Despite its airy title, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans is anything but a lightweight treatment of this topic. At roughly 340 pages of text plus another 42 pages of worksheets, this is a meaty book, but the end result of following Dave’s hour-a-day guide is a solidly justified, strategic social media marketing plan. This isn’t a tactical, do-this-on-Facebook-and-then-that-on-Twitter type of roadmap either, but rather a sequence of exercises to explore, monitor, justify, plan and measure a social media program.

While many types of marketing and PR pros will find value in the book, it is aimed primarily at mid-level marketers (entry-level staff will lack the business acumen to pull this off, while senior executives will delegate it) at midsize to large organizations, possibly in b2b but more likely in the b2c space.

Author Dave Evans (@evansdave) once worked as a systems analyst for the Voyager deep space exploration program with the Jet Propulsion Laboratories/NASA. Yes, this really is rocket science. From there, as Strategy Director GSD&M IdeaCity, he developed integrated communications programs for clients like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Southwest Airlines, AARP, the PGA Tour, Chili’s and other big brands. Later, he founded his own marketing technology consultancy. He’s a ClickZ columnist, frequent speaker, and has served on advisory boards for ad:tech and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. In short, he’s an extremely smart guy, though with an analytics-heavy, big organization background that shows through in this book.

The book begins with a fascinating trip through the early days of the web and the foundations of social media. Evans reminds us that the web grew from approximately 6,000 sites in 1992 to one million websites by the mid-nineties. One million websites. How quaint that number now seems! (Google currently indexes more than 10 billion sites.) Spam email led to a consumer backlash over unwanted advertising and the rise of ad-voidance. Technologies such as the iPod, DVRs, pop-up blockers, do-not-call registries and spam filters have empowered consumers to take control over the commercial messages they see. Marketers can no longer rely on interrupting prospective customers in order to get their attention; they need to earn it by producing content that people want and then making that content findable when buyers are searching.

Evans also makes an incredibly strong case for social media participation: “Your customers are already talking about you. The fact that you aren’t participating is your implicit endorsement of whatever it is that they are saying…You cannot choose whether or not your customers will see you on the social web. They will, because they will put you there. You can only choose whether or not you will join them there.” By not participating in social media, you embolden your critics while ignoring your fans. Research shows that two out of three word-of-mouth conversations reference a brand, product or service—and these conversations are increasingly moving online through social media.

From there, Evans’ hour-a-day plan is laid out, starting with an exploration of the different forms of social content (blogs, video, podcasting etc.). consumer-generated media, touchpoint analysis, measurement and metrics, planning a campaign (ugh, social media campaign?), using branded social media platforms, and social media monitoring, wrapping it all up with preparing and presenting your social media plan. This makes the book an excellent guide to developing a social media plan and justifying resource allocation in a large organization environment, if somewhat short on actual execution.

There are a few questionable statements in the book. For one, Evans cites the notoriously anti-business Wikipedia as “an example of why social media is useful to you as a marketer.” At another point, the author advises readers to spend 5-10 minutes “surveying” YouTube and “if you’ve never transferred content from a digital camera to the Internet, take a break now and try it.” Uh, at this point, if you don’t know what’s on YouTube or how to upload a file, perhaps social media marketing isn’t your ideal career choice.

One risk of writing a book like this is the speed at which the social media landscape is changing; though Social Media Marketing came out less than two years ago, at the time of publication the now long-dead social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia was still active, and MySpace still drew five times as much traffic as Facebook.

He writes that participating in social media is essential for building trust with customers, then insists on developing robust ROI calculations for any social activity; which is it? The book focuses primarily on using social media to engage in brand conversations with consumers; certainly a critical application, but little acknowledgment is given to other uses of social media marketing including content sharing, media outreach and influencing the influencers. Evans claims that “there are so many good reasons to buy a hybrid other than pure fuel economy” without saying what any of those reasons are; perhaps the sporty styling? Finally, at one point, he actually recommends using an intern for social media data collection and metrics. Argh.

Still, quibbles aside, Evans is a sophisticated writer who brings great depth of insight his topic. He wisely notes that “on the social web, you can’t directly control the conversation. Instead, you influence it by setting an appropriate expectation and then delivering on it.” The book covers an incredibly wide range of social media sites, including some that many readers may not be familiar with. For those who haven’t read The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, Evans provides a concise yet workable explanation of the Net Promoter Score developed by Fred Reichheld. The book is rich in case study examples from companies like Southwest Airlines and Harley Davidson. Noting the importance of active participation, Evans writes:

“The social web demands an active presence…if your profile isn’t up to date, if you’re not commenting, if you’re not making connections, you don’t exist. ‘Lights on, but no one home’ and you won’t get the results that you otherwise might. That seems obvious, but I point it out because I see a lot of profiles across a lot of social networks…evidently abandoned and now home to what look like virtual zombies taking up residence in so many empty storefronts.”

Regarding urgency: “Whether attracting and retaining key employees or attracting and retaining key customers, part of the challenge you face in tapping the social web is getting it done today.” While recognizing that measuring ROI from social media is challenging and requires skill and judgment, Evans provides a rich set of tools and models for keeping tabs on business results.

