By Alex Romanovich, Founder Social2B, CMO – EuroSpaClub International

With all the excitement of 2012 predictions and speculations, we couldn’t help but weigh in with a few observations of our own. After all, we are equally excited about what Year of the Dragon (officially starts on January 23rd, according to Chinese Zodiac Year of 2012) will bring to marketers and technologist alike. The Dragon will undoubtedly make good on the promise of convergence of the three major forces in business: digital media, marketing and technology. Ironically, Michael Porter’s value chain supporting organizations, namely: marketing, information services, legal and human resources, must take the lead in defining and shaping business strategies in 2012.

The two major ‘axis of Enterprise new media’, marketing and technology disciplines, will have the leverage of many investments made in 2011 and the attention of the boardroom. Enterprise ‘spin doctors’ and ‘geeks’ will have to please CEOs and CFOs, as well as their Operational counterparts, delivering the ROI from that leverage, while finding ways to play nicely together under the same roof of ‘social media and cloud computing’. Surprising it may seem, success can only come from focus, simplicity, and collaboration. Marketers can no longer afford to wage go-it-alone campaigns and to rely on agencies, which are clamoring for bigger budgets and opportunities for ‘outsourcing’. The complexity of tools and the amount of high-risk brand exposure call for alliances and internal agreements between pundits in legal, marketing, human resources and technology communities within an Enterprise.

The year of 2012 promises to be the ‘year of more‘, according to Mitch Joel, in his Six Pixels of Separation Blog. Naturally, we hope that marketers and technologists will find ways to cope with less and still make good on the promise of Social Media and Cloud Computing. Here are a few facts and tips for marketers, technologists, legal, and HR professionals to ‘converge, integrate and simplify’ their life in 2012.

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By Alex Romanovich
Chief Marketing Officer at EuroSpaClub International

Integrated marketing has been the mantra of B2B marketers for many years, as they were busy deploying CRM systems in support of sales and marketing efforts and charting new strategies for integrated care centers and marketing automation. With the advent of social media, the balance of “integration” has shifted. More attention is now devoted to content creation and curation, management, analytics, sentiment analysis, search engine optimization, knowledge sharing, and ways to enlighten customers without the hard-sell approach.

So what’s a B2B marketer to do? Continue to integrate.

Inserting social media into the mix of the existing marketing portfolio requires some planning and consideration—and definitely strategy. Consider the following aspects of integration as you are trying to experiment with social media in a B2B environment:

• Diagnose the impact of social media on your overall marketing basket. Your biggest challenge is to come out of the integration effort with more efficient and effective execution and a faster route to results. The impact of inserting social media into the existing mix may have far-reaching consequences, ranging from impact on content creation and consumption by your customer base, product marketing and development, lead generation, and conversion. Having a good diagnostic exercise will outline your risk and reward areas as well.

• Analyze your social media value chain. If you are a Chief Marketing Officer or a head of marketing, you have a unique opportunity to drive integration throughout the enterprise. The impact of social media as a business process can have immediate impact on branding and the social responsibility grid—as well as bottom line results—as it touches multiple disciplines within an enterprise: human resources, customer service, sales, and even finance. The leadership agenda will now touch on strategies for metrics and measurements, enterprise integration, budget allocation, optimization, logistics, and other aspects of the entire value chain.

• Implement social media training. This is another great opportunity for B2B marketers to integrate training and education into the overall plan. Training has been an afterthought in many organizations but is a vital part in educating the value chain on the impact of emerging trends. The social media impact topics can range from SEO and social media integration, measurement, analytics, methodology, etc. Topics may also include how to hire social media resources and leadership and how to develop and train your teams for a successful outcome.

• Consider social media content management and curation. Content is still king, and leveraging it for successful engagement and conversion is an art form. B2B marketers, especially in the technology and service sectors, have no choice but to engage their audiences with valuable educational content, proving their mettle in a highly competitive environment. This can also enhance their SEO and SEM positions along the way.

