Five Tips for B2B Startups Considering PR and Social Media

I was recently asked for five tips for B2B startups considering PR and social media. I came up with these five somewhat random tips, and will come up with more next month. This is not meant to be comprehensive but they are intended to help be specific to the process of PR and social media.

Let me know what you think.

1.      If your startup has never engaged in PR before, ask the following questions:

·        Are you ready? We’ve had some clients who thought they were ready to launch but weren’t. It can take time to actually be ready – but you don’t necessarily need a finalized product or service. You do need to have strong positioning and compelling messages, a clear understanding of what differentiates your business from the competition. This can be a challenge since startups often pivot their business model until they get traction.

·        Who will be coordinating the PR program? Will it be the founder, a marketing executive, an office manager, or someone else? And will that person have the time and resources? We’ve worked with people at those levels, and have made it work but it can be difficult if PR is just another plate they need to keep spinning.

·        Do you need ongoing PR or is project-based a better fit? From an agency perspective, an ongoing PR campaign is better – and not just from a cash flow perspective but because it enables long-term strategies -- but that may not be ideal for cash-stretched startups with not a lot of news. Talk to your prospective agency; if they aren’t interested in project work until your startup has established a regular flow of news, they might not be the right agency for you.

2.      Are you goals realistic? There are two levels to this:

·        Are you realistic in terms of your story, resources, customers, etc.? You may have a great product and a great proof of concept, but if you don’t have a paying customer, some media won’t be able to cover you. (This is particularly true in B2B markets.) We’ve also been told by clients that they want to launch within two months but when we get in, we find they’re not ready (see #1, above).

·        Are you realistic in terms of your goals based on your budgets and internal resources? Recently a prospective customer with the related businesses asked us to 1) Pitch radio and podcast interviews for both businesses 2) Get bloggers to write about them; 3) Identify speaking opportunities; 4) Provide content to external sites that will create back links; and 5) Maximize earned media. All these goals were reasonable – except his budget had only enough in it to pursue only one of these goals, not all five of them.

·        Are you realistic in terms of outcomes? You may have a great announcement but the media and those on social media may not be able to write about it. A reporter once turned down a story about a $30 investment round because he had declined to cover a larger round that had been announced the week before.

3.      Can you be a thought leader? To be successful and to engage with current and prospective customers on social media, you need to continually develop new content on topics relevant to your customers. You can use these pieces to show that you understand your customers’ pain points and can help them address them. These thought leadership pieces don’t have to be white papers and case studies – they can be 300-word articles. But it is important to make sure these pieces are useful and not all about you.

4.      Even if you don’t have the budget yet, plan for marketing integration. That means, make sure whoever is writing your thought leadership content also knows what your keywords are. Make sure your sales keeps you informed about key trends affecting your customers as well as customer wins and milestones – those are things that can be turned into articles and press releases. Make sure whoever is handling your social media is aware of what everyone else is doing – they can post content about your latest article or case study, about your trade show booth or speaking opportunity or sales promotion. Even at small startups, it’s interesting how many of those activities are kept in separate in a silo. But you can generate much more traction if you leverage all the sales and marketing efforts your undertaking. And, if you’re not investing in all these tactics yet, that’s okay; just keep them in mind for when you do.

5.      When focusing on social media, keep in mind: clients don’t like to be marketed to. So make sure only one in 10 posts is a true marketing post – the rest can be about your industry, your region, but especially about your clients pain points as well as about your company’s personality and values. More than ever, people want to do business with companies they like, and social media is a great way to create and enhance your company’s personality.

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2013, Part I

We've been issuing annual predictions for more than a decade now. Our goal is to help our clients more effectively understand and engage on topics of interest for media and social media.

We will be rolling out our 2013 list of trends over the next two weeks. Here are the first few:

·         The story still matters.  Even in a communications age limited by Twitter to 140 characters, the story and messages continue to matter, and are an important part of how companies remain relevant.  But the impact of social media is that stories need to be told not just shorter but differently.  They need visuals (still photos and video); text alone isn't enough. They need to be more frequent; you can't issue marketing materials in Jan. and feel you're done for the year.  And the stories companies tell must be very customer focused and be easily shareable. And stories have to be about offering tips and lessons learned because social media is all about offering advice as a way to show a company's expertise.