In short, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day is an outstanding guide to social media program design and measurement for brand managers, product managers and marketing directors at any firm or organization large enough to have people talking about your brand online in significant numbers. Sole practitioners and managers at smaller companies can also get some value from it, but will generally be interested more in simplified planning with a greater emphasis on execution.

The B2B Marketing Zone has really taken off over the past few months with the recent addition of numerous great bloggers.  For those not familiar with it, the B2B Marketing Zone (a.k.a. the BMZ) was officially launched a year ago as the first content aggregation hub for leading business-to-business bloggers. It provides b2b marketers, trade industry journalists, analysts and other subscribers with a single subscription point for all of the best thought leadership content in b2b marketing and PR. I thought I would take advantage of the power of the system to let you know about these new sources, what topics they tend to write about and some of their recent top posts.

SazBean (Social Network Analytics Measurement Social Media)
Sarah Worsham (@sazbean)

1. Add WordStream’s Advanced Keyword Tools to Your Website for free, June 8, 2010
2. Pricing Based on Customer Expectations, May 26, 2010
3. Should You Use Foursquare for Your Business?, June 7, 2010

CK’s B2B Blog (SMS Mobile Marketing Mix Audience)
Christina “CK” Kerley (@CKsays)

1. Great B2B Marketing Stats (in a GREAT format!), June 13, 2010
2. B2Bs, The Purchasing Patterns of Your Buyers Are Dramatically Changing. Unless You No Longer Want Their Money, This Means That YOU Must Change, Too., March 18, 2010
3. B2B, Buzz & Brand ROI: Creating Customers That Create (MORE!) Customers., June 8, 2010
4. B2B Social Media: Why Do Business Professionals Use Social Media? (Slideshow), February 19, 2010

Writing on the Web (Ning Advertorial Business Blogging Online Marketing Linkedin Landing Page)
Patsi Krakoff (@Patsiblogsquad)

1. Content Marketing Results: Landing Pages Rule, July 12, 2010
2. 9 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Smart Professionals, June 10, 2010
3. How to Convert Readers into Clients on Your Blog, May 26, 2010
4. Why Use Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn for Content Marketing?, June 8, 2010

B2B Voices (Trade Youtube Twitter Leads Sales)
Aaron Pearson (@apearson) + others

1. What B2B communicators can learn from the 2010 World Cup, June 14, 2010
2. Looking for the Method Behind Your Competitors’ Madness, April 5, 2010
3. Why Digital Media Outreach Shouldn’t Be Ignored, April 28, 2010
4. Measuring Outcomes in B2B Social Media – It’s Time to Start, May 9, 2010

Follow the Lead (Gatekeeper Cold Calling Sales Social)
Matthew Schwartz (@mpsjourno)

1. The Sweet Spot: We’re all ‘smarketers’ now, July 8, 2010
2. When social media ‘will be like air’, May 25, 2010

Marketing Finger (Resources Studies Social Media Consulting)
Andrew Spoeth (@andrewspoeth)

1. Social Media Statistics for B2B Marketers, June 21, 2010
2. Seth Godin Talks of the Lizard Brain, March 3, 2010

Dianna Huff – B2B Marcom (Small Business Newsletter Email Campaign Facebook SEO Budget Writing)
Dianna Huff (@diannahuff)

1. 7 Tips for Getting People to Your B2B Blog, June 4, 2010
2. Your Website is Worth More than a Cup of Coffee, May 5, 2010
3. 7 Old Fashioned Marketing Tips that Set You Apart, June 14, 2010

Biznology (Search Engine Public Relations Social Media Mobile Marketing Promotion Transparency)
Mike Moran (@MikeMoran) + others

1. What’s a Facebook fan worth?, June 30, 2010
2. T-Mobile Curates Web Content, June 29, 2010
3. Self-promotion, Internet style, June 10, 2010

What Works (Vendor Government PR Trends Spending Release)
Bob Scheier (@BobScheier)

1. What B2B Readers Want, Circa 2010, February 2, 2010
2. Time to Kill the Press Release?, July 8, 2010
3. Skill Set For Content Marketing: Number Crunching and A Gut Feel, March 4, 2010

CeeKue (Promotion Word of Mouth B2C CRM Google Content Tips)
Hans de Groot (@Ceekue)

1. Facebook For CRM, Monday, July 19, 2010
2. The End Of Google Search Is Near, Wednesday, July 7, 2010

B2B Internet Marketing Strategies (Amazon Viral Marketing Plan Aggregator Pricing Examples Strategy Personalization Measure Ads)
Chas Cooper (@Chas_Cooper)

1. Google’s Next Big Thing, April 24, 2010
2. Debunking the Viral Coefficient, May 15, 2010

B2B Memes (Advertorial Ethics Publisher Magazine Intent Advertising Media Article)
John Bethune (@johnbethune)

1. We’ve Got Algorithms. Who Needs Editors?, Thursday, July 1, 2010
2. Content’s Evil Twin: Advertorial, Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Mi6Agency Marketing (Emarketing CMO Demographics Case Study Audience Twitter Aging)
Chris Herbert (@B2Bspecialist)

1. The Mi6 Chart Toppers, May 2010, Friday, June 18, 2010
2. Are You and Your Customers Hungry for Social Media?, Wednesday, June 9, 2010
3. What was Linkedin Thinking?, Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Paul Gillin (Event Marketing Communities Forecast Loyalty Custom Publishing Direct Marketing Event)
Paul Gillen (@pgillin)

1. How to Calculate Social Marketing ROI, June 24, 2010
2. B2B Blogging Excellence, May 25, 2010
3. The Power of B2B Communities, May 27, 2010

Earnest on B2B (Cross-Sell Acquisition Target Campaign Differentiation Statistics Experience)
James Wood (@earnestagency) + others

1. Vital statistics for every B2B marketer, March 16, 2010
2. Vital Statistics for B2B Marketers – the video, June 10, 2010

Reputation to Revenue (Youtube Broadcast Course Organic Differentiation Media Promotion White Paper Trust)
Rob Leavitt (@robleavitt)

1. The lure of cheap content in B2B marketing, April 26, 2010
2. Social media and thought leadership: The virtuous circle for B2B marketing, March 11, 2010
3. The hard questions about social media for B2B solutions providers, June 11, 2009
4. Blog as hub, site as spoke, June 23, 2009

Inbound Marketing Automation Blog (Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Efficiency Measurement Sales Process)
Axel Kuhn and Eric Goldman (@gossamar)

1. The Process of Inbound Marketing Automation, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
2. B2B Sales Lead Generation using SMM, Monday, July 19, 2010

Selling to Big Companies (Sales Amazon Books Leads B2B Training Prospect)
Jill Konrath (@jillkonrath)

1. Are You Thinking About Being More Helpful to Your Frazzled Prospects?, June 24, 2010
2. Why Asking About Your Prospect’s Budget Can be Bad for Business, April 9, 2010
3. Hey Small Biz Readers: This One’s For You!, April 30, 2010

Sales Leads Dynamics (Cold Calling Consulting Network Effectiveness Contact Lead)
Peter Helmer

1. To get a referral from you do I have to paint a picture? Yup., Thursday, April 29, 2010
2. Hate Cold Calling? You May Not Have a Choice., Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ad Your Comment Here (Barriers User-Generated Ads Article Outreach Product Channel Relationship)
Kate Brodock and Anya Woods (@Othersidegroup)

1. How Much do you have to use Facebook and Twitter to Really be Effective?, May 26, 2010
2. 5 Ways to Attract People to Your Content Before They Even Click, Thursday, April 15, 2010

Of course, this got me to wondering what the system thought were my top posts and top topics.  Here are my top 10 posts and topics:

1. Best Social Media Stats and Market Research of 2009, March 31, 2010
2. (Almost) 100 (of the) Best Social Media Marketing Blog Posts and Articles of 2009, February 1, 2010
3. 11 Myths of Social Media Marketing, May 24, 2010
4. How to Launch a Successful Blog in 12 Weeks: Lessons from Webbiquity, May 4, 2010
5. Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing, April 19, 2010
6. 6 Ways To Spread Thought Leadership Content (Without Blogging), February 3, 2010
7. How to Find Killer Topics for Blog Posts, April 12, 2010
8. How to Get Coverage in Blogs – Really, March 22, 2010
9. Social Media is Simpler Than You Think, March 29, 2010
10. 7 Reasons Every Business Needs to be on Twitter, February 10, 2010

Topics

1. SEM & SEO & PPC & CTR
2. SWOT
3. Business Blogging
4. Buzz
5. Adwords
6. Google
7. Optimization
8. Statistics
9. Microsite
10. ROI

As always, I would highly recommend subscribing to the B2B Marketing Zone to keep a steady flow of information from the more than 60 top sources we have participating in the site, and would love your feedback!

Guest post by Ajay Goel.

It’s that time again – the dog days of summer for email marketers when recipients are eager to trade in the cold blue hue of their computers for some warm summer rays. When more emails will go unopened, because chances are, recipients are either away on vacation, preparing for vacation, or simply wanting to be on vacation!

So how can you make your email marketing messages matter to office workers counting the minutes before happy hour on sidewalk patios? Or busy moms and dads whisking their kids from one outdoor activity to the next? Email marketing service JangoMail came up with some tips you may find helpful.

• • Tap into how your products will make summer activities even more fun. Barbeques, campfires, hiking trips—each presents an opportunity to reach out to recipients with deals on food, apparel, cookery and other products your recipients already want.

• • Keep your messages breezy and brief. Emphasize warm and cheerful photos and images over text. Make your text large and colorful. Papyrus’ photo of a small girl stretching on a pristine beach immediately draws one in, reminding us to celebrate life—and buy cards for those birthdays, weddings, and showers!

• • Hook into the viral effect of email by offer up great summer deals. Include built-in incentives for recipients to share your coupons as Six Flags Great Adventure did for its “buy one, get one free” campaign.

• • You don’t need to be Coppertone to reach people during the summer months. Even B2B companies can “summer-up” as Alcatel-Lucent did when touting application enablement, with one image featuring the words “open has value” floating over a woman relaxing on a green, inviting field.

• • If possible, emphasize events recipients can go to. Whether it’s a sale or trade show, hone in on the social elements – create a visual picture of the food, drink, service and good times with others they can expect. They want to get out of the house or office anyway. Show them why they should come to you when they do.

