Cisco WebEx & LinkedIn B2B Case

Study

Paul AcostaRoosevelt UniversityBADM 104 Social Media & Business11/18/2014

The Situation

-The B2B company needed to come up with an innovative social media campaign to enhance brand awareness and establish themselves as the leading solution for online conferencing.

Cisco WebEx Objectives :

-Enhance public awareness of the business benefits of sharing ideas and collaborating online with start-ups and entrepreneurs.

-Promote brand awareness of their product to hard-to-reach B2B professionals.

-Differentiate themselves from other generic, rival, free-to-use online conferencing products.

The Plan of Action

-Collaborate with LinkedIn to sponsor the inaugural LinkedIn European Business Awards.

-Use LinkedIn Ads to promote media buzz of Cisco WebEx event and gain entry submissions, create engagement and use of their software, and to encourage participation.

-Create a LinkedIn group to provide an interactive community for nominees.

-Promote nominees by increasing virality of nominee Twitter accounts and LinkedIn statuses through LinkedIn API’s (ads) while promoting Cisco WebEx software as main sponsor.

-Utilize LinkedIn Polls and LinkedIn InMails to entice debate on business topics, strategies, encourage nominations.

Marketing Strategies

“The awards were a great example of integrating online and social media to virally extend the campaign reach, providing us with the opportunity to connect with a wider audience in a relevant and compelling way.”

James CampaniniManaging Director of Cisco WebEx

The Award Categories are:

-Best Business Leader-Best Business Innovation-Best Business Start Up-Rising Star of The /year

Targets/Goals

● International Awareness-One of the main goals was to reach and engage

with as many European users of LinkedIn as possible.

● Target Votes-Each nominee and their nominators was

estimated to encourage about 5 people to vote. It would equate to about 2025 votes.

● Social Media Goals-Cisco WebEx was looking to amasse 600

members for the LinkedIn Group and at least 150 followers on Twitter.

The Results

● The website for the awards (linkedinbusinessawards.com) attracted 134,000 unique visitors; 500+ nominee entries, and 11,500+ votes

● The unique Linkedin polls generated 500 conversations from targeted professionals.

● Over 900 members joined the LinkedIn Group and provided their own unique business insights.

● Winners were announced at a live event which brought in 1090 registered attendees.

● 50% of traffic to the awards was achieved via viral growth, the Twitter account achieved 90 new followers.

● The campaign created 325 new leads for Cisco WebEx.

● Cisco WebEx Software Demo

● A collaboration tool to help your sales soar

● Questions for the Judges: Kevin Eyeres

Videos

Results Summary

● Innovative campaign gave Cisco WebEx unique media coverage and helped them stand out in the online conferencing market, separating their brand from the rest.

● They were able to affordably market their brand through viral marketing, social media advertising, and word-of-mouth. The company saved a lot of money.

● Nominated businesses were using Cisco WebEx software to communicate with the Awards team who responded to all aspects of event planning by coordinating with nominated businesses in a timely and professional manner, which reinforced product credibility.

What I Learned From This Case Study

● Collaboration, communication, networking, and professionalism are the core values that make up the brand legacy of both Cisco WebEx and LinkedIn. It’s a place for groups to come together and make things happen.

● Both companies value engagement with others. You sell more of your product or make others more aware of your brand better by engaging with others. Brands become more valuable when a conversation is started..

● One of the best ways to generate leads is by getting exposure through genuine traffic. I think the best way to do that is through ads and being resourceful with your posts and intended target audience. Cisco WebEx demonstrated this perfectly by utilizing LinkedIn’s network.

● Cisco improved their SEO by creating buzz-worthy, shareable, content that promoted their awards event. B2B companies need to utilize and spread their content through various social media outlets and use #hashtags to reach wider audiences.

● One way to strengthen a marketing campaign, is to build anticipation and engage your audience with great content. If you get them excited about something than they are more likely to spread the word.

● Cisco WebEx had to specialize their campaign strategy in order to get to the hard-to-reach business professionals. If you want to reach a niche audience, you have to be specific with who and how you want your ads to be seen.

Follow Me on LinkedIn! @

● https://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-acosta/5a/168/563

● Tweet me! @acosta7285