As we get set to usher in 2012, it is worth taking a few minutes to look back on the year that was 2011, seeing what transpired in the world of B2B social media marketing.

For starters, a number of surveys pointed out that more and more B2B marketers planned to and did incorporate additional social media efforts into their online marketing campaigns over the last 12 months.

According to a mid-year survey from iTracks, close to 90 percent of domestic B2B companies were incorporating social media marketing into their game plans. Sagefrog Marketing Group reported over the summer that close to 60 percent of national B2B marketers would identify themselves as LinkedIn users, 50 percent Facebook users and nearly 45 percent Twitter aficionados.

Among findings from a Social Media Examiner study of more than 3,300 marketers:

• Ninety percent of marketers reported that social media is critical for their business;
• One-third of all social media marketers want to understand how to oversee and measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and integrate their social media activities;
• A majority of marketers (58%) are using social media for 6 hours or more on a weekly basis, and more than a third (34%) invest 11 or more hours each week;
• Just 28 percent of companies are outsourcing some degree of their social media marketing.

Meantime, a BtoB Magazine report stated that 93 percent of all B2B marketers took part in 2011 in some manner of social media marketing, the majority of who concentrate their efforts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

That being said, more than two-thirds (70 percent) of B2B marketers claimed a shortage of resources was their greatest challenge to successfully integrating social media into their 2011 marketing campaigns. Marketers also reported ill-informed success metrics and critical performance indicators (57%), lack of depth regarding social media (44%) and management resistance (22%) as challenges they have faced this year. Maybe the most tell all stat was that close to three-fourths of those surveyed said they fail to measure the ROI in their social marketing programs.

As you go into 2012, stop and think about the impact a well-designed social media campaign can have on your B2B marketing efforts.

Odds are your business has regular contact with potential customers numerous times in trying to educate them on what your company has to offer. With a well-structured social media program, your business can interact with the potential client and nurture those interactions, making them more inclined to go with you at the time of purchase.

If you are still skeptical as to whether or not your B2B marketing campaigns should be employing more and not less social media, take note that Forrester Research forecasts B2B companies will allocate $54 million towards social media marketing in 2014, an increase of more than $40 million from as recently as 2009.

Still think the social media marketing world doesn’t have room to grow?

Tell us how you incorporated social media into your B2B marketing plan over the last 12 months.

Photo credit: mltcreative.com

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Given your business can never get too much exposure, stop for a minute and ask yourself where the social media tool Google+ ranks in your B2B marketing plans for 2012.

According to recent research by BtoB Magazine, 93% of all B2B marketers are involved in social media marketing, with the majority placing their focus on the most popular channels (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter). No Google+? Well, not so fast there.

Unveiled earlier this year, Google’s new social network tool (reports indicate there are more than 40 million members) and its recently released business pages are a great instrument for constructing relationships with your company’s clients, potential clients, and referral sources online. Google’s “+1” button, the precursor to Google Plus, was unveiled months ahead of the actual social platform.

Building Marketing Plans around Google+

No matter what your B2B market is, there are potential clients waiting on Google+ to hear from you. According to the VP of Product for Google+, he expects brands will notice this (creating pages and using them to construct relationships) and will build marketing plans around it.”

If you have yet to create a Google+ page for your business, then make that one of your important New Year’s resolutions, especially given the simplicity of it.

All you have to do is:

• Make a business gmail account that all of your business development team can access;
• Go to: http://plus.google.com/pages/create, and choose the option to create a Google+ Page. Follow the wizard, and select the closest option to label your business. Once there, you can select from options like local business or place, brand or product, company or organization, and so on;
• Provide the basic details regarding your company name, business Web site URL, classification of page’s content and so on;
• Next, customize your profile;
• You then promote your business page;
• Run some tests on your page and give it some content and feel before you put it out in front of the entire world to see.

Among the different benefits of Google+ for the B2B marketer are:

• Circles – These give a marketer the ability to hyper segment. Marketers can communicate with groups which are segmented into leads, prospects, sales and lastly follow-ups;
• Sparks – These are blog postings, videos and other forms of content crafted to an individual’s focused interests. This is a great way for the marketer to open a line of communication with other marketers and prospective customers;
• Hangouts – This is essentially an online place for individuals to convene and chat about an array of topics. A company can place its sales team together nationwide in order to produce quality face-to-face time with sales leads;

The bottom line for your marketing efforts is pulling the different Google tools together with Google+ to leverage all at one time.

