Insider Intelligence: Social Media Marketing for Integrators

Sept. 10, 2012
Social media marketing for systems integrators and dealers is all abuzz

This article originally appeared in the September 2012 issue of SD&I magazine

Social media is more than a buzz word, although it is indeed buzzing right now. You hear about it more and more because it impacts day-to-day activities on a very real level for many people, both personally and professionally. With the prevalence of social sites targeted to building business, sharing content or increasing the size of your professional network, it’s time to take a look at how this medium impacts the integrator business model. We took a look at the broad scope of social media—the why, what, and how often—including the integrator perspective on why PSA Security Network integrators (Intelligent Access Systems of North Carolina, Dakota Security and March Networks) got involved and what it’s doing for their businesses.

Why participate—or better yet, why not?

No matter where you stand on whether it works or how much time you should spend investigating or participating, there is no question as to whether you should have a presence in the social media world. It’s not going away! The key is to remember that, even if you and your company choose not to be online, everyone else is already out there. At the very least, you need to be monitoring what people are saying about you. The truth of the matter is that having a social presence is now expected by your customers and potential customers. A choice not to be available through those avenues is a choice to not reach an important segment of the marketplace. If you’re still waiting for the right time to begin, that time is now; every day it becomes more difficult to enter and participate effectively when the rest of the market is up-to-date and socially savvy. Keep a few key points in mind, take a look at what your market is doing on their social interactions, then get out there and make your mark.

PSA Owner Ron Oetjen of Intelligent Access Systems (IAS) of NC, based in Garner, N.C., explained that for his company, “Social media is a way to reach customers and prospective employees on a different level.  We are constantly reaching out to them with news about our company, new products, success stories, etc., and they get to view our posts on their schedule.  Prospective employees get to get a real feel for the IAS culture by following us in the Web 2.0 world, which is great for recruiting!”

Dakota Security, Sioux Falls, S.D., another PSA Owner company, focuses online efforts toward increasing visitors to their website and converting them to leads for the sales team.  Micah Carlson, director of Marketing, of Dakota Security stated, “We view social networks as a tool which allows us to broadcast our message to more people and drive more traffic to the homepage.”

March Networks, a PSA Premier Vendor Partner located in Ottawa, Can., is active on a number of social media networks because partners and end-user customers are increasingly relying on social media as another way to get the information they need. Jeff Taylor, North American Channel Sales and Marketing Leader of March Networks explained, “We want to make it as easy as possible to do business with us and social media is part of that. If a customer prefers to get in touch with us on Facebook, or ask a question about our VMS software via LinkedIn, for example, then it just makes sense for us to make sure that can happen.”

In addition, participating in social media helps March Networks stays current on what’s happening in the industry. “News is almost instantaneous today and a lot of it hits social media before it’s shared elsewhere. Following our partners, customers, and various security industry associations and publications, allows us to better understand what’s happening in the industry. It gives us access to individual insights that we might not be privy to otherwise,” said Taylor.

Message & management—what will you put into it?

Here are a few simple tips to remember when crafting social media messages, updates and posts.  

Always keep your audience in mind. Don’t get so tied up in what you want to tell them that you forget to talk about what they really want to know. People aren’t waiting to be told what to do, they’re looking for shortcuts—the tips and tricks to make their lives and businesses run easier. The end goal can’t always be to sell something, but rather to focus on providing worthwhile content and developing a brand and reputation for sharing valuable information. Doing this tastefully will enhance awareness of your offerings and your reputation as an expert so when the need arises for your product, they’ll know who to turn to.

Don’t forget to incorporate some fun! Your message doesn’t always have to be serious. Social media is still about relationship development so having a little personality and showing your human side can be a very good thing.

Post often enough to show up in your audience’s feed daily. Tweeting twice a month will only ensure your message gets lost in the shuffle and that your potential customers forget to look to you for information.

Be aware of timing. If you don’t know when people are looking for what you’re sharing, you’re missing a golden opportunity. Experiment with your social media endeavors. For the first few months, post at different times of day and monitor engagement to figure out what day and/or time of day works best for your audience. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all magic formula to apply here, but you will find a pattern for your company. This pattern may evolve, so try to incorporate some changing and checking the results (there are several tools to assist in this) into your ongoing efforts to stay on top of that evolving pattern.

