February 9th, 2010. By Alex Romanovich.

Is Social Media just another channel? Yes, it may be, but it is so much more than that. Social Media is forcing corporations (brands) to look at how they engage with their clients, how they use information, and how they respond to events. It is forcing companies to treat Social Media as part of their overall value chain.

For the B2Bsector, marketing opportunities have always existed throughout the value chain – from logistics to marketing and sales. With the introduction of more pronounced and readily accepted Social Media Marketing techniques into the consumer marketing space, the opportunities for business to generate leads, improve customer service, and raise brand awareness in the B2B arena are becoming more pronounced. The most recent eMarketer polls, as well as B2B Magazine’s report titled “2010 Outlook”, indicate that Social Media Marketing (SMM) will become increasingly important to B2B marketers.

Note: This post continues at The Social CMO blog. Please click here.

By Alex Romanovich

October 13th, 2009

Alex Romanovich is the Founder and CMO of Social2B

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According to ENGAGEMENTdb’s recent “Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands” report on how deeply global brands are engaged in Social Marketing, big financial companies are not as much socially engaged as media, retail or technology companies of the same ranking.

However, it does not mean that a financial brand cannot “socialize” itself. On the contrary, it shows that the financial services industry, often too closed, hindered by government regulations and by somewhat “conservative culture”, is getting more and more open to “socialization”.

According to the same ENGAGEMENTdb’s report, even such giant conglomerates as Visa, ING, American Express, UBS, JP Morgan are, if not very active, are still quite responsive to the today’s demand of being social. Being most commonly engaged in six or fewer social channels, and having below-average engagement scores (as estimated by ENGAGEMENTdb), they have already started integrating social media into their marketing and customer communication strategy.

Today many financial organizations (big and small) are launching B2B and B2C based social media initiatives depending on whether they want to attract interest and business from other financial institutions, or simply generate demand with consumers. In both cases social marketing can be extremely successful, provided the right approach has been chosen.

With the help of Social Marketing B2C brands can solve such problems as:

• establishing newly found trust amongst a skeptical consumers base;
• making the right loan choices;
• allowing consumers to understand the perspective of the institutions;
• instilling fiscal responsibility and smarter spending habits;
• making stronger investment decisions;
• empowering consumers with tools for managing their assets;
• building community around common interests & brand affinities;
• understanding the broader context of financial culture and global market parity

For B2B brands this is a good opportunity to engage potential prospects, generate demand and leads by augmenting their marketing strategies with more interactive and conversational elements, allowing other businesses to listen, observe, engage, and participate.

All in all, the art of being “social to the point” has in its basis deep understanding of the industry of the brand that should be promoted. Of course, a variety of means and solutions can be used within a Social Marketing campaign. But the challenge is to adjust those solutions to a particular brand. Trying to estimate opportunities of any social engagement in the particular industry requires  a necessity of a solid industry analysis.

With correctly chosen and applied Social Marketing solutions, the financial services industry can engage in a powerful and proven way on both B2B and B2C levels. This becomes evident if we take a look at the recent success stories from Wells Fargo, H&R Block, Ernst & Young, Capital One, SmartyPig, American Express, Credit Mutuel, PENSCO, Equity Trust, Sterling Trust and some other financial brands, which have used social marketing incredibly well to not only create engagement but activate purchase intent.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company with operations around the world, providing retail, commercial and corporate banking services, sustains a high level of deep social engagement across multiple social media channels (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc). However, the greatest case study to date is of what Wells Fargo has done with their blogs. They have 5 (!) different blogs, each designed for a certain category of readers – potential customers and businesses, existing clients, and just people. But the crown jewel of Well Fargo’s blogging activities is perhaps a virtual world called “Stagescoach Island Community”, a kind of a branded community which lets members learn and experience money management in the way of an interactive game. The blogs stand out for their live conversation and there are always people from inside and from outside to react to the conversation.

H&R Block

H&R Block, an American tax preparation company with over 22 million customers worldwide, has done quite a bit with blogs, virtual worlds, Facebook, and Social Media programs. However, they did most of ‘Twittering’ during tax time, when they quite successfully engaged in an online dialog by first monitoring keywords, and directly responding to members. Twitter during tax time was their most successfully implemented social media solution, because it was just to the point. It helped increase the company’s popularity, attract more customers as well as sustain trust.

Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young, one of the largest global providers of accounting services and one of the Big Four auditors, among marketing goals, also had definite objectives targeted at human resources. They engaged in social media to seek out new hires fresh out of college. For this purpose, they created a sponsored Facebook group where they have online dialogs with graduating students and even start the interview process online. This is a pretty smart solution, because Facebook is the right source to reach graduates and find appropriate candidates. So, in their case, Social Marketing is a good way to boost the company’s reputation as employer and find work force.

SmartyPig

SmartyPig is another story of big success, though different from the mentioned above examples. SmartyPig does not promote services; it promotes a product – free online banking application which helps users save money for particular goals. It seems that an online application cannot be more social than SmartyPig.  Users can invite friends and family to be a part of their saving process. Built on a Web 2.0 platform, SmartyPig impressively utilizes Facebook, widgets, social networking applications (including videos), Twitter and a specially designed community-powered support site.  Launched in 2008, Smarty Pig already has users in all 50 US states, over 4000 followers on Twitter and over 1900 fans in Facebook. Exactly for the reason that SmartyPig is so interactive, so informal and so engaging, it is such a big success.

Each financial company, either big or small, which wants to go social, needs a social marketing campaign tailored to their particular brand. Whether you need to create a well branded community, or launch a series of blogs, or be actively engaged in social networking and present your brand in discussion forums – all efforts are distinct and individual. There is no way for a standard approach – however, there is always a necessity for a solid Social Marketing analysis and accurately selected marketing solutions.

By Kent Huffman

August 22nd, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless.

You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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The explosive growth of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and a host of other social networking tools has led to some significant opportunities for companies to promote their products and services in the Web 2.0 world. But it has led to some significant risks as well.

By definition, social media content is created by its users. Therefore, the content is not directly controlled by your company as it would be in the case of your official corporate marketing materials (Web site, collateral pieces, advertisements, etc.). Therein lies the potential risk. One way to help safeguard your organization is to publish an official corporate social media policy for your employees.

Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself

When considering whether or not you need to publish a social media policy, ask yourself a few questions. For example, do you know which of your employees are active in social media? Do you know what they’re saying about your company? Have you given them any guidelines as to what types of content are and are not acceptable?

The first step toward addressing these questions is to determine what stance your company should take toward social media. For instance, will employees be allowed or forbidden to participate on Twitter for personal reasons during business hours? How will that impact productivity, either positively or negatively? Who can and cannot participate in social media in an official capacity on behalf of your company?

What a Good Social Media Policy Should Contain

Your social media policy should begin by defining the term “social media” and detailing why a policy is needed in the first place. That way, your employees will better understand that the policy is not intended to restrict their activities online; rather, to protect the company from liability and brand damage. Explain how the company could be scarred by false or derogatory information on social media networks and how that information becomes a permanent part of the record on the Internet.

A well-written social media policy should also detail everything that your employees should and should not do when posting content online. For example, make it clear to the employee that he/she can or cannot:

* Identify himself/herself as an employee of the company
* Use the company name, logo, product photos, or other trademarked materials
* Discuss customers, partners, or other employees
* Offer recommendations for other employees (such as on LinkedIn)
* Post on social media sites during business hours

There are a few more obvious rules that should be included in your policy as well, such as forbidding employees to:

* Divulge proprietary or confidential information about the company, its products, and/or its services, including financial data, pricing, strategy, and the like

* Discuss or link to your competitors

* Talk directly to the media (those discussions should be referred to the corporate marketing department)

* Use vulgar words, ethnic or racial slurs, or derogatory comments of any kind

The policy should also detail the consequences that will occur when an employee doesn’t follow the instructions detailed in the policy, including stating that the offender’s employment may be terminated for repeated or egregious offenses. It should also cover the responsibility of an employee to report the actions of another employee who violates any of the terms of policy.

Before publishing your social media policy, it should be submitted to your human resources department and legal department (or corporate attorney) for review. After that, you should also ask your executive team to review it as well.

Make Sure Your Employees Understand and Follow Your Policy

In addition to announcing your new social media policy to all company employees after it has been properly vetted, the policy should also be included as a permanent addition to your employee manual. It should also be posted on your company intranet site.

