Debbie Qaqish is principal-chief revenue marketing officer at the Pedowitz Group, which provides lead generation and marketing automation tools. She spoke with BtoB about some effective methods for using social media.
BtoB: What are some of the most effective metrics for b2b marketers who want to get a better handle on tracking social marketing channels?
Debbie Qaqish: In my world, people use LinkedIn and they use LinkedIn groups; LinkedIn is a really good social channel for us. When we released [the “2011 Lead Generation Marketing ROI Study,” with the Lenskold Group,] we also released the report via LinkedIn and Twitter, and the whole idea behind us releasing the report [on those channels] was to begin an enterprise-revenue marketing campaign of thought leadership. So what we tracked was the number of people who registered for that thought-leadership series and what percentage of people came from Twitter and what percentage of people came from LinkedIn. That's an effective measure that you can use that's specific and a great use of multichannel marketing. The thing that irritates me most when people talk about social is that they talk so broadly that it's really hard to get a handle on things.
BtoB: How can b2b marketers integrate the metrics they use for social media with the metrics used for more traditional marketing vehicles?
Qaqish: You have to be clear about what it is that you are trying to use social to accomplish: Is it going to give you that marketing-qualified lead? Is it going to give you that sales-ready lead? Perhaps. But most of the time [social] is an avenue that can give you extended reach so that you can use another system to find out more about people. When we did our social campaign for the report that we released, all we asked for was to register for the report, providing first name and email address. Once they do that, then we can market to [prospects] and ask for additional information to create a two-way conversation about their business needs.
