by Jennifer Hart Yim | Jun 12, 2014 | Blog, Data/Analytics, Strategy, Supply Chain
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
Regularly tracking your relationship with your suppliers and their performance toward your expectations is critical to ensure the success of your business. One mechanism for tracking this is the supplier scorecard. A scorecard is in essence a report card for your supplier. Supplier scorecards when used effectively can help maintain a healthy supply chain and will benefit both parties. If not used effectively supplier scorecards can damage the supplier relationship and hurt both businesses.
Effective scorecards should use meaningful metrics. If it doesn’t align with business goals then it shouldn’t be measured. Easily measured variables of no importance will just cause clutter; they could also cause a supplier to focus their performance in areas that do not matter. If the metrics are not clearly defined and understood by the suppliers then it will be hard for them to adjust their performance in these areas. Another consideration is there may be things that are important to you which your suppliers have no way of measuring or attaining the performance you are asking for.
As with all business to business relationships communication is critical for maintaining and improving supplier performance. To ensure suppliers meet your needs you should communicate to them from the offset how their performance will be measured. You can even tie bonuses and penalties into their performance scores. You should be mindful that your relationship with your supplier should be collaborative; as you grow so should they. You should share the results of your scorecards with your suppliers on a regular basis and shouldn’t wait until a review to raise a concern. Another important aspect of communication is sharing your business objectives and performance data with your suppliers. This can help them to better shape their business to meet your needs as your business fluctuates.
It is important when evaluating suppliers to have a good process in place for tracking important metrics. When possible it is best to use accurate data that is understood by both you and your supplier. If you use fuzzy metrics which are subjective then improvements become difficult to measure and target. Also, tracking metrics throughout the scoring period will help to ensure the data is accurate and your scorecard reflects actual performance.
When dealing with different suppliers it is important to make sure the metrics you are evaluating are relevant to each supplier. As a result it is not recommended to use a one size fits all approach to supplier scorecards. Another thing to keep in mind is that you may be sourcing from the same supplier through multiple locations. It is important to track each of these on its own scorecard to help your supplier learn where they are doing things right and where they are falling short of your expectations.
Where I work we have several strategic supplier partnerships. The way we manage supplier relationships is through quarterly business reviews with each of our partners. In these meetings high level representation from both companies is present. We share with our partners our business results and forecasts in addition to any major company news. After sharing this information we review our scorecard process with the suppliers, show a score card comparison, take a detailed look at each rating, and then provide an overall summary.
Our scoring system looks at aspects of quality, delivery, cost, support, and inventory management. With respect to quality we look at hard numbers like failures out of the box and returns from our customers. We take into account both product quality and process quality. When it comes to delivery we measure on-time delivery, missed shipments, and lead times. Some of our customers have long term fixed cost agreements so this metric isn’t required, for others the cost fluctuates; we measure whether or not their costs are in line with our expectations. Support has several levels including technical support, order support, and special cases. Inventory management tracks how well they are able to maintain some inventory on hand for us.
Our scorecard metrics used to be scored on the basis of a five point scale from far below expectations to far above expectations. After running through several of these scorecards we determine that it was not likely to get exceeds expectations because the only time expectations could be exceeded is if our demand was well above our forecasts. Since this goal wasn’t something attainable by a supplier of their own action we adjusted our scorecard to have only three levels, from below expectations to meets expectations.
The scorecard comparison is unique to the supplier and it shows the ratings for each of the metrics for the current review period as well as four prior quarters. We display this in a color coded matrix so that it is easy to see where each metric is improving, staying the same, or regressing from period to period. For my employer these quarterly business reviews give us frequent touch points with our suppliers. This helps us to identify issues and areas for improvement to strengthen our supplier relationships and our business.
