Earlier this week, I did a post that looked at how businesses are using social media to find business-related info and how you might be able to reach customers and prospects via these mechanisms. I thought it might be interesting to flip this on its side and look at what social media related initiatives companies have in place, top activities, how much time and resources they are committing to these efforts, and how they measure success.

Take a look at the statistics below from Business.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study and see how you stack up.

- Over 1900 participants in the study indicated that they work for a company involved in social media initiatives. 92% are directly involved in planning or managing these initiatives.

- On average, these individuals spend 18% of their time in any given week working on these initiatives. 

- 71% of the companies surveyed have less than two years of experience with social media.

- The average company in the study is currently involved in 7 different social media efforts.

At Cisco Partner Velocity this week in Paris, France, using social media for marketing will be a hot topic. Many Cisco partners are in the process of developing their strategy for social media and some are still struggling to justify to their management team why social media is an important component of any marketing strategy. If you fall into the latter category, you may find the following information useful.

As marketers, we should know where individuals that meet our target customer profile are spending their time online, how they get the information they need in order to make purchasing decisions, and we should make sure we’re providing relevant information about our solutions in a way that matches to this. Basically, a “fish where the fish are” approach.

Are your target customers leveraging social media? Two recent research reports may shed some light on this.

However, I recognize that there are situations where you just need to try some things and see where they can take you. As most of you know Cisco has a fairly large presence on Twitter with Twitter feeds for marketing, product launches, Cisco executives etc. We frequently encourage both our partners and customers to follow us. With this in mind, I thought I would share some easy ways that you can integrate your Twitter presence into your overall marketing efforts. So, if you find yourself in a situation where the proverbial train is leaving the station with social media, this may give you some immediate things you can do to unify your marketing efforts.

On a recent trip to Las Vegas - my first ever non-work related trip to Vegas - I was able to catch a few shows – Yes, the first shows I’ve ever seen in Vegas. One of those shows was Blue Man Group . It was fantastic!

In case you’re not familiar with Blue Man Group, they are a performance art troupe and marketing machine. Their shows combine vaudeville-style physical comedy with art, social commentary, and lots of odd and entertaining audience participation moments, all without the Blue Men actually speaking a single word.

Something struck me about the Blue Man Group show and got me thinking about how some of the characteristics of social media are evident in how the Blue Man Group show is structured. (OK… I know… You can take the girl out of the work environment, but you just can’t take the work out of the girl).

So here’s my take on how social media is like Blue Man Group:

Participation & Interactivity – Social media tools inherently encourage participation and feedback from anyone who is interested, effectively blurring the lines between media and audience.

Audience participation is required to make the Blue Man Group show successful. Right from the start, the audience is part of the show, from reading “Happy Birthday” out loud as a group (you had to be there), to individual and group participation in specific skits, the show would not be as effective without audience input.

According to the US Department of Labor, there are more than 1 million new businesses each year. Small businesses constitute more than 99% of all employers, employ more than 50% of the private workforce and account for 51% of the nation’s sales.

The SMB is important. Your business may be one. You may market and sell to SMBs. Or perhaps, it’s both. 

Regardless, there are some interesting statistics on the usefulness of social media for SMBs.

Because I know you, Cisco partners, have a strong interest in social media as part of your marketing efforts, I am always on the look out for relevant information that I can share with you. Imagine my elation when I received the July issue of CRN and found an article entitled “Are You A Social Climber?” by Brian Kraemer.  The subtitle is the clincher – “Vendors, VARs find engaging with customers via today’s social networks is paying dividends in ways they never expected”.

And yes… I’m so happy to see an article about social media in a solution provider focused publication that I’ve been carrying this issue of CRN around with me ever since.

Here are the points that I think are most salient and interesting. If you have time you may want to read the entire article.

Email… as marketers we love it. It’s inexpensive, trackable and provides a decent return on investment. In fact, according to the Direct Marketing Association, every dollar spent on email marketing in 2008 generated $45.06. This is slightly down from previous years, but the ROI on email will continue to outpace that of other marketing vehicles for the foreseeable future.

MarketingSherpa has been studying email trends for a long time focusing on the relationship between email practices and success. They recently posted this chart highlighting email trends from 2001 through the present.

As marketers, driving revenue is our ultimate goal and being able to track marketing efforts to actual sales is nirvana. Money talks, after all. But what about social media? In the past, debates have raged about the value of putting resources, time and effort into social media, when its impact was unclear. Even today, when most companies acknowledge that social media should be part of their marketing strategy, there is still the question about the value. What impact can social media have on your business? Does it help to drive revenue? Is the investment worth it?

According to new research from Wetpaint, a social media platform, and Altimeter Group, a digital strategies consulting group, there is significant correlation between a company’s social media engagement and their revenue and profit.

Telemarketing is one of those “old school” marketing techniques. Worse, it’s probably one of the poster children for interruption marketing. No one is overly excited to get a call from a telemarketer.

But, it is also an essential part of any integrated campaign focused on demand generation. It is especially important as a component in lead nurturing. More information on this can be found on Brian Carroll’s B2B Lead Generation Blog

If you’re a Cisco partner, you know that Cisco offers many marketing programs that are telemarketing based or have a telemarketing component. If you’re not utilizing these programs, you are likely doing some form of telemarketing whether it is a custom program you have set up with a vendor or with in-house resources, if you’re lucky enough to have people on staff. Regardless, of how you are doing telemarketing, it may be time to re-evaluate.
The standard rule with telemarketing has been that three attempts to contact a prospect was sufficient. Any more than three times was thought to result in diminishing returns. Times change.

A recent MarketingSherpa survey found that the sources of information relied upon for making large and complex purchases are changing rapidly.

Key findings include:

• Virtual Events Are In: Many buyers shifted from face-to-face events and tradeshows to virtual formats for product, service and vendor information primarily due to cutbacks in travel budgets.

• Social Media is Emerging as a Key Resource: Blogs and social networks are emerging as important resources due in large part to the objectivity of their content. Third-party social sites are favored for their impartiality. Vendor branded blogs and discussion forums on vendor branded social sites provide a mix of subjective company information with moderated commentary and peer discussions.