Once your policy has been published and distributed, you might want to consider adding some follow-up procedures to ensure that the policy is being followed properly, such as:

* Sending monthly or quarterly e-mail announcements to all employees, reminding them about the importance of the policy and where to find it
* Making a list of all social media participants and regularly monitoring their activities online, at least by doing spot checks

How Your Industry Could Impact the Content in Your Policy

Some of the content in your social media policy could be—and should be—influenced by the particular needs of your specific industry.

For example, in the retail space, confidential supplier product information is one of the most common areas in which your company can be exposed. “At Best Buy, we are very committed to being an open and transparent brand, as we believe this builds trust,” said Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy. “However, in doing so, we need to be very mindful that not all information we have can be made public on social media sites, especially as it relates to proprietary manufacturer data that has been provided to us by our supplier partners.”

If you’re in the financial services industry, extraordinary care must be taken on social media networks to protect your confidential financial information. Eddie Reeves, CEO of Reeves Strategy Group and former Vice President of Media Relations for Merrill Lynch, said, “Obviously, when you’re talking about managing OPM—other people’s money—and the information related to that money, you have to take caution and discretion to a whole new level. That isn’t to say you can’t or shouldn’t use social media, because I believe you should, and I advise my clients to do so—not just with confidence, but aggressively. You just have to think carefully through your policies and procedures. Fortunately, most of the rules and policies that financial services firms already have on the books are usually sufficient with a bit of tweaking.”

The healthcare industry is fraught with social media concerns because of the potential liability issues related to medical content posted online and recommendations about other health-related sites, as well as the confidentiality requirements surrounding patient records, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Marketing Officer at American Health, noted, “There is a delicate balance between the interest in utilizing new technology to engage and educate consumers and protecting consumer information. While a social media site that allows people with medical conditions to network or a site that allows patients to track their medical calendars may be valuable and useful, we must be mindful of the chaotic nature of the Internet and its vulnerability to privacy violations.” Mallikarjunan added, “A good social media policy must have mechanisms in place to guide employees towards the proper ways in which to engage customers. Furthermore, we must ensure that employees understand the depth of social media and the need to maintain a professional and respectable presence on all publicly available mediums.”

Other industries that may require special content in their corporate social media policies include travel and hospitality, publishing, media and entertainment, professional services, and government.

Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies

A number of major corporations have published their social media policies on the Internet for everyone to see. Here are a few examples:

* Cisco Systems
* ESPN
* Gartner
* Hill & Knowlton
* HP
* Intel
* New York Times
* Opera Software
* Plaxo
* Porter Novelli
* Sun Microsystems
* Wal-Mart
* Wells Fargo

Finally, here’s an easy-to-use template from SHIFT Communications that you may want to use as a starting point.

For more information about how you can protect your company with a customized corporate social media policy, contact Social2B.

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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By Kent Huffman.

July 24th, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

The Company

Greenlight360 describes itself as an “Internet television network” that will produce and air original episodic Internet TV and films. The startup is based in Boston and intends to provide a platform for emerging talent to gain exposure and monetize their art while providing great original television programming to their viewing audiences.

You may want to think of Greenlight360 as the next HBO or Showtime . . . but online.

The Challenge

With most startups, one of the main obstacles to success is the lack of brand awareness. Greenlight360 was no different.

Since it was to be primarily an online operation, Greenlight360 executives needed to create a buzz on the Internet. And they wanted to do it quickly. So they decided to focus on several hot social media platforms, including Twitter.

The Solution

Marci Reynolds, COO and VP of Sales & Marketing at Greenlight360, developed a carefully planned strategy to build a quality following on Twitter. Her approach began with creating “buyer personas”—detailed profiles of the targeted users—in order to accurately define the types of followers that Greenlight360 wanted to attract. Keeping those personas in mind, Reynolds identified a number of tweeters (using various tools such as TweepSearch.com, Twellow.com, and HootSuite.com), followed them, and read their tweets for several days.

