b2b social media marketing Archives - B2B Marketing Blog

How Does Treating LinkedIn Like It Was Twitter Impact Results for B2B? [Research]

December 17, 2019 by Tom Pick

The top two social networks for B2B marketers, LinkedIn and Twitter, are different in several important ways. And marketers generally use them differently.

LinkedIn is more formal, more professional, more selective, and more about thought leadership and insights. Twitter is less formal, more wide-open, more newsy, and generally noisier.

Consequently, B2B marketers generally post more frequently on Twitter and share more third-party content.

But what if they changed that pattern? What if B2B marketers treated LinkedIn a bit more like they do Twitter—much more frequent but somewhat less selective posting? What impacts would that have?

[Read more…]

19 More Outstanding Social Media Marketing Guides

January 13, 2015 by Tom Pick

While social media marketing has become commonplace, questions about how to optimize the use of social channels and networks, and how to stand out from the crowd, remain.

How often should you re-share content on social networks?

Image credit: KISSmetrics

The post 23 Outstanding Social Media Marketing Guides, published here a few weeks ago, answered questions about social media trends, the evolution of social media marketing best practices, and how to optimize use of visual content.

This follow-up post answers several more, such as: what are the best social networks for b2b social media marketing? What are the best and worst times to post updates? How can different networks be used most effectively for lead generation? Which tactics work best today for building a social media following and growing traffic?

Find the answers to those questions and others here in 19 more outstanding social media marketing guides from the past year.

Five Simple Rules for B2B Social Media Marketing Success by Marissa’s Picks

Marissa Pick (no relation, though I joke that she’s my adopted cousin) outlines a handful of rules for successful B2B social media marketing, among them “knowing what to do is just as important as knowing what not to do” (“Every social media campaign needs a strategy, and it’s crucial to understand your goals. Knowing what you want to accomplish and how you will measure success is crucial before you launch any campaign”), “engagement = essential,” and “know your audience.”

The Top 8 Social Networks For Business by B2B Marketing Insider

Michael Brenner examines findings from Adobe regarding the top social networks for business in the view of CMOs, based on their value for SEO, brand awareness, customer communication, and traffic generation. In addition to the “Big Four,” the findings and associated infographic looked at SlideShare (the “new kid on the block”) as well as “niche players” Google+, Pinterest and Instagram.

How To Choose The Right Social Media Networks For Your B2B Business by Search Engine Land

Jayson DeMers details seven factors to consider when determining where to focus social media marketing efforts (such as conversions and customer value: “Do visitors bounce immediately off your page, or are they reading your content, amplifying your message and becoming customers? A…detailed analysis can help you determine not only which networks are sending you traffic, but which ones are sending you valuable traffic”) along with seven types of social networks to leverage.

50 Expert Tips for Getting Started on Social Media by Constant Contact on SlideShare

This presentation provides dozens of one-sentence (mostly) social media tips from top experts inlcuding Rebekah Radice, Robert Caruso (“In social media, content leads to conversations, conversations build relationships, and relationships result in ROI”), Kim Garst, Mike Stelzner (“Study your competition and watch where they participate in social dialog. Don’t reinvent the wheel”), and Ann Handley among others.

The Dead Zones: When Not to Post on Social Media by Cool Infographics

Randy Krum displays a pair of infographics illustrating the best and worst times to post on social media. The worst times seem generally intuitive (e.g., Facebook between midnight and 8:00 a.m.), though a few are odd (don’t post to LinkedIn during the workday?!). The best times, meanwhile, are shown in pretty short windows (e.g., Twitter between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.). Interesting – though your mileage may vary.

Survey Reveals 11% Increase in Marketers’ Ability to Measure Social Media ROI by Social Media Explorer

Nichole Kelly dives into research findings from Social Media Examiner showing that more than a third of marketers now say they are able to measure ROI from social media activities; but 88% say they “want to know how to measure the ROI from social media” (so, a quarter of marketers say they can measure social ROI, but also don’t know how?); that half of marketers say they’ve seen improved sales from social media; and other interesting facts and stats, including my favorite: “85% of marketers have NO plans to use Snapchat. (Thank goodness!).”