Throughout this article I have hit on several best practices with respect to supplier scorecards. I want to stress that this is just a tool. The fact that you have a scorecard system in place should not prevent you from acting immediately if issues present themselves. After all, this should be a collaborative exercise which will benefit both your company as well as your suppliers. In addition it is important to solicit internal feedback from interested parties. Supplier scorecards should be used to make decisions about whether or not to continue supplier relations or to pursue alternative suppliers.
Mike Cleary is a Software Quality Assurance Engineer at Empirix pursuing his Masters of Science in Management of Technology from the University of New Hampshire. He has over ten years of experience in testing IP and telephony solutions across a variety of platforms. In his current role he is responsible for not only ensuring Quality in the E-XMS solution but other administrative tasks such as lab configuration, VM server, and perforce administration.
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Jun 5, 2014 | Blog, Manufacturing & Distribution, Strategy, Supply Chain
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
By now we have all heard the story of GM’s faulty ignition switches that are being linked to thirteen deaths and thirty one front-end collisions. The ignition switches in car models: Chevy Cobalt; Chevy HHR; Pontiac G5; Pontiac Solstice; Saturn Ion; and Saturn Sky, lacked the torque specs required by GM engineers. Heavy key chains, bumpy roads, or an accidental knee hit were all reasons reported that could cause the ignition switch to rotate to the off or idle position. Once this happened, the driver would lose control and the air bags would fail to deploy if a front end collision occurred. A total of 2.6 million vehicles were recalled, of that 2.2 million were in the United States. For this type of recall, GM was not requiring vehicles to go back to the manufacturer or be disposed. Rather, a more robust key ignition was distributed to all authorized GM dealerships and customers were told to bring their cars to the local dealership and a new ignition switch would be put in for them.
Despite the massive recall and all the negative publicity that goes along with such an event, GM still posted positive numbers in their quarterly earnings. GM posted an operating income of $0.5 billion for 1Q14, which is included the $1.3 billion recall-related charge. Furthermore, GM controlled approximately 17% of the U.S. market share. After the ignition switch incidents started to gain traction, GM swore to reorganize their global engineering department, and they did. So, if GM’s sales profitability is surviving, their negative press contained, and their market share intact, what exactly went wrong?
Two-thirds of General Motors automotive costs in 2014 are from supplier sourced parts. However, this was not always the situation. Back in 1999, GM underwent an extensive effort to disassemble their vertical integration in hopes of reducing overall costs. At this time, Delphi Automotive was owned by GM, but separated during the same year. For decades, GM was Delphi’s only customer, and even when Delphi executives knew GM was going to make them a public company, they were only able to move 22% of their business to other customers. When GM officially made Delphi a public company, 82.3% of their shares went to GM shareholders. That means that only 17.7% of Delphi was sold to public investors. In order to survive as a company, Delphi had to start making cost reduction decisions. To do this, companies often lay off employees and make cheaper parts, Delphi was no different. Now during this same time period, GM executives were focused on focused on costs reductions and were driven by numbers, hence the selling off of Delphi. It should be noted that if a company sells off their single largest parts supplier, fully aware that the move may cause the supplier to go belly up, there will be some strained relationships. Delphi was now thrown into a position where they must compete with other parts suppliers for GM’s business. An important part of the deal GM made when selling off Delphi was to keep all current supplier contracts. In addition, GM gave Delphi the opportunity to match any competitor’s bid until 2002. The earliest model of a recalled GM car was 2003.
Strained supplier relationships are not ideal for business, but should not affect the quality of a product, such as an ignition switch. Let’s fast forward to 2008. Delphi had declared bankruptcy three years prior and GM was beginning to pull them out of their financial burden. A contract was found between GM and Delphi that was drafted in 2008. The document is a little difficult to follow, but there are a few interesting lines in Section 5.09 Product Liability Claims. It appears that, GM said they would share the blame with Delphi for any claims against them. However, GM would not be held responsible if one of Delphi’s parts, or a part made for Delphi by a third party, fails. The contract continues on to say that GM would pay any legal fees if a claim was made against Delphi, but Delphi must defend GM through a potential lawsuit. This contract was drafted and signed in 2008, during which Delphi was bankrupt, so it appears they had little negotiating power.
