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Social Media for Bloody Important Senior Executives

I know very little about the hotel and hospitality industry. That should never stand in the way of a good speaking opportunity though. Not ever. If anyone’s prepared to pay me good money to shout at them, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll say, “yes”.

So I found myself in Berlin as a speaker for the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF). It was a reasonably big conference with over 2000 global hotel investors, financiers and senior executives in attendance. It was certainly big enough to warrant a decent Wi-Fi connection. You’d have thought.

My research had indicated a certain degree of social media adoption by the hotel industry, limited predominantly to ‘customer services’ and running scared of TripAdvisor. The senior executives – the ‘C-Suite’ – however, were wholly disengaged. Social media wasn’t really on the agenda. They had more important matters to attend to. That proved sufficient inspiration for the title of my presentation – ‘Social Media for Bloody Important Senior Executives’.

My thinking has moved to the ‘Social Enterprise’ – a place were the entire business drives the social engagement of the organization. From the bottom of the enterprise to the very top, everyone is empowered, enabled, motivated and rewarded in its online endeavour to satisfy customers and prospects – including the senior executives. It’s only a matter of time. When the next generation of digital native middle management reach the boardroom, the enterprise will be social. Or at least it will have a chance. I don’t think it’s such a stretch. But it’s a very long way from Berlin and even further from the hotel industry.

I spent three days talking to delegates who, almost without exception, were clueless as to the opportunity or impact of social channels. In one of my presentations to over 100 people, only three of them had heard of Slideshare, none of them were using it. With over two thousand delegates attending the conference, I was anticipating a deluge of Twitter activity, but they could only manage a trickle of tweets. The general response was, “In the hotel industry we expect to do business face to face”. Well, yes, we all expected to do that years ago. We expected to travel by horse and cart a little while ago too, but the world has changed. So has business – whatever industry you’re in. The importance of direct contact in business is undeniable, but it’s not the only way of connecting with your audience.

As I stood at the front of the room giving my presentation, I couldn’t help but be slightly distracted by a man on the front row equipped with an SLR camera and strobe flash. Every time I changed the slides, he took a flash photograph of the projector screen. I had 60+ slides so you can imagine how it might get on your tits after the third slide. My presentation was about distributing social content, about helping your audience by sharing information. “It’s OK,” I said to the man, “you really don’t need to do that – this entire presentation will be available on Slideshare and YouTube just as soon as I have a Wi-Fi connection.” He carried on taking flash photographs of the screen regardless. What I should have said is, “Are you STUPID or just not LISTENING?” but based on President Kennedy’s Berlin experience, all he would have heard is, “I am a donut”.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 20 7323 6666

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How to Produce a B2B Social Media Strategy in 10 Executive Steps

Eric Schmidt, Co-founder and Chairman of the $29 billion online search engine, Google, recently commented on the company’s failure to capitalize on the social networking boom, “I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it. A CEO should take responsibility. I screwed up.”

Businesses that recognize the need, “to do something”, but have yet to commit to an integrated social media strategy need pointers. The world has changed. Audiences are no longer as accessible through traditional communications channels as they once were – they’re ‘social’. The CEO may not be as familiar with the social community as the audience itself, so it’s the executive audience that needs to understand and appreciate the new, social, marketing goals. Everyone talks about ‘why’ businesses need to engage audiences with social media, but the investment only happens when The Board understands ‘how’ a social media strategy will be systematically and methodically implemented to the benefit of the shareholders. Social media is not a radical new ‘panacea’ – it’s just another way to do business.

Here are Birddog’s 10 steps to systematically planning and delivering a social media strategy that Senior Executives understand and support:

Step 1. – Objectives/Approach
Agree objectives from the outset. Unless price discounting or using an alternative promotional model, social media will not ‘generate leads’ directly. Conversation, community and engagement will support the audience. In return, the audience will support the brand with referrals, recommendations and ultimately, customers. Awareness and advocacy, not ‘hard sell’.

Step 2. – Review B2B Social Channels
Review and discuss available types and channels for engagement. Less experienced socialites may be unaware of the tools and the possibilities. Identify the channels most likely to suit the business, the brand and the audience early in the planning process.

Step 3. – Social Research
Visibility of the existing social landscape is key to social understanding. Where (if anywhere) is the brand already active? Where are competitors active? Where is the audience active? Undertaking initial research and providing insight from the results identifies opportunities and creates benchmarks for future activities.

Step 4. – Creative Platform®
Social media does not exist in isolation. Creative development is required to effectively integrate social activities with existing brand and communications assets. Personality, tone and character, rarely exploited in traditional communications are crucial to developing content for social media. Workshop(s) and consultancy delivers the ‘right story’.

Step 5. – Channel Selection & Engagement Planning
By understanding the social landscape, the correct channel opportunities for the brand can be identified. Engagement planning starts with the internal audience. Social media is the responsibility of the organisation not the individual. Assessment of internal capabilities allows external planning, but not before a Social Media Policy (however simple/complex) is in place. Channels, engagement and policy need structuring before launch.

Step 6. – Social Media Implementation
Once the necessary channel assets have been created, work begins on Content Planning. Content doesn’t produce itself. Blogs, pictures, video, audio, online PR all have to come from somewhere – initially, the content plan is where structure and responsibilities will be scheduled and agreed to enable the Community Manager to activate the various channels.

Step 7. – Social Media Monitoring
It’s all measurable. Every click, every view, every new follower, every ‘re-tweet’. Measures of success will be benchmarked and tracked over time to assess performance. Analysis and reporting allows ongoing optimisation of channel activities and budgets in real time. Birddog currently has 25+ social measurement tools in use and/or on trial.

Step 8. – Social Media Skills Transfer
The business commitment to social media should not be static. Resources, budgets, channels and campaigns change continually and the Social Media Strategy needs to accommodate those changes. Internal Staff Training on each of the channels being used improves internal engagement and reduces external/outsourced costs over time.

Step 9. – Agency Engagement
The choice of a social media partner and terms of engagement (project and/or retainer) will be subject to competencies within each step of the social media strategy above. Many agencies talk about B2B social media, few have the clients, case studies and statistics to demonstrate proven experience. Learn from the mistakes of others.

Step 10. – Beyond Social
Social media is one component of a broader marketing strategy that incorporates digital and brand planning as well as offline communications. It’s important not to isolate social media as ‘separate’. Look for the commonality and overlap in order to integrate (thereby reducing costs and maximizing ROI for the business).

Funding is always easier to secure once there is understanding, engagement and a business case. Birddog’s ‘How to Produce a B2B Social Media Strategy’ delivers all three in methodical, manageable steps. The alternative is to say, “I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it. I screwed up.” No one in the boardroom knows where the social revolution started, but they all remember the screw-ups…

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666
Scot on Twitter