Product Marketing: Driving Social Media Adoption

Telling the Story in a New Way to Reach More Buyers

Included here is a brief presentation we put together on helping a risk adverse firm adopt a moderate social strategy.  But I thought it pertinent to offer some back story on how it came into being.  You see I have the good fortune of working with what I consider to be one of the best PR firms I’ve ever done business with, Gregory FCA (GFCA).  The fonder, Greg Matusky, is a master of the narrative.  I think this is why I value my relationship with GFCA so much, because I KNOW that the narrative is the most critical element to market position, and the marketing / PR relationship works best if creating the story is equally prioritized.

My working relationship with GFCA started sometime in 2008, at what I consider to be the dawn of social media adoption by the business to business marketing and PR masses.  As I began to orient myself to the new digital communication landscape I found a trusted partner in GFCA that was oriented towards helping me retain focus on the message and the purpose of the message rather than to be distracted by the bright shiny social media objects.

Along the way Greg hosted a forum of some very big names in journalism (including the New York Times, USA Today, Forbes and the Columbia School of Journalism to name a few)    to discuss not the adoption of new tools but how the art of telling the story must react to the reality of the new tools.   This also motivated Greg to sponsor a ‘study group’ along the same vein,  adapting the story to the tools.  He invited some of his clients in the name of educating one another in order to allow the rising tide of digital communication to collectively raise our individual boats.

I had the opportunity as a  member of that study group to share some of the methods we had been using to drive adoption of the new digital communication tools across an organization that is historically and culturally very conservative when it comes to anything new.  The presentation is on slideshare and embedded here.  Below is a quick overview of the method.  It has worked remarkably well, and the firm is ready to increase the investment by taking what today is a variation on a traditional them and move it to a honest two way social media business to business use case.

Enjoy – and if you have comments or suggestions on the technique I would love to hear them.

Overview of the Technique

1. Organization Hesitancy: No idea where to start and risk adverse
2. Offered a Different Perspective: View tools as form of ‘print’ and illustrate applicability across disciplines
3. The Starting State: Firm had attention of only one possible buyer
4. Desired State: Expand sales reach across all potential buyers
5. Traditional use of content: Static, applicable to finite buying target
6. Digital Content: Organic and free flowing; aligned closely to most current industry news and conversation
7. Benefit: Creates virtually infinite amount of ‘touch’ to all targeted buyers.