This raises concerns specifically about the ignition switch specs. It came out that GM officials knew the ignition switch they purchased from Delphi was not up to their standards. After some more research, an email transaction between Delphi officials in regards to the plunger, the vital part that holds the key slot in place with a spring, and the ignition switch. At the end of the document, the original engineer drawings are attached. From the technical drawings it can be seen that Delphi did in fact outsource the design specs, and possibly the manufacturing, for the plunger design. Another document, that was preceding the email transaction, appears to inform GM that the plunger part was changed and the responsibility of the supplier is “closed”. This could have been a legal move meant to save Delphi if any claims were made related to these parts.
After all of this evidence, where does the blame lie? It would appear that GM used their powers to force Delphi into a contract that held them responsible for any claims against their products. While Delphi did warn GM that the torque requirement for their ignition switch did not meet GM’s requirement, it is unclear whether or not a verbal warning will play into the legal battle. This case is currently ongoing, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Connor Harrison holds a B.S.M.E and MBA from the University of New Hampshire.
by Jennifer Hart Yim | May 28, 2014 | Blog
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
In an increasingly globalized world the complexity in a firm’s supply chain has been getting bigger as it has spread over the whole globe. The risks of such a large supply chain have increased exponentially as the exposure to unforeseeable events, natural and man-made, have multiplied. Investing time and money in a Business Continuity Plan and hence building a resilient and flexible supply chain can not only become a competitive advantage but it is also critical for a firm’s survival.
Supply Chain Disruptions
Supply chain disruptions happen for various reasons but always cause and end in an imbalance of the supply and demand of products. The magnitude of such events can go from insignificant to the size where the existence of the business is threatened. As shown in Graph 1 the disruption can have immediate impact, such as a power outage or fire in a factory, or take more time to set in. A union labor strike or the outbreak of an epidemic virus in a certain region could describe more predictable examples.
Graph 1: Supply chain disruptions categorized by predictability and time available after impact.
Where disruptions in tier one suppliers always have a direct impact of a firm’s supply chain, tier two and three disruptions can be buffered and show their effects only when the disruption gets to a certain size and reach. As an organization can never be fully in control of its business environment and supply chain it is safe to say that every business will sooner or later face some sort of disruption. Disruption can be costly. In 2013 15% of the disruption cost more than one million US dollars. Knowing this, businesses will benefit from developing a Business Continuity Plan.
Business Continuity Plan
A Business Continuity Plan is a road map for continuing operations after and/or during a disruption. The main components of a Business Continuity plan are:
- Business impact analysis
- Design of solution/remedy
- Implementation
- Testing
- Maintenance/feedback
Business Impact Analysis
The analysis of the severity of the impact to the business will help prioritize further action and the design of the solution. The analysis differentiates the critical and non-critical events and lists them accordingly. The criticality can be based on cost, ability to continue the operation, brand reputation and also laws. A threat and risk analysis combined with various impact scenarios will be the basis for the design of a solution.
Design of a solution/remedy
The solution design part of the Business Continuity Plan comes up with the most cost-effective recovery solution. Additionally, it identifies authorities for decision making during disruptions (crisis management command structure) as well as which contracts, documents and contact lists have to be available as a hard copy outside the facility. On the operational level this includes but is not limited to:
- Backup power
- Logistic routes
- Back up suppliers and lead times
- Warehouse/distribution center locations
- IT back ups
- Talent and skill succession planning
Implementation
The implementation phase involves strategic decisions, such as policy changes and training of the company’s own staff, as well as the communication of the Business Continuity Plan to suppliers and customers. The acquisition of materials and systems are part of the implementation. IT infrastructure can be moved to cloud computing for data safety and modern systems are extended to allow visibility into the supply chain. This can go as far as the second or third tier.
