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Social media works best for B2B companies when people connect directly around topics they are passionate about. Connections work even better when no one in the group is pushing a particular agenda. This allows the focus of the communications to be around joint learning, which draws crowds, versus thinly disguised sales pitches, which drives everyone toward the metaphorical door.

There is no group better to foster these learning discussions than a company’s channel partners, especially for those companies lucky enough to have built out strong channel partner programs. Channel partners know the niche and know the clients. They also have an independence that provides both authority and authenticity. These partners looked at all the solutions they could sell, and with their reputation on the line, chose to include your offering. When they enter a discussion, and a prospect checks out the channel partner’s background, the fact that they didn’t create a particular product makes it easier for them to be established as providers of valued advice.

While this is still a relatively new idea, some of the most innovative channel marketing managers are starting to support these efforts. For example, Lisa Caratozzolo at VMware has put together a visionary offering to support channel partner’s social media efforts, being launched February 14, 2012 at the VMware Partner Exchange show in Las Vegas (disclosure: VMware is a client). When describing why she put together this program, she said, “VMware sees a huge opportunity to help mobilize their channel partners on social networks. After all, our partners know better than anyone the substantial savings end-users get from leveraging VMware’s offerings, so the more they are out talking about the success they’ve had and answering people’s questions, the better it is for everyone.”

That’s not to say that there aren’t some challenges to getting channel partners involved in social media. As anyone who’s been following this blog knows, the key to engagement is to provide value to a community, and that usually starts with quality content. The challenge here is how to have the budget available to produce something of quality. Most channel partners don’t have the resources to produce videos, white papers and articles that will draw in and retain the audiences around a particular topic. This is where a supplier like VMware can make a huge difference.

Part of VMware’s social media program is to provide content to their channel partners on an ongoing basis. Partners provide filters and appropriate content is automatically pushed out to their social networks, as if they had written it themselves. This allows larger B2B companies with the resources to produce engaging content and for their channel partners to share it and follow up on the discussions that ensue.

The key is to know the channel partner community and build the infrastructure so they can establish themselves as topic experts in the relevant social networks. Your channel partners are part of your core team of social participants and you need provide them with the tools they need to succeed.

Is your B2B company providing your channel partners with social media content to support engaging with their prospects?

Now that Facebook has officially filed for their initial public offering, what does that mean for B2B marketers? Many IPOs bring a needed infusion of cash to companies, but according to their submitted documents, Facebook already has profits to the tune of $1 billion. 85% of their revenue comes from advertising. That means they encourage users to share information about themselves and Facebook uses the data to target users with advertising. Here are some ways you can better leverage the platform to reach your B2B prospects and customers now that Facebook will have to answer to public shareholders.

1. Explore Facebook Advertising

Normally I would work my way towards advertising as the last item in the list, but I am starting with it because it is so important to Facebook’s success. There are a number of ways you can use advertising on Facebook, but here are two that have been shown to be most successful. Sponsored Stories target the friends of your fans to grow your fan base. You can also target your own fans with updates to increase Page engagement. The Facebook ad platform lets you target by demographics and keywords, as well as set your budget so you can begin testing this to reach your B2B target audience.

2. Monitor Facebook Advertising Changes

Look for Facebook to roll out more targeted and creative ways to reach people on the platform. They have expanded their ads to the point that they are engaging and active, for example people can like a page right from an ad. Since this is so core to their business, look for a new, non-disruptive type of advertising that feels even more like regular Facebook updates. Facebook users may balk at new ideas, but if Facebook can come up with a way to show targeted, non-ad like content (as they are likely working on), advertisers would pay for that. They could be a pricey option for many B2B companies, but if you can keep up with all their tests on the advertising category of Inside Facebook then you can evaluate options for your company.

3. Get Ready for the Timeline

If you haven’t yet heard of the Facebook Timeline, it is the new way personal profiles are shown on Facebook and they are coming to Business Pages soon. If you don’t have the timeline yet on your personal profile yet, click the link above to get it. Not only is the layout more visual, but there is a great branding opportunity with the large cover image at the top of your page. Think how you want to portray your B2B company with a large horizontal image. Don’t assume the staff photo from the company holiday card is the best thing you’ve got. Get creative. But don’t make a Photoshop montage of your products either. The other big change about a timeline is that you can post items to past dates. This is a chance to build a company timeline with historic photos as part of your Facebook Page. This can give some depth to your presence on the social network.

4. Post More Often

With all the changes on Facebook, it is more imperative to post content more often than before, at least a few times per day. This means sharing blog posts from your company and other sources, posting photos and videos, asking engaging questions and showing the fun or human side of your B2B company. There is so much noise on Facebook, as well as an algorithm that only shows people content that Facebook thinks they are interested in, that you need to get people to engage with your content so Facebook will show it to them. There is a balance here. Look at the Facebook Pages of B2B companies that you admire for examples.

5. Drive Facebook Likes from Other Sources

One of the ways to ensure that you have an active Facebook for your B2B company is to make sure you remind people that it is there and they should like it. If you are still printing catalogs, include your Facebook Page address. Add it to email signatures. Display it at your tradeshows. Make sure employees know the kinds of things you share on the Page so they can tell customers and prospects. Start with your own network of employees, customers and partners, and grow the Page from there.

What have you been doing on your B2B Facebook Page and what do anticipate changing in the future?

B2B marketers understand that they are operating in a different environment for a variety of reasons. These include a tighter economy, more rigor around business decision-making and the growing importance of social media in all B2B industries.

Two recent charts with survey data from Marketing Sherpa show a changing landscape of B2B transactions. The first shows the change in average deal size from 2010 to 2011. More than half of the deals closed by B2B companies are under $10,000, with the largest number of them (32%) between $1,001 and $10,000. This indicates that many of the larger deals, sometimes thought of as the hallmark of B2B sales, are not happening in the same numbers as before. It is easy to speculate that this is partially the result of the economy, and companies are just not spending the way they have in the past.