Having another tool to promote your product/s and interact with customers is something you do not have to Google when asking the best way to land more business.

Tell us how you’ve incorporated Google+ into your B2B marketing plan.

Photo credit: androidspin.com

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As the New Year prepares to descend on us, how will you as a B2B marketer take the bull by the horns and make 2012 the best year yet for your company?

Before doing that, keep in mind that the slower holiday period is the best time to crunch the numbers for the last 12 months, seeing where marketing tactics yielded positive results and where some campaigns came up short.

You would think that the majority of marketers would be reviewing their data in earnest this time of year, yes? Not always.

According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report which interviewed more than 1,700 B2B marketers, 68 percent of them have not identified or optimized their sales and marketing funnels. Yes, nearly three-fourths failed to do that; rather staggering percentage if you ask me.

Other findings from the report noted:

• Sixty-one percent continue to pass on leads, even non-qualified ones, straight on to sales;
• Seventy-nine percent have failed to put together a lead scoring process;
• Sixty-five percent fail to nurture and grow their leads.

Going forward in 2012, here are some tips to better utilize your B2B marketing efforts before the ball falls on New Year’s Eve:

• Put together a year-end report of the each and every campaign you instituted and its results. Measure the ROI and use that data to guide your marketing planning. It is important that you look at the long-term and not just short-term satisfaction;
• Determine what your key performance indicators (KPI) are for the first three months of 2012 (Q1). As you launch your first B2B marketing campaign in 2012, be sure ahead of time to define the KPIs in place to record the results. While the numbers are important, remember that you need to explain the data to each and everyone involved in the campaign. If a new marketing campaign has led to a 50 percent higher click through rate than the prior effort, demonstrate what that result means to the business as a whole in order to meet your company’s objectives;
• Clean up contact data – How many times have you set out to conduct a marketing campaign, only to discover that your contact data is not refreshed? It happens more often than you would realize, meaning having up to date contact data is critical to getting a campaign off on the right foot. Use these last few weeks of 2011 to update your contact data and demographics for both customers and prospects. The data should be cleaned on a regular basis, but especially at year’s end so that you start the New Year off correctly;
• Social media and its impact on campaigns – Even though some marketers have not been entirely sold on social media and its ability to move their marketing campaigns along, most know that SM plays an integral part in each and every endeavor. It is imperative to be able to deal with customers in a real-time mode so that you are not playing catch up to the competition. Be sure to set goals going into January for how you will utilize social media. Will you devote more time to sites like Facebook and Twitter? Will you put more emphasis on items like videos, podcasts, infographics etc. to market your products and services? How will you chart your social media efforts as far as recording the data than in previous years? If you have not been aggressively tracking the data, why is that? What good are your social media campaigns if you don’t know who is following you, where they are coming from, how often they are visiting and so on?

With the economy’s performance over the next year still hard for many financial experts to pin down, your marketing efforts should be clearly stated and ready to roll out Jan. 2.

Your boss is going to demand results sooner than later in order to justify the marketing department expenses.

With that being the case, be ready going into 2012 to provide evidence that the marketing campaigns you are and have been instituting will continue to be profitable for the business over the next 12 months.

Tell us how you are approaching year-end reporting and planning.

Photo credit: leadformix.com

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With the New Year arriving in just a few weeks, many companies are exploring their options of how to make 2012 a better business year than these last 12 months.

One area that B2B marketers need to look at is social media and how it can play a large role in moving their company forward and bringing back a greater return on investment (ROI) through the Internet.

According to a recent survey, however, it seems a large number of B2B marketers are spending large sums of money yearly for SM, only to fail and track what if any positive results they are receiving from it.

Cloud marketing automation software vendor Pardot reported recently that while many B2B marketers are throwing a lot of money at SM programs, close to three out of 10 surveyed indicated they are not tracking the effects of their social media programs for lead generation and sales.

Among those surveyed, 95 percent reported they utilize sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and/or corporate blogs to reach out to potential clients.  Meantime, only seven in 10 are tracking the return on investment (ROI) for such efforts. Even more interesting, just over 40 percent indicated that zero or an unknown amount of sales lead came as a result of such social media efforts.