• Review tools and management processes. There are a myriad of tools and platforms out there, and they all do different things. How do you decide which ones to invest in and what each will deliver in terms of data, actionable information, etc.? Building a tool reporting architecture is extremely important, as many decisions will be made from the results of those investments. It also gets marketing closer to IT and web analytics for better result discovery and faster decision making. Building an integrated marketing environment with analytics and scalability capabilities is a must for any forward-thinking marketing leader and his or her organization.

As you begin to enter the more advanced stages of integrating social media into the overall marketing mix, build the appropriate infrastructure and environment to capture and improve ROI metrics. It starts with integration and the above steps.

Budgeting for Social Media Marketing is becoming more and more challenging, based on the complexities involved with the tools, platforms, content, resources, and management involved. It’s not a straightforward exercise anymore, as marketers have to look at the cost equation, and also to justify the ROI.

Explore the factors related to budgeting for Social Media in this joint Social2B-ExecSense presentation and start budgeting for success in social media.

What’s The Biggest Nightmare of CIOs & CTOs Today?

By Ytzik Aranov, Partner, COO, Social2B International, LLC

Historically, a key component of the value chain of every enterprise was the technology department.  It has changed names over the years from Business Equipment, to Computer Department, to Management Information Systems (MIS), to Information Technology (IT), etc., and many companies ended up with a combination of these acronyms / departments.

We also came up with a variety of titles for the chief honcho who ran these departments.  Everything from Managers, to VPs, to CIOs, CTOs, to Directors, etc., all with varying combinations of abbreviations to “specialize” their purview.

Today, we find many organization have developed “justifiable” sister entities with independent heads that are at the same organizational level as the IT Department.  These include Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Technology Officer,, Data Intelligence Officer and various “Intelligence” hybrid divisions, etc., and many more.  Let’s not get wrapped up in the far-out titles like Vice President of Pop Culture, Social Media/Community Superstar, Freelance PR Maestro, Chief Happiness Officer, Systems Wrangler, etc., ok, you get the point.

Understandably, some companies really wish to segregate Intelligence from IT and separate technological innovation from legacy operational systems.  That’s fine; whatever floats the enterprise’s boat, works.

It’s when online activity – in all its various forms – started happening that things really went haywire.  The most common battle fought today in most, well, many, companies, is “Who Owns the Web”.  The Web requires technology, right? Right.  It requires systems, hardware, software and technical expertise, right? Right.  Software? Yup.

So, in the beginnings of online communications and the early days of the Web, everything went through the IT Department.  They had the resources, only they understood the “Soul of the Machine”.  So things went on really well for a while, until GUI’s (graphical user interface) started to become very sophisticated and colorful.  That’s when companies (not the IT departments, mind you) started to realize that the look & feel was just as important as “being there online”.

That’s when they started calling for designers to get involved, then marketers, then advertisers, etc.

To make a long story short, before the CIO knew it, other departments were calling the shots on how the company’s online presence should look and operate.  With the advent of everyday tools to build your own websites, email campaigns and interactive platforms, we are now in “OCG” – Online Creative Gridlock.  The CIO knows that IT owns the Web because they own the hardware, well, sort of, if you forget about Cloud computing, and platform hosting.  The Product Fulfillment people decide when products are ready to post online, so they own the Web too.  Finance decides how to price the products, so they are owners.  While Legal says you cannot use that hot slogan on the website, Marketing is already posting product release pictures all over the web.  Let’s not forget that Sales is already taking orders online and at least 5 different departments are sending our mass emails to the entire company email mailing list!  And companies all over are violating regulatory regulations while doing the above!  Everyone owns the Web.

It’s no wonder that to post the announcement of a new product (no, not the planning, just the online Brand) takes 10 different departments, multiple teams of designers (each department by the way, has their own Web designer), and multiple channels of approval ad different C-levels just to get it launched.  Not to mention changing the color of the price text!