The second chart shows that the length of the buying cycle is shorter. This is defined from first lead inquiry to purchase. While the most common cycle is 1-3 months in both 2010 and 2011, the number increased in 2011. The number of responses of less than a month also increased. There were fewer in the ranges of 4-6 months and 7-12 months in 2011, and only cycles of more than a year held steady. This follows the first chart pretty naturally. If sales are down then the time to complete those sales is shorter.

B2B Social Media Marketing Takeaways:
1. If you sell an expensive, complex product, it is more important than ever to embrace social media. With fewer sales in 2011, does 2012 look any different? This means that every customer and prospect is more important to your sales conversion. You need to work harder to discover new leads and work harder to retain customers. Social media can assist with both discovery and retention.

2. Consider expanding service offerings or other smaller sales to support larger customers. If buyers are not upgrading products or systems, they will require more support in the near term. Look for ways that social media influenced content (ebooks, custom videos) can support those relationships in the absence of enhanced paid support models.

3. One of things that we have learned about the buying cycle in the social media era is that prospects contact a sales rep after 60% of the cycle is complete. This means that a company no longer contacts you for general information, but they seek it out themselves from the web, including social media platforms. This makes a social media presence an important part of reaching prospects. Your B2B company needs to demonstrate expertise by sharing valuable information to be included in the consideration phase of the buying cycle. This is no longer a linear process and there are many stops along the way.

How have your B2B buying cycles changed and are you able to use social media to address these changes?

Articles about B2B social media marketing adoption often paint a rosy picture of the current landscape, but when you dig in deeper, there are many challenges in effectiveness and understanding the results. In a recent survey of 5,000 B2B marketers from all industries, Penton Marketing Services found some pretty revealing statistics. Click the link for the full report (registration form required).

1. 81% of B2B Marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging.

2. 77% of B2B Marketers said their websites are not that effective at generating leads.

3. 60% of B2B Marketers have implemented a social media strategy, or will in the next year.

4. 90% of B2B Companies actively participate on Facebook.

5. 53% of B2B Companies actively participate on Twitter.

6. 47% of B2B Companies actively participate on LinkedIn.

7. 33% of B2B Companies maintain an active blog or blogs.

8. 63% of B2B Marketers are either vaguely aware or not aware what is being said about their companies online.

9. 47% of B2B Marketers are satisfied with their social media strategy.

10. 35% of B2B Marketers don’t think social media is critical for their business.

11. 26% of B2B Marketers don’t know how to measure their social media success.

12. 14% of B2B Marketers don’t know if their competitors are active in social media.

Do any of these stats represent the social media adoption situation at your B2B company?

Social media experts have debated for years via their blogs, articles, and white papers the answer to the question, “Which is more important – keywords or content?”  Should the keywords come first – commanding a position of supreme importance – and from which all content decisions should flow, OR should content come first, and let keyword selection be a function of extracting the phrases most representative of the content being covered.  In an effort to frame out this debate, I have enclosed a brief summary of the arguments on both sides.

“Keywords Are More Important!”

Keywords RULE!  Keywords are Priority #1 online.  It doesn’t matter what you write, if it doesn’t get found, who cares?  Google, search engines, and autobots run the world. It’s a numbers game and you have to play by their rules.  If you dominate and own your keywords, you own your market, and if you own your market, you win!  Pick your keywords, repeat them millions of times, and eventually the marketplace will relent and beat a path to your doorstep.  If a new article is posted in the blogosphere but nobody finds it, does it make a sound?  No.

“Content Is More Important!”

“Content is king, communication is queen.”  Superior content always wins.  What good is having a bullhorn if what you’re saying isn’t worth saying?  Why do country music stars – many of whom started by performing at church picnics – often outshine American Idol contestants who’ve had the benefit of worldwide visibility?  Because their content was of a superior quality; a lasting quality; a quality so good that it kept people coming back for more, and it was this groundswell of support that pushed them from obscurity to fame.  Content, when done correctly, establishes a voice of authority and credibility through the strategic insights which are shared with the market. Sure, keywords will get you found, but content goes viral – getting tweeted and retweeted – because it is powerful, unique, fresh, authentic, and relevant, not because it has six overused keywords in its title.

Great content speaks the truth, and it is this truth that resonates with the marketplace, prompts conversations, and invites feedback.  But most importantly, great content – provided on a regular basis – prompts the market to start looking for you, on your terms, and without selling out to keywords.  It’s like that convention booth that plays loud music and hires models to give out samples – sure you notice them, sure you FIND them, but you’re afterwards you’re left wondering if their product is any good, because of the lengths they considered necessary to get your attention.  If it were truly a quality product, wouldn’t that quality and industry reputation speak for itself?

Conclusion

After carefully considering the compelling arguments from both sides above, I have reached a verdict. Content comes first – but only by a hashtag.  Eventually everyone will figure out all of the tricks and keyword optimization tactics to skew search results, at which point the game will be even again, and firms and brands will be left to stand on their merit.  Sizzle will give way to steak, and style will give way to substance.  By first focusing on content as a strategic differentiator – and THEN enabling this content to be found through careful keyword selection – firms can maximize their social media impact, populate their marketing funnel through an expending online presence and influence, and accelerate their leads to feeds and their prospects into profits – not just for tomorrows’ search results, but for sustained, organic, long-term growth.

Douglas O’Bryon

Chief Content Officer

DemingHill, Inc.

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Many months ago, Kipp and I looked forward to January 24, 2012 as a monumental day in our lives. That was the publication date of our book, The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More. The manuscript was due in the middle of August and January seemed so far away. Well, it turns out that not only did it get here before we knew it, but the book came out a little sooner than we thought. It turned out to be a soft launch.