The survey goes on to note:

• Eleven percent of marketers indicated their businesses have a formal SM policy in place;
• Fifty-five percent of respondents indicated reaching out to a SM-generated sales lead via phone or email is appropriate, even when the prospect had not invited the vendor to do such;
• Forty-eight percent indicated it is okay to get back to a prospect through social media, if the prospect reached out first to the vendor through phone or email;
• One-hundred percent of those surveyed reported it is acceptable to invite a prospect to become a part of a marketer’s online social networks
• Just over three in 10 surveyed said it was okay to critique a rival through social media;
• More than 64 percent stated they use “internal, free tools” simply to oversee social media campaigns

So, how can B2B marketers better utilize social media going forward in 2012?

Among the ways to do this is:

• Cover the basics – If you do not have company Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages already set up and in action, get to it. With Facebook, set up a fan page and interact with those who befriend your company. Twitter is a great tool to share industry links with articles on trends, etc. LinkedIn serves as a great business resource, while Google+ is the latest rage, allowing your company to build a circle of friends;
• Monitor the discussion - The key here is to monitor the chit-chat on the sites, especially when your company’s name comes up. By doing so, you are tuned-in to any questions, concerns and even complaints regarding your product and/or services. You may even be pleasantly surprised at times to see positive comments regarding your company’s efforts;
• Be up front with current and potential customers – Many consumers use social media to vent about products and/or services, so there is always a chance your company’s name is going to surface in such discussions. If it does, be as professional as possible due to the fact responses from your company page can be seen by countless people, sent via links, copied and more. Customer service in today’s technological age comes at you 24/7. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring negative comments, but handle them with the idea that millions and millions of people are waiting to see what you say;
• Build your brand – Being engaged in social media gives you’re the company the ability to increase its B2B brand awareness, improve your positioning among search engines, and give both current and potential customers more reason to want to come to your company’s Web site.

With the right approach to social media, your B2B marketing efforts can take off in 2012 or sink, you make the call. Tell us how you’re monitoring your social media efforts and what success you’re seeing.

Photo credit: technologymarketers.com

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[Ed: We are excited to feature B2B specialist Christina “CK” Kerley as a contributing blogger. A strong voice in modern B2B marketing, learn more about CK here ]

In my last post, I shared the spotlight on building the B2B business case for social media—and as a companion to that content, this time I’m focusing on building the B2B business case for mobile marketing, through both a slideshow and a short video.

It’s likely you’re hearing a lot of buzz around mobile, but might be perplexed as to its efficacy for B2B audiences.  You might also be facing a lot of obstacles from your organization’s internal executives who aren’t yet aware of the remarkable reach, benefits and tools that mobile has to offer. To that point, the below slideshow walks you through 10 key arguments that will help you build the business case for mobile marketing for your B2B and turn mobile skeptics into mobile supporters.

And to add more ammo to your B2B mobile argument, in the below video, Chris Koch, ITSMA’s Director of Research and Thought Leadership, and I explore 3 key questions around integrating mobile into the B2B marketing mix, namely:(1) Why Mobile for B2Bs? (2) What are the critical success factors for B2Bs in Mobile? and (3) What are some key mobile approaches for B2Bs? Featured below, as well as at Social Media B2B, the piece runs right at 13 minutes. 

B2B Mobile Marketing from Jeffrey L. Cohen on Vimeo.

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This is part two of a two-part blog post – Recapping the Business.com and BtoB Webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search’

As promised, we’ll address many of the additional questions asked during Thursday’s webinar that we were unable to answer during the Q&A. To view the on-demand version of the webinar, click here.

In reviewing the questions, we evidenced a common desire among marketers to understand more clearly how they can measure social media and better integrate it with their search marketing efforts, a trend supported by the responses of more than 450 marketers in our recent co-sponsored survey.

In fact, our survey revealed more than half of B2B marketers currently do not use a social media monitoring tool to measure their social media efforts, even though three-quarters of marketers are currently using social media to enhance their search marketing efforts.

It’s clear marketers understand that (1) social media is an important part of an online marketing program and (2) that social media can be used to enhance search marketing efforts. However, when it comes to truly executing on the measurement of efforts, many marketers are unclear how to proceed. Our in-webinar poll reaffirmed this assumption in showing that 41% of marketers are currently not measuring their social media efforts; only 27% are using a social media monitoring tool.

Many attendees asked us similar questions surrounding the measurement of social media and the integration of social with search; to better educate our attendees and B2B online marketers, check back in the coming weeks for our upcoming solution guide detailing the top social media monitoring tools available for B2B marketers.