• • And don’t forget! Take advantage of your reporting and analytics to track how your recipient behaviors are changing with the season. Are they opening your messages earlier in the day? Are they opening them at all? Capturing the essence of the summer also means adjusting to the season’s pace. Your recipients will show you how.

Ajay Goel is CEO of JangoMail, an email marketing company that helps businesses reach customers and prospects in a highly reliable and personalized way.

Since the early days of the Internet, b2b purchasing has seemed like an area ripe for the efficiency and transparency improvements the web could bring. The theory has been that b2b buying processes are labor-intensive and inefficient, with heavy reliance on phone calls, emails and even face to face meetings. Large purchases, and often even small ones, involved negotiations conducted with imperfect and limited information, leaving both sides wondering if they really got the best deal. Web-based systems could improve transparency and efficiency, significantly and simultaneously reducing both procurement costs for buyers and selling costs for vendors.

However, problems with this theory quickly became apparent. While online marketplaces worked well for commodity purchases like office and maintenance supplies, they were viewed skeptically by buyers and sellers alike for more strategic purchases. Vendors didn’t want to reveal pricing and specifications to their competitors, and in many cases buyers didn’t want their own competitors to be aware of what they were buying (as it could tip off competitors to new product designs or process improvements) or even the terms they were getting.

As a result, the dramatic forecasts for b2b ecommerce revenue growth from Gartner and other analyst groups never materialized. Some of the market pioneers flamed out: Commerce One, founded in 1994, went public in 1999 and saw it’s stock price soar from $20 to more than $600 per share before the dot-com bust. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2004, and the remains of the company were sold off in 2006. VerticalNet, founded just a year after Commerce One, was another classic dot-com-boom-to-bust story. Though the company was never profitable, revenue grew rapidly and the company’s market cap topped $12 billion in early 2000 on revenues of just over $100 million. The company was acquired by an Italian cement maker in 2007 for $15 million.

Ariba is one of the few b2b ecommerce survivors from the dot-com era. Though the company has fallen a long way from its dot-com era $40 billion market capitalization, it’s still in business, posting respectable revenue and modest profits.

But today, a new breed of vendors is determined to leave behind the hype-to-bust path of early b2b ecommerce and online marketplace trailblazers and improve b2b purchasing practices through social media and other Web 2.0 technologies. Here are five companies that exemplify these new approaches.

TradeKey b2b marketplace: sort of a web-based version of a bazaar or street market, TradeKey is an online, global b2b marketplace which connects traders to wholesalers, buyers, importers & exporters, manufacturers and distributors in over 220 countries. With 27 categories from agricultural to transportation products and nearly 10 12 million visitors per month, TradeKey connects an incredible range of buyers and sellers. Looking to buy commercial carpeting or USB drives? Want to offload some extra fishing lures or folding doors? This is the place to do it. TradeKey is sort of the b2b version of eBay or craigslist, with the closest analogues on the b2b side being sites like Alibaba or VertMarkets. But the site’s busy though highly visual design sets it apart, and TradeKey was the first online b2b marketplace to earn ISO 9001 Quality Management System and ISO 27001 Information Security System certifications.

FYIndOut.com b2b social media hub: billing itself as “the central place to find and promote business information, applications, and services,” FYIndOut.com provides an environment where b2b vendors can list their products and services for free (they pay only for interested leads) and interact with prospects, while buyers can research sellers and post their own reviews. The site covers a broad array of products and services from accounting software to web conferencing services, and was among the first b2b sites to introduce social review elements similar to Angie’s List or Yelp on the consumer side.

ChoiceVendor business-to-business vendor reviews: similar to FYIndOut.com but with a different business model—rather than generating revenue from providers, ChoiceVendor’s revenue plan is to “offer certain features by subscription to users who are seeking vendors.” Both sites enable b2b vendors to register and list their products for free, and buyers to review at least some of this information at no charge. So whether you’re a b2b seller or a buyer researching vendors through social signals, the best site to use between FYIndOut.com and ChoiceVendor is…both!

GetApp.com business software portal: unlike broad-based b2b market sites, GetApp.com is focused on a specific niche—business software, SaaS and cloud-based applications. The company’s goal is to become a global online channel for SaaS and PaaS (platform as a service) b2b application providers. GetApp.com is more like (though more broadly based than) SaleForce.com’s AppXchange or the recently launched Google App Marketplace than a general b2b marketplace. The site got some nice coverage from TechCrunch earlier this year, which stated that buyers can “find, compare and select from a wide range of business applications, organized into categories by IT and business need and by industry. The search functionality is pretty powerful and allows visitors to filter results down to a single vendor or enterprise-grade application. To assist buyers from a neutral point of view, GetApp offers user-generated reviews and a free personalized assessment tool as well as a number of guides on the subject.”

Resource Nation business resource marketplace: this site connects business buyers with providers of a wide range of common b2b products and services, from email maketing and payroll outsourcing to phone systems, laser printers and steel buildings. Rather than relying on social signals, all vendors are pre-screened by credit reporting agency Experian.  The website also includes useful articles and guides for buyers. Approved vendors receive qualified leads for a fee. Resource Nation is somewhat similar to BuyerZone, but with less of a focus on price as the sole purchase criteria. This works well for commodity-type procurement (e.g. CD/DVD duplication or mailing services) but shouldn’t be relied upon as the sole source for more involved, strategic purchases like enterprise software or a PR agency.