·         Corporate values and personality matter. As a part of corporate branding, values have always mattered but corporate personality may not have been important. After all, the differences between Coke and Pepsi aren’t significant. The same is true for McDonald's and Burger King. But there is a difference between Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Google.  And that's certainly true of what otherwise might seem like commoditzed sectors; insurance branding in advertising seems to be all about each company's personality -- you don't need to be a psychologist to grasp the differences between Geico, Progressive, All-State and Liberty Mutual (Disclosure: we have done project work for Liberty Mutual). And in 2013 and beyond, social media will multiply the impact of values and corporate personality. Companies need to be prepared to communicate not just their selling proposition but also their values and personality as they engage with customers via social media. (Be prepared for a lot of companies to try to appear edgy...even if they're not.)

·         Social media is relevant for B2B companies. In 2013, it's not only B2C companies that need a social media strategy; B2B companies will need one, too, because it should be clear to them that their customers are online, whether as part of their personal or professional lives. Social media isn’t about telling your friends about what you're having for lunch or sharing the latest LOL cats clip (or, at least, not only about that). It is where people go to get and share information. B2B companies that have been reluctant to engage on social media need to realize that social media provides them with the opportunity to reach customers in ways that ads in traditional print publications are not doing -- and we think 2013 will be that year.

 
Let us know if you agree or disagree. And check back tomorrow for additional predictions.

If Social Media Can Work for George Takei, Could It Work for B2Bs?

The New York Times wrote an interesting article about former A-list and B-list celebs who are using social media to recapture relevancy. Check out the article: Tasting Fame Again, Tweet by Tweet, which profiles George Takei's success on Twitter and efforts by Jennifer Grey, Sally Jessy Raphael.

Key points include:

• Without social-networking platforms such as these, “I think I’d be in, ‘Is she still alive?’ heaven,” Ms. Raphael told the Times.
• No longer must celebrities of yore resort to appearing on campy reality shows to remind the public they exist.
•  “When you look at these faded personalities, imagine what the pitch would be if you were a publicist trying to get press on one of these people,” said Janice Min, editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter. “You absolutely could not.”

For a lot of B2B companies, it can be difficult to generate coverage in major market newspapers. We think social media can work to make B2B companies relevant, and that smart B2Bs are using social media as a  key aspect of their thought leadership programs.

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2012, Part 9

Here's Part 9 of our predictions:
  

The role of CES will diminish next year. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been the tech industry's most important conference, having eclipsed Comdex a decade ago. CES is a mashup of consumer gadgets and the tech that powers those gadgets (like semiconductors), and it's been considered so important that non-tech outlets feel compelled to cover the latest cool gadgets  launched at the show. But that is changing -- and not just because Apple has not been attending or that Microsoft announced that it will not attend next year's show.  The reason: While CES is not "dead show walking," it is being supplanted by Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW), March 8-18. The change does not mean we don't love gadgets – because we still do. But it may mean that we don't always like the gadgets CES wants us to love. Prime example: despite last year's CES love fest for 3-D TVs, consumers did not rush out to buy them. We love apps and social and SXSW is the show that launches them. 

 
Let us know if you agree or disagree. And check back tomorrow for our last set of predictions for 2012. 

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2012, Part 8

Here's Part 8 of our predictions:

The press release will not die in 2012.  Companies still need press releases to communicate news about the company. Twitter is good as a kind of short broadcast of news, but tweets get lost on the timeline – whereas press releases can easily be posted on a corporate newsroom, which is important from an SEO perspective and to demonstrate the company is still alive.  Additionally, reporters, who are overworked (they’re now creating multimedia stories on a daily basis), continue to rely on press releases for content. However, organizations must understand that they can’t rely on a press release alone.  They need to think about new ways they can distribute their news, including infographics, data-and-graphics mashups intended to compellingly present information.

