CHAPTER 16

CASE STUDIES

Social Success Stories for B2C and B2B

It's easier to write (or read!) about all the things you must do to find success with your social selling strategy than to actually do them. But there are plenty of others who have already tested the waters and learned what worked and didn't work for them. I chose three companies to speak with that I have personally interacted with online to find out how they have used social selling to drive traffic, increase sales, and encourage engagement—and in each case found they have done it well. The results of my interviews with their owners follow.

Company: Caron's Beach House, a specialty online retailer
Target Market: B2C

By the time Caron White officially opened her online store specializing in coastal home décor in March 2010, she had already had a presence on social media since September of the previous year.¹ Long before she had even a single product to sell, she had created a Facebook page for her business and immediately began sharing coastal and beach-related posts and pictures. “Starting the business page before our online store launch was part of a long-term strategy to have a built-in, engaged audience when we did open the site,” White explained. Today, the store has more than 7,050 Likes and White, who manages all of her own social media, posts an average of three to five times per day, every day. The vast majority of the posts include photos as well as text, which help boost social interactions.

But White's social media goals extend well beyond the number of Likes or comments she receives, and her strategy includes using a mix of social networking sites and blogs for distribution and engagement.

First, let's look at her top four objectives as they relate to social selling:

1. Producing product sales.
2. Attracting potential customers.
3. Engaging customers.
4. Building an in-house email list.

The key to meeting these four key social selling goals is sharing a lot of content and having a great many positive social interactions with her online target audience. White's content, which consists of most anything related to the coastal lifestyle, includes original blog posts, articles, coastal news, decorating ideas, and beach-style recipes. But photos definitely rank as the top type of content to share, and she uses them in practically every post.

That brings us to the second part of her plan—distribution to spur customer engagement. Currently, Caron's Beach House has three separate blogs and all have content that can be shared between them. Updates are then pushed out to the various social media sites, including networked blogs, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Kaboodle, Tumbler, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. So far, all of the content and opportunities to engage are paying off—especially on Pinterest, where White creates “lifestyle” boards that combine products from Caron's Beach House with images found on other sites (blogs, travel sites, and online magazines). “This is such a great visual way to express our beach style to potential customers,” she says.

Caron White maintains more than a hundred Pinterest boards with different decorating ideas and themes ranging from seashells to coastal gourmet recipes. A particularly successful Pinterest board is the one labeled “Beach Living,” which was created as a community board for the sharing of any coastal-related ideas, tips, or pictures. Instead of it being a board to which only she posts, it was designed with the intent of encouraging other users to post content to it; this really helps broaden its visibility since the people who are pinning to it are also more likely to share those pins with their followers. Currently, it has almost 100 contributors and more than 13,000 followers, and growing rapidly. (That's a whole bunch of followers, if you're not Beyoncé or Brad Pitt!) In fact, the number of followers for this board seems to be growing at a rate of nearly 500 (or more) followers per month. By the time you read this, it may have two to three times the amount mentioned here!

While pinning pretty pictures of the beach may seem like child's play, these social sharing activities directly translate into sales. In fact, White tracks all of her sales and activities related to her posts or to any social media activity using Google analytics and Lexity.com, a free service.

The results aren't too shabby. While White didn't want to offer specific dollar amounts, she said she receives sales every single day that are tracked back to a Pinterest image that was shared or to another piece of shared social media content. As for the other social selling objectives White set for her business? Pinterest is not only sending sales to her website, but more traffic, too—even if all that traffic doesn't immediately translate to sales. It currently ranks number two in Web traffic referral sites (behind Google Search) and it has over 20,000 followers! The blog is also the third-ranking source for sending referrals.

Despite White's social selling success for her products, she offers a warning to would-be online businesspeople. “Do not expect to post a link to a product and then sell it,” White says. “Social media is [only one] part of your entire marketing strategy.” She also offers the following tips:

• Be consistent: Post something a few times every day. Using social media is like any other media; sometimes potential customers need to see your message as many as ten times before they actually take any action—and that action may only be to click on a link to your site, not click to make a purchase.
• Make content easy to share: Add share buttons everywhere feasible, particularly if you sell a product. White's product pages have “Pin-It,” “Tweet,” and “Like” buttons.
• Test content and share buttons: It's dangerous to set social media on autopilot and not go back and check on things occasionally. White said that the Pinterest Pin It button broke just after she launched her updated website, but she wasn't immediately aware of it. The result was a severe drop-off in repins.
   
  

Company: Bizo, a marketing services firm Target Market: B2B

Bizo is not new to the concept of identifying a target audience and pulling those prospects through the various stages of the sales funnel. This is in large part the type of online service that Bizo provides its clients—brands like American Express, Mercedes Benz, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, AT&T, and UPS. Using the Bizo proprietary marketing platform, a custom data management and targeting tool, the company can reach prospective customers and identify them by specific business- or company-related demographic criteria such as job role or industry sector. The brands can then deliver their message to the hyper-defined audience and start converting them into buyers. Bizo uses a similar approach as part of its social selling strategy to reach prospective customers that include not only big-name brands but small and medium-sized businesses too.

