What is ‘Next Level’ B2B Social Media?

I often say to new clients and prospects that OST is all about “taking your social media to the next level”. Usually, they politely go along with the sentiment. It sounds pretty positive – and they get the general idea. Occasionally, though, I get challenged to explain myself.

“What does ‘next level’ really mean?”, they ask.

At this point my mind whirs into Social Strategist mode; I launch into our vision of Total Social, where all parts of the company are synced to a single, unified strategy, with a comprehensive measurement framework, and we stride purposefully along OST’s Social Media Maturity Model towards nirvana.

Then I come out of my trance and I discover they’ve left the room.

In such situations I might do well to remember the famous (mis-) quote from Anton Chekhov:

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Clearly, nobody wants their social media agency to quote them Russian playwrights, but the sentiment holds for any kind of message you’re trying to convey. If you want to succeed: show, don’t tell.

So let me give it another go …

Towards the end of 2021 OST was scoping out a global social media awareness campaign for Refinitiv, the data company. The initial idea involved a predictions blog post and video involving #finserv influencers, but it all felt…well, a bit predictable.

Over the course of a few Zoom calls with the client, my team developed an altogether more engaging concept:

A global non-stop 24-hour LinkedIn Live, featuring the world’s biggest #finserv influencers.

Remarkably, this “crazy idea”, as it was initially described, came together quite rapidly. On 20th January OST worked round the clock to run the LinkedIn Live (actually a series of livestreams), featuring 34 influencers from four continents. And how did it go?

• It was innovative. As far as we know, this was a world first on LinkedIn Live.

• It delivered terrific results. The campaign attracted 12,000 live stream views, 7.8 million impressions across social media and drove a huge spike in brand engagement.

• The client was delighted. “The campaign enabled us to reach our clients, future customers and prospects, and strengthened our relationships with key industry influencers” – Kelvin Lee, Director of Social Media, Refinitiv.

• It was award winning. On Weds 25th November, “Follow the Sun” won Silver at the B2B Marketing Awards for Best Use of Social Media.

I suppose this is really what I mean when I talk about taking B2B social media to the next level. Want to take your social to the next level? Get in touch.