Ann Handley Archives - B2B Marketing Blog

The State of B2B Influencer Marketing [Research]

August 6, 2020 by Tom Pick

Nearly four out of five B2B marketers believe influencer marketing will grow in importance in the next year. But only half integrate their influencer marketing efforts with their SEO programs, or use influencer marketing tools to identify industry influencers.

Those are among the findings in the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, just published by the team at TopRank Marketing.

“Over the past five years, many marketers have realized that partnering with trusted industry experts to co-create content provides the king of marketing experience that drives engagement, brand credibility, and marketing performance,” writes Lee Odden, TopRank CEO.

That’s unquestionably true, as marketers who’ve embraced best practices in B2B influencer marketing have achieved remarkable results in terms of increased website traffic, online visibility, and brand awareness.

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47 Superb Social Media Marketing Stats and Facts

January 19, 2016 by Tom Pick

Social media use isn’t quite universal—but it’s getting close. 70% of the U.S. population now has at least one social networking profile; more than half use two or more social networks. The number of worldwide social media users is projected to grow from 2.1 billion last year to 2.5 billion by 2018.

Image credit: The CMO Survey

And that usage isn’t all selfies and cat videos; both consumer and B2B purchases are influenced by social content. Social media now plays almost as large a role in purchasing decisions as does TV, and 57% of consumers say they’re influenced to think more highly of business after seeing positive comments or praise online.

Still, interesting contradictions remain. Most businesses now use social media for marketing and those efforts are expected to continue to increase, yet many marketers and top executives alike find the business value difficult to quantify.

Here are four key takeaways (among the many possible) from the compilation of social media marketing facts and statistics below:

[Read more…]

10 Top Marketing Thought Leaders in Social Media

May 21, 2015 by Tom Pick

If you were asked to name the top thought leaders in marketing today–the 10 marketers you’d definitely advise others to follow on social media–how would you proceed?

You’d probably start by looking at those you’re connected with on the major social networks, then do some additional research. Perhaps you’d look at existing “top” lists from other sites. You’d develop a “long list” of worthy experts, then gradually narrow it down based on followers, level of engagement, quality of posts, and other factors. You’d carefully develop your final list, possibly using a method like pairwise ranking.

But—what if you had to answer on the spot? What if you had to respond immediately, or within just a few minutes? You’d forget some important names, of course, but your answers would reveal those you keep top of mind.

If you’re up for it, try this now; spend no more than five minutes listing your top 10—then come back to this post.

This recently happened to me. Below is my list in response to the question:

“Tell me the top ten marketing people you would follow on social media, those people that you think are the top ‘thought leaders’ in the marketing space today?”

Cheryl Burgess would unquestionably be on the list. In addition to being an expert on enterprise b2b marketing, she’s the co-author (with Mark Burgess) of The Social Employee, and the authority on how to inspire employee social media advocacy inside large organizations.

Ann Smarty knows SEO inside and out, and is the guru-ess of online tools. She also hosts the highly popular weekly Viral Content Buzz Twitter chat.

Meghan M. Biro is an acknowledged thought leader at the intersection of HR, social media and marketing.

Carla Johnson is one of the top experts on enterprise content marketing. Plus, she went to grade school in a one-room schoolhouse, making her ascent all the more impressive (or perhaps that just explains it?).

Robert Rose is another top resource on enterprise content marketing, co-author with Carla Johnson of Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing, and an original member of the Lebron team.

Jeff Bullas — does anyone know more about blogging than Jeff? He’s one of those guys who seems to defy the laws of time and space by being able to consistently churn out bookmark-worthy blog posts, speak at events all over the planet, write ebooks, and still engage actively and prolifically on social media.

Glen Gilmore has long been known as an author and expert on the intersection of social media and the law. But not content with that, he’s more recently emerged as a top authority on the Internet of Things (IoT) as well.

J-P De Clerck is a “digital business and marketing strategist” whose expertise stands in the crossroads of content, search, and social media. Plus he’s from Belgium, so along with Jeff Bullas (Australia) he keeps this list from being too U.S.-centric.

Gini Dietrich is a top PR pro, author of Spin Sucks and co-author of Marketing in the Round (incidentally a great primer on building a team to execute a web presence optimization strategy), and tweeter of consistently good stuff.