In the world of online commerce, once books arrive in the warehouse, they can be shipped. Once the ebook version is available, it is for sale and ready for download. But because the official US publication date is still listed as January 24, 2012, we are still treating this as launch day. Our launch day webinar, How to Master B2B Social Media Marketing, is scheduled for 1pm ET today, thanks to Hubspot. We hope you can join us.

B2B Social Media Lead Generation Live and In Person

We are thankful for all of our readers of SocialMediaB2B.com for all of your support, readership and comments over the years. We started this site to help educate B2B marketers and communicators about the power of social media. The B2B Social Media Book grew out of that same effort. Now we have to get books into people’s hands to continue to educate them and we know one way to do that is to get in front of people. We already have some initial B2B social media events scheduled, but would like to schedule more. If you are affiliated with a professional organization and would like a program about B2B Social Media and Lead Generation, please let us know. We can also consider corporate events. We would love to meet you in person. Hear about the challenges you face. Answer your questions about specifics in the book.

Early Reactions to The B2B Social Media Book

The early response during this soft launch has been great. Here are some of the reactions.

Just opened the cover to “The B2B Social Media Book” by @kippbodnar & @jeffreylcohen. I should be a marketing superstar in T-minus a week!

— Thomas DiScipio (@TomDiScipio) January 20, 2012

@smb2b Chapter 13 – Making Trade Shows Social. I had to read it twice, very clever stuff. B2B Social Media Book buyth.at/a2k7d! #b2bsm

— John Newbury (@johnnewbury_) January 21, 2012

Just started reading The B2B Social Media Book. @b2bsm Yes! Share best practices = increased influence. Love content that delivers #B2BSM

— Kathleen Thompson (@Kathleen_T_H) January 7, 2012

Really enjoying #B2BSM book by @kippbodnar & @jeffreylcohen so far. A must read if you’re in B2B.

— Eileen Nolan (@eileenpnolan) January 6, 2012

The B2B Social Media Book – A Reviewvsb.li/Lf5a2y @kippbodnar #B2BSM

— Domino Theory (@JYoffie) January 9, 2012

It’s Time for B2B Social Media Marketing to Generate Leads bit.ly/ynBNdJ – my interview with @kippbodnar and @jeffreylcohen

— Aaron Pearson (@apearson) January 23, 2012

Here are more reactions to The B2B Social Media Book.

If you want to know what the book is like before you buy it, here is a free download of Chapter 1 of The B2B Social Media Book in pdf form. Many of the online booksellers also have a sample download available on their sites.

Available at the Following Online Locations

Amazon Hardcover
Barnes & Noble Hardcover
Books-A-Million Hardcover
800ceoread Hardcover

Available in the Following eBook Formats

Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Nook
Books-A-Million ePub

Pinterest has made a big splash on the social media scene, by quickly earning passionate users who log multiple hours per day on the site. Pinterest saw a 4,000% increase in site traffic from June to December of last year, and many consumer-facing and female-centric brands are already using it well. While Nordstrom pins its latest shoes and fashions by boards organized by department, Whole Foods uses the site to pin kitchen design inspiration and recycling projects in addition to recipes using its foods.

But despite its reputation as a service for brides and decorators, only 58% of the visitors to the site are women. And just like its diversity in users, brands on Pinterest aren’t limited to department and grocery stores. News sites such as Mashable and Time Magazine are also using the site to spread cover art, articles and copy included in its news stories.

Pinterest still has a long way to go in terms of its search capabilities and smartphone and tablet apps, but there is value for B2B marketers to start exploring. Here are four reasons B2B should start to look into using Pinterest.

1. Pinterest’s Push Mentality
Pinterest may be one of the few social media sites that requires little, if any, interaction with others – and although that may seem counter-intuitive, it’s also one of its strengths. While Twitter and Facebook require constant upkeep to stay on top of fan and follower comments, questions and shares, brands are able to push out content on their own time without a brand page to constantly update. Just be sure to tag and categorize pins with keywords that make sense for searchers, and pin them to boards that are similarly well organized. Pinterest’s search abilities are lagging, so making pins easy to find is key.

2. SEO value of inbound links
This one is a no-brainer for marketers looking to drive traffic to their content. Pinterest’s major selling point for users is the way it connects images – whether they’re product shots, infographics, photographs or even websites – with a stored link, making it easy to come back to pins’ original sources in the future. These links are logged as inbound links to these respective websites, boosting SEO. When it comes to determining what is “pinnable” on your B2B website, consider helpful FAQs, blog posts, product images, infographics and videos.

3. Niche Value
As many popular social media sites shift from mass appeal to niche servicing, B2B companies are able to better hone in on the industries and people most important to them. Leverage Pinterest’s “pin what you know and love” mentality by creating industry-specific boards and using specific keyword searches to find like-minded pins, boards and users.

4. Expert Positioning
Not sure if your company’s products or services lend themselves to being pinned? Expand your reach beyond your own products and use Pinterest as a way to show your expertise and experience in your industry, location and relationships. Utilize Pinterest’s open boards, which allow multiple users to pin to one board, to collaborate with your B2B partners and clients. If an important tradeshow is coming up, start and share a Tradeshow Must-Haves board that pins comfortable shoes, hotel and restaurant recommendations, and handy smartphone apps that position your company as a trusted expert and friend.

What would it take for you to begin exploring Pinterest for your B2B company?

One of the best ways to use social media to drive traffic to your B2B website is to create a blog on your website and publish relevant articles to your prospects and customers. Rather than posting this content only on your social media channels, it is hosted on a site that you control. And you can use your social channels to share your content and bring visitors to your site.

For some organizations it is not currently possible to create a blog, but B2B marketers are still interested in creating and sharing content. In addition to the awareness benefit that sharing new content brings, marketers need to understand how to create remarkable content on a regular basis. Here are six ways to create and share content without a blog.

1. Email
This is the easiest one because you can do this now with no learning. The next time you attend a conference or industry event, make notes about the 5 most amazing things you saw. Whether you have an email program and customer distribution list or not, you can still write up your thoughts from the event. If you send regular emails, use this information in your next email. If you don’t communicate this way, provide your write-up to your salespeople, and they can use it as a reason to connect with prospects and customers.

2. YouTube
Shoot a short video on your phone with one of your product managers describing how one feature of your product solves a specific problem. Interview a customer telling a similar story and you have two different ways to showcase what your products do. Make sure you shoot the video in a quiet place so the audio is clear. Post these on YouTube and provide the links to your employees. They can share them on their social networks or include the links in an email as mentioned above.

3. LinkedIn
Companies can now post status updates on LinkedIn. While these often contain links to other content, it is also a good way to provide general company updates to those following you. You can also use it to curate news coverage about your company. Post links to stories and add a comment in the status update. Even though you may have a newsfeed on your LinkedIn company page, posting the most important ones as status updates will show them to your company’s network.

4. Twitter
Twitter has changed from a place where people post their thoughts to a site where many people and companies also share links. When building your B2B company Twitter account, you definitely want to share other industry content that is relevant, but you can also post thoughts from your employees. Interview your subject matter experts and post their responses over a series of tweets. This can be a fun way to get more employees involved in Twitter. Encourage employees to retweet these interview tweets.

5. Facebook
Posting photos and sharing non-work-related activities are great uses for a Facebook Business Page before you have ramped up your social media content machine. Once a week, share an employee photo. Make sure you are capturing photos of an community events. Include a brief story about the event and provide a link to the organization. These kinds of things show the human side of a company, especially on a platform that many people use personally.

6. Google Plus
Besides it’s benefit to search results, Google Plus is really good for having conversations. Ask leading questions. Provide insightful information. Reach out to people in your industry to engage them in conversations. Since these conversations are threaded, someone can join in and catch up just by scrolling.

If you start using these other ways to create and share content before you have a B2B blog, you will also start growing your networks on these platforms. This means that you will have an active community, and know where people are more likely to engage and share company content, when you do launch your blog.

If you have other favorite ways to share B2B company content without blog, please share in the comments below.

Whether you believe that content is king, queen or the court jester in your B2B social media activities, there is no disputing that creating and distributing remarkable, valuable content is key to success. No matter if your goals are to drive awareness, traffic or leads, content is a big part of that. Below are several articles that help frame the discussion around content, as well as tips to create better content. I have also included the latest in string of awesome infographics (read “content”) from the partnership between Eloqua and JESS3.

If you have one great tip about creating or distributing content, share it in the comments, and you might see it in future post.

B2B Content Marketing as Trojan Horse
from Marketing Interactions
I sat in on the Content Marketing for Real Marketers webinar and there were many great points made, but two of them stood out and prompted this blog post:
Content draws 10X more media attention than product launches.
Diminishing the brand representation in favor of the story enables it to spread.
Read more

Feed Me Seymour – Why Your 2012 Marketing Approach is Hungry for Content
from Marketing Trenches
As I sat down yesterday with a couple members of the Right Source team for our check-in on our 2012 tactical plan, I was reminded how our marketing, like that of many of our clients, is heavily dependent on content. We use the term content marketing all the time in our industry, yet to many folks outside of the industry – and to many of our potential clients – it means very little.
Read more

Five Tips For Better B2B Marketing Content
from B2B Ideas @ Work
There are more ways than ever to match your marketing messages to the needs of your customers with more personalized, relevant and actionable information. The more you can customize your content to relate to your best buyers, the more buyers you will attract, and the more conversions you will drive. Here are five ideas that will improve your B2B marketing content.
Read more

Eight keys to successful content curation
from Heinz Marketing
There are plenty of good, tactical guidelines out there for content curation (as well as rationales for why it’s so important). But in addition to the day-to-day tactics and objectives, here are eight keys to making your content curation efforts more efficient, effective and productive.
Read more

Infographic: A History of Disruptions in B2B Marketing
from It’s All About the Revenue
“We’re gonna change the world” has become the battle cry for many tech startups. When you’re bootstrapping a company against all mathematical odds, the only thing better than ambition is wild ambition.

But let’s face it: very few companies actually change the world. After all, it’s a tall order.

This infographic, A History of Disruptive Innovations in B2B Marketing, looks at breakthrough technologies and processes that forever changed one segment of the world: the lives of B2B marketing professionals.
Read more

Google just rolled out Search, Plus Your World and B2B companies need to take notice. If you have been taking a wait and see attitude, or you just don’t have the bandwidth for Google Plus, Google just changed the game and moved this to the top of your priority list.

Not another social network, you said. We are already challenged to come up with enough quality content. And learn a new platform? And see if our customers and prospects are there? Again, none of this matters anymore. Google Plus has always been about leveraging our social connections to provide better search results. But now Google is showing Google Plus results as top results in search.

It shouldn’t matter to you that Twitter is calling it “a bad day for the Internet.” Marketers need to roll with the changes that happen all the time in social media.

Lots of resources already exist online and off for learning about Google Plus, the platform, but for the time being, B2B marketers need to create personal profiles and business pages for their B2B companies. Yes, Google Plus is great for engagement because of a threaded comment system. Multiple people can manage a page (which wasn’t possible at roll-out). Circles really do allow you to segment outbound messages. There is not an ecosystem of management tools for Google Plus yet, so it will be a manual process to share content on the platform.

But for now. Get on there and start sharing content. Want to drive traffic to your blogs? Need more downloads for your ebooks and white papers? Share links on Google Plus. Prospects still find their way to your site and your content by search, and Google is giving B2B marketers another tool to help with that.

