Social Media Explained at an Expert Level Regarding B2B Social Media

I felt the need to write this article after a recruitment firm asked one of our clients if the marketing person whom they were staffing needed to know social media. The job was a product marketing position and our client is a transoceanic fiber optic cable owner and operator. This question immediately raised concern amongst myself and my company's sales and marketing recruiters. The problem with social media is that some marketing employees do not take the time to learn about its strengths and weaknesses prior to moving forward with a marketing plan involving social media. What marketing professionals and the people who hire them need to understand is that "social media" is exactly what it sounds like. It is something that most people view and disseminate in their free time, and there are only certain industries that are truly able to benefit from it. From what our sales and marketing recruiters have observed, most of these companies benefitting from social media do not sell their product to other businesses. Instead, they sell straight to the consumer. For example, YouTube is technically social media, but most CEOs just use it as an excuse to get themselves on web television. While some business to business social media initiatives do turn out to be successful marketing tactics, more often than not they simply use up time and energy (and money) that might be better spent focusing on other forms of business development.

The sales and marketing recruiter who asked our client about whether or not the candidate needed to know about social media really had no idea what he or she was talking about. First of all, to get an expert in the field (somebody who knows what they are talking, as opposed to just throwing the phrase on their resume) it is going to cost a lot.

Second, a company (our client) that is marketing themselves as a cost effective transoceanic fiber service with 10G capacity (instead of the 40G lines, which make up the majority of transoceanic cables) is mainly targeting technology departments within financial-related companies and most likely has no need to create a social buzz about their product. The product is cost effective but not cutting edge. However, our client was about to hire the vendor who asked the aforementioned question, and for a lot of money. I don't know why 80% of marketing employees don't learn social media, but they don't. From what our sales recruiters have observed, however, the best ones always do. Personally, this makes me skeptical of many of them. A lack of knowledge regarding social media and its uses results in marketing departments opening up the company checkbook to the first person who calls and says the words "social media." Since this type of media is an aspect of marketing, it is the marketing department head's responsibility to stay up to date with how useful or irrelevant it is to the company's business development.

Another facet which made the aforementioned statement seem like the individual did not know what they were talking about it is the fact that if our client was to put something on YouTube, it would not be found. How many tech departments at hedge funds are searching around YouTube or Google Video for transoceanic cable providers? Instead, the prospective head of marketing for this company would need to know that they are not going to create a huge buzz via the social media channels, including Twitter. Most firms with a B2B focus might start a blog hoping to get followers on Twitter, but their target market is probably not searching around for blogs or Twitter feeds. Optimizing the company blog for SEO is not going to work either unless you are an expert at search engine optimization. Twitter really works best for online newspapers, celebrity watch lists, sports news (fantasy football) trending, etc. Everybody is talking about social media, but only a small percentage of the population actually knows what it is. The statement by the above-mentioned recruiter showed a lack of any knowledge of this form of media because, for the most part, our client would want to stay out of social media. Besides signing on a large client and wanting to get the word out (technically PR marketing, not social media), seemingly the only interesting media the firm would be able to get to draw attention to themselves would be negative coverage in online or traditional media.

Ken Sundheim is President and Founder of KAS Sales Recruiters Our sales headhunters are glad to write sales recruitment articles for your enjoyment - sincerely, the sales employment team at KAS Sales Recruiters

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Ken Sundheim KAS Placement Recruiting

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1. Your author or expert media bio should always begin with your credentials, academic achievements, professional and academic affiliations.

2. If you are the author of books, papers, and/or studies note those next along with the names of the papers and studies and where they appear etc so the media can document them.

3. List your areas of expertise.

4. List the years you have been active in these areas and your fields.

5. List any involvement in any association, achievements or awards you have received in your field.

6. List media appearances TV or radio and quotes in magazines in newspapers.

7. What does not belong in a bio: your personal family history, personal triumphs or tragedies unless they are tied into your area of expertise, your birth place. You can include the location where you currently reside or practice as this can be important if the media would like to book you for a radio or TV segment.

8. Information has to be absolutely accurate, up to date, and easily verifiable as the media has resources to check out your information.

9. Be sure the bio on your website is exactly the same and consistent with the bio that you are presenting to the media. You can always offer an expanded version on your website. However, you should not be inconsistent with your bio. You can certainly have other info on your website but the bio must remain consistent with the one you present to the media.

10. The purpose of a professional bio for use in the media is to give them a snapshot of your expertise and your platform so they can determine if you qualify as the expert for the segment or article they have in mind.

11. In addition to the bio, have a professional .jpeg of yourself in your professional capacity and jpeg of your book cover ready to email to the media upon request.

12. Demo tapes are requested by the media. Have professional quality tapes ready to be sent to the media and of course, better yet, include a video link on your site so the media can check you out without waiting for your demo to be sent overnight. As you send your demo out to the media, be sure to restock. The media moves fast and needs the info immediately and cannot wait for copies to be made or complied etc.

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