In the interim, we’ve addressed some of the main questions asked during the webinar. If you have additional questions on this webinar, feel free to contact us directly or comment on this blog post.

Q: How did you define/determine ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest’?

A: The two groups, ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest’ were a result of respondent segmentation on this within the Business.com and BtoB Survey: “What has been the overall impact of social media channels on the search performance of your business website(s)?”

Respondents who answered as having a positive impact (either ‘very positive’ or ‘positive’) were grouped into the segment ‘The Best’ (n = 205). Respondents answering anything other than these two choices (neutral, negative, very negative or don’t know) were grouped into ‘The Rest’ (n = 259). Data was then rerun for each segment and statistical significance was analyzed.

Q: For the BtoB/Business.com Survey, you said that the survey consisted of 464 people. Was that a random sample? How did you find the participants?

A: Participants were recruited through multiple BtoB Online E-mails that went out from July 1 – 16. Recipients were asked to complete the survey and were provided with an incentive to be entered into a raffle to win an iPad.

Q: Also for the BtoB/Business.com survey, what types of businesses participated and what industries were represented?

A: Respondents were primarily B2B decision-makers in an executive or managerial role that were overseeing or managing directly both paid search and social media marketing.  Responses on key variables were not significantly different between B2B and B2C respondents so that data was pooled for analysis purposes.  Although there were some specialty marketers, many (33%) were general B2B marketers and had cross-channel roles and responsibilities.  Most companies had fewer than 250 employees (59%) and were from a variety of industries, including high/tech, advertising and media.

Q: Must you post on multiple social sites, or is it beneficial to focus on Facebook and Twitter? Is it necessary to also go to Digg and others? Or should you stick to one venue?

A: Again, it all depends on what your overall goals are for your social media efforts – let your objectives determine the appropriate social media channels. We found within the study that The Best marketers were using, on average, more social media channels than the rest, so definitely don’t be afraid to use more than one social media channel and continue to try out and test new channels that might fit with your overall goals.

Q: What is another option besides CTR that will help track views/sales?

A: Some social media monitoring tools like Radian6 or Viralheat are CRM compatible and will allow you to link social media activity to clients and prospects, better allowing you to capture the influence of your social media programs. The majority of CRMs (like Salesforce.com) will allow you to then pull reporting that can show activity impact among these contacts and revenue generation.

Q: In today’s economy, how can a company approach the resource issue of social media ($ or people) within the confines of existing resources… without more budget or staff (or agency expense)?

A: A few suggestions for increasing your social media footprint without increasing resource allocation are:

1. Will work for free – Check out your local community college or university to recruit interns to come on board at no cost to you in exchange for class credits.
2. Clearly define your social media goals – Companies who set up Twitter and Facebook accounts because they feel like it’s a “must” can easily waste valuable time and resources. Consider your social media efforts as an extension of your overarching online marketing goals to clearly understand which social media accounts are the most right for you.
3. Get other marketers on board – Now that you know what you want to accomplish with social media, let other team members know how you can use social media to assist with their marketing programs.
4. Establish KPIs for your efforts – Work with your colleagues to establish measurable KPIs for your social media programs.
5. Set up a free social media monitoring tool – There are many free and easy-to-use social media monitoring tools that take minutes to set up like SocialMention or Google Alerts to help you measure the success of your social media efforts. They are great resources for monitoring all the major social media channels for conversations and mentions about your brand, product or a competitor’s product.
6. You have a social media army – use it! – We hear you on the resource front – realistically, many companies are still lacking in a dedicated social media manager.

One way to lessen the load (or reallocate, in a way) is to educate all employees on your social media efforts and encourage them to participate. Train sales to share the latest press releases, news and product updates across their social networks; show them how to monitor the major social media channels for potential customers looking for your product or service. Let engineering or product departments serve as the ‘field experts’ for any feature and functionality conversations or questions raised in online communities and forums where they’re most likely already participating. You’ll quickly find you’re able to make a bigger impact with less stress on your end. It make take some up-front work to establish company ‘best practices’ for social media use and train employees, but the investment will pay off.

Q: How can I train for myself for social media without paying big bucks?

A: Start by using social media to find what you’re looking for! Webinars are great (and usually free) educational tools. I’d also recommend doing a quick search in YouTube to see if anyone has set up an instructional video you can watch.

