Whether you’re a B2B marketer working at a fledgling startup or in an enterprise organization, you most likely understand the importance of channel partners. As a matter of fact, Accenture says that over 70% of the typical high-tech companies revenues now come from indirect channels. And in today’s competitive marketplace, having strong partners is key to winning… if not survival.
So who are the executives tasked with making channel relationships payoff big-time? Turns out these channel marketers come in many flavors, with each wrestling challenges unique to their organization, the needs of their particular partners, and the imperatives of their industry.
What’s the one thing they have in common? They’re embracing social media to ask questions, engage in conversations, and share valuable content – in short, to do their jobs better. But who are the top channel marketers to connect with on social media, and what can you learn from them?
Social Insights About Channel Marketers
My firm, Leadtail, in collaboration with the smart folks at Elastic Grid, decided to delve into these very questions by looking at the Twitter activity of 368 channel marketers over a four month period. Specifically, we analyzed 43,963 tweets and 30,524 shared links to better understand their social media activities. These social insights were then summarized in our report: Channel Marketing Leaders to Connect With on Social Media.
What Channel Marketers Talk About
We compiled the top hashtags used by channel marketers to identify the topics grabbing their attention. Why hashtags? Like search keywords, popular hashtags are a good indicator of what people are paying attention to, talking about, searching for, and sharing on social media.
Since many channel marketer work for technology vendors, it’s no surprise that their social conversations are focused on topics including #cloud, #bigdata, #analytics, #innovation, and #digitaltransformation. Of course, as marketers, they also engage in conversations about #marketing, #socialmedia, and #contentmarketing, with a few other interests thrown in for good measure.
Which Social Networks They Share From
When it comes to the types of content they share on social media (via Twitter), these executives lean into the trend toward more visual content. For instance, over half the channel marketers we analyzed have shared content from YouTube during the report period. And many also turn to LinkedIn to publish and share brand content through their Twitter feeds.
Top Channel Marketers to Connect With
Besides analyzing how channels marketers as a whole engage on social media, we also discovered 50 channel marketers in particular that you should consider connecting with on Twitter. For instance, here are some of the channel marketers we profiled in the report:
· Ira Simon of SAP – @IraASimon
· Karen Lorentson of Autodesk – @KarenLorentson
· Luis I. Cortes of RedHat – @licortes_redhat
· Meghan Grady of Twilio – @MegRaeGrady
· Matt Hurley of Juniper Networks – @MT_Hurley
These marketing executives have embraced content marketing and tap into social networks to amplify the reach of their company’s website, blog, or partner community content. And if you’re not following them yet, now’s the time!
How Channel Marketers Can Use This Data
How can you use these social insights to become a better channel (or B2B) marketer?
· Search on and use popular hashtags to stay in front of your audience
· Read and share content from the top publications so you can better understand and engage with the issues grabbing the attention of channel marketers
· Follow and learn from the social media activities of top channel marketers
The good news is that you still have a genuine opportunity to establish yourself as a top channel marketer on social media by sharing thought leadership content and building influence with your community of peers, partners, and customers.
Interested in learning more about what channel marketers are up to on social media? Download the full report here.
Today’s Guest Author:
Carter Hostelley is the Founder and CEO of Leadtail, a social strategy and insights firm. For the past six years, he has championed the importance of social media to CMOs and senior marketers at leading business brands and venture-backed companies. Specifically, how social media can reach, engage, and influence buyers. He also writes about B2B social marketing and customer experience for CMSWire. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn.