This week has been a pretty busy one for the team here at Serengeti Communications, especially those of us blogging here at Social Conversations about Social Media Marketing.  On Tuesday both Beth Harte and myself presented at the Social Media Plus conference in downtown Philadelphia.  It was a great conference full of a lot of really insightful presentations and questions from the audience.  Beth and I spoke on two different issues surrounding social media – B2B Marketing and How Search & Social Media Mix.  Then on Wednesday I had an interview with Cover Story on Webmaster Radio talking about our new social media measurement dashboard,  Social Snap, how we at Serengeti Communications approach building strategies for Social Media Marketing and also about my new book, Social Media Marketing:  Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media.

We’d like to share our presentations with you and would love to hear your feedback or questions!

Social Media & Your B2B Marketing Mix

Wondering how social media marketing can fit into your marketing communications efforts for your B2B business? Beth Harte’s presentation gave attendees of Social Media Plus just want they needed to understand planning, expanding, executing and measuring when it comes to Social Media & B2B Business Marketing.

Social Media & Search Marketing, What’s the Link – How Can it Work For You?

Wondering what the link is between Social Media Marketing & Search Marketing? Well at the core, it’s about being found. Liana “Li” Evans’ Social Media Plus presentation gave attendees information about how social media marketing and search are related and tips on how to capitalize on it for their own online marketing and social media marketing success.

Social Media Strategies, Social Media Measuring Dashboards & Social Media Books

In this interview about Social Media Strategies & Tools, Li Evans discusses the release of the Social Media Marketing Book, plus a new social media strategy tool called Social Snap, a dashboard that gives organizations quick insights into the results of their Social Media marketing program in one place. Just hit the “play” button below or “play in popup” to get the podcast started.

 Social Media Measuring Dashboard & Strategies Interview on WebMasterRadio.fm [33:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Like I said… quite a busy week, but a lot of great conversations about Social Media Marketing!

I get a lot of questions about how I approach Social Media Marketing. The team here at Serengeti Communications has a very methodical approach, we like to ensure a solid foundation for every strategy that we put in place for our clients. In doing that there’s four fundamental ideas, or as I call them “Pillars” that help stabilize any efforts taken into social media marketing. As a team here, we decided that we’d like to share some of our experience and knowledge with the 4 Pillars of Social Media in a series throughout the month of June. Each week, we’re going to have 2 to 3 posts on both Social Conversations and on Endless Plain about each week’s Pillar.

• The first week we’ll be discussing the first pillar of social media marketing: Research. Those posts will be published between June 1 and June 4th, 2010
• The second week we’ll be discussing the second pillar of social media marketing: Strategy.  Those posts will be published between June 7th and June 11th, 2010
• The third week we’ll be discussing the third pillar of social media marketing: Engagement. Those posts will be published between June 14th and June 18th, 2010
• The fourth week we’ll be discussing the fourth pillar of social media marketing: Measurement. Those posts will be published between June 21st and June 25th, 2010

We’ve also designed specific training around the 4 Pillars of Social Media Marketing, with two areas of specification:  B2B and B2C.   These two types of businesses take rather different views when it comes to each one of these pillars, that’s why the training we provide to our clients addresses the specific needs of these two very distinctly different types of business.

So stop by next week when you’ll get the first edition of our Four Pillars of Social Media based around Research.

With all of the tools, case studies, and resources available the excuse to not implement a smart social media strategy that drives relationships, brand favor and revenue is walking down a mighty short plank. 

If you’ve heard yourself or your management say: 

“Social media only works with consumers…” 

“Those are B2C social media tactics…” 

“The B2B sales cycle is too complicated to implement social media…” 

“We can’t measure social media ROI…” 

It’s time to stop making excuses and start rolling up your sleeves to get down to work! Yes, it’s true… Your B2B customers are talking about you on Twitter, Facebook, in forums and in blog posts or comments. What’s also true is that your competition is right there listening and offering an option to solve their pain because you are not. What are you going to do about it? 

Not sure? Sometimes it’s as 5 simple tips sending you in the right direction. But if you’re the type of B2B marketer that needs in-depth information to feel comfortable, make the business case or to get started with social media here are some resources and case studies. 

Reading: 

• Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media – by Liana ‘Li’ Evans (Serengeti Communications’ Director of Social Media)
• Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It – by Monica L. O’Brien
• Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones – by Joseph Jaffe
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR – by David Meerman Scott
• Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business – by Larry Weber
• The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media – by Paul Gillin
• Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand – by Shel Holtz & John Havens
• Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care – by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos
• The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right – by Debbie Weil
• Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back – by Rohit Bhargava
• Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success – by Katie D. Payne
• Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment – by Jim Sterne

Case Studies: 

• IBM (Product Development)
• IBM (Communications)
• Equation Research
• Cisco Systems
• Business.com
• Boeing
• SAP  

If you still need help getting started consider doing an audience research analysis to uncovered how your target markets are using social media. Doing so will give you the insights you need to plan your social media strategy.  

[Photo: iStock]