Manage your mission. Who manages the social media content (and how) will be dependent upon the organization. Usually, most of this activity falls on one person’s shoulders. In a small company that can make good sense, but in a larger company it’s often more effective to engage many staff and management personnel in contributing. The risk here is someone not representing your company the right way. You can combat that through the development of a plan (who can speak on the company’s behalf), policy (what are they allowed to say) and procedure (how should they go about saying it?). Train and educate all staff on the goal of your social media outreach, even if they aren’t expected or allowed to contribute. Don’t forget to marry your offline marketing efforts and big picture business strategies to your online efforts. It can (and should) have its own flavor, but still be consistent with your goals—don’t just start posting cat pictures, even if they’re cute and funny. If it feels too big to manage this effort, there are a few options:

  • Start small. Begin with one social site, consistently posting and monitoring until you’re comfortable enough to broaden your efforts to another tool without dropping the progress you’ve made or decreasing frequency on the initial site.
  • Implement a tool that will work for your company depending on your price point and need for scalability (such as HootSuite, Sprout Social, TweetDeck, or HubSpot).
  • Outsource your efforts to a marketing professional who can help align your marketing strategies and knows the security industry, such as Security Dealer Marketing.

Measurement—what will you get out of it?

Developing a goal for your social media efforts will help clarify where you’re heading and how to measure success. Are you just forging a path and looking for a specific number of likes/followers? Do you want to see growth on year-over-year interactions? Do you want to encourage engagement through clicking on active links, visiting your website, or increasing sales leads? In general, a target number of likes or posts tends to be a passive measurement and not a very good indicator of social media success, but can be a good starting point for a baseline goal of getting out there and doing something.

What doesn’t work? Telling people over and over again to visit your website and offering nothing more. You need a compelling reason to require someone to land on your site, such as new content or features, consistently updated tips, upcoming events or education, etc. Otherwise, if they’re always landing on a stagnant homepage, people will learn very quickly to stop clicking on your links. Inconsistent, infrequent, or irrelevant posts are also surefire methods to be “forgotten” by your audience. The whole point is to remain relevant and visible, and that will produce returns for your company and brand.

Ron Oetjen found that Intelligent Access Systems is successful at getting greater brand awareness out of their social media efforts. “We can be as big as we want to be in the Web 2.0 world or as small as we want to be.  Fortunately for us, the new generation of employees believes in social media, so our brand is growing faster online.  We really use social media to connect to our clients and prospects, and also to further our brand awareness efforts.”

Micah Carlson saids that for Dakota Security, social media as a tool combined with a broader Web strategy contributes to demand generation and leads for the direct sales force.

For March Networks, openness is the return on their efforts. Jeff Taylor stated, “Social media allows us to be more accessible to our partners and end-user customers. It encourages questions that someone might not take the time to ask if they had to pick up the phone, but will go ahead and ask via Twitter, for example. We WANT that feedback and encourage it.” As an example, someone recently responded to one of March Network’s posts on Google+, which led to a good exchange about mobile access to information in general and about secure mobile access to video in particular. “That input led us to make an improvement on our website and also allowed us to share more about our March Networks Cloud solution – which we’ve just launched and are beginning to publicize,” Taylor said.

What’s next in social media for the market?

For Intelligent Access Systems, the next step will likely be a Web 2.0 management platform like Argyle Social or Sprout Social and maybe even an internal position that focus on social efforts.  Ron Oetjen continued, “We’re also looking seriously about a social media advertising campaign focused on Facebook and LinkedIn. “

Dakota Security plans to “listen” to social media more in an effort to identify opportunities and to provide their direct sales force with more information.  Carlson clarified, “The goal again is to help sales open more doors and close more business.”

March Networks’ social media goals include engaging more in industry-relevant discussions and encouraging partners and customers to share their views, opinions and questions. “We’ve put a real focus on our social media activity in the past year and plan to continue that effort,” concluded Taylor.

As for PSA, the social media plan is to be more creative with the messaging of our posts to encourage engagement and increase interaction, to develop a mobile strategy, and to inspire the industry to join us (or continue participating with us) on this social media journey.