This really should be at the top of today’s to do list for B2B companies. Circle Social Media B2B on Google Plus while you are there.

B2B marketers give lots of presentations in today’s work environment, and are always looking for inspiration for new ideas and new ways to present those ideas. Below are a dozen B2B social media presentations from Slideshare from a variety of sources that should help get you thinking before you stand up and give your next presentation. Share your best work with us in the comments.

Attentionomics Captivating Attention in the Age of Content Decay View more presentations from Edelman

10 Ways to "Solve" Facebook for B2B View more presentations from Eloqua

Marketing fact vs Marketing fantasy View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

B2B Content Marketing Trends View more presentations from Holger Schulze

Social media in B2B: "How conversations help you leverage the things you are already doing." for InSites Consulting View more presentations from Polle de Maagt

Dell B2B Huddle UK with Brian Solis View more presentations from Brian Solis

Packaging Your Story: Social Media for B2Bs View more presentations from The Espresso Group

Creating a Social Business for B2B Companies View more presentations from Paul Gillin

Top 6 Reasons B2B Marketers Should Use Social Media View more presentations from Spredfast

How to Integrate Social Media and SEO to Drive More Leads and Increase Marketing ROI View more presentations from B2B Lead Roundtable

Social media for B2B View more presentations from Julian Gratton

QR Codes for B2B Marketing View more presentations from Scott Chapin

As search algorithms continue to change, and give more value to social search, it is more important than even for B2B companies to create an integrated approach to social media to improve their SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO is based on two different types of factors, on-page, which you control and off-page, which you don’t control. But using social media can help the social signals that search engines now use as part of how they serve up their search results.

B2B marketers should be looking to expand the reach of their social media efforts to drive more traffic back to their websites (and their calls-to-action). If you are unclear about the importance of social search, look no further than Google Plus. Google created a social network so they could get a better picture of our social connections and tap into them to provide better search results.

6 Ways to Improve SEO with B2B Social Media

1. Create a Unified Keyword Strategy
The idea of keywords starts with search. Google built its ad business on the back of its search results. Whether you are doing pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or just trying to optimize your search results, start with Google’s Keyword Tool to develop your list of keywords. If these are the words your customers and prospects use when they are searching for you, make sure you use these same terms in your social media activities. These keywords should included in blog posts, especially their titles, as well as within posts on social networks. The more often your posts are found, the more often they can be shared.

2. Make Your B2B Blog As Social As Possible
Once you blog posts draw traffic, you want to do all you can to encourage sharing of posts. Many B2B companies focus on building a community on their blog through comments, but you are better off building a bigger community off the blog. With this in mind, rather than ask questions to encourage readers to leave comments, ask them to share the post instead. You also want to make sure the blog has sharing buttons in logical places. In the case of this post, not only is the main post shareable, but each of the six ways are shareable with its own Tweet button. Use those buttons to share a couple of these points in additional to the main post.

3. Encourage Employee Sharing of Content
One of the easiest sources of sharing is your own workforce. Encourage employees to share blog posts and other content by making it easy for them to share. Provide a pre-written tweet that you email out to employees, or even share on internal network like Chatter. There are even tools like GaggleAMP to make employee sharing even easier. You can cue up the posts for employees and they can just send them with the push of a button.

4. Leverage Your LinkedIn Network
Just like you want to encourage your employees to share your great blog posts and ebooks, you want to share it with your LinkedIn network. You can post it to your personal status update, your company status update and in any relevant groups. Since you are looking for SEO benefit, consider asking people to share it with their own networks for greater reach and greater sharing. Depending on the type of content, you might want to pick 5-10 of your contacts and ask them to blog about it. This will create some links back to your site.

5. Properly Name Your Social Media Profiles
Sometimes B2B companies try to get too clever and create a Twitter account or a Facebook profile with their descriptive keywords, rather than their company name. This upsets the balance in the universe. Common best practices are to name your profiles with the company name and use keywords in your profile bios and updates. This architecture of social media keeps the balance in place and shows that the profile is from a real company, rather than someone trying to spam search results by keyword stuffing profiles. You can develop trust by following these guidelines so people with share your content.

6. Write Compelling Social Media Posts for Readers, Not Spiders
The most important thing to remember about using social media to improve SEO for your B2B company is that you need to write for your readers. Not the spiders crawling the web for the search engines. If you are trying to network engineers, you will naturally write about things that interest them and may cause them to consider purchasing your products. You need to use keywords so they will find your content, but you need to create great content that can be read by humans so they will value it and share it.

If you have any thoughts, please add them down below, but we would really rather you share this post on all your social networks. Feel free to print it out and put on the fridge in the breakroom, as well as the one at home. (I’m just following #2 above)

Photo credit: Flickr

B2B social media is gaining wider adoption. We are past arguing if B2B companies can use social media like we did in the early days of this blog. With the gradual adoption of social media marketing for B2B companies, some misconceptions and myths about B2B social media have been born. That’s okay, because myths are a part of change in any aspect of life. Heck, when people started using microwaves one of the big myths was that they leaked electromagnetic radiation. Change and myths go hand-in-hand.

Let’s squash some of the most ridiculous B2B social myths now before they spread any further!

5 Ridiculous Myths About B2B Social Media Marketing

1.  B2B Social Media Isn’t About Selling
This is likely the most common myth. Since social media marketing started to emerge there has always been a misperception that selling is off limits. This is wrong. Spaming people in social media is always off limits. Giving someone what they want when they want it is always a great thing. This is what selling in social media is about. It isn’t about endless product tweets. As we cover in The B2B Social Media Book, it is about providing relevant content and conversion opportunities through the buying cycle using social media.