 Some channels and monitoring tools also offer free demonstrations and information on their Web sites for getting started, so make sure to look there; finally, consider asking around in community forums like Business.com Answers or other online communities to see if anyone has additional advice for the best ways to get started, given what you’re looking for.

Q: I have heard that Facebook may not be as key a component of social media for B2B organizations with a niche market. Is that true, or should we have a Facebook page and post updates even if we only have 5 “friends”?

A: You need to start somewhere, right? Every company out there probably had just a few Facebook “friends” at the beginning stages of their Facebook efforts. As to whether or not Facebook is the place for you to focus your social media efforts, it depends on where your audience is and how they are using that channel. If your product has a viral element and your brand has a personality that matches that of habits and behaviors on Facebook, then it makes sense to continue there. However, if your business is more conservative and thought leadership is a key element of your marketing strategy, you may want to consider starting off with a blog or Twitter account.

Take some time to really think about the end goal for reaching your market with social media, and that will help dictate your use of social media channel. You may find you’re better served engaging in a tight-knit online forum or community where your audience has established itself.

Q: How do you build a Twitter following without a “personality” to drive the content?

A: Share really, really relevant and quality content. Twitter users follow other users who are sharing information they’re interested in. Share links to the latest articles, blog posts and videos you find or create that you think your target audience would find valuable.

You should also engage with industry thought leaders and other key influencers on Twitter who are sharing content your audience values. Follow them and publicly thank them and retweet their articles and content you find valuable. Just make sure to keep a healthy mix of what you’re sending out and what you’re retweeting of others.

Q: For B2B videos and webinars- is it better to cover products & services, or simply share expertise?

A: Both can be effective, as long as you know when and which to use. Webinars are powerful thought leadership vehicles and are a great way to share your expertise with a large group of potential customers and current clients.  And, since the majority of webinars can be archived and accessed on-demand, this thought leadership content can easily be incorporated into your Web site.

Product and service videos are a great addition to your Web site or YouTube. They allow clients and potential customers to gather information about your product and maximize the use of your services. If you have an upcoming product release or enhancement to share, you could consider a webinar to showcase the new release and give a quick tutorial of what clients and future clients can expect. Just make sure to be clear about the webinar content up front – don’t lead attendees in under false pretenses of thought leadership only to be presented with a product pitch or demo.

Q: How much do the social media theories apply to non-retail businesses? e.g. Selling technical software to financial institutions or specialized equipment to manufacturers.

A: Consumers aren’t the only ones turning online for purchasing information. According to an Enquiro Study, 83% of business purchasers first locate a vendor online. Furthermore, a recent Coremetrics whitepaper indicated 67% of Twitter users who become followers of a brand are more likely to buy that brand products, and 60% of Facebook users who become a fan of a brand a more likely to recommend that brand to friends.

In the end, a business purchaser is still a single person looking to gather information and make an informed decision. With the majority of people turning online to conduct that research and locate vendors, missing out on the social media conversation can mean missing out in general. By knowing your target audience and how they search for and interact with your product, you’ll best be equipped to determine the social media channels that are right for you.

Q: Is there a tool for tracking mentions/text for such “social” networks like Flickr?

A: Yes, there are many. Some of the free tools mentioned above are SocialMention and Google Alerts. There are also paid tools like Alterian’s SM2, Sysomos’ Heartbeat and Viralheat. Check out Chris Rawlinson’s blog post for 21 Free Social Media Tracking tools for more information, and stay tuned for the upcoming Business.com whitepaper detailing the top social media monitoring tools.

Q: Is there any point of setting up a Twitter or Facebook account if it is not frequently updated? And how often should these accounts be updated?

A: Would you be inclined to follow or engage with a stagnant account? If you’re going to invest the time into setting up these accounts, you should make sure you’re maximizing the use of Twitter and Facebook to achieve your goals. These accounts should be updated as often as you have something new or valuable to share with your audience. News? Discounts? Interesting research? It’s all worth sharing.

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This is Part One of a two-part post.

Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday’s Business.com-sponsored webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search.’ We’re grateful to have had such a successful turnout and appreciative to Kate Maddox of BtoB Online and Ryan DeShazer of Gyro:HSR for such great content.

If you missed the webinar, check out the on-demand version.