Testing
Testing will show if the elaborated solutions will satisfy the requirement. Testing can be as simple as an evacuation drill or as complex as a mock recall.
Maintenance/feedback
The first step of maintaining the Business Continuity Plan is to constantly monitor the situation around the identified risks and threats in the Business Impact analysis. This will also help foresee possible disruptions and might allow acting ahead of time to prevent a bigger impact. The Business Continuity Plan must evolve with the threats and the company development/growth. This requires constant updating and testing as well communicating to the staff, important clients and suppliers. More significant changes might even require updating of organization structures.
Feedback after a disruption event can be as vital to a Business Continuity Plan as its design. The reevaluation of the supply chain will allow assessing the effectiveness of the plan, the resilience of the system as well as the validity of the sourcing strategy. Collecting all these findings in a report will allow making sustainable changes. Such reports can also be helpful when negotiating terms and conditions with suppliers and/or insurance providers.
Summary
The design and implementation of a Business Continuity Plan is a big undertaking for a firm. The likelihood of disruptions in the supply chain and in other business processes is increasing with globalization. It is recommended that the firms start somewhere and attack the low hanging fruit. With a Business Impact Analysis the risks to the business can be categorized and prioritized. This knowledge can be used for the development and growth of the company as preventive measures can be built in new structures. The importance of monitoring the threats and learning from disruptions can become a competitive advantage and secure the existence of the business. While Business Continuity Plans can be structured simple and still cover the five components there is also professional education and training as well as certifications to support the continued success of the business.
Dario Cavegn hold a Master’s of Science degree from ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Currently he is working as a Manufacturing Manager for Lindt & Sprungli (USA) Inc., and is an MBA candidate at the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
by Jennifer Hart Yim | May 8, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
This is the third in a series of blog posts written by Adam Robinson, Director of Marketing at Cerasis. Founded in 1997, Cerasis is a top freight logistics company and truckload freight broker.
Now that you know about how to create a strategy, you have to execute it. This means content creation, content curation, and using the best tools possible to be effective.
#1: Content Planning
Categorize Target Audience By
- Industry: For example, we knew that within our target audiences, we had the following industry categories: Manufacturing, Distribution, Supply Chain, Logistics, Transportation
- Job Function: Next you then need to understand who are the buyers and what are their personas? Once you do this, you can weave in messaging into your content that speaks to all of them. At Cerasis, we knew our job titles were: C-suite, Managers, Employees
Create Content to speak to categories
Now that you have the categories, it’s time to create and plan for content. When you are coming up with topics, make sure you write the categories down and start creating headlines and doing research in those categories. You will notice on the Cerasis blog that there are broad categories like you see from the ones stated above, but over time we started shifting towards creating sub categories of those broad categories (e.g. Reshoring under manufacturing, or inbound logistics under logistics).
Ways to Generating Content Ideas
- Internal Interviews and Brainstorms
- Use an RSS aggregator such as feed.ly so you can curate articles and start to better understand the marketplace
- Be active in Social and Notice Most Shared
Using a Calendar
Whether you are doing one post (or more) per day or just one per week, a calendar is vital to long term success. If you don’t know what you are writing about each day, it is really easy for you to NOT write it and NOT achieve your goals. Content marketing is an ongoing project plan, and you can use tools such as Asana to have multiple people share the same workspace and work through the content.
Look out for Guest Bloggers
Another great idea for scaling content marketing and not burning out is to reach out to influential bloggers to guest blog for you. Or these can be other companies who are noncompetitive but share a similar target audience. We have had several guest bloggers that line up nicely and are relevant to our content categories. However, don’t take anyone that doesn’t add value to your readers. Think like a publisher and protect yourself from those spammy guest bloggers. You also must be proactive in networking and reaching out in social platforms as you establish relationships online such as on LinkedIn and Twitter.