2.  B2B Social Media Doesn’t Have a Clear ROI
In the world of social media, some purists, or “treehuggers” as I call them, will say things like “B2B social media doesn’t have an ROI. It has a return on emotion.” That is absolute crap. As marketers we are in business to generate revenue. Social media can be a valuable part of B2B lead generation. When B2B social media has a lead generation component calculating ROI is a simple math problem. You simply look at the revenue from the leads generated from social media and the cost it took to acquire that revenue. B2B social media has a clear ROI. Don’t listen to the treehuggers.

3.  B2B Social Media Can Replace Offline Marketing
Social media is only one piece of an integrated marketing effort. It is unlikely that social media can replace all of your current traditional marketing efforts. The truth is that to go cold turkey from traditional marketing is stupid. Instead, social media and traditional marketing efforts should be combined to amplify each other. Doing a direct mail campaign? Why not try testing including your LinkedIn Company Page URL? Don’t ignore offline. Figure out strategies for online and offline marketing to work together.

4.  B2B Social Media Is About Narrow Targeting
This might be the myth that bothers me the most! In B2B marketing it has always been thought that it is all about extremely focused and targeted marketing. The problem is that in a world of social media marketing is no longer linear. Everyone has the potential to influence another person or spread your content. For the first time a non-customer can actually have monetary value to your business. While someone may never buy your product or service, they can easily refer someone else that will. In the world of B2B marketing building an ever growing social media reach has never been more important. Forget targeted! Take a cue from the B2C folks and work on pumping up your social media reach.

5.  B2B Social Media Is Only About Lead Generation
Yes, Jeff and I wrote an entire book about social media lead generation, but that isn’t the only application of social media for B2B companies. In fact social media has applications across most aspects of a B2B business. For example, Lead management, is a post lead marketing process where social media can be extremely valuable. You might want to use data from social media to help better sales qualify a leads. You might want to send a custom product focused email to anyone who is an existing lead and mentions your product on Twitter. This is a simple example, but social medi can be a valuable source of data to determine which of your leads are sales-ready.

Did a miss any B2B social media myths? Which B2B social media myth do you think is the most widespread?

Photo credit: Flickr

In a recent post from eMarketer about the importance of companies managing their big data, there was not even consensus on the definition of big data. And 21% of those surveyed admitted that they weren’t really sure what big data meant.

IBM defines big data by example. “Everyday, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data–so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos posted online, transaction records of online purchases, and from cell phone GPS signals to name a few.”

As digital communications, in all forms including social media components, grow for B2B companies, more and more data is available to make better decisions. The biggest challenges cited by companies related to resources, especially manpower and time required to sort through the data, and the volume of data.

The top three uses for analyzing data are competitive monitoring, brand monitoring and pricing/product information. These are key elements of a marketer's job. What are my competitors up? What do customers and prospects think of my brand? How are people responding to my company's products and pricing?

It is no longer enough to rely on interns and anecdotal data. B2B companies, even those who have not started social media marketing plans, need to implement formal data gathering processes and dedicate the analytical brain power to determining the business ramifications. There have been several large consumer brands that have recently responded to a large social media backlash regarding pricing charges, including Netflix, Bank of America and Verizon. If your company were in a similar situation, would you have had anything in place to collect and understand the reaction?

According to a McKinsey report about big data, it “will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth and innovation.” The report includes seven insights from their research in five domains—healthcare in the United States, the public sector in Europe, retail in the United States, and manufacturing and personal-location data globally.

What have you done to address the gathering of big data for your B2B company?

In the B2B space, LinkedIn may be the best social media site to take stock in. Recently while gathering some data for my company’s website, I was surprised to see how many website conversions viewed our LinkedIn profile. Of course Twitter and Facebook are great for awareness, getting traffic to your site and generally for getting people to like your B2B company, but LinkedIn still seems to take the cake for decision makers and actual purchasers.

So as we come into a new year, take a few minutes to spruce up your business LinkedIn profile so when people come to check your company out, they get the best impression.

1. Remove any employees who don’t work with you
Recently LinkedIn added this feature to Company Page Admins. From your company’s Overview page you can see a list of all current employees. Review this list and make sure it is accurate. If someone has mislabeled themselves or no longer works at your company, go to their personal profile and hover over the warning triangle. The Company Page Admin can now remove them from the company listings.

2. Refresh your company LinkedIn information
Take a few minutes to update your Company Description, Company Specialties, Blog or any other information in these form fields. LinkedIn and search engines get along very well. The more content you have here, the more opportunities you have for showing up in search results for the services you offer (LinkedIn searches and on search engines).

3. Start using status updates
Like most other social networks, LinkedIn has recently added status updates to personal and Company LinkedIn pages. Each time you update your status, anyone who is subscribed to your updates will see it in their newsfeed. Add value to their experience of following you by sharing links and information here. Offer relevant information about your business or industry and show that you are on top of what is happening in your area of expertise.

4. Add your most popular products or services
Under Services, add a few of your most popular services and encourage your network to recommend them. Instead of adding every product or service you have, try only adding the most popular.

5. Make a note to update your profile again
After this quick clean-up, pick a date on your calendar a few months down the road to update it again. Keep your content as fresh and up to date as possible.

LinkedIn’s company pages are slowly adding more functionality but in our busy days we may forget about one of our most qualifying online presences. Keep your company profile page updated so when your next customers are doing their due diligence, you are making sure your business is being accurately portrayed.

What are some other tips for keeping your B2B company LinkedIn profile fresh and up to date?

When I was reviewing the most viewed B2B social media posts of 2011 I had two choices. The first was to just pull the top 10 posts by number of page views no matter when they were published, while the other choice was to feature the top 10 posts that were published in 2011. I went with the first version for two reasons. The first is that there are always new readers to this site, and there is value in sharing old posts. Even if the stats are outdated, the lessons and ideas are still relevant today.