Bizo's social strategy is carefully aligned with the sales funnel. “We approach all programs with a focus on where they fit in the marketing and sales funnel,” said Jennifer Agustin, senior director of marketing for Bizo and head of the company's small social media team.² “We use the best (social media) channel to meet the best objective.” For example, the objectives used for those social media prospects that show up at the top and mid-level of the funnel include:

• Building awareness.
• Engaging the prospects.
• Showcasing thought leadership.

The ultimate goal is to not only influence prospects, but to convert them. Agustin said the company has always approached every social media channel with lead generation in mind. For that reason, they use a hybrid social selling strategy that incorporates both organic (no fee) tactics and paid tactics that use social media ads. The organic interactions (tweets, posts, and comments) help “prep,” or warm up, the prospects, while the paid ads allow them to use a more aggressive approach with a lead-generating offer attached or embedded. Agustin said that LinkedIn, particularly when using LinkedIn ads delivered through Bizo, is an ideal platform for social selling because it is a database rich with their target audience of professionals and businesses. Plus, LinkedIn ads have performed extremely well, making it a good place to implement their hybrid approach. “We are seeing phenomenal results from it,” she said. “It's a sweet spot for us for where our prospects are.”

From a purely organic perspective, Bizo adds Twitter and Facebook to its list (along with LinkedIn) of top social media channels for reaching prospective customers. To make the most of each of these channels, Bizo distributes content that matches a prospect's movement through the sales funnel. Ultimately, says Agustin, you have to ask, “Can we see social as being part of the buyer's journey? Did it carry through to a possible conversion?” So far, the answer for Bizo has been yes. But to make sure, Bizo tracks all of its social selling efforts. One measurement is through the use of custom landing pages created in Eloqua, Bizo's marketing automation program for email. In that case, any links that are included with tweets, posts, or shares will send prospects to the custom landing page where their actions (or inactions) are closely tracked. Bizo will know the conversion rate for the form (whether people completed the offer or not). Of course, Agustin points out that not all social media posts can “be about you.” She prefers to follow a 4/1/1 rule, where you retweet or share others’ posts (four times), then you send one original post of your own—and only then follow with an offer or sales pitch.

Bizo also pays attention to Likes, follows, and retweets, though Agustin says they are considered more of a sign of reach rather than popularity, because the greater the number of eyeballs on a piece of content, the more likely that content will be shared. Boosting awareness also means there's a greater possibility the content will be shared within your target audience. In an effort to do just that and increase its bump in eyeballs, Bizo has adopted a new approach for Twitter that takes a different spin on the customer testimonial. Instead of going through the hassle of trying to get a formal case study or testimonial written and approved by a new customer, Agustin asks the customer if Bizo can tweet about their new relationship! This is great exposure for Bizo, especially as a credibility factor, and it's an interesting new way to use Twitter with existing customers while still potentially being shared with and seen by prospective customers.

Bizo also uses Twitter to reach out to prospective customers who are a bit further along in the sales process. In this case, Bizo or the sales representative will follow the prospective customer on Twitter. For example, Bizo may follow the customer's company account as a way to learn more about the brand's values, recent news, and other information that the brand tweets out to the world. Following a brand in this way also means the brand might follow Bizo back (let's hear it for reciprocity!) and have the opportunity to receive additional content that could help further educate or move forward the decision to buy. Similarly, a Bizo salesperson may decide to follow her or his primary contact person for the account on Twitter (if the relationship is far enough along). This gives the salesperson another level of communication with the prospect while the prospect moves through the buying process (connecting with the prospect on LinkedIn is also a common strategy today). These are all great examples of how you can use social media to build upon your relationships with customers and prospects.

Company: Shopify, an e-commerce platform for online retailers

Target Market: B2B

Shopify has come a long way since it first launched in 2006. The e-commerce solution provider offers everything an online retailer needs to start, open, and manage a Web-based store. Today, the company has more than 50,000 online stores running on its platform in over 100 different countries. It also has the resources and employees to make sure all areas of the company are run like a well-oiled machine.

That wasn't always the case, and the difference between the two time periods is particularly noticeable when it comes to the social media efforts for Shopify. When operations were much more streamlined and staff was limited, Shopify's social media efforts were focused on reacting to what was posted on their social networking sites. It really didn't have a good plan for how to proactively use social media to benefit the company or its customers—nor the time to implement it. Jump forward a couple of years and things have really changed!

“Our number one and most important goal is to use social media to establish relationships with our online community,” said Mark Hayes, head of public relations for Shopify.³ “Platforms like Facebook and Twitter provide an effective way to communicate directly with our customers in an environment they are familiar with. We promote their stores and products, answer questions, share educational content to help them sell online, and even share some inspiration every now and then.”