Wendy Marx is a brilliant b2b PR strategist whose B2B PR Sense blog is a must-read for any marketing or PR pro seeking wisdom and insights into b2b content marketing and social media.

In the moments after rattling off this list, my first thought was: not bad, for a group quickly compiled off the top of my head.

But my second thought was: wow, I missed a lot of important and worthy names!

How could I have left off some of the most engaging social media marketing and PR pros like Harry Hoover, Judy Bellem and Jayme Soulati?

Or within just the PR realm, thought leaders and key influencers like Deb Weinstein, Lisa Buyer, Jeff Domansky and Arik Hanson?

In the realm of content marketing, Michael Brenner, Neal Schaffer, Rebecca Lieb, Heidi Cohen and Ann Handley are certainly worthy additions. As are, getting more granular, experts in developing b2b buyer personas, like Ardath Albee and Tony Zambito.

Closer to home, I could have highlighted the fact that some of the smartest people in social media marketing are fellow Minnesotans, including Lee Odden, Marty Weintraub and Angie Schottmuller.

How about CMOs and others focused on leadership, like Patrick Strother, Tony Karrer, Chris Schenk, Kent Huffman, Eric Fletcher, and Margaret Molloy?

Or leaders in academics on social media, such as Gary Schirr, Mike Johansson and Dorie Clark?

Even at that, there are deserving names left off the list.

If I’m ever again asked to name a list of the top 10 social media marketers, I think I’ll answer—I can’t name 10. But I can give you 75 or so.

Who’s on your “top of mind” top 10 list?

14 of the Best Content Marketing Tips, Tactics and Techniques of 2013

December 17, 2013 by Tom Pick

Content marketing success starts with developing a strategy and roadmap, but the rubber hits the road with the execution of tactics (and measurement of marketing results to support continual improvement). So it is with Content Marketing Week.

Where do you find ideas and inspiration for content marketing topics? What are the best practices for repurposing to get more mileage out of existing content assets? What pitfalls should content marketers avoid? Where does visual content fit into the mix?

Get those answers and more here in more than a dozen guides to content marketing tactics, the final post of Content Marketing Week.

How I.T. Is Changing: A Story About Beer by Ann Handley

It’s one thing to provide a laundry list of things-to-do to create great content, but quite another to show (and then break down) an exceptional example, as the delightful Ann Handley does here, with a nicely done video involving Cisco networking gear, and beer.

What Can Disney Teach Manufacturers About Marketing? by Industry Market Trends

Interviewing Steve Miller (the marketing consultant, not the 80s rock star), Gary Kane presents and explains the 10x10x10 model for content marketing, starting with: “Write down the 10 most frequently asked questions from your customers.”

17 Essential Content Templates and Checklists by Content Marketing Institute

Michele Linn shares a collection of popular and useful content marketing templates and checklists for tasks like creating buyer personas, developing an editorial calendar, writing killer headlines, choosing keywords, and promoting blog posts.

Matching video content to technology buying committees by 2-Minute Explainer Blog
***** 5 STARS

This post highlights research from LinkedIn regarding the value of video for B2B content marketing, then recommends five approaches for producing video content, such as “dressing up” invitations: “a cool video snippet (can) work nicely in an email invite to a conference or a trade show (‘Here’s a sneak preview of the new thing we’ll be demonstrating’).”

5 Reasons to Consider Flipboard for Your Content Strategy by iMediaConnection

Tom Edwards recommends ways to use Flipboard, an application that “visualizes your social feeds such as Facebook & Twitter as well as providing access to curated topical magazines all while allowing the user flexibility in how they consume their content of choice.” Probably more useful in consumer than B2B marketing, but worth considering regardless.

5 Ideas To Extend Your Existing Content By Repurposing by NewRise Digital

Here are a handful of practical tips for how to repurpose existing content, such as transcribing videos: “If you have videos, screencasts or webinars produced for your content marketing campaign then getting these transcribed into an eBook can offer a valuable way to create a new opt in offer.”

Content Marketing: Five Ways To Keep Feeding The Beast by MediaPost

Santi Subotovsky identifies “five key elements of an effective content marketing strategy, along with a list of applications to help marketers execute on each element,” from content curation and creation through workflow management (where “platforms such as Kapost and Zerys can help”) and analytics.