The other reason for including the most viewed posts, no matter when they were published, is to share the lesson of the long tail and the benefit of continued traffic to well-titled posts. The oldest post still draws traffic for the terms B2B and Facebook. Because this shows our site as an authority on this topic, other posts about B2B and Facebook have drawn traffic over time. As social cues become more important to search, and more traffic comes from social media, the long tail of search becomes less important for old posts.

One way to test this for your posts is to update the content to make it more relevant to today, without changing the URL address or the post title. If it still draws consistent traffic, then your audience continues to find your content through search.

Here are the most viewed posts in 2011 on SocialMediaB2B.com:

2009
[Updated] 10 Examples of B2B Facebook Fan Pages (December)

2010
7 B2B Social Media Tools You Haven’t Heard Of (April)

28 Awesome B2B Social Media Statistics (August)

10 B2B Social Media Case Studies and Examples (September)

5 Ways for B2B Companies to Engage on Facebook (September)

11 Predictions for B2B Social Media in 2011 (December)

2011
Top 10 B2B Companies on Twitter (January)

8 B2B Facebook Landing Pages (April)

Study: 93% of B2B Marketers Use Social Media Marketing (April)

75 of the Best B2B Facebook Marketing Tips (June)

We are not the only ones making B2B social media marketing predictions for 2012 this time of year. Plenty of writers are sharing their thoughts on what will happen next year. Below are a variety of predictions related to B2B marketing and marketing in general. See if you can find any common themes. If you have posted your own predictions, please add them in the comments below.

12 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2012 from B2B Digital Marketing blog

Top 3 Predictions for B2B Marketing in 2012 from Marketri blog

10 Predictions for B2B Marketing in 2012 Part 1 and Part 2 from Bliss PR

2012 B2B Marketing Predictions – Will Marketers Leave Sales Behind? from B2B Marketing Insider Blog

8 Tricky B2B Marketing Predictions for 2012 from B2B Appointment Setting Blog

Social Business Predictions for 2012 from the Dachis Group

No Predictions, Just Action from B2B Voices

Top 5 Inbound Marketing Trends for 2012 from Kuno Creative

12 Marketing Predictions for 2012 from MarketingProfs

18 Insightful 2012 Marketing Predictions From the Experts from Hubspot

Five key marketing trends for 2012: Are you being served? from eConsultancy

2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions from Brian Solis

Bonus Posts:
How to be great marketer in 2012 – top 10 tips from B2B Marketing Blog

2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends from Content Marketing Institute

If you have been waiting patiently to pre-order The B2B Social Media Book for your new, holiday-scented Kindle, your wishes have been answered. But it is even better than that. While the hardcover book is due out January 24, and is available for pre-order, the Kindle version is available for download right now (even in the UK).

This means you can read it now and start the year with your head filled with ideas about social media lead generation and how you can contribute to the revenue of your B2B company. B2B marketing has traditionally been about generating leads, and we have focused the book on how social media can support lead generation objectives and demonstrate marketing leadership.

And just to share some of our excitement, the photo above is of preview copies that I received yesterday. You really never know what it is like to publish a book until you hold it in your hands. And we can’t wait for you to not just hold it, but to read it.

We wrote this book to help marketers understand how they should be using social media. It is filled with strategies, tactics, frameworks, inspiration and even some math. And we really want to know what you think about it. And how it can help your company and your career. Share your thoughts on Amazon. Share them online with the hashtag #B2BSM.

If you pre-order the hardcover or the Barnes & Noble Nook version, or order the Kindle version before the hardcover is released, make sure you get your pre-order bonus prequel chapter, Stop Wasting Time With Social Media! Create A Better B2B Website Today!

2012 is going to be a big year for adoption of social media for B2B companies. We expect that early adopter companies will move even further out in front by becoming social in many areas of their business, while more of the second wave adopters will begin to see value in social media and move forward with planning and execution. This means that there will be a greater spread of B2B social media activities than ever before. More resources are available for B2B marketers, as well as more experienced practitioners, both of which will make the previously steep learning curve more manageable.

The following predictions for 2012 reveal many of the ways B2B companies will leverage social media for their business success.

1. B2B Websites Become the Ultimate Social Destination
In the consumer world, many companies send their visitors directly to Facebook. This strategy seems to be based on the fact that people are already on Facebook and why should companies encourage them to leave the environment. B2B companies will understand this year that it is more productive to drive traffic to their owned property, their website. This is where they control the environment are not subject to the whims of others. Many B2B companies not only need to update their websites, but add social components like Facebook and LinkedIn shares to allow visitors to spread the word about a company’s solutions to industry issues.

2. Blogging Accepted as Hub of B2B Social Media Success
A blog goes hand in hand with the B2B website as a social destination. Companies that post valuable, educational content to their blogs at least once or twice a week will drive traffic to their blogs (and websites) through a combination of search and social media. Many B2B companies are challenged by the idea of creating content, but there are enough resources and examples of compelling content that marketers running blogs will publish posts that make a difference in their traffic.

3. Social Media Lead Generation Taken Seriously
Many B2B companies will launch dedicated programs to generate leads through social media, and they will succeed. As more B2B companies take this approach to adding real, measurable results to their social media efforts, the easier it is for C-Suite executive to take social media seriously. This doesn’t just need to apply for direct sales, but companies that have well-established processes for sharing leads in a variety of sales channels can also benefit from social media lead generation. Every stage of the buying process benefits from the kind of better educated customer that results from significant social media content efforts.

4. Email Grows Despite Its Reported Demise
As the platform that keeps getting called out for its continued expiration is stronger than ever. Email newsletter drive traffic and results and will do more of the same in 2012. Marketers who send email will get better results by sending email more frequently. Email is still a viable content sharing option with your colleagues. And inboxes support growing social networks with both a LinkedIn plug-in for Outlook and one for Gmail by Rapportive.