Despite the challenges of online b2b commerce (e.g. will customers really share honest opinions in an open forum?) and past failures, a new breed of online b2b marketplace sites is determined to make it work. They bring to the task unique approaches and mindfulness of what worked, and what didn’t, for the groundbreakers in this space. The key will be to provide value to b2b purchasers. Vendors will flock to any site that is embraced by buyers.

Disclosure: I’m an unpaid advisor to FYIndOut.com and a (so far) unpaid affiliate of Resource Nation (just recently signed on). As for the other vendors highlighted here, I just think they are doing very interesting things in this space.

Optimizing a website by incorporating keywords into page titles, headlines, text, page URLs, image alt tags and internal links will help improve the position of a site in the search engines—but it’s only half the battle. As one of the posts linked below notes, “In Search Engine Optimization, things that are happening OFF of your site can be just as important (if not more so) than things happening ON your website.” Search engines look at on-site factors to determine relevance, but at external links to gauge authority.

So how do you get more links, without resorting to spammy or questionable tactics? Find out here in some of the best blog posts and articles about SEO link building of 2010 so far.

Nine Tools for Your Link-Building Toolkit by ClickZ

Julie Batten offers nine key elements to include in a link-building toolkit–such as lists of targeted keywords and directories–to make link-building efforts more efficient and productive.

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Page Rank via LinkedIn by VibeLog

In this brief but useful post, Jessica Nielsen explains five ways, such as crafting a relevant “professional headline,” to use LinkedIn to improve your company site’s Pagerank.

Raiding Your Competitor’s Backlinks by Internet Marketing for Business Owners

How to quickly find and replicate backlinks to competitor’s site to improve your site’s search engine ranking.

71 Technical Factors For Backlink Analysis (From 30 Link Building Experts) – Part 2 by Search Engine Land

For those who have waaaay too much time to spend on link building, Garrett French walks through the URL, on-page and sitewide factors to use in backlink profile analysis. Includes helpful commentary from a range of SEO experts like Eric Enge and Aaron Wall.

The 30-minute-a-day link building plan by iMedia Connection

Another piece from Garret French, this one outlining his recommended link building plan, starting with linkable asset identification: “common linkable assets include webinars, job listing pages, PDFs, blogs, forums, subject matter experts, deals, news, a community participant, contests, podcasts, and free tools.”

Top 100+ Link Building Resources by Vertical Measures Blog

An extensive list of blogs, tools, forums and other resources to assist with link building knowledge and tactics.

Simple tips for improving your website’s links by iMedia Connection

Ramsay Crooks presents guidelines for building quality links as well as low-value link building tactics to avoid.

Another Big Roundup of Link Tools by Search Engine Land

The always brilliant Debra Mastaler presents a helpful list of backlink analysis tools plus mini-reviews of several “non-standard, outside of the box link tools like Smarter Search.

Ultimate Guide to Link Building by Agent SEO

Jacob Stoops provides an excellent tutorial, beginning with explaining the process and importance of link building then stepping through different tactics and key sites of different types (directories, social bookmarking, article submission, etc.).

Build Links Backwards by Search Engine Journal

Rather than begging for links or hoping your content will appeal to a publisher, Jennifer Van Iderstyne suggests throwing the process into reverse — contacting great sites (blogs, educators, news sites, associations) and asking what type of content they would be interested in linking to.

SEO & Social Media Track: Show Me The Links: Real Life Link Building by Bruce Clay

In this guest post, Dana Lookadoo engagingly live-blogs a session from SMX Seattle featuring tips from several link building experts including Roger Montii (use target searching, don’t rely solely on competitor backlinks), Arnie Kuenn (targeted email requests, content development and promotion), Chris Bennett (infographics), Debra Mastaler (content syndication, guest blogging) and more.

The Art (or Science) of Building Links by Search Engine Watch

In her first post for SEW, Nichola Stott compares link building to expanding one’s professional network: factors like reputation, connections and relevance all matter in both realms.

Google’s Recommendations for Organic Linkbuilding by 10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Strategy Blog

In this short post, Marc Purtell shares Google’s recommendations for organic link building, which basically come down to: produce quality content.

Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed by Graywolf’s SEO Blog

This case study puts Google’s linking advice (see post above) to the test. Is great content really all you need?

Recent surveys have shown that while businesses are embracing social media in droves, many are doing so without any real strategy in place. Without a strategy, there may be no clear ownership, or definition of success, or measurement, or integration with other marketing and PR efforts—all of which can lead eventually to wasted time and effort, abandoned blogs and Facebook pages, and even the erroneous conclusion that social media doesn’t work for us.

Yet developing such a strategy can be challenging; where does one start? Most of us have, through the classroom, TV shows or somewhere in life, learned about the reporter’s questions: who, what, when, where and why. Just as these questions are critical to solid journalism, so they can be invaluable to social media strategy development.