3 Surefire Ways To Kill Your Content Marketing by Heidi Cohen

The brilliant Heidi Cohen exposes the three “leading causes of content marketing death,” along with fixes for each. For example, among the fixes for content that contains too much marketing hype and buzzwords are to stop selling; take a red pen to every buzzword phrase; and “Take the Hemingway approach. Use simple words. Substitute short words and everyday language for the flowery prose you’ve created.”

Prolific as well as adept, Heidi frequently writes highly bookmark-worthy posts filled with the latest research and trends along with actionable guidance. Other noteworthy content marketing tips and guides from her blog include:

13 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Might Fail by Content Marketing Institute

Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi advises readers about how to avoid more than a dozen potential content marketing pitfalls, such as operating in silos (PR, communications, email marketing, social media—which is why a coordinated approach to optimizing web presence is essential), being too focused on one specific channel, and not being “niche enough.”

Content Marketing: An 8-point analysis for your blog by MarketingSherpa

You bring your car in for regular maintenance checkups (hopefully), so why not do the same for your company blog? Daniel Burstein outlines an 8-point blog checkup starting with post frequency (“An element of effective content is consistency”) and proceeding through author bios, which are “a way for your audience to connect both literally by including Twitter and LinkedIn info, and figuratively by understanding how that author’s experience can help the reader better understand a topic.”

8 Content Marketing Ideas You Haven’t Tried by It’s All About Revenue

Amanda F. Batista presents “8 fresh content marketing ideas to recharge your engagement and demand generation strategy,” among them aligning your SEO keywords with calls to action: “translate (keyword) insights into a more results-driven content campaign. Integrate these words into your blog and social media posts, your market proposition plan and anything going out on the web, really.”

This was post #6, the final post, of Content Marketing Week 2013 on Webbiquity.

#1: Content Marketing Week Starts Tomorrow!

#2: 30 Remarkable Content Marketing Facts and Statistics for 2013 (and 2014)

#3: 18 of the Best Content Marketing Strategy Guides of 2013

#4: 7 Helpful Copywriting Guides and Tips for Content Marketers

#5: 12 (of the) Best Content Marketing Infographics of 2013

The Top #Nifty50 Women Writers on Twitter for 2013

October 28, 2013 by Tom Pick

Each year, the #Nifty50 awards honor 50 men and 50 women who actively engage on Twitter. 2011 was the inaugural year. In 2012, the #Nifty50 recognized the top men and women on Twitter in the technology realm.

The purpose of the award is to acknowledge the contributions of honorees to their fields, as well as their level of engagement on Twitter; to encourage interaction with these leaders; and to expand social networks. When the timing is right, the #Nifty50 will be expanded to include an element of social good—the #Nifty50 Kids project, which will provide access to advanced technologies for low-income children.

This year’s #Nifty50 highlights men and women who write—more specifically, who regularly produce some form of business-related online content (blog posts, news articles, videos, infographics, etc.)—and who actively engage on Twitter. The honorees include both full-time (e.g., journalists, authors, or PR professionals) and part-time writers (e.g., bloggers).

Since the first awards, the #Nifty50 hashtag has been tweeted and retweeted nearly 7,000 times, with a total exposure of more than 50 million people, according to Topsy. The #Nifty50 was also featured in the new book by Mark (@mnburgess) and Cheryl Burgess (@ckburgess), The Social Employee (McGraw-Hill, August 2013) How Great Companies Make Social Media Work – Success Lessons from IBM, AT&T, Dell, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, and Domo on building a social culture.

For 2013, we’re pleased to honor 50 women (below) and 50 men (in a post on the Blue Focus Marketing Blog) who are both outstanding writers and content producers and active social media connectors and engagers. Beyond their professional lives, the interests of these women range from the fairly conventional (travel, food, wine, health, fashion, family) to the unexpected (Star Wars, Milk Duds, beer, Swedish fish).

We’re proud to acknowledge these 50 women from 48 different organizations as the top #Nifty50 women writers on Twitter for 2013. You can find and subscribe to or follow the entire list on Twitter here.

(Editor’s note: Though I’d be proud to claim her as a member of my extended clan, I’m fairly certain that Marissa Pick and I have no familial relationship.)

Jennifer Aaker
@Aaker