Shopify has also developed a “multifaceted social media strategy” that addresses both short- and long-term goals for the e-commerce leader. While social selling is certainly at the top of that goal list, just about every other area of the company is addressed, too. Its goals include:

• Customer acquisition
• Customer service
• Employee recruitment
• Thought leadership
• Content promotion

The social media team takes social selling seriously and seemingly recognizes the potential revenue dollars it means to the company. “Social media can also be used as a powerful customer acquisition tool,” said Hayes. “Shopify is a DIY online store builder, so our potential customers are anybody who is interested in selling online.”

Shopify's social media team has two social media strategies for identifying and talking with prospective customers. The first is to identify discussions on other social platforms. There's nothing better than finding an existing conversation that pertains to you and jumping in to offer some guidance. That's why Shopify's team spends lots of time searching through online conversations across all social platforms. They are looking for individuals or businesses in the consideration phase—people who know what they want to sell but don't necessarily know how to build an e-commerce store or which platform to use. Its social media team is then able to join the conversation and gently help educate or provide a few answers about e-commerce options. (Sounds a lot like our good friend un-selling, from Chapter 4, doesn't it?) “It's not a heavy sale,” explains Hayes. “We just provide valuable information about selling online with our platform and offer to help in any way.” Typical places where these types of conversations with potential merchants are found include e-commerce forums, comment sections of blogs, and Twitter.

Shopify's second social media strategy is to generate blog content to drive customer engagement. According to Hayes, the Shopify blog is one of the most popular e-commerce blogs in the world and is a huge driver in sign-ups for Shopify. As you might expect, quality content and social media go hand in hand to make this approach successful. By regularly publishing first-rate content and then distributing it via Shopify's social media channels, its blog gets lots of referral traffic from social media. Because Shopify is constantly creating content that appeals both to prospective customers and existing customers, the content on the blog is structured the same way—to help current Shopify merchants and non-Shopify merchants sell online.

For these reasons, social media plays a huge role in generating traffic to the Shopify blog. According to Hayes, last year 37 percent of referral traffic to the blog came from social media sites, primarily Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. “Our blog has become the go-to place for e-commerce merchants selling on any platform, including our competitors, to learn about selling,” says Hayes. “So not only is it an educational resource, we also convert readers to become customers.”

Part of knowing whether or not social media strategies are working is being able to measure results. When it comes to social selling, those results are often more clear—especially if you are able to accurately track traffic from social conversations to lead-generation forms or other conversion points. This is the approach Shopify takes when it comes to account and trial sign-ups. “With our ongoing Facebook and Twitter ad campaigns, we measure sign-ups,” Hayes says. “Both platforms provide excellent analytics tools that allow us to see exactly how many new merchants sign up from the ads we post.” The measurement can get a bit muddled with community engagement projects, however. In that case, Hayes says that Shopify's team has to “rely less on hard metrics and more on intuition.” They also evaluate the sentiment (pro or con) of comments and consider how many Likes or shares or retweets a post gets.

Shopify doesn't appear to have a shortage of successful social strategies, but one in particular is a good example of how you can target anyone in your community and end up getting kudos from prospects, customers, or vendors.

On February 13, 2013, Shopify surprised its community of Facebook fans by offering everyone a free coffee from Starbucks (while supplies lasted). Using the Starbucks iOS app, Hayes personally added $200 to a Starbucks card and took a screenshot of the barcode and posted it to Facebook, as you can see in Figure 16–1. Along with the image of the barcode, the following message was posted:

FIGURE 16–1

A surprise offer on Facebook went viral and made lots of customers happy.

For our merchants working out of Starbucks this morning, have a coffee on us. We put $200 on this card, just hold your phone up at the register to scan. First come first serve. If you want to pay it forward, feel free to put money on it. Have a great day!

The goal of the promotion was to show Shopify's appreciation to its customers. Since many of these online retailers conduct business out of Starbucks stores across the country, the Shopify team thought a free cup of Joe would be lapped up! And they were right. The post received over 225 likes, 52 shares, and most importantly 70 positive comments. It was such a success that Shopify decided to add money to the card several times. Some of the comments they received included:

“I'm not at Starbucks now (actually the only Starbucks in Stockholm is at the airport) but it feels super awesome to be working on such a great platform as Shopify!”

“It works! Thanks for the free coffee, Shopify! Things like this make me proud to be a customer!”

“I haven't used it, but this is very thoughtful and I applaud you guys for doing such a nice thing for your clients! I especially love the idea of paying it forward, this I will do! Thanks again!”

Now those are positive interactions that go a long way—and well beyond just existing customers. Remember, these are comments publicly posted to and share in social media, so everyone, even prospective customers, get to see them. That's how you do social!