All the above is “BSM” – Before Social Media!  In the Social Media era we now have complete autonomy of each and every department in the organization to plan, design, launch a product, engage customers, makes the sale, support customers, socialize reviews and feedback, destroy a competitor, alienate an industry, violate regulations and say really stupid things to millions of people.  All this without any other department in the organization being involved, on a miniscule budget and with instant results!

This is the nightmare every CIO & CTO has today.  Not to mention that Legal, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, etc., are also barraged by this chaos.  All of sudden, the company has lost its consistent voice, its homogenous culture, its adherence to process, procedure and principles, and its unique and consistent Brand Image.

The CIO is tasked with the job of ensuring that the enterprise is fully and effectively supported with the computing power sufficient to capture corporate data, convert it to information and deliver intelligence to the organization to act upon it.

Savvy CIOs & CTO’s today understand the partnership they must develop with their Chief Marketing Officer since the CMO is primarily the one tasked with crafting & nurturing the Brand. And it all boils down to the Brand.  The one who owns the Brand, owns the media and the medium.  CIOs need to anticipate their CMO & enterprise’s needs by identifying tools, apps, mobile channels, converters, platforms, etc., that fit within an overall technology architecture for the organization.  Specifically, the CIO must build an “Enterprise Social Architecture” that:

1. Is cross-departmental
2. Is scalable up, down and across the entire organization
3. All components thereof, are measurable
4. All activity, campaigns, etc., are mapped to KPIs and to the enterprise ROI
5. Maps to every value chain component in the enterprise
6. Interacts with the entire Supply Chain & Demand Chain
7. Provides for customized departmental branding
8. Allows the Chairman, the CEO / CFO and most importantly, the CMO, with the power to ensure Brand Integrity & consistent messaging
9. Is wrapped around a platform of processes, procedures, policies and crisis management tools to effectively run the enterprise.

CIO’s that work with their C-level peers – the CMO being the “Brand Guardian” and a key partner – to architect an Enterprise Social Architecture will, in the end, win the battle since they become the Brand Enablers while empowering their CMOs to safeguard and empower the reach of their company Brand.

Demystifying the Challenge of Enterprise Social Media

By Oz Sultan, Social2B Digital Media Evangelist

Jeff Pulver (@Jeffpulver) recently mentioned that this year was his fifth anniversary of being in Social Media. This got me thinking, as five years is the typical run for any major technological boom over the past few decades.

In the 80’s we saw the PC rise to change the way we engaged with computing devices and managed our lives. In the 90s, the Dot Com boom gave rise to a vast number of internet technologies that have since been incorporated into products and offerings of major technology brands.  Oracle became more than a database and a few financial service offerings growing to encompass corporate portals, analytics and recently even Hardware. Microsoft’s applications are available in the cloud. E-commerce, once a multi-million dollar endeavor for corporations, has been democratized by Open source technologies.

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You have a Facebook page, a account, a YouTube channel and a blog. You update them regularly and have a growing community on each of the platforms. This community could be much larger if the social profiles were integrated together. Below are some tips on seamlessly integrating your profiles and getting them the readership they deserve.

SEO:

Utilizing relevant search terms isn’t just for blog posts. Using key words tailored for you company are important even in the tweets you put out. Recently, Google announced that it’s search algorythm was adjusted to include social media. Don’t get left behind in the top searches because your company isn’t optimized properly.

Sharing Buttons:

It’s a well known fact that Facebook users aren’t avid Twitter users. By integrating your social profiles, you’re exposing your Facebook and Twitter readers to what’s happening on your blog, website, and YouTube channel. Sharing buttons, links, and portals to your profiles allow your readers to easily share and discover new content.

Press releases and email marketing:

Spread the word about your company and be sure to include all of your social profiles. In all outgoing collateral, include the many ways that your customer can find you online. And… don’t forget email marketing. Looked on by some as “spam”, emarketer recently reported that 95% of 18-25 year olds opt-in to email updates and newsletters.