Let us know if you agree or disagree. And check back tomorrow for additional predictions.

Does Social Media Really Pay Off for Big Companies?

As part of the new normal, we're seeing increased need for ROI. That's a challenge with social media because the right metrics may well be different for each company.

In "Turning tweets into sales: Twitter’s allure is tough to translate into dollars, though Dunkin’ Donuts is tracking results," The Boston Business Journal wrote an interesting story that provided some details about how Dunkin' Donuts, Staples and other companies approach social media.

Here are some interesting facts:

• 35 percent or 173 of Fortune 500 companies have active Twitter accounts, according to a recent study about corporate Twitter usage in 2009 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. The study called company growth on Twitter “explosive.”
• Still, the majority of companies are somewhat clueless about Twitter’s business impact. Corporate Twitter strategies are “all over the map” ranging from hyper-engaged companies skilled at building trust with followers, down to firms that play it safe, sending out lackluster tidbits of information, said Emily Riley, analyst and research director at Cambridge-based Forrester Research Inc.
• Staples Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS), which has a “Tweet team” of five staffers and has amassed more than 31,000 followers, are passionate about mastering the art of micro blogging. The company started using the site late last year and tweets mainly about deals and customer service. Even at a sophisticated company, figuring out the ROI of social media “is the million dollar question,” said Michelle Ormes, Staples’ director of corporate branding. “Right now...we value the number of our followers and how engaged they are.”
• Business-to-business firms are also placing increased importance on social media and Twitter. Forrester predicts that B-to-B firms will increase spending on social media from a total of $11 million in 2009 to $54 million in 2014.
• Not all companies are convinced that tweeting is a necessity, even ones that believe in social media. Boston-based car-sharing firm Zipcar has some 30,000 fans on Facebook, but does not actively tweet, although company spokeswoman Nancy Scott says the company “listens” on Twitter. Zipcar’s inactive Twitter page has close to 1,000 followers.

Some interesting anecdotes for companies considering how to approach social media in 2010. Ultimately, the decision whether and how to embrace social media still comes down to this: each organization will have to do some experimentation before finding what's right for their brand, goals and capabilities. The need to experiment in social media is a tougher sell in 2010, even with the explosion of users on social media, especially when organizations need to report ROI metrics for all their initiatives.

Dell's Blog Campaign Clicks In

BusinessWeek's recent cover story on blogs, "Beyond Blogs: Three years ago our cover story showcased the phenomenon. A lot has changed since then,"did a good job updating general business readers on the state of blogs -- but it missed an important issue for companies, especially those in the B2B space: The metrics by which to judge the success of corporate blogs. Is there an ROI for blogging? Can it lead to new business and stronger client relationships?

For B2Bs, I'm not so sure. I will be exploring blogging campaigns over the next few days.

But for B2Cs, I think the answer is definitely yes.

Check out Ben Worthen's the article in Wall St. Journal, "Dell, by Going Click for Click With Web Posters, Ensured Bloggers Saw Its New Red Mini Laptop,"in which he reports:

"Dell Inc. hit a viral-PR home run last week when photos of a not-yet-released computer -- a candy-red miniature laptop -- swept across the Internet, creating excitement in advance of the release.

"The buzz wasn't an accident: It was the payoff from a year-long effort by Dell to engage more directly with bloggers and others who write about the company online."

Worthen's article provides an overview of Dell's blogging campaign: "Today, it's nearly impossible to find a story or blog entry about Dell that isn't accompanied by a comment from the company. Dell left a comment in response to a recent post on WSJ.com's Business Technology Blog about the personal-computer maker's plan to offer premium customer service. Another Dell correspondent wrote an entry about the post on the company's blog."