Who: the first who question is who will be in charge of social media efforts? Responsibility should be placed as high as possible—with the CEO ideally (think Tony Hsieh, or Jonathan Schwartz before the sale to Oracle). If not possible, then responsibility should rest with an executive in marketing, PR, product management or customer service. If absolutely necessary, this leadership can be outsourced, but only as part of a close long-term relationship. Who else will be involved? In all but the smallest companies, there are often multiple individuals tweeting, networking and even contributing to the company blog. In these situations, it’s imperative to have a social media policy in place, encourage subject matter experts (SME’s) to share their unique knowledge, and remember that everyone who participates is acting as a public face for the company—social media isn’t a job for an intern.

What: what type of information will you use to attract a social media following? In b2c, contests, games, apps and coupons are popular content. In the b2b world, thought leadership content is key, but this can take different forms depending on your resources and style: blogs are the most common media, but video, podcasting, online presentations and articles are other ways to share information and education with prospects. What also refers to subject matter—in b2b, that usually means reporting on research, offering a unique perspective on industry developments, solving problems, providing how-to guides, or presenting other information that is of value to your audience and positions your people as the experts.

When: how often will you write new blog posts? Tweet? Update your company’s Facebook page? The answers will be different depending on your company’s resources, the amount of content you have to work with, the number of employees involved in your social media efforts, the specific social media tool and other factors. In general, more is better, and most companies could probably benefit from greater social media activity, not less. There is a risk of over-doing things, particularly on Twitter, but as long as your focus is on adding value rather than self-promotion, few followers are likely to complain. Most companies find that the amount of time they need to devote to social media, particularly to engagement, starts out modestly and increases over time as their blog readership, Twitter following, Facebook fan base and other groups grow.

Where: which social media sites and tools will you use? There’s no question that blogs (which usually mean WordPress), Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have emerged as the “big four” social media venues. According to recent research, these are used by 70% or more of those active in social media (no other single tool was used by more than half of respondents). Twitter is probably the closest thing to a universal social media tool for business, while Facebook is huge in b2c, and LinkedIn is indispensable on the b2b side. These are the tools to start with, but by no means should a social media strategy be limited to these: depending again on talent, resources, corporate personality etc., other tools to take into account include YouTube and Vimeo (video sharing); SlideShare (presentations); social bookmarking sites like Digg, delicious and Propeller; online forums (there are specific forums for almost any industry); Ning (for creating your own community or finding others to engage with); PitchEngine (social PR); and social profile sites like VisualCV and PeoplePond, just to name a few.

Why: possibly the most important question of all. What is your company aiming to accomplish through social media? What are your goals? How will you measure them? There are at least a hundred ways to measure social media success and more than a hundred tools for monitoring them. While measuring social media ROI is difficult to do with any precision, it’s important to use what measures you can to help gauge the impact and continually improve your efforts.

Crafting a social media strategy is vital to achieving success and avoiding wasted efforts. It’s a challenging exercise, but one that can made easier by thinking differently—such as like a reporter.

Hard to believe that this blog, officially launched just a few months ago, has already surpassed 100 posts. But here we are! Thank you for reading, and without further ado, below are the 10 most-viewed posts on this blog to date. Some of the entries are surprising, but life can be like that. These are the posts that readers have “voted” as the best by their traffic so far.

10. How to Write an Ad Agency RFP

This one surprised me. Small companies don’t bother with agency RFPs (nor should they) and even mid-sized companies use them less today than in the past. But if your company wants to use an RFP process to help in selecting a marketing agency, this post will help you craft one that meets your needs without driving the responding agencies crazy.

9. Social Media is Simpler Than You Think

A post that explains why “social media marketing is simpler than you’ve probably been led to believe. At its core, social media is not about doing new things, but about doing things you’ve always done as a business person differently.”

8. (Almost) 100 (of the) Best Social Media Marketing Blog Posts and Articles of 2009

A bookmarkable collection of some of the best thinking about social media last year, grouped into specific topic areas such as “Social Media Measurement and ROI,” “Social Media Statistics and Research” and “Social Media Marketing Strategy, Tactics and Best Practices.”

7. What is Webbiquity? How to Be Everywhere Online

The inaugural post on Webbiquity explains the concept of web presence optimization—how websites, blogs, SEM, SEO, interactive PR, content marketing, social networking, reputation management and social media can work together to make a company or individual omnipresent online for their targeted description or value statement.

6. How to Write an Effective Business Blog

A Blogging 101 type article for anyone who wants to get started blogging on the right foot, and avoid the missteps and false starts common in the blogosphere.

5. Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing

How social media is a reflection of and response to broader shifts in the market and culture that make it increasingly difficult (and irrelevant) to try to buy attention, but critical to earn it. For example, brands no longer control their messages—their customers do. But social media provides marketers with the tools to monitor, participate in and help shape the conversations.

4. The One Effective Use of Facebook for B2B Marketing

Given the dominance of Facebook on the social media landscape, it’s not surprising that this most is among the four most-read pieces on this blog. It’s a bit surprising however that it didn’t stir up more controversy; maybe I’m right about this?

3. Best Social Media Stats and Market Research of 2009

It’s heartening to know that as a data junky, I’m not alone. Wondering how the demographics of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook users compare? Which social networking site 80% of companies plan to use a primary recruiting tool this year? What percentage of consumers and b2b buyers read blogs? You’ll find those answers and more here.