She then began tweeting about topics that would be of interest to those same people, including publishing a variety of content written specifically for them. In addition to quality, relevant tweets, Reynolds ensured the content was sent on a regular basis: approximately 5-7 tweets each day. She also sent tweets at times where they would receive the most exposure, such as the coveted lunchtime slot: 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

The Results

Within 60 days, Greenlight360 had developed a loyal following of almost 600 quality people on Twitter and experienced a lift in Web site traffic originating from the content of the tweets and the company’s Twitter profile.

“I am very excited about the success we’ve experienced using Twitter. Our follower base is very targeted and continues to grow every day. Our content is re-tweeted on a regular basis. And, this past Friday, we had our highest number of #FollowFriday recommendations — five different Twitter users recommended us to their audiences,” said Reynolds. “Twitter has been a very effective tool in launching our new brand name online!”

“We have also learned a lot about our targeted audience through reading their tweets and understanding what content they find interesting and relevant,” Reynolds added. “We will continue to use Twitter as part of our pre-launch buzz strategy and to build momentum and television viewership post Web site launch.”

Kent Huffman, Advisory Associate at Social2B, said, “The process that Marci Reynolds developed and followed at Greenlight360 is identical to the process that I wrote about in my recent Social2B blog post. It’s straightforward and effective, and it can be applied to almost any situation on Twitter.”

Follow Marci Reynolds and Greenlight360 on Twitter.

Follow Kent Huffman and Social2B on Twitter.

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By Kent Huffman.

June 15th, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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Twitter. It’s all the rage in the social media world these days. But how can you best leverage it for tangible business-to-business marketing purposes? One way is to build your own community within Twitter.

Several months ago, I became interested in Twitter when a colleague told me about his positive experiences with the popular social media tool and insisted that I check it out. After signing up for an account and reading a few tweets, I immediately saw its potential as a community development tool. Being a long-time B2B marketer, I decided to build a group of folks interested in marketing who could inspire and help each other grow professionally by sharing ideas and information. But I didn’t know exactly how to go about creating that community.

I ultimately decided to treat it as I would any other important marketing initiative—by first developing a well-defined strategy and a set of related tactics. Over the next couple of months, I created and then tweaked the strategy and honed the tactics through trial and error. I then boiled everything down to a seven-step process that I’m sharing with you here in hopes that you can use it to develop your own B2B community on Twitter.

Step One: Define Your Goals and Target Community

Before you launch your presence on Twitter, determine what specific goals and objectives you want to accomplish. Then parlay that into a methodical plan to build a community around that goal, including defining your target audience.

Step Two: Find and Follow Like-Minded Tweeters

Once you’ve set up a Twitter account, use www.Search.Twitter.com, www.Twellow.com, www.TweepSearch.com, www.TweetBeep.com, and similar tools to find other tweeters who share the same interests as you and would appear to make good members of your fledgling community. Then follow them.

Step Three: Read and Learn

For a week or two, read the tweets posted by those whom you are following and learn from them. Understand what their interests are and how they use Twitter to communicate with others. Note which tweets and tweeters are the most appealing to you and why.

Step Four: Create Effective, Compelling Tweets

When you’re ready to begin tweeting, first determine what topics you will write about. One of the most effective strategies is to position yourself as a subject matter expert in one or two areas. Make sure those topics directly relate to the community you’re trying to build. And take a thoughtful approach by writing clever, interesting tweets that are likely to be retweeted by others.

As is the case with pretty much everything on the Internet, content is king on Twitter. Build a strong foundation for your “Twitter brand” and give other tweeters a reason to follow you by adhering to these basic dos and don’ts when composing your tweets…

Do…

· Feature newsworthy items

· Divulge “inside information”

· Share original thoughts and ideas

· Participate in conversations

· Provide useful links

· Ask engaging questions

· Inject personality and humor

· Retweet when appropriate

Don’t…

· Discuss what you had for breakfast

· Tweet too frequently or infrequently

· Ignore questions or comments by other tweeters

· Try to promote your product or service in every tweet

Step Five: Develop Unique Content for Your Community

In addition to writing focused, compelling tweets, another important key to success in building a strong community on Twitter is to create special content that will be of interest to your followers. One of the most effective types of content enables the members of your community to easily find and interact with each other, such as lists of experts and leaders who tweet about subjects that directly pertain to your community. In my case, I developed a series of unique marketing-related lists:

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-cmos-on-twitter

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-marketing-book-authors-on-twitter

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-marketing-professors-on-twitter

Other types of content can be very effective as well, such as blog posts—where you can discuss specific subjects in more detail (such as the post you’re now reading)—and other online and offline resources related to your core topic(s).