5. B2B Marketers Expand Social Media Followers
Traditionally B2B marketers kept their social media follower counts to a minimum, due to their limited customer base and prospect profiles. This coming year they will discover the benefits of building greater reach through their social profiles. Between the benefits of social search, a wider social graph and the necessity of a broader audience in adjacent industries will be apparent.

6. Social Media Treehuggers Lie Down in Front of Bulldozers
One sign that social media is maturing for B2B companies is that softer social media activities and metrics will no longer be tolerated. Brand awareness through social media is not a sustainable activity. The social media purists, or treehuggers, will lie down in front of the business bulldozers and try to insist on softer approaches to social media execution. Don’t listen to them. Conversation, engagement and sharing are great, but generating leads and sales are okay too. They allow a business to continue to stay in business.

7. Measurement of ROI Can No Longer Be Ignored
Just because it may be hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Measuring the ROI of social media requires you to adequately bucket the expenses required to drive the results. This also means you need to have results that can be measured in dollars. Leads, which is a proxy for sales, can be used for the return portion. These calculations can be different for every B2B company, and you need access to data that you may not have access to now, but in the end it will demonstrate the success of social media, in business terms, in 2012.

8. Mobile Strategies Catch Up to Reality
As each mobile device is released, it sells more than its predecessor. This will continue in 2012 and we will get closer and closer to the day the mobile web dominates B2B site traffic. B2B companies are on course to develop their mobile strategies so they can move forward with their customers. If every B2B marketer took their smart phone out of their pocket and suffered through their own website, this really would drive the creation of mobile-friendly sites.

9. It is the Beginning of the End for Twitter as a Social Network
The role of Twitter will change in 2012. This is the beginning of its reduction of importance for B2B companies and their customers and prospects. Partly driven by its limited adoption (8% of US Adults) and partly driven by its new focus as a discovery platform for new users, Twitter will become more a place to go for news and information and less a social network. It’s minimalistic approach and reluctance to add features will ultimately be its undoing.

10. Social Media Advertising Gets Results
All social platforms have advertising components that let B2B marketers expand their reach and get their content in front of their prospects and customers. As more B2B companies show success with these methods, these auction style bids will get more expensive. They will still be affordable in 2012, and will gain popularity.

11. Social Media Adoption No Longer Driven by Hobbyists
A funny thing happened on the way to social media adoption for B2B companies. Marketers who were passionate about social media and had fun keeping up with the latest platforms and over-shared with all the other early adopters have moved on. Many work for agencies, technology companies and startups. The irony is that those currently responsible for managing social media at many B2B companies are those who initially didn’t care about this communication revolution. They got left behind by those that did. And in 2012 these are people who will be most responsible for the broad support of social media in their businesses.

12. Social Media Supports Offline Activities
As social media becomes a key component in the marketing mix in 2012, it will become an important driver for offline activities like trade shows and direct mail. They will not be competing for the same budget resources, but will be part of a coordinated plan to improve results of these traditional tactics.

Let us know what you think of our predictions, and if you have any of your own. No matter what happens in 2012, it will be an awesome year for B2B marketers who are expanding their use of social media to provide business value.

Before we publish our 2012 B2B Social Media Predictions, we wanted to review of predictions for 2011, and see how the year turned out for B2B marketers and their adoption for social media. In general it seems that some B2B companies started moving forward with social media initiatives, but many of these conservative-minded companies did not embrace it with the gusto of their B2C cousins. Read on for the details.

1. Mobile, Mobile, Mobile
Mobile continued to grow, as expected, and some B2B companies began experimenting with different mobile tactics, including QR codes, but B2B companies did not focus on making their websites mobile friendly.

2. Open APIs Support Information Portability
Some applications provided API access for their customers to use their data in more powerful ways, but this was not fully utilized by B2B companies for better reporting and analysis.

3. Collect, Analyze and Visualize Data
With the explosion of infographics as content both on the web and in mainstream publications, you could almost call 2011 the Year of the Infographic. But B2B companies did not take this to heart and incorporate data visualization principles into their business reporting. We still saw lots of line graphs and pie charts on people’s desks.

4. Share Compelling Stories
Successful B2B companies who understood the value of storytelling made a bigger connection with their customers, although many companies are still trying to break out of their product-based shells.

5. Continued Growth of Social Search
The growth of social search was huge in 2011 and B2B marketers learned the value of incorporating their social graph into business networks. Google+ is an important part of this growth, but leveraging the large number of connections on Facebook and LinkedIn is key as well.

6. Expanded Forums of Social Communications
It is hard to determine the success of these forums, but some like Focus.com certainly increased their prominence in 2011. This expertise site features more than 1 million members and over 5,000 business and technology experts asking and answering questions.

7. The Year of Conversions
2011 was the very early stages of social media conversions for B2B companies. Some began laying the ground work for this to happen in the coming year.

8. Customer Service is More Social Than Marketing
This was one of the huge advances in social media for B2B companies. Many companies understood that they needed to listen for and respond to customer service requests on social channels.

9. Daily Deals and Group Buying Change Pricing Models
With so much upheaval in the daily deals space, including sustainability questions about Groupon’s business model and copycat offers in the B2B space, it remains to be seen if daily deals will have any effect long term. It did not in 2011.

10. Social Media will be More Accepted in the Enterprise
Some of the most social B2B enterprise companies, like Dell, Cisco and Intel, continued to make social media an important component of the way they do business, but for many large organizations, there is still some reluctance to “go social.”

11. Companies with Limited Results Pull Back from Social Media
For some companies that did not see huge wins with social media, they re-focused their marketing efforts on tactics that have been successful in the past, like pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising and trade shows.

What are your thoughts on how these predictions came to pass for B2B companies and social media in 2011?