2. How to Choose a Marketing Agency (Ad Agency)

I’m really surprised by this one. As with the how-to-write-an-RFP post noted earlier, this outlines a solid, traditional process for mid-sized companies but overkill for small firms.

Drumroll please…#1 with nearly 3X as many visits as #10 above is…

1. 11 Myths of Social Media Marketing

Social media is only for the young, it’s free, we can hire an intern to do it, and eight other myths destroyed. Well, at least some were destroyed; others sparked disagreement in the comments.

Now on the next 100 posts!

Though blogging provides significant business benefits (e.g. increasing a firm’s credibility and visibility in search), developing a blog isn’t the right move for every organization. The web is littered with abandoned blogs; according to Technorati, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs it tracks have been updated in the past four months, and just 50,000 to 100,000 blogs generate most of the page views. To illustrate these figures visually:

That’s a lot of writers trying to join a very small club. How do you get there? To make a blog really worthwhile—to join that elite 0.08% of successful blogs—requires (at least) the following six characteristics.

Curiosity. Successful business bloggers are interested in and knowledgeable about much more than just their own products and/or services. They study the bigger picture, keep up on trends, understand their customers’ issues and enjoy learning and sharing industry knowledge.

Passion. This is what makes a blog not just informative, but interesting. It brings life to the writing. It’s also a prerequisite for the persistence needed to keep writing, and making it interesting, long enough for the blog to really start getting traction and succeeding.

Organized thought. Whether you are sharing information primarily through writing, audio (podcasting) or video blogging, it all starts with the ability to tell a story, weave a narrative, or present an idea in an organized and coherent fashion.

Social skills. What separates blogs from other forms of writing (white papers, articles, e-books, etc.) is the interactivity–blogs are meant to be conversations, not monologues. Good bloggers are social creatures; they link to other bloggers, write copy that attracts links, leave relevant comments on other blogs, respond to comments on their own blogs, and interact with other bloggers through other social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. The result is that other blogs and social networking sites become productive sources of blog traffic, as well as being helpful for search.

Patience. Even if you use best practices for a successful blog launch, building traffic still takes time. Why? The three primary sources of traffic to any website are direct visits, referrals (links) from other websites, and search. When a blog is new to the world, it doesn’t have high awareness to draw a lot of direct traffic, high credibility to attract links, or loads of content for search engines to index. It takes time to build that. Many bloggers fail at this point because they get discouraged and abandon their blogs. Many others succeed simply by being too stubborn to quit.

Commitment. To be successful, a blog must be continually updated and constantly promoted. This isn’t a “toe in the water” exercise (unless your plan is to join the 94.4% of abandoned blogs that unattractively litter the online landscape). Blogging is wasted effort unless you are willing to put in the time, even (especially) in the early ramp-up days when traffic seems disappointingly low, even when a post falls flat with readers, even when you expect tons of comments and get only a few (or none).

Blogging isn’t for everyone. But for those with passion, curiosity and determination, they can pay off by showcasing your company’s expertise, building its brand image and enhancing its search visibility in ways no ordinary corporate website can.

Guest post from the editors of RainToday.com.

Oily. Smarmy. Phony. Mendacious. Two-Faced…

Right or wrong, these words are often associated with salespeople. They are also the first words that come to mind for many consultants (along with images of the overly aggressive, overly slick, walking sales cliché) when they are told they need to sell.

While being salesy is ill-advised for almost any sales rep, it is particularly bad for consultants.

Buyers of products often say, “I don’t like the sales rep, but I can tune her out for the next few minutes and simply evaluate her product against the competition.”

Buyers of consulting evaluate the sellers. Why? The seller is often the service provider. The relationship does not end when the sale is completed – it is just beginning. Thus, the foundation of trust set up between the buyer and seller in the sales process is of paramount importance.

There is Nothing Wrong with Selling

Quite the contrary, the act of selling, when done well, adds a significant amount of value. A well-planned sales conversation can help even sophisticated buyers make smarter decisions.

And, you can be effective without sounding like a used car salesman. You can and should sell with high integrity, and high success, and do it without snake oil tactics.

In fact, we’re going to let you in on a little secret: you can apply the same skills that make you a great consultant to help you succeed in selling—all you need to do is sharpen them to apply them effectively.

As a Consultant You Already Have Many Skills You Need to Be Great at Sales

Here are four ways you can apply consulting skills to your selling process:

1. Sell as You Serve: Many consultants who have never sold think the purpose of selling is to part someone from their money at any cost. They believe that to be successful at selling, consultants must leave their values and everyday personalities at the door and adopt a sleazy persona and voice, one that would naturally say something like, “What’s it gonna take to get you into this shiny, red, pre-owned sports car today, ma’am?”

Nothing is further from the truth. The best rainmakers bring in new clients because they are no different when they sell their services than when they deliver their services.

Great consultants create better futures for their clients that the clients didn’t know were possible.

The best rainmakers meet mutually-set expectations over and over again, building trust, relationships, and confidence. The best rainmakers are ethical at all times.

The skills that make you a great consultant can make you a great rainmaker. Sales is about helping clients and prospects find solutions that solve their problems and help them succeed.