By creating this content, you’re providing a forum for your community that enables its members to connect to others like them. As a result, you’ll develop a reputation as a knowledgeable facilitator who is more interested in giving than taking. That can be very powerful.

Step Six: Grow Relationships

As you expand your following on Twitter, you’ll naturally gravitate toward specific tweeters with whom you can most closely relate. Develop a closer relationship with them by publicly commenting on their tweets, retweeting them, and recommending them to your community, as well as privately engaging them in one-on-one conversations, both online and offline. Do whatever you can to help them without asking for anything in return.

Step Seven: Wash, Rinse, and Repeat

Once you’ve found your “Twitter rhythm,” continue to expand your community by growing your followers list, cleaning it up from time to time, and repeating steps two through six indefinitely. You’ll find that creating and participating in your community will be a very rewarding experience, not only for you, but everyone involved.

In the final analysis, building a B2B community on Twitter is about creating value in terms of content and relationships. Even more basic than that, it’s about giving, not taking. That’s really what will help keep your community healthy, active, and growing.

Read the Greenlight360 Case Study that describes how this process has been used to produce real, measurable results on Twitter.

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Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman.

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By Alex Romanovich

June 10th, 2009

Alex Romanovich is the Founder and CMO at Social2B

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Yes, it is another channel, however, it is also forcing corporations (brands) to look at how they engage with their clients, how they use information, and how they respond to events. It is forcing companies to treat Social Media as part of their overall Value Chain.

Embracing Social Media channel requires discipline, and in many cases, courage – starting is the most difficult step and you have to engage with your audience in a much more interactive mode – your approach to communications has to evolve. With current tools and analysis methods, marketers have a newly found muscle to provide insight and to demand accountability. New technologies allow enterprise to ‘mash’ multiple channels into one cohesive, client-centric view. Inference engines, text analytics tools, and mining methodologies allow businesses to come as close to predicting performance, as you can get these days.

Yes, it is another Channel, but I would call it the ‘Mother of all Channels’. Let’s take a look at how it can be potentially utilized.

The Enterprise can not only predict sales performance based on historical and trend data, but it can validate it with real, live, on-demand information coming from the ‘user generated’ feedback. Marketing can potentially assess the risks associated with brand performance based on events – this ‘event-driven’ response, and subsequent analysis can mean better client engagement, and better handle on the overall ‘brand reputation’, leading to a much more ‘predictable’ performance.

Woody Allen ad by American Apparel was a good example of an ‘event driven’ phenomenon. Yes, American Apparel did the ‘wrong thing’ and yes, Woody Allen was upset – but what will be the short term, and long term effect of this ‘event’? Will the sales go up or down, will the conversion rate increase or decrease, and will the public respond favorably or negatively to the next assortment of communications coming from the brand. The ‘channel’ will tell all and the analytics crowd at American Apparel should be using this opportunity to capture, analyze and mash information related to the community feedback.

In the end, Social Media could be considered just another channel by some, but the benefits and opportunities it presents is something we’ve never seen before. It is becoming an integrated fiber, connecting all points of Value Chain. I will talk more on this topic in an upcoming series titled ‘“What would Michael Porter do, or Social Value Chain and Impact of Social Media on the overall corporate structure’.

I was recently asked – what is Social Media Marketing and Viral Marketing? How do I get started?

I think it is important to start with basics, since there is a lot of ’sophisticated Internet advice out there’ and everyone these days is a social media ‘expert’. As a B2B marketer of many years, founder of Social2B, and a member of The CMO Club, I have the privilege of reviewing Social Media ‘case studies’ all day long – there are numerous successes and numerous failures.

This may sound very basic, but it works every time.

First, decide on your target audience, and match the product or a service to it. Most importantly, you have to decide what type of content value-add you are going to provide – without compelling content, you are D.O.A. That’s your biggest investment.