#2: Content Creation
This is really where most companies get stuck. At Cerasis we leverage our employees and interviews to help get content written. You can also use great ghost writing services if you would like, but I would urge you that you write in house, as you know your authentic voice. The key is to stick to a regular schedule. Sporadic posts are going to find it difficult to build an audience. Think about your TV guide and the schedule of shows. You don’t always have to watch it the day it airs, but at least you know that it will be there.
#3: Content Distribution
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound? This old adage is very true when it comes to content and social media marketing. If you are not posting your content in any of the social media channels or online communities, then you are not going to be effective either. Even with search engines out there crawling your new content, search engines are now favoring social signals from sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+.
We recommend the following tools to use to distribute your content:
- Oktopost: This is a fantastic platform for distributing content as well as analyzing your performance. Their strong suite is the ability to post into multiple LinkedIn groups and mimic the categorization of your content through tagging of your groups. You can also post to many platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn pages, profiles, and groups, Google+ and more. Our favorite feature is the Autoposter. This feature allows you to load up a cache of content and set a schedule in the future so you don’t have to use resources to post every day. In one sessions you could set up a 30 day posting schedule right in the platform and view on a calendar!
- Buffer: This platform is great for content curation. You can load in your social profiles and then set pre-determined times on any day. We really love buffer for mostly Twitter, since Twitter is much like a newspaper where you go to find all the latest news and articles on topics of interest to you. Each morning we load up our RSS aggregator, feed.ly, and buffer all the best articles for our audience.
- Feed.ly: We love feed.ly as it allows to mimic (again) our content categorization but for other sources! It’s also a great way to find other blogs and influencers in your space you can network with and potentially guest blog for. All you have to do is search for content by keyword, add them in the respective category and bam, in one platform you have your own customized newspaper from which you can curate content. It’s got the buffer app loaded in so you can easily add articles to your buffer. This is also a great way to find new ideas for content and keep you up to date on your industry!
- Tweetdeck: This platform is owned and maintained by Twitter, but allows you to not only post to and monitor your account, but also allows you to monitor industry hashtags, such as #manufacturing or #logistics so you can start to follow and interact with those in your target audience. It’s a great tool and we recommend using it!
by Jennifer Hart Yim | May 6, 2014 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
This is the second in a series of blog posts written by Adam Robinson, Director of Marketing at Cerasis. Founded in 1997, Cerasis is a top freight logistics company and truckload freight broker.
#1: What are your Marketing Objectives?
The following were the marketing objectives we decided for the Cerasis marketing strategy:
- Create a consistent marketing program of brand awareness campaigns and multi-channel marketing platforms in order to gain leads and sales from a more sophisticated and larger shipper.
- Achieve market perception as a thought leader in the logistics industry through consistent content marketing.
As part of our strategic plan, the Cerasis website and blog is the hub of the entire process. Every marketing element’s purpose is to (a) build brand awareness, (b) build community, and (c) drive traffic from those elements to the blog and website. This is important for several reasons:
- We are in total control of our website content, messaging, and engagement.
- Our blog and website is the best place for inbound lead generation.
- Blog content lasts longer than posts within the realm of social media and other traditional channels such as advertising in a magazine.
- A blog is the best place for sharing your story and showing expertise.
#2: Understanding Content Marketing and the Approach
Consumers of any product or service work through a process that starts with becoming aware of a need and ends with making a decision to purchase or not to purchase (Universal Marketing Funnel). Because of our marketing efforts, at any given moment in time Cerasis will have potential customers considering our company within various stages of the decision process. Our content marketing strategy will focus on building content that communicates with these prospective customers no matter where they are in their decision journey with Cerasis.
- Awareness – This is the stage in which a potential customer becomes aware that your company exists. Of the content you create, 30 percent to 40 percent will be for the purposes of awareness — making potential customers aware of your company and exposing you to your target market. Awareness content focuses on trends, education of best practices, and is completely devoid of over salesy messaging.