2. Sell to Need: Great consultants are masters at uncovering clients’ goals and challenges and helping them to make the changes necessary for success.

Great rainmakers are no different. However, many consultants feel uncomfortable making connections, uncovering needs, and working closely with people they don’t yet know well. Too often the first conversations go awry when they don’t need to.

The same skills you use to get to the root of your clients’ problems and develop solutions to help them meet their goals are the ones you can use to uncover prospects’ needs and propose winning solutions. You just need to recognize what you need to do and bring these skills out at the right time and in the right way.

3. Communicate the Value: Great consultants understand the value they provide to clients. They craft compelling solutions based on their clients’ unique needs, and communicate that value to clients clearly and articulately.

Selling is no different. You must learn to lead discussions that influence direction and outcomes, and you must advocate your services and communicate your value. Just like when you advocate new ideas to your clients when you work with them, you must be persuasive, confidence inspiring, and empathetic all at the same time when you sell to them.

4. Plan for Success: It’s been said that if you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will get you there.

Great consultants have a clear process that they follow. Each project has a specific objective, timeframe, budget, and resource allocation. Rainmaking is no different. Like consulting, selling is a process, and it’s waiting for you to master it.

Make the Transition from Consultant to Rainmaker

To help you figure out what that selling process should look like and to make the transition from consultant to rainmaker, we’ve written a free 27-page report, Selling Consulting Services: Forget Everything You Know About Sales and Begin to Sell Without Selling.

This report will give you a proven process you can use to start bringing in more new business now. Plus, you’ll learn:

• • How to avoid being “salesy” (which will actually lead to more sales)
• • A proven process that will get you started bringing in more new business today
• • How to uncover the full set of your clients’ needs (most sales advice only gives you half the story)
• • Whether or not cold calling is dead
• • The best kept secret in leading successful sales conversations

Download the Selling Consulting Services free report now.

Disclosure: As a consultant whose expertise is in helping clients with online marketing, social media and SEO — not selling — I know how difficult this can be for service providers. While RainToday.com has offered to pay me a small commission for anyone who signs up for their training program, I wouldn’t have published this post if I didn’t believe that this is an excellent program for talented but sales-challenged consultants.

While most businesses today have websites, the majority still don’t have blogs. While blogging isn’t right for every business, it does offer compelling benefits. Though the ultimate objective of either a website or blog is ultimately to drive increased sales, the two platforms have fundamentally distinct characteristics. Here are six key differences between business blogs and websites.

Website: static content
Blog: frequently updated content

Other than a few select areas (e.g., company news, upcoming events, prices), depending on the type of business, most of the content on your website stays pretty much the same for a long time. You don’t update your product features every day, the descriptions of your services stay pretty much the same, your hours of operation don’t change, your address doesn’t change unless you move the business (an infrequent event for most enterprises), and your “about the company” is only revised when major developments occur. Blogs, on the other hand, are updated frequently – generally one or more times weekly – with fresh content. The search engines have always favored fresh content, particularly Google with its latest Caffeine release. Certainly standard websites can rank well in search, but a blog provides an extra SEO kick and is more powerful at driving repeat visits.

Website: formal / professional tone
Blog: informal / conversational tone

For a variety of reasons, web copy generally reads more like official corporate communications, while blog copy seems more like someone just telling what he or she really thinks. One reason is the editing and review process; web copy often gets written, then reviewed by subject matter experts, then reviewed by management, then reviewed by upper management, then reviewed by legal, then proofread, then glanced over and fine-tuned once more before publishing. Each blog post, on the other hand, is usually written by one person on a tight deadline.

Website: broadcast
Blog: dialog

Website content is one-way, one-to-many communication. It’s like speaking with a microphone. Thanks to commenting, a blog is (at least potentially) more of a two-way conversation, like using a telephone. On your website, visitors are information consumers. On a blog, they can also be contributors.

Website: transactional
Blog: educational

Company websites are generally designed to get visitors to take some specific type of action: buy a product, download a white paper, call or email for more information, sign up for a newsletter, visit an establishment, do something usually designed to lead either directly or indirectly to a sale. Though blogs may also have calls to action, these tend to be more subtle. From a business standpoint, a blog is more like PR than marketing or sales; it’s purpose is generally to build credibility, enhance a firm’s brand and image, and establish a position of thought leadership and expertise.

Website: products and services
Blog: industry and customer issues

In terms of topics, a website is usually inward-looking; it provides information about a company, it’s products, services, unique value proposition, pricing, hours of operation, location, sales channel, partnerships and other information. A blog is more outward-facing. Posts deal with industry trends, observations, insights, and with issues important to customers. Such issues normally have some relationship to the company’s products and services of course, but the purpose isn’t specifically to market those offerings as much as to demonstrate knowledge of the industry and how to resolve dilemmas that clients and prospects may be facing.

Website: (almost) mandatory
Blog: not for everyone

Finally, websites have become essential for most businesses. Whether the question is about where to order pizza for dinner tonight or which enterprise software system to install – or almost anything in between – most people start by searching online. Few businesses can thrive without at least a basic website, and web-generated sales or leads are critical for many firms. Blogs on the other hand aren’t right, or necessary, for every business.  But where they do fit, they provide opportunities for search, communications and brand-building that go well beyond standard company websites.