Social Media Marketing doesn’t exist without some form of integration. Whether you are integrating your social media effort inside of a large organization or an independent marketer, there are a plethora of new tools to help you efficiently integrate social media based on the demands of their clients and partners. If you are a small business or a start up, don’t be left out – many of the tactics and strategies that apply in the Fortune 1000 world can just as easily be implemented by you.

Now get out there and share what you’re made of!

Kelly Loubet is the Director of Social Community Marketing at Social2B. She’s a believer in community building and using social media for good. Kelly is a mom, a writer, and a speaker. Follow her @Social2B and on her personal account @childhood. To read more of her writing, check out EverydayChildhood.com.

By Ytzik Aranov, Managing Partner, Social2B

For those of you who’ve been through business school lectures on Michael Porter’s Value Chain Analysis this doesn’t come as news to you.  But when asked to implement social media practices, policies, platforms, tools, etc., in today’s corporation or enterprise, we throw out all of what we learned that makes the enterprise tick and elect to “surf” it through!

Attention – and I quote:

“Social Media (in the Enterprise) is a Business Process, not a channel, department, or vertical silo”.

End quote.

You heard it here!  Think about it.  Social media touches upon every department, every business process, every channel, every prospect / customer interaction, every investor, every supplier, in short, it touches the entire organization.

In today’s marketplace, social media and an enterprise’s’ online brand architecture and social media footprint is arguably, the most important business process affecting the entire Enterprise Value Chain.  Poor implementation of a solid online & social media platform strategy & tactics directly impacts a company’s ability to market, sell and extend its brand reach, globally.  Failure to effectively implement an integrated social media strategy & tactics across the entire Value Chain could potentially lead to lower revenues (read, shareholder value), slippage in market share, increased financial exposure, risk, and more

One of the most effective measurement techniques to measure enterprise social media effectiveness, both pre- and post-implementation, is to diagnose the “Social Media Maturity Index” (see graphic), which establishes a recognizable industry-specific metric with which to assess the social media value, influence, depth, and footprint of an enterprise’s value chain components – combining both departments and business processes.  Moreover, the social media maturity Index in its very essence is a barometer of how the value chain is capable of moving at the speed of (digital & social) business today.

So, when looking for added revenue stream, cost savings, internal value, constraints, and external interfaces with the world, then social media maturity acutely identifies the lack of, or plethora, of business excellence in sync with today’s pace of commerce.

OK, skeptics, How do we drill down into the Enterprise Value Chain and establish Social Value Chain Maturity & Scalability? Let’s break it apart into pieces.  Look at the following chart that defines touch points throughout selected departments throughout the enterprise, and their social media impacts.

The same goes for every other vertical silo, and, every business processes.  Each and every business process running across – horizontally – the enterprise has multiple social media touch points.

Social media maturity, coupled with an integrated online, SEO, SEM and Social Community Marketing strategy replaces one-way communication with dialogue. Participation by customers, suppliers, employees, the industry, the market, etc., and feedback from them all (!), must be listened to because it has the power to make or break your enterprise or enterprise function.  Social media tools allow us to observe the conversations, measure, monitor, track and quantify the online & social media reach and influence. It allows us to assess and re-assess the correct strategy & tactics from the bottom up to increase revenues, open new markets, capture greater market share, lower costs and in general, improve the bottom-line ROI.

So, what about ROI?

If done right — and you’ll have to come back for a later post on this subject — the Social Media Maturity Index is then mapped by those of you honored to be the “Keeper of the Social Keys” in the enterprise, to any existing enterprise Balanced Scorecard KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in use by the Executive suite (read CFO), in order to assess true ROI, Economic Value & shareholder value. And, by the way, to justify shifting dollars from traditional advertising / marketing into your online / social media marketing budget.

