How to create your B2B social media strategy – Cambridge #B2BHuddle

OST hosted it’s first B2B Huddle event in Cambridge on 15th March, leading around 40 participants from the tech, pharma, service and manufacturing sectors through an intensive B2B social media strategy workshop.

I had the pleasure of hosting the event and provided the opening address, including a batch of B2B social media case studies (several of which are featured on this site) to demonstrate how building a credible social media presence and using social media to amplify your content can deliver direct ROI.

Claire Trevien, Head of Content Marketing at Passle, our co-hosts for the Huddle, then provided a whirlwind review of what to do after you publish content online – how to share it, re-use it, re-format it, drive reach and stimulate word-of-mouth sharing.

Her mention of the newsletter feature within Passle itself, which enables a company to curate it’s content into a newsletter in a few clicks and, usefully, create an internal version for staff (complete with social sharing options) was of great interest.

In addition to our round-table discussions, in which participants created, collectively, a B2B social media strategy and content marketing plan for a number of fictitious companies – we also had a guest speaker to inspire and challenge our thinking.

Melanie Hunter is Head of Content & Creative (SME) at O2, a role in which she is tasked with reaching, at scale, a notoriously hard to reach segment of B2B: SMEs and micro-businesses.

In a fascinating presentation, she explained how, at O2, she works off a Strategic Content Framework (see below), which enables her to co-ordinate campaigns within an agreed set of objectives, channels and uses.

She also stressed the value of integrating emotional content into your B2B planning, explaining that rational content – i.e. how you differentiate your products/services – appeals to a certain mindset, but that emotional content can often slice through the noise of similar, competitive content to get your message heard.

Feedback from the #B2BHuddle has been extremely positive. We’re planning to run it again – perhaps with a few improvements. If you have any feedback, or you’d like to join us next time, please contact us.