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Resourcing B2B social media

Guest post by: Jo Stratmann

Article Overview: Tips and advice about how to resource social media in a B2B business.

Resourcing B2B social media

As the use of social media grows within B2B businesses, there is increased demand for companies to hire in-house social media resource. In fact, the phrase "social media director" has even started to creep into the conversation, especially in the US. A search on indeed.com for "social media director" returns more than 7,100 results from companies, ranging from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants to Fairmont & Hotels Resorts.

Unlike in the States, it's still early days here in UK for B2B businesses when it comes to resourcing social media in-house. However, developing and then implementing a well-researched social media strategy will show your customers that you mean business.

In order to stay viable, B2B companies need to start thinking about how to integrate social media into their workforce. For many B2B organisations, this will mean creating an entirely new position.

Here are 3 tips to get the ball rolling:

1. B2B managers need to find candidates who have spent adequate time in both sales and marketing positions and can present a clear understanding of how he or she will help to impact the bottom line using social channels. Being able to demonstrate ROI is of vital importance to any social media strategy and should be a key concern of any social media manager in a firm.

2. With apologies to ex-NFL head coach Herman Edwards, you have to play to "win the game." Companies will need to create a budget item for "social media resource" and offer competitive rates. Depending on the size of the company, the sector and, most importantly, the use of social media channels among the audience being targeted, companies may need to employ "tiers" of social media jobs/programmers akin to other disciplines.

3. Social media staff shouldn't sit in an isolated office - they must be integrated into the whole sales system. Akin to sales reps, your social media resource must be close to the customer and should develop a social media strategy depending on where the customer sits within the sales cycle.

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Article Tags: B2B, FreshNetworks, FreshNetworks social media agency, social media, social media resource



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Re: Real Estate via social networking? - Now day’s people love to busy on Social media websites especially on Facebook. They are also using internet for all other usual task of their life. They are getting all things on social media sites that's why social media transfer lot traffic to website.
Re: Social Media Marketing Ignorance - Has anyone read any good books on social media they'd like to share? I've been considering reading one, but wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations on an informative one. Someone earlier mentioned a lack of time. That is one reason I'm still in the dark ages as well but I realize that I may be falling behind the times by not at least considering the business case for social media against the time consumption. I'm also hesitant to use facebook and the like fearing it will turn into a platform for old friends to reconnect v. a way to grow my business. I also am unsure how much time it really takes to maintain various social media...any thoughts? Anyone made any mistakes or had any huge successes using social media for business that they'd like to share?
Re: How much is social media part of your marketing strategy? - Most of the companies make gross mistake by using techniques listed on the internet without even looking into whether they are suitable for their business or not. If you are dance company, music company etc etc then you simply cannot afford to ignore social media. There are several other businesses which perform well in social media promotion. You need to look whether social media will help your business or not. If you see huge pool of customers who are searching for your services on Youtube, metacafe, then surely you must jump for it.
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