BT Italia – Social Media Marketing Strategy
What was the customer’s initial aim?
BT Italia, a subsidiary of British Telecom, has a long-standing experience in the supply and management of communication services to large companies, small and medium enterprises and the public sector through a wide range of innovative, highly professional services offering top levels of quality and reliability. For this reason it must maintain its reputation high and listen to the net very carefully, in order to keep pace with the market. The customer’s initial aim, therefore, focused mainly on this kind of insight.
What was your response?
That IAKI was the right place to turn to! – Sandro smiles – IAKI specialises in communicating with people and knows perfectly well that communication now takes place in social places, shared digital spaces that can be reached at all times and with an audience of a previously unimaginable scale. The communication aim of brands has by no means changed, also when talking to SMEs, to the B2B sector. Spreading the message, being remembered, convincing, stimulating a particular behaviour: these were the main aims of BT Italia. We at IAKI had to keep in mind the communication recipients: Small and Medium Enterprises. IAKI’s solution was to create a Social Media Marketing project for the B2B sector.
Social Media Marketing for B2B: what was the upshot? First of all we defined a Social Media Strategy that takes into account market segmentation, expectations and the demand for specialisation and in-depth knowledge. These are key factors of the B2B industry that influenced our Social Media Marketing strategy. Next, we started communicating!
What communication channels did you set up?
On behalf of BT Italia, IAKI created all the social profiles required to meet the customer’s objectives, as well as a minisite. In this way, IAKI set out to fuel and stimulate the digital identity of BT Italia.
What social profiles in particular?
A Company Page on Linkedin presenting the company; two Twitter profiles: one as a direct communication channel with the BT Italia customer base, and the other dedicated exclusively to customer support; two Google Plus profiles: a space for updating and sharing news from BT Italia, and a private profile connected with a BT Italia assistant, complete with name and qualification, to answer users’ queries face-to-face. Each social profile is produced and managed by IAKI involving different functions, both within the agency – Communications, Digital, Technology and Social Media – and in BT Italia – Corporate Communications, Marketing, Customer Care and Operations.
You mentioned a minisite… Yes, that’s right. In addition to social profiles, IAKI has also designed a minisite dedicated exclusively to BT Italia customer support. It is a simply, highly usable minisite. This too was an element of IAKI’s Social Media Marketing project, as every feature of the minisite is connected to a social activity on the various profiles.
B2B and Social Media Marketing: is this a winning combination? It is important to understand the peculiarities of every project and put them to good use, turning them into advantages based on set guidelines and highly targeted activities and bearing in mind the reference market. In this way, the instruments and activities required to build a relationship between brands and people develop spontaneously and constructively.