Building Relationships and Measuring Success

Rob Meiklejohn, @robmeiklejohn, RMM  

A recent study by Penton Marketing Services suggests that, although social media marketing is increasingly important for B2B organisations, there are still considerable issues for B2B marketers in deploying and measuring their social media activities. The study shows that while 60% of B2B Marketers have implemented a social media strategy, or will do in the next year, 81% of the 5000 marketers queried admitted to finding online marketing ‘moderately to extremely challenging.’

One of the main reasons behind this may well be a difficulty in quantifying the benefits of B2B social media activities. Indeed, 26% of B2B Marketers said they had no idea as to how they could measure their social media success. It would be particularly interesting to know how many of those struggling to measure success were also part of the third of marketers who “did not consider social media to be critical to their business”. Often this confusion over how to measure the value of social media boils down to the process many organisations take when approaching social media. That is to say that many organisations put the technology and the activity before nailing down what they hope to achieve and the metrics they will use to measure success.

The key thing to remember is that any social media activity is unlikely to succeed if you haven’t first considering the business objectives you hope to meet by doing it. Companies operating in the B2B space must direct the way they use social media to nurture what has always been their key objective – namely building trusted relationships.

Given the dynamic of the B2B market there’s clearly a difference in the nature of their relationships with customers than in the B2C sector – for a start they are fewer and, usually, more valuable on a case by case basis. B2B firms must recognise this in their use of social media, to clearly demonstrate the trust and credibility that a prospective customer looks for, and existing customers want to be able to rely on. B2B businesses thrive on these types of relationships and any social media activities must support them by foremost building brand trust and credibility.

The study finished by suggesting that only 47% of B2B Marketers are currently satisfied with their social media strategy. Perhaps this will change as B2B firms realise that simply deploying the latest shiny social media platform or being another shouting voice on Twitter isn’t the golden ticket for their business. Rather, they must commit to building credibility by listening to what the market is discussing, and then demonstrate expertise and ability to add value. This puts your organisation in a great place to be genuinely involved in key conversations, and someone that customers genuinely want to develop a relationship with. All of a sudden the social platform the firm uses becomes merely an enabling factor, leaving the value and benefit of the activity to take centre stage.

As for quantifying success in relationship building activities it’s as simple as talking to your customers. A quick survey on new customers or even an informal chat will quickly help you to establish any social media successes. Ask how aware your customers are of your social media presence and how important they see it as being in building your relationship. If you’ve been doing the right things you may find yourself surprised by quite how many new clients got to know you first through your social presence.

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