What You Missed

Thursday’s webinar, ‘Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media and Search’ showcased findings from Business.com and BtoB Online’s recent study of more than 450 B2B marketers, detailing how  marketers are using social media to enhance search marketing and what success metrics they’re using.

Kate Maddox, BtoB’s executive editor, began by detailing the current use of social media among B2B marketers, as found in the study. While it’s clear the use of social media is an understood ‘must’ for B2B marketers, its evident many marketers struggle to capture the impact of their social media programs in general, and the resulting potential for positive impact on online marketing efforts like search marketing.

Business.com’s Patricia Neuray, VP Sales and Marketing, focused on the key highlighted differences among B2B marketers who are currently seeing a positive impact on their search marketing efforts as a result of their social media efforts versus those who are not seeing a positive impact or are unsure of their impact. Neuray respectively labeled these groups ‘The Best’ and ‘The Rest.’

Neuray explored the reported ways The Best use social media to enhance paid search and search-engine-optimization (SEO) efforts. She capitalized on The Best’s best practices by sharing a few top tips for integrating social and search efforts, including keeping measurement simple and making sure measurement reflects set goals. Neuray also urged the audience to take the best of both social and search marketing.

For example, use keywords, phrases and terms discovered through monitoring social media conversations to enhance your SEO and paid search, and use paid search as a springboard to drive traffic to your social media efforts by including links to social media accounts and profiles in your paid search ads.

Yes, marketers love a good list of best practices, but they love the execution of best practices even more. Therefore, it’s not surprising Gyro:HSR’s Ryan DeShazer, Vice President, Global Practice Leader – Search, captivated the audience for the remainder of the webinar with real-life examples of how Gyro:HSR is currently leveraging social media to enhance search marketing for clients.

DeShazer shared four methods for effective search and social integration and illuminated each method with a client case study. According to DeShazer, marketers can best integrate social media and search by discerning the value of social media, uncovering the lingo, influencing the conversion and the new link graph.

To check out DeShazer’s case studies and learn more about his four methods for integration, download the on-demand version of the webinar.

Business.com encourages you to share your highlights, thoughts and feedback with us by commenting on this post.

We were overwhelmed by the great questions asked during the question-and-answer (Q&A) portion of the webinar. To see our answers to additional questions, make sure to check back on Monday for our Part-Two post.

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Years ago, search marketing was introduced to businesses as the newest online marketing channel to increase their bottom line. Since then, search has grown faster than traditional advertising and has become a staple marketing tactic for B2B marketers.

Now social media marketing is on the rise and shows similar promise – with marketers again wondering how they can leverage social media and even integrate search and social media strategies successfully.

Business.com and BtoB Online set out to provide clarity on the subject in our recent study of over 450 B2B marketers. The study, “The Impact of Social Media on Search” addressed specific methods companies are using to successfully integrate social media and search marketing and uncovered the types of measurable impact each channel is having on the other.

 Join our September 16^th webinar, Finding B2B Marketing Success Integrating Social Media & Search  as we share key findings of this study including:

• Specific ways B2B marketers are using social media to enhance search marketing
• The impact marketers are seeing on search marketing through social media use
• How the ‘Best’ B2B marketers are using social media to enhance search marketing vs. the ‘Rest’ and the resulting impact

“Social media continues to make huge gains among the myriad of online marketing tools available for integrated campaigns,” said Patricia Neuray, VP-sales and marketing at Business.com. “As 44% of the respondents have seen an increase in traffic from search engines since launching their social media efforts, marketers are allocating more budget to social media tactics and setting specific goals to measure the impact of their social media efforts.”

Register for this webinar and find out how marketers are successfully integrating social media with search marketing here.

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[ Ed: We are excited to feature B2B specialist Christina “CK” Kerley as a contributing blogger. A strong voice in modern B2B marketing, learn more about CK here ]

If you’re struggling against old mentalities vs. new objectives when it comes to integrating social media into your B2B marketing mix, here are 2 resources designed to win over even the most challenging of executive audiences.

First, the below presentation builds the B2B Social Media business case through 10 key benefits. Best viewed in ‘full-screen format’, the slides are also available for download right here.

And to ensure you’re armed with a bunch of supporting statistics, this dynamic video, brilliantly executed by Earnest Agency, provides a compilation of statistics in a highly entertaining format:

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[Ed: This post was written by guest blogger Kevin Gaither. To read more about Kevin, click here...]