16 Resources to Generate Leads With Social Media by Social Media Examiner

Debra Eckerling outlines a collection of helpful resources for generating leads through Facebook (e.g., how to set up a Facebook page for lead generation and methods for generating email leads through Facebook), Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Social Media Lead Generation: Best Tips From The Experts by Heidi Cohen

Heidi Cohen passes along guidance on “the best way to use social media to generate leads” from 22 social media experts including Michael Brenner, Jeff Cohen, Jason Falls, Neal Schaffer (“The best way to generate leads is to utilize sponsored posts on the relevant social media platform where your customers are utilizing best practices for that platform. Social networks are in business and want you to be successful in your advertising”), and Deb Weinstein.

10 Powerful Social Media Infographics and Resources to Build Your Following by SumAll

Brian Honigman presents 10 infographics covering everything from how to create the “perfect” post on various social media platforms and how to size profile images for popular social networks to social media facts and figures (hmm, that sounds familiar), user growth trends across platforms, and the best and worst times to post on social media sites.

7 Social Media Monitoring Tips To Help Your Business Spy Like The NSA by Top Dog Social Media

Melonie Dodaro shares sever highly useful tips for finding people who are sharing your content, discovering who is mentioning your brand or products, finding influencers in your industry, and find “super-targeted” followers such as who is following a particular person or brand and lives in a specific city.

The Art of Creating Perfect Social Media Posts – infographic by Digital Information World

Noting that “Each social media operates a bit differently, and each brand’s followers have their own preferences and moods…(so) there is no One-Size-Fits-All trick or strategy” for “perfect” social media posts, Irfan Ahmad shares the essential elements of a highly shareable blog post along with an infographic showing best practices for promoting content on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Google+.

How to Easily Double Your Traffic from Social Media by KISSmetrics

Garrett Moon offers helpful guidance on how to increase social media traffic by sharing each piece of your content more than once on various social networks, along with five tips on how not to overdo re-sharing and risk appearing to be a spammer.

5 Social Media Tasks You Might be Neglecting and You Shouldn’t by Reviewz ‘n’ Tips

Daniel Sharkov offers helpful tips on a handful of social media tactics you should be using, covering LinkedIn (“Did you know that unlike most social networks, a rather high percentage [about 20%] of your [LinkedIn] contacts actually sees your updates?”), StumbleUpon, Google+, Triberr, and Facebook.

Why social media is losing its sparkle by iMedia Connection

The always fascinating Rebecca Lieb contends that “email and search now both enjoy wallpaper status. They’ve faded into the background. This is absolutely not meant to diminish the importance or significance of either as a marketing channel…(rather) ‘wallpapering’ is a sign of maturity and essential integration into the larger marketing organization,” and that social media is now approaching that status as well. What do you think?

Social Media 101: Branding for the PR-impaired marketer by MarketingSherpa Blog

Everyone knows social media has become an essential channel for marketing and content distribution, but Maria Lopez Fernandez reminds readers that not all social networks are created equal: each has its own distinct characteristics, uses, and etiquette, and she provides guidance here on how to make the best use of Facebook, Twitter, and blogging – as well as how to put it all together.

The Ul imate Cheat Sheet for Social Media Dimensions by likeable media

Samy Simorangkir shares an infographic which details the required image dimensions for social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest, along with half a dozen “additional rules of thumb to keep in mind” for optimizing profiles on the largest networks.

30+ Ways To Use YouTube Effectively by Small Business Trends

Writing that online video “is a terrific way for small business owners to compete with the big brands. But creating effective (as in watchable) content and then promoting it can be intimidating,” the brilliant TJ McCue has compiled a list of 30 resources for small business, from expert online training to helpful guides, infographics, online video editing tools and more.

5 stages to unlocking social media’s full potential by iMedia Connection

Scott Fasser believes it’s a “colossal mistake” to try to use social media to persuade your target audience to buy. Instead, he lays out a five-stage process for businesses to evolve their social media activities from “nascent to awesome.” At the base stage, companies are listening to buyers and watching competitors; by stage five, a company is truly executing as a social business.

What You Need to Know About Open Graph Meta Tags for Total Facebook and Twitter Mastery by KISSmetrics

Jacek Blaut explains in detail how to use Facebook Open Graph tags to obtain “a degree of control…over how information travels from a third-party website to Facebook when a page is shared (or liked, etc.),” why marketers need to know about Open Graph, and how to implement these, as well as how to use Twitter Cards to “stand out from the crowd” on Twitter by generating additional content from your tweets.

Best Random but Interesting B2B Marketing Posts, Articles and Resources of 2010

March 8, 2011 by Tom Pick

If you’ve been following the Best-of-2010 series here, you’ve seen collections of some of the best articles and blog posts from last year in neatly organized categories including market research, cool social media and web tools, social media marketing guides and tips, WordPress hacks, Twitter marketing techniques and resources, guides to effective email marketing, content marketing, local SEO and more.

In this penultimate best-of-last-year post you’ll find a compendium of interesting, informative and valuable but difficult-to-categorize marketing-related articles and blog posts from 2010. The pieces presented here range from an extensive list of marketing cliches to avoid and tips to shorten the B2B buying cycle to guidance on branding, presentation skills, freelancing, job hunting and more.

Next week will feature the must-see Best-of-2010 season finale post here, then it’s on to new ideas and putting 2010 in the rearview mirror. Enjoy!

B2B Marketing Tips, Insights and Resources

101 B2B Marketing Cliches

Looking for inspiration for an original B2B marketing campaign? You won’t find it here! What you will find however are an extensive and insightful list of 101 over-used ideas to avoid, from the lightbulb (bright idea! Not.) and the baton pass to the mountain climber, the Post-It note and of course the ubiquitous handshake.

27 Marketing Lessons B2B Marketers Should Know by HubSpot Blog

Kipp Bodnar shares more than two dozen marketing lessons gleaned from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum event, among them: repackage expensive content (such as white paper content) into different formats—blog posts, webinars, bylined articles—to get the most out of your investment. Marketers are now publishers, and almost all content can be optimized for search. And one of my favorites, “Social media thought leadership is built by empowering employees to talk about your company and industry.”

The Business of B2B Social Media by Brian Solis

Brian Solis reports that social media is that area getting the biggest increase in B2B marketing budgets, explains why B2B vendors are embracing social media, and identifies which social networks are viewed as most effective in the business world.

5 Steps To Shorten The B2B Buying Cycle by Search Engine Land

Kerry Spellman shows how customer understanding, keyword research and content tailored to each stage of the buying decision process can be used together to shorten the buying cycle and bring revenue in the door more quickly.

Just how connected are the world’s top 5 IT services companies? by Earnest about B2B

If you work for a small to midsized company and are concerned that your company hasn’t quite perfected its use of social media yet—relax. Many large companies haven’t either. This post compares the social media activities of IBM, Fujitsu, HP, CSC and Accenture. While most are active to some degree on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogging, none exhibit a truly consistent, integrated social media presence. Efforts of the big five seem most mature in video, not surprising considering that as this post points out, “47% of IT professionals watch videos to research technology solutions on YouTube.”

The Top 7 Organizations & Events Every Agency Marketer Should Know by Business.com’s B2B Online Marketing Blog

Details on five associations that can help online marketers keep current as well as possibly connect with future clients, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Business Marketing Association (BMA), and local interactive marketing association chapters.

Is Traditional B2B Marketing Dead? by Everything Technology Marketing

Presenting “an overview of the key dimensions of B2B marketing that I see changing…very dimension (including balance of power, audience focus and presence) has significant implications on the way we plan, organize, and execute B2B marketing going forward,” Holger Schulze contends that in the new world of B2B marketing, buyers have the power; messages must be more focused than ever before; a vendor’s primary marketing presence is digital; and key marketing skills have shifted from creative to analytical, among other changes.

Social Media for B2B Technology Companies by MarketPlane

In this Slideshare presentation, Ronnie Ray and Alison O’Brien share stats on B2B use of social media, show how to align different social media tools with marketing objectives, review several B2B social media success stories, and outline a phased approach to building a social media strategy.

5 Must Watch B2B Videos by Modern B2B Blogs

Maria Pergolino highlights five entertaining and informative videos for B2B marketers on the state of the Internet, social media, changes in business buyer behavior and B2B branding.

