{"id":42705,"date":"2012-03-29T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.wordpress.com\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2020-10-11T14:39:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T12:39:53","slug":"hitachi-making-social-media-work-for-b2b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/en\/2012\/03\/29\/hitachi-making-social-media-work-for-b2b\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitachi Data Systems: making social media work for B2B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharon Crost is Global Online Marketing and B2B Social Media Manager at Hitachi Data Systems and she delivered what I believe is one of the most inspiring presentations on March 27 at Blogwell in San Francisco. B2B, it didn’t come as as surprise to me ( I made a presentation at an earlier edition<\/a> of Blogwell in Atlanta a couple of years ago\u00a0<\/i>on that<\/i><\/span>\u00a0subject) is one of the major targets for social media. Here is why, in 5 questions, asked and answered by Sharon in front of a riveted Blogwell audience.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Hitachi Data Systems: making social media work for B2B<\/h2>\n
\"Hitachi<\/a>
Hitachi Data Systems: making social media work for B2B<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cHDS products are not sexy\u201d was Sharon\u2019s introduction to her pitch at Blogwell. It doesn\u2019t seem very intuitive that social media could work out for products like that. Yet, it proved very rewarding for the storage and data recovery company. In just five questions, Sharon proved her case very compellingly. Here is my account of her punchy presentation.<\/p>\n

Question 1: is social media a good investment? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Although many of the people in the room anticipated the answer to that question to be a \u201cyes\u201d, Sharon explained that they \u201cwere not so sure at first sight because it’ wasn\u2019t an obvious thing\u201d. So they \u201cneeded to test it out\u201d she went on. Being a B2B company, they didn\u2019t have much of a presence at first and even with a very small budget, which was used very effectively they managed to get some very good results.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThey started with a test of a quiz campaign in which they tried to get people to engage on social media. The prize was a Hitachi LCD HD TV set. This campaign drew people to their social site to answer the quiz. Another campaign was the \u201cglobe campaign\u201d and you had to spin the globe and click on the tweets, the whitepapers etc. A third one was entitled \u201ca quest for scalability\u201d\u2026
\nSharon concluded that first chapter by saying that \u201cthe first lesson is to think about what is socially sharable about your brand and this may not necessarily be your products!\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Q2: if people aren\u2019t in the target market, should you discourage them? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Her answer was neither yes or no this time. \u201cIn fact you have to be nice to everyone (you never know), but you have to treat them nicely but differently<\/strong>\u201d. For people in our targets we let them win a \u201cstorage assessment\u201d she added; those who won TV sets were kept happy but they weren\u2019t forcibly part of HDS\u2019 audience.
\nThe current campaign is a storage mapping tool<\/em>. People can still engage to win an iPad \u201cbut they aren\u2019t the target audience\u201d Sharon added. Target customers or prospective customers are also given a chance to opt-in for free information<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Q3: can you do that on a shoestring?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sharon\u2019s answer is a resounding Yes! (and all voted for that answer in the room). Earned<\/strong> is the most important part, but \u201cpaid\u201d comes to amplify the message.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Q4 which one works best? Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answer to that question is very counter-intuitive and it must be pointed out that it might very well work differently depending on the brand or mostly, where it\u2019s based. The very footprint of Facebook in the US is making it unavoidable. And therefore, HDS found out that it was indeed Facebook which worked best for \u201cwith a small amount of money [they] could see the ROI for each channels and Facebook proved the more rewarding\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

Q5: what is the most obvious benefit for B2B?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t one answer to that question Sharon said, and she listed a number of benefits including<\/p>\n