For Intel, Social Media Is a Content Distribution Machine - eMarketer

• Updated on: 2018-10-02
• Read original article here

In the B2B space, social media marketing is largely about building clout through content marketing. Alyson Griffin, vice president of global marketing at Intel Corp., spoke with eMarketer’s Maria Minsker about why social content is crucial not only for driving clicks, but also for positioning the technology company as a go-to source in emerging fields like artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

eMarketer: How does Intel leverage social media to reach its B2B customers?

Alyson Griffin: We want to meet our audiences where they are, with the right content. Whether they are in a leaned-in mindset and actively looking for content, or they’re in a more leaned-back mindset, we want to make valuable content easily accessible and discoverable to our audiences.

We also want to meet them with the right content wherever they sit within the buying decision committee, whether they are a technology decision-maker, senior business decision-maker or line-of-business influencer.

Finally, we want to meet them where they are in their buying journey, with content they will find valuable at [that stage].

eMarketer: How is paid social media advertising integrated with organic marketing tactics at Intel?

Griffin: We rarely run [traditional display] ads on social media, because we find people just don’t engage with them in the social feed. We consider paid social posts to be a method to reach the right audience with the right content. Whether it’s paid or organic, it has to be good content that’s built specifically for the platform, or people will tune out.

Organic [social] marketing still serves a purpose for us, but it has changed. We look at it as a way to test what people are engaging with, and help us determine where we should be investing with paid social.

eMarketer: What social networks are you most focused on?

Griffin: We use a variety of channels including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. With social, companies can’t be complacent because the platforms are constantly changing, and the way people use them is constantly changing. We’re always evaluating and testing. We look at our audiences and determine where they spend their time and how they use the networks. We build our strategies [around] that.

eMarketer: What are your goals for social media marketing?

Griffin: All of our social media activity ladders up to business objectives. From a business standpoint, we want people to open their minds about what Intel is, beyond just thinking of us as a chipmaker. We understand that business is now moving at an incredible pace, and our customers are thinking about how things like cloud, 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and autonomous vehicles will disrupt and transform industries. That’s why we need to have conversations on social that give our customers confidence that we have what they need to stay ahead of the next wave.

We also know our customers have business challenges they need to solve today that may not be as buzzworthy as something like autonomous vehicles, but are critical to their business. We need to make sure we’re having those conversations as well.

eMarketer: How do you measure success?

Griffin: To determine whether we’re moving the needle, we look at a mix of attitudinal and behavioral metrics.

eMarketer: As a distribution channel for content, how do you harness social networks to reach your audience? What type of content works best?

Griffin: Social media is an important channel for content distribution. Through our analysis of conversion attribution data on our owned properties, we know that social is an important part of the mix and can be a strong traffic driver. With that said, we understand people often don’t want to leave the social feed. We need to provide something of value in the feed, even if someone doesn’t click through to our owned properties. If it’s valuable and interesting, they will consume it in the feed and share it with their own networks. That’s a win.

The types of content that perform best vary a lot by social platform, but video has been a winner for us across multiple platforms.