A Simple B2B Marketing Framework by Everything Technology Marketing

Another noteworthy post from Holger Schulze, again focused on the B2B marketing process but from a different angle. Building upon the Pragmatic Marketing framework and the RocketWatcher framework, Holger presents his own elegant 4-layer model, with marketing knowledge at the base and progressing through business strategy and tools & content to the marketing tactics layer at the top.

Seven Ways to Convert Online Contacts Into Sales by Entrepreneur Magazine

Starr Hall outline seven “marketing strategies you should add to your daily practice to set yourself apart and turn your online communities into profitable business transactions…these activities will increase the ROI for your online efforts without looking or sounding sales pitchy.” Her recommendations include sharing your knowledge and expertise willingly and generously online, build your “social proof” (testimonials and recommendations), and don’t ask for the business too soon—but don’t shy away from asking for it at the proper time.

The 10 Best Infographics for Internet Marketing Pros by Marketing Pilgrim
***** 5 Stars
Opening this post by writing “Look, we both know that this is linkbait—a top ten list combined with infographics, c’mon!—but you have to admit, it’s worth bookmarking or tweeting. Right?,” Andy Beal proceeds to deliver just that: a list of infographics worth bookmarketing and passing along, sharing 10 outstanding infographics for marketers, covering topics ranging from the history of search to Google’s failed social media forays to the CMO’s guide to the social media landscape.

Presentation skills: 5 secrets of the pros by iMedia Connection

Judging by some of the presentations I’ve seen recently, a lot of people need to read this post. Bronwyn Saglimbeni highlights several techniques for making presentations more dynamic and useful, such as focusing on the needs of your audience, involving them in the discussion, and fearlessly being yourself.

35 Most Useful Tools and Resources which helping Freelancers by Dzinepress

The English here isn’t perfect (“Today we are helping Freelancers for maintain design tasks using famous tools and resources for make better performance even track work”), but the list of online tools for freelancers and consultants is outstanding, ranging from time tracking tools like Slim Timer and timepost2 to apps for SEO, social media management, accounting, promotion and design.

5 ways to turn company slide decks into marketing weapons by iMedia Connnection

Heidi Jackman explains how to use social tools to make any live or web-based presentation more interactive and engaging for the audience. For example, before the presentation, “Online community tools like MeetUp and Ning, as well Twitter hashtags or a dedicated Facebook page, allow you to spread the word about your upcoming presentation.” During the presentation, invite feedback through Twitter (though Heidi acknowledges this can also potentially lead to “disaster if the audience begins posting negative or inappropriate comments while you are speaking”), and after the event, get additional mileage out of the presentation by posting it to YouTube, Slideshare and your company’s Facebook page.

Job Hunting and Careers

Cut Your Job Search Time in Half by CBS MoneyWatch

Eilene Zimmerman offers five tips for standing out from other candidates in today’s tough job climate, such as using social media and phone calls to conduct research on the company through customers and former employees.

Top 100 Niche Job Sites by New Grad Life

While the big job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder offer volume and convenience, they are also highly competitive; recruiters and HR managers may receive hundreds or even thousands of resumes for a particular position, making it extremely challenging to make yours stand out. Chad Bauer recommends an alternative—or rather 100 of them—niche job sites. This outstanding compilation lists niche sites for career opportunities in fields like accounting, advertising, banking, design, engineering, health care, higher education, IT, pharmaceuticals, public relations and more.

7 Ways to Find a Job Using Social Media by U Stand Out

Noting that “employers are looking for their next all-stars on social media channels,” HubSpot’s Diana Freedman shares tips for using social media to help find your next career opportunity, such as following individuals from a company you’d like to work on Twitter, watching their posts for news of job openings, and leaving insightful comments on the company blog.

Uncategorizable

Philip Zimbardo: The Secret Powers of Time by RSAnimate

This time-lapsed video presentation on differing perceptions of time is difficult to categorize, but fascinating. Factors like where you live, what religious beliefs you hold and how stable your family life has been all contribute to your perception of time, e.g. living in the moment vs. being future-oriented.

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