Being a regular user of LinkedIn, I’m disappointed when I see marketers that are not utilizing LinkedIn effectively to share their brand (either business or personal).  If you take the simple and effective actions that I discuss below, you’ll be taking great steps to increase your marketing visibility and success that your competition is not taking…yet.

I recently attended one of MarketingProfs Take 10 webinars called “How to Build Your Reputation at LinkedIn (in a Few Minutes a Week)” which was hosted by Jason Alba.  Most people have a profile on LinkedIn but most people don’t know what to do once they get set up either because they’re overwhelmed with all the options or simply don’t have the time.  Here’s 10 actions he suggested to take that can help you build your reputation that are effective and time efficient.

4 One-Time Actions You Should Take

1. Enhance your profile.  This is one action that is going to take more time than most of the others, perhaps a few hours. I’d recommend making sure that your employment and educational history is fleshed out as much as possible.  Pay particular attention to your ACCOMPLISHMENTS and less on your duties. How have you or your company helped other people/companies?  What results did you achieve?  Got testimonials? Ask for recommendations from trusted colleagues or customers.
2. Modify your settings.  Make sure you have included multiple email addresses. Why? Should you switch companies, you want to be able to maintain control over your LinkedIn profile.  So have at least your business email and one of your personal email addresses. Also modify your Email Notification settings as you see fit. 
3. Pick a few applications.  Applications are a great way for you to distinguish your brand/profile and share additional content with people viewing your profile.  Applications are added to your homepage and profile.  The host pointed out the BlogLink which allows your blog posts to be automatically posted to your LinkedIn profile. Promote your blog and develop your brand! I really like the SlideShare Presentations app. If your company creates pdf or power points presentations that you want to share, this is a great way to do that within LinkedIn.
4. Join Groups.  This is powerful.  Joining groups allows you to communicate with people in the group that may not be part of your LinkedIn network.  This can be prospects or people you’re trying to recruit.  Think of Groups as targeted audiences. If you or your brand appeals to a particular demographic, find groups that are made up of that demographic.  You can join up to 50 groups and there are all kinds of groups from Professional Groups to Alumni Groups.  Check out the Groups Directory and use the Search Groups feature on the upper left-hand side.  

6 Ongoing Actions You Should Take

1. Ask Questions.  This allows you to have a much bigger footprint within your network and to communicate in different ways with your 1st degree network.  For example, at least once per month ask a question about a problem you faced recently or if anybody else has heard of a particular vendor that called you the other day. If you have a big network, you can ask questions more frequently. 
2. Answer Questions.  This is a great way to profile you/your brand and to generate leads and real business.  Remember, to be considered an “expert” in any particular area, you only need to know more than the person reading the answer! Get in there, search for questions that you think you can answer and answer them.
3. Start Group Discussions.  Once you’ve joined some groups, go in there and participate in discussions that are happening or start group discussions. Remember that these are targeted audiences and people have joined these groups for a specific reason.  You can also set up notifications within the group so you get a digest of discussions that are happening within the groups you’ve joined.
4. Do An Advanced People Search.  In the upper right hand corner click on Advanced.  Search for titles of people or people at companies that you may want to connect with.  My sales team is using this feature daily by searching for “marketing” titles at companies they’re trying to penetrate.
5. Search for Companies.  In essence, this is competitive intelligence.  What are your competitors doing?  Who should you be connecting with?  What content are they publishing?  There’s a great new feature that was launched this year called Follow Company.  This feature “allows you to keep up on occurrences within those companies by sending you updates through your LinkedIn account” and gives you something to talk about with the contacts that you find.
6. Update Your Network Status.  Do this once per week. Remember, this is not Facebook but status updates serve a similar purpose in a business context.  Status updates are essentially mini performances.  When you post a status update, you’re giving your network information about yourself or your brand.  Here’s a good example from one of my connections that I saw today:  “Fantastic article — The Difference Between B2B and B2C SEO – Proteus SEO.”  What does this tell me about the person that posted this?  He’s in the know.  He has access to information that might help me. His status update has elevated his profile in my mind as a possible expert in this area.

The author recommends that you actually place the six ongoing actions on your calendar so that you don’t waste time on other extraneous things within LinkedIn.  It’s easy to start browsing and get lost.  Stay focused.  Your competitors will be taking these actions soon (if they’re not already) so if you take these actions, they will help you share your brand and generate business in a different way.

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