- Evaluation – This is the stage in which potential customers are in the market for what you are selling and they are trying to formulate their buying criteria. Like the awareness stage, 30 percent to 40 percent of our content will be focused on helping the customer evaluate your offering. Try and create content which evaluates your type of business vs. another. Another good example is iPhone vs. Android.
- Decision – Decision-based content that communicates why a customer should buy from Cerasis will represent about 20 percent of our content strategy. This kind of content is not overtly salesy, but is in line with your strengths and unique selling proposition
- Fanatic – This is content that is mostly user generated from your customer base and brand loyalists. These are in the form of testimonial, case studies, and guest blogs. This kind of content is about you, but from someone else’s perspective.
#3: Target Audience Establishment and Research
Of course if you want to even have results in social media and content marketing, you have to understand who you are trying to reach. It’s important to think holistically when considering who you are trying to reach at a potential prospects’ company. Typically, your target audience falls into two categories: Primary (decision makers) and Secondary (influencers of the decision maker), but there could also be Tertiary (these are the vetters; admins, executive assistants, and those gathering info to present to the group, usually in a B2B environment).
When thinking about your target audience, think of the following:
- Broad Categories: Think of the different verticals you can support. For example, a logistics company may want to reach those in the industries of Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Logistics, Transportation, Distribution and Freight. Let the categories be your guide for when you are joining digital communities or writing content you will then distribute in these communities.
- Job Titles: Next, ask the sales staff who they typically must talk to in order to get a signed contract. Typically, the person who signs the check, or the contract, is in leadership and makes the ultimate decision. This may be a CFO of a manufacturing company, or a Manager of some sort. Then, ask the customer service reps who fulfill your service or product offering who they deal with at your customers’ companies. For example, it may be Account Manager. Then, finally, continue to ask if there are other job titles that make sense. You can use these job titles to find communities easily on LinkedIn.
- Search Engine Key Phrases: To complete your list of your target audience, next go to Google.com and search some of these job titles to find related job titles, which you can find at the bottom of the search page. You may also use Google’s free Keyword Tool, plugin the job titles, and see related key phrases to those job titles.
More Action Items with this information:
- Start researching what kind of content is relevant to these job titles and industries in preparation for your content planning session
- Identify popular news sources, people, and blogs from which you may draw inspiration, establish key relationship for future guest blogging or networking, and of course in curation of content of value to your target audience to spur community growth and engagement in platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, or Twitter.
#4: Understanding Digital Assets, Social Media Platforms, and Online Communities Activation
Digital Assets
Digital assets are online environments you create from scratch. Digital assets are often created using a technology framework, a hierarchy of navigation, your company logo and custom graphics, and professional copy writing. The major digital assets you should consider when getting ready to activate your content marketing strategy are Website, Company Blog, Landing Pages, Videos, Podcasts.
Social Media Platforms
In general, most social media platforms you set up require you to amass a following in order to be effective. There are some platforms where the entire reason you establish it in the first place is to build followers, and then add value in the way of posts or messages or use to distribute your original content in order to lead back your desired target audience to your digital assets in order to gain awareness and inbound leads. The following are the major social media platforms, what they are, and what they may be used for:
- LinkedIn Company Page: A LinkedIn company page allows you to post information about your company such as founding date, about section, post location information, hours, products and services, job postings, and allow employees to list the company page within their own individual profiles. The page is used for marketing by accruing followers and post messages, such as your own original content, which reach those followers. LinkedIn offers great analytics around how many people were reached with your posts, how many clicks you receive, and how many followers you have gained over time. Company pages are a great way to find out company intelligence such as key decision makers.
o USES: Typically, a LinkedIn page is most effective in a business-to-business environment, as the mindset of the users on LinkedIn are for either finding jobs, finding information on their industry of choice, or consuming content distributed or curated by companies. Aid in the vetting process of potential clients who look up your company via search engines or LinkedIn search, aids in establishing credibility with target audience, reach your followers through consistent, relevant, and remarkable content, promote products and services, stay in touch with employees
- LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn gives you the keys to controlling your online identity. Have you Googled yourself lately? You never know what may come up. LinkedIn profiles rise to the top of search results, letting you control the first impression people get when searching for you online.
