Alex Neale

Facebook, Twitter, WordPress; not sites I would have typically associated with working life before embarking on my career in PR. As someone who has always had to keep my personal and professional lives separate, I found it a little exciting that I was allowed, encouraged even, to explore and maintain my presence on these platforms for ‘work purposes’ (I still smugly tell my friends).

Social media has always been associated with the consumer and it has been utilised by business to consumer (B2C) brands in several highly successful campaigns – Starbucks, Coca Cola and Skittles to name but a few. Not only does it offer a quick, easy and often painless channel through which to communicate with their consumers directly (thanks to fan pages and opt-in groups), but the increasing amount of personal preferences – like and dislikes, favourite films, books, foods – that its users are revealing about themselves mean that brands are able to get to know their customers better than ever.

It’s clear to see the benefits of investing in social media for B2C clients, but what good can it do for business to business (B2B) clients? Can it provide any value at all?

B2B social media: tried and tested

Social media is considered by many – typically the older generation – to be the downfall of society. They call us lazy, anti-social; they even blame the riots on our obsession with social media. We ‘Generation Y’, tech-savvy, forward thinking PROs are currently facing a never-ending battle in persuading our B2B clients that they would benefit from a little social media to spice up their campaigns.

Many of them are still of the opinion that social media is ‘fluffy’ and far too informal, and above all they believe that they won’t reach their potential customers via a Facebook fan page or a blog.

However, several B2B brands who have taken the risk beg to differ, such as IBM:

Earlier this year, IBM implemented social media elements within their B2B ‘Watson’ campaign fantastically, achieving international coverage.

IBM’s Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. Earlier this year, Watson competed on the quiz show Jeopardy!, in the show’s only human-versus-machine match-up to date. Over two games, Watson beat Brad Rutter, the biggest all-time money winner on Jeopardy!, and Ken Jennings, the record holder for the longest championship streak of 75 days.

In the lead up to the event, IBM posted around 30 short videos on YouTube, racking up more than 1 million views. It chose to feature the researchers and engineers who built the computer rather than the corporate suits, offering interesting content to both Jeopardy! fans and potential customers. Since the event, Watson’s Facebook page now has more than 17,000 ‘likes’ and its Twitter stream has more than 6,000 followers.

IBM also involved IBM bloggers who have attracted their own followings over the years and researchers used Reddit, a social news site, to answer the top 10 questions about Watson and the contest.

The results of the IBM Watson campaign were phenomenal and this case can help illustrate that the use of social media in PR campaigns is not just a fad but offers a very real and exciting prospect for the future of PR, particularly to B2B companies.

The future of B2B social media

So, what is the future of social media for B2B clients? Do PROs continue in their battle to persuade their clients of its value or The results of a PricewaterhouseCoopers study released last month revealed that almost half of B2B companies are not measuring return on investment or using only basic qualitative measures when it comes to social media.

Despite showing that B2B some of those polled had invested up to £1.18m on social media, the majority appeared to have “limited strategies” that fail to exploit sales opportunities.

It also found that less than 12% of organisations surveyed have full time social media teams in place.

Of course a B2B social media campaign must be taken with a different approach to that of a consumer campaign – your targets are businesses which will undoubtedly interact with a social media platform in the same way as a consumer.

However, ultimately all business people are consumers and, now more than ever, those lines are constantly being blurred. Perhaps the solution is to take away the concept of B2B and consumer campaigns being polar opposites and use elements of both to create a campaign that appeals to a potential customer’s business objectives and consumer preferences to maximise the impact.

Remember, a social media campaign is always going to be noticed by a real person, not a computer, no matter whether it’s a consumer or B2B campaign. Social media, including blogs and business profiles on Twitter and Facebook, can communicate the values, philosophy and personality of a business far more effectively than simply listing it on a website homepage. It allows customers – those people who represent the target businesses – to understand your client’s messaging a little better and feel a little more acquainted with those who run the business.

Discuss this article with Alex on Twitter here.

(Disclosure: Alex works for the Hotwire Group, where our social media editor also works)

Writing for your lecturer is one thing. Yes, you want to be grammatically correct and you want to ensure that your key messages are communicated in your essay or dissertation. But writing copy for professional people to read is a whole different ball game, and a daunting one at that.

That was the challenge I faced when I got my first job in PR. I graduated in 2007 from Leeds Metropolitan University with an MA in PR and I was lucky enough to land my first job a few weeks after handing in my dissertation.  The company I work for is complex and communicating to its shareholders means communicating to other businesses; therefore business to business (B2B) PR is a regular focus of my day-to-day job.

The first rule, which I quickly learnt, about B2B PR is this: know your audience. Even now – two years into my role as PR Executive for a large retail and wholesale buying group – I have to ask myself who my audience is when I’m producing copy.

Fantasy older man

I always try and imagine the reader – for example, when I’m producing award entries I try to imagine the judge, and I always seem to go for an older gentleman whose hair is brilliant white, he wears a blue cravat, glasses, he’s extremely clean shaven and smells of peppermint tea and tobacco smoke – I understand this is bizarre and maybe even a little insane, but for me it seems to work!

In my experience, award entries are hard to draft. You want to champion the project or business that you are putting forward for the award yet you don’t want to sound too conceited. I still find it hard to do this, but luckily I’ve had tremendous support from my managers to help me understand how to write the entries.  One important thing that I was taught is to imagine the judge, what would they want to hear, and how can I add some visual elements to the awards to keep them engaged.

B2B means trade press

Communicating with the trade press is a routine B2B task and it is a large part of my job and one which, fortunately, I truly enjoy. Writing press releases, liaising with my colleagues and promoting their expert opinions through features in the trade press and providing company statements is all in a day’s work.

Usually the trade press have a great understanding of the business in which I work; but like in every sector, journalists move on and new ones are brought in with whom you have to establish a relationship. We tend to invite the new journalists to the company headquarters, give them a background presentation on the organisation (due to its complex structure, this usually generates a lot of questions!) and then give them a tour of the warehouse.  This often results in a positive feature about the company which helps us to raise the profile of the business; it’s a great way for us to ensure that the journalist is familiar with our organisation; and it’s a relationship-building exercise.

Member magazine

Arguably our in-house magazine, of which I am the news editor, is a B2B PR tool – as the definition of B2B PR is communicating to other businesses rather than directly to consumers (Tench & Yeomans, 2006) and the internal magazine goes out to our members who own their own businesses.  The magazine has a readership of 12,000, and its style is very different from press release copy as the tone is more friendly and less formal.

This is another dimension to the skills that are needed when producing B2B copy.  Although initially it’s hard to vary your writing styloe when you have just left university and started work in the ‘big wide world of PR’, it’s always exciting to learn about the different ways that you need to communicate within your professional role.

Annual report

The hardest part of B2B PR, for me, is writing the Annual Report.  Yes, this is mainly viewed as a financial document – but the company I work for uses the Annual Report to communicate about planned projects for the forthcoming year, as well as using it to report on the company’s annual results.

Although this might seem like a mundane communications exercise, it’s rather exciting to reflect on the year’s events, analyse them and then find a way to communicate them to the target audience. Yet again, the same principles of B2B are present: who is my target audience, and what are my key messages?

B2B is a great PR discipline which comes essentially with time and effort. The top tips, which I still go by myself each time I commence a B2B PR exercise are this: know your audience and understand the key messages.

Although these seem like fairly easy things to do some people may be complacent in thinking that they know their audiences when in fact they only think they do. Trying to ‘get inside the head’ of the reader will help ensure that you connect with your target audience and that will enable you to communicate your key messages effectively.