Then, set up ‘listening channels’ – yes, you have to listen first, and observe, before doing anything. You have to understand (through online research), where your community lives, how they interact, behave, and respond. If your segmentation is already done for you, just get involved with this community. Or build your own, by being attractive, and sharing valuable information. Again, the emphasis is on content and value add.

If you are an online retailer, help your customers by engaging them in a conversation about your products and post the results back to the community. If you are an exchange for caregivers and healthcare professionals, aggregate valuable, relevant, and up-to-date content on specific medical conditions. If you are a technology services company, show your clients through case studies and examples that you can do more with less, or how to use particular technologies to gain efficiencies and save money.

You also have to ask yourself – “am I alone in this exercise, or do I have all major functions of MY organization behind me – CEO, Sales, Customer Service, Technology, etc.? You should discuss expectations and set up metrics to reach your goals. Otherwise, this will be a nice ‘team building exercise’ and your effort will be wasted.

Once you answer the above, and use your own creative communications resources to address the content creation and distribution strategies, while building ’social infrastructure’ through tools, technology and transparency, you have to gradually get involved. And eventually evolve with the community.

And at every step of the way, you listen, observe and ANALYZE.

You should hire outside help (not an expensive proposition) to do it once with guidance and expertise (make sure the latter is present). Once you see the results, and you will see them, if done right, you can repeat the above method or adjust to your own.

Social Media Marketing (with Viral component already built in) is part creative communications, part tools and technology, part marketing courage, and ALL analytics. If done right, not only will you be closer to your community, and get results, you will also earn their trust and improve your reputation.

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By Alex Romanovich

May 17th, 2009

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Oh no! I don’t want to scare you – this is not yet another post about whether Social Media Marketing (SMM) can be outsourced or not. Instead, it is a brief decomposition of what exactly I think can be, or cannot be, outsourced. Later on, I also provide a few examples of tools and techniques, which can be used to guide yourself into the world of Social Media.  First, let me say – Social Media Marketing, like any other service, can be decomposed, broken into smaller tasks, and yes, outsourced. Let’s also agree that, in reality, outsourcing, is not about ’shipping jobs overseas’, but rather a fairly old process of off-loading a set of processes and tasks to a qualified professional, hopefully with knowledge of the subject matter.  Secondly, if we were to break Social Media Marketing into components, tasks and functions, we could come up with a very long and interesting list, similar to this one:

• Social Media Marketing Strategy
• Social Media Marketing Blueprint or Action Plan
• Social Media Channel Strategy (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube or a slightly different combination of the previously mentioned social media channels)
• Online Reputation Management, or set of reputation and brand related tools and services
• Social Media Profile Creation, Integration, and Management (Maintenance) – most of us know how to set up Twitter and Facebook accounts, but some of us don’t like to do it
• Blog creation, marketing, and optimization
• Online video marketing (video blogs included)
• Blog and Twitter (’listening devices’) data collection, analysis, interpretation
• Action, related to ‘what to do next’ in the terms of marketing or communications response or maintenance
• Data mining and text analytics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Copywriting and Creative Writing

…and many other tasks and functions that we can list above.

In reality, depending on how, when and what you are trying to achieve with Social Media Marketing, an organization can decide whether to outsource any of  it or not. Certainly, if you are going to blog about the aviation industry, you would have to know something about it. Or if you are developing a strategy for small and medium size retailers, who are looking for ways to survive,  and potentially grow, you’d better know something about catalog management and eCommerce.

Truthfully, organizations need to decide what they can do internally, and what could be outsourced, out-tasked, crowdsourced, and ‘expert-sourced’.  Social Media Marketing opens a number of opportunities for improvement if companies honestly assess their capabilities and admit their weaknesses, one of which could be their inability to manage projects successfully, or political undertones of their operations, blocking progress.

In the end, Social Media Marketing is a ‘recombinant set of tools and services’, capable of assembling and disassembling upon need, to deliver tangible results – measured, tracked, and explained. Once the results are well understood by the marketing organization, changes, tweaks, and enhancement can be made. Most importantly, whether you outsource any of the above functions or keep it tightly interwoven within your marketing and technology organizations, one thing is absolutely clear – you,  as an organization, need to dedicate yourself to a long term Social Media Marketing strategy and execution. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.