Social Media Tools Week = Great Information

There has been a lot of discussion about partner communities and how to make them more active. This presentation provides a Health Check Methodology to help every channel marketing department move their online community to the next level.

Social Media Tools Week Communities As A Support Hub Ss

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Social Media Strategies

Social Media Tools Week = Great Information

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Social Media Tools Week

Most people don’t know how to use Social Media effectively. They spend a few minutes on Twitter or LinkedIn and then decide that it’s all a waste of time because they haven’t seen immediate benefits. The problem is that many resellers and partner managers don’t really understand how these tools work – even down to the basics like how to create an effective profile or how to get the right followers on Twitter. The truth is that Social Media can be downright confusing to newbies.

Next month, there will be an excellent opportunity to begin solving this problem. Partner managers can learn how various social media tools work and how they can be used effectively in a B2B context. They just have to attend Social Media Tools Week and pay attention.
Spread over five days, from November 16 to 21, the Social Media Tools Week will feature a program of keynote presentations and “career development sessions” by industry experts, including a session on distribution channels.

There is a detailed agenda on the event site, but the emphasis is on explaining the most popular tools and how they might be useful to business people. Participants also get a free social media tool that is useful for keeping track of important people like prospects, customers, and reseller executives (where they post and what they say).

Early registration is free until Nov 10. After that its $35. Every Channel Manager should attend with their best partners because it’s an impressive group of speakers and you will learn a lot about Social Media and how it can be used effectively.

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Social Media Strategies

Social Media Tools Week

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Top Ten Observations from the Channels of the Future Research

Over the past six months, Gilwell Group and Integrated Mar.com have worked together on a research project to gather data about reseller use of social media tools. The results have been made available to qualified Trusted Business Advisors and channel marketing managers through a series of webinars and postings on the LinkedIn Channels of the Future group. Here are the top ten findings.

1. Resellers expect their major vendors to provide training and leadership on new ways to market their products over the Internet. Consequently, successful vendors must help their resellers develop a richer on-line presence by providing them with on-line product demonstrations, multi-media email communications, video testimonials, and social networking guidelines to help generate leads and improve close rates.

2. Most resellers understand that on-line communities, business and social networking, blogs, on-line storefronts, and social media sites like Twitter are increasingly important ways to communicate with customers. However, partners don’t have the skills, time, or compelling customer interest to prioritize and adopt these new communication tools quickly.

3. Resellers that report revenue growth are significantly more active with social media than resellers that report revenue declines or no growth. (This is a consistent finding over the past six months.) Growing resellers are already doing the following with social media: Finding New Customers, Improving Proposal Close Rates and Shortening Sales Cycles, Training Employees and Customers, Recruiting New Employees, Improving Customer Satisfaction (Staying in touch), Building Partnerships with other Resellers, Advertising, Public Relations, building brands, disseminating information, filling webinars, and more.

4. Resellers do not consider their web sites to be effective marketing tools and most resellers have not incorporated social media capabilities into their sites. (Reseller on-line presence is an impediment to growth)

5. More than 30% of resellers are implementing on-line communities to improve communications and drive down support costs. However, most partners are building (or plan to build) their own proprietary communities, sometimes using tools provided by vendors. This is likely to result in many unfinished projects, rudimentary functionality within the community, and general dissatisfaction among community members.

6. Reseller employees (especially at growing resellers) regularly visit business networking sites like LinkedIn and often read blogs that pertain to their business or customers. These sites are used to find prospects (suspects), network with vendors and other resellers, and find useful sales information (often posted by vendors). Resellers have much less experience with YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter as business tools, although all employees have familiarity with these sites and visit them occasionally, even in the context of conducting BtoB activities.

7. Traditional co-op (incentive) programs remain popular, however resellers are looking to use their funds to build out their on-line presence. Resellers expect that vendor marketing and communications programs will be server-based (SaaS) and available 24/7, especially product training, business planning, and deal registration.

8. Vendors are taking advantage of new social media tools to build marketing relationships directly with end users, sometimes at the expense of their channel. Since most resellers (73%) have ad hoc marketing programs or no marketing at all, this could eventually weaken relationships between resellers and their customers. Resellers are increasingly worried about this possibility.

9. Communication with customers is increasingly on-line. Email dominates, although on-line communities and social media sites are gaining in popularity. Over 40% of reseller sales people are using mobile communication devices like Blackberry and iPhones to access the internet while doing business.

10. Reseller executives are aging, yet they are actively experimenting with some social media tools for business and pleasure. It’s is a myth that social media business users are young. (77% of this sample is more than 40 years old.)

For access to the entire report, and additional information on resellers and social media, go to SlideShare.com and search on Gilwell.

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