o USES: Again, a profile, when used for digital marketing, is friendlier in a B2B environment, over a business-to-consumer (B2C) geared marketing campaign. The LinkedIn profile allows you to build awareness of yourself and company through consistent posting, serve as a repository for your own personal brand, join LinkedIn groups through your profile, search engine optimize your profile for increased visibility, gain valuable market insight through LinkedIn Today, build connections with your desired target audience
- Twitter: Twitter is an information network that brings people closer to what’s important to them. Every day, millions of people turn to Twitter to connect to their interests, to share information, and find out what’s happening in the world right now. Anyone can read, write and share messages of up to 140 characters on Twitter. These messages, or Tweets, are available to anyone interested in reading them, whether logged in or not. Your followers receive every one of your messages in their timeline – a feed of all the accounts they have subscribed to or followed on Twitter. This unique combination of open, public, and unfiltered Tweets delivered in a simple, standardized 140-character unit, allows Twitter users to share and discover what’s happening on any device in real time.
o USES: Think of Twitter as a consumption platform. Consumption of industry news and original opinionated content. In this way, it is great for B2B marketing. If using for B2C, it works well to extend brand affinity by creating campaigns or using branded hashtags for those who want to follow your company. Unlike a LinkedIn company page and a bit different than requesting a LinkedIn connection, you can follow other thought leaders, or those in your target audience to elicit a follow back. Additionally, Twitter is highly searchable via key word to find and follow those in your target audience or those talking about your products and services. Furthermore, Twitter aids in Search Engine Optimization through sharing your content, show thought leadership and attract your target audience by using strategic hashtags and curating industry news, consume industry news gaining valuable insights, gain inbound leads via content marketing by tweeting your original content, gain followers to increase brand awareness and chances of inbound leads
- Facebook Page: A Facebook Page, much like a LinkedIn Company Page allows you to include your company information, match your graphics to your website, include store locations, hours, mission and value statements, and categorize your business. In order to amass a following people must “Like” your page. Once they do, you can then hope to reach them with your posts. Unlike LinkedIn however, Facebook posts from a page only reach 10-16% of those who “Like” your page, thanks to Facebook’s “Edge Rank” an algorithm designed to declutter your personal Facebook Feed when you login.
o USES: Facebook often times is leveraged in a more B2C environment, but can be wildly successful in B2B if you know the power of a business Facebook’s ability to “Like” another Facebook business page, and thus still receive the posts from the page, hopefully reaching your desired target audiences. Furthermore, you can use Facebook to create Events, which you can promote and gain RSVPs, you can run contests via Facebook ads to increase awareness of your brand, curate and post original content to show your thought leadership, leverage the Facebook Ad platform to target Facebook users who are within your target audience with great precision, and ultimately, through pictures and video, you are able to show the personality of your business via Facebook.
- Google+: Is a social network owned by Google. If you have a google account, you already have a Google+ profile. There are Google+ individual profiles and Google+ Pages. Google views it as a social layer to compliment it’s other products of search, advertising, Gmail, maps, and Google Places (local listings). With a profile or a page, you can amass “Followers” here as well, whenever another Google+ user adds you to their circles.
o USES: Google owns Google+, so you must understand if you are wanting to have success in search engine optimization, Google+ is a must. Like a Facebook Page, you can post to your followers and they can see your posts, and +1, comment, or share on that post. The more +1s you have on your own content the more Google sees your content as trustworthy, thus uplifting your overall SEO efforts. This platform also allows you to fill in your company information, like a LinkedIn Page or Facebook Page, but here you can also connect your Google Local listing (formally known as Google Places) to your Google+ page to aid in further SEO, but also so customers may easily leave reviews and other potential customers can see your information and reviews all in one place. Finally, with a Google+ profile you can add Authorship, so that when your content does show up in search engines, your listing in the search engine stands out and increases the likelihood someone will actually click on it, as you see to the right.
