great source of contacts for business referrals, introducers and direct clients. We also follow and connect with anyone we can to increase our reach. Anyone we meet face to face we then connect with on LinkedIn - as once connected you can see how they are connected to and you can start to reach through their network.
Twitter also works well for us as we can respond quickly to questions in real time. We have topic based real time searches running so if someone asks a question in our field we can simply reply, even if we are not connected. Being helpful is always a good thing.
myi: Have you any B2B social media predictions for 2012?
I think Google Plus will die a death in 2012, it doesn't seem to have the same easy user experience as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. I also think companies will start to segment their social media and have different conversations in different ways on different platforms, so I guess I am saying companies will start to get smarter. I would also predict more and more finance companies getting onboard.