That's a very intense, time intensive program, known as online engagement -- and it must be done transparently, letting people know that the postings are part of a corporate initiative, and entails understanding the tone and subtle rules for each blog, forum, etc. Get the tone or other variables wrong, and the company can be accused of "astroturfing, " a term for artificial grassroots programs. (For more on astroturfing, check out the Wikipedia entry. While I still don't like aspects of Wikipedia's culture, and believe more strongly than ever that it needs a massive copyediting makeover, it is a decent source -- as long as you look at it skeptically. My posts from Aug. 2007: Yet more about Wikipedia..., More advice on Wikipedia, and Some things to know about Wikipedia.)

Dell's initiative appears to be working because it was willing to invest the time and resources. Worthen reports, after all, that the campaign took more than a year. What's interesting is that Dell can point to success by pointing out that whenever someone blogs about Dell, whether it's positive or negative, there's a corporate comment in response. I would be very interested if the company could discuss the ROI for its campaign or to other metrics to demonstrate its success. In other words, can Dell demonstrate the value of its blogging outreach in terms of sales, visibility, new business/lead generation, customer retention, etc.?

It will be interesting to see if Dell responds to this post, by the way.

B2B Marketing and corporate aspirations

There’s an old joke about two grandmothers in Miami Beach – long before it became today’s fabulous Miami Beach, when it was still populated with retirees. The two women hadn’t seen each other in a while. The first said, “My youngest grandson just became a doctor.” “Big deal,” replied the other. “My Howie’s in the medical profession, too. He’s a patient.”

I thought of that joke recently when some friends who served with me on our college newspaper sent around emails commenting on one of our few colleagues still working in journalism. He’s been working for one of the country’s best regarded newspapers, and just published another well regarded book. Big deal, I thought; I’m in the journalism field. As a consumer of too many newspapers and magazines.

But because I work in public relations, I still care about journalism, still try to think like a reporter when advising our clients, still come up with story ideas that I hope will interest reporters and editors, and still stay on top of trends.

Of the editors and writers who served on the college paper, there are three I know who still work as journalists. One works as Pennsylvania State House reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Which is great, if you don’t mind living in Harrisburg (official motto: “Making Cleveland Look Good”).

Another is a freelance reporter, who now writes for national magazines. But her first jobs included writing for a trade publication for yarn manufacturers. She used to talk about the challenges of writing for the Knitting Times included getting industry executives to take the time to be interviewed by her. One day, after placing numerous calls to a reluctant exec, the receptionist misheard my friend, and, thinking she had said she was a reporter for the New York Times, put her right through. The executive was none too pleased when he realized the mistake.

As for our former colleague who writes for one of the country’s best-regarded newspapers, after sophomore year, he decided that college wasn’t going to teach him what he needed to become a reporter, so he quit. He somehow got a job writing for that paper’s suburban weekly section before moving up, ironically enough, to serve as one of the paper’s education reporters. These days, he covers Washington, DC politics, has written books, and appears on political talk shows, providing his opinion.

Somehow, on those lofty programs, no one ever mentions that he never graduated from college.

On the other hand, there’s Harry Bernstein, who at age 93, after years editing a trade magazine for builders, generated tremendous reviews and interest with the publication of what the New York Times said is “a deeply affecting memoir,” a coming-of-age story that “is an eloquent evocation of a particular time and place,” namely a poor mill town in northern England before and during World War I. Though Bernstein had published a number of short stores in the 1930s, he didn’t achieve real literary success until seven decades later. But he kept trying.

The common denominator here may be trite as much as it’s true: you need to figure out your dream and pursue it. The lack of traditional credentials hasn’t prevented my former classmate from succeeding. The lack of full-blown success didn’t frustrate Bernstein from continuing to work on his writing to finally get a book published to enthusiastic reviews.

But from a business perspective, it’s important to remember aspirations. Lots of B2B companies talk about how they solve customer pain points. It’s an important message.

Companies often forget that their B2B customers also have aspirations that are more than eliminating pain…which, after all, is a negative focus. B2B customers also have goals they want to achieve – that include, but are not limited to profitability, expansion, market share, etc. B2B companies have keep their customers’ goals in mind, and find ways to help them succeed. Those companies that can help their customers achieve those positive goals will connect more closely with them, develop stronger relationships, and thrive.