- Pinterest: Pinterest is a fairly new social media platform, having come to prominence in late 2011. Pinterest allows you to create both a personal user account, as well as a business account. Pinterest is very similar to Twitter in that you can create a page and curate content. Except, instead of being driven by links and text, Pinterest is driven by images and video. A page or user can amass followers, and like twitter can follow those in your target audience to hopefully gain a follow back. One may pin your own original content or thought leadership content in the hopes to reach your target audience where they either repin or pin your content, like, comment, and more importantly click on your content.
o USES: Increase Search Engine Optimization by posting your blog and website content, build a community of followers made of your target audience, and display content in a more visual format
- YouTube: This is another platform owned by Google, and also very important in search engine optimization. Again, like many social media platforms, you are allowed to either be a user or have a company YouTube channel. As a company you can establish your channel and upload videos of original content, as well as fill out information about your company. You are able to amass subscribers and subscribe to other channels of interest. Additionally, your videos can gain likes and comments, and you may add descriptions to each video.
o USES: YouTube has applications in both B2B and B2C, and doesn’t require a lot of upkeep or posting, like some of the other platforms. YouTube primarily, in a B2B setting is used to increase search engine visibility with targeted key phrases in each video, gain subscribers of your target audience, and allows you to embed video in your digital assets as a way to make your marketing message stand out.
Online Communities
Finally, we come to online communities. Unlike digital assets and social media platforms, online communities allow you to tap into your target audience and not be at the mercy of having to amass followers or attract visitors to your brand. I am not saying you should not try and attract members of the community to your company, but you can think of online communities where you can use content of relevancy as bait to reel them back into your own controlled environments and established pages in order to support your overall marketing and business goals as laid out in your digital marketing plan. The following are the main online communities which give you broad reach:
- LinkedIn Groups: LinkedIn Groups are communities you may join within LinkedIn with your LinkedIn profile. You may search out LinkedIn groups by key word and decide to join as a member. LinkedIn will tell you the size of the group, the description, the rules of the group, who are the managers, and even the stats. You are allowed to post discussions, comment on others discussions, and after some time, post original content as you build up your influence in the group.
- USES: Increase the awarenes and raise the profile of yourself and your company through relevant discussions and engaging with other group members, gain traffic to your blog and website by posting original, relevant, and not too salesy content, increase connections with other LinkedIn users in your desired target audience, leverage deep search capability to find discussions around your products and services solutions, potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people in your target audience by joining up to 50 groups made up of your target audience.
- Google+ Communities: Google+ Communities are fairly new, but act very much like LinkedIn Groups. You can join strategic groups found by key phrase and post messages in them. You can engage with other members and add targeted users you may want to talk further with to your circles.
- USES: Primarily used to aid in SEO by posting links to your original content, allows for broad reach of your content and brand through reaching large numbers of people in each group
- Quora: Quora is a question and answer site where you can search by specific key word as well. You have to be a member, and it’s as straight forward as someone asking a question, and people offering their expert answers. Other users will then vote on the answer with the best ones being featured.
- USES: The first thing you DON’T want to do is SPAM Quora. This is the place where you simply want to provide value by answering questions related to your expertise. If it makes sense, you can post a link to your content, but this is highly frowned upon unless it truly adds value (this is why proper content marketing where you lead with value is SO IMPORTANT! More to come in future blog posts!). Once you add value and build out your influence, you can be known as “That person” who is the expert. And who doesn’t want to do business with an expert!
- Reddit: Reddit is a fantastic community, but the challenge is how large it is. Like LinkedIn Groups, there are several niche places, called subreddits, where you can simply search for your industry and post your content to. Again, like LinkedIn groups, if you don’t want to be spammy in nature, you have to be relevant and engaging. Don’t over post here, but try a piece of content once per day.