In Summary:

The value in executing a Social Media Maturity Index exercise, as the very first step prior to embarking on that “Journey to the Edge of the Social World”, includes, but by no means is limited to:

• Creating a more aligned and more cohesive internal organization (whether vertical silo or horizontal business process) involved with social media and its offshoots;
• Developing a cross-enterprise social media policy – let me guess, you’re thinking about it, while hundreds of employees across the value chain are uncontrollably blogging & Tweeting about the company without any filters – to manage the social media impact;
• Channeling the endless volume of Content across the enterprise that is not “curated”, re-purposed or managed effectively throughout the enterprise, thereby losing SEO and ranking power;
• Implementing a solid, instantaneous, Reputation Management process – what’s that? – more on that in another post …;
• Hiring – training – more targeted and experienced human resources to effectively channel the enterprise’s social media assets and better utilization of current ones;
• Mapping out a better-defined path to enterprise success by assessing the maturity of the organization and its readiness to embrace a new channel (SM) affecting the entire value chain – from customer service to distributor relations to marketing;
• Establishing a quantifiable and actionable ROI – well, we know what that means (Return-On-Ignoring, Return-on-I (me!), etc. – in short, how we justify the extra capital needed to implement targeted social media campaigns to accelerate products or services sales.

The Social Media Maturity Index provides an immediate snapshot of where every Value Chain component of the organization is today is with respect to social media & market acceleration and what can be expected in terms of performance based on the overall social media maturity of the enterprise. It also maps out where each Value Chain component is lacking and what can be done to accelerate it and better sync it to the other Value Chain components thereby creating a powerhouse enterprise that socially rocks!

By Suzanne Nagy, Social2B Social Media   Coordinator

Social media is changing the way small businesses communicate with customers and market products and services. Social media gives small business owners the opportunity to access online communities that reach expansive groups of people on a personal level.

By Ted Rubin

Many people are finally realizing that social media is serious business. Not “serious” as in stuffy, fun-resistant, and devoid of personality, but “serious” as in something that is of great value to our companies and needs to be treated as such.

What is one of the first things that come up when a new tool or process is introduced to a company? Metrics… what are the numbers we’re aiming for? What will tell us if it (the implementation and use of the tool / process) was a success? How will we get that information and make sense of it in a way that can inform our business strategy? These same questions – plus a few new ones — need to be asked as we begin taking social media integration seriously in our businesses and marketing strategies.

Defining metrics around social media advertising and marketing campaigns has been challenging enough that for a while many people said it simply could not be done. Now, however, we are learning that social media measurement (re: use and impact) IS possible – just not always using traditional metrics and methodologies.

One of the most important new ways to establish social media metrics is to set “conditions of satisfaction” (a concept promoted by Jeffrey Hayzlett, former CMO of Kodak and the author of best seller… The Mirror Test). In other words, what are the specific outcomes that will bring satisfaction to you, your brand, your business, and your customers? Notice how the word “satisfaction” here requires you to think not just about actions, but about the whole experience resulting from the outcomes. This is absolutely critical for successful social branding!

While Jeffrey applies this concept primarily to employees, vendor services, etc., it is equally important to set conditions of satisfaction in this emerging world of social media where standard metrics may or may not apply. Social media marketing campaigns need to be built on relationships, and metrics include words like “trust” and “engage” and “authentic conversation” and “online reputation” – all things that are at the heart of what a brand/company wants and needs … and all things that can be defined by setting up conditions of satisfaction.

Conditions of satisfaction around social media need to be different for every organization. They need to be based on the each company’s specific and unique GOALS and VISION and VALUES to ensure that the information gathered can strategically inform the marketers and the C-level Suite. Aligning your conditions of satisfaction with the heart of the company gives you the blueprint for plans that will go far in creating a genuine brand, and brand experience that connects with your customers.

Bottom line: Metrics matter and social media for business gets no exception. Don’t take another step until your conditions of satisfaction are set.