On Saturday, the 23rd of January, I attended an online PR workshop run by Damien Mulley from Online PR Company , Mulley Communications. I’m a little late to the party, but that’s only because I had to rush out and buy seasons 1-6 of The West Wing and watch them all back-to-back. Thanks Damien!

The Workshop

The course / workshop was broken down into the following areas:

• Basics of Online Communications
• Developing a Communications Bible
• Developing a Communications Philosophy
• Working with Blogs, Forums, Twitter, etc.
• Finding Tools – Who is Talking about you Online?
• Crisis Communications

The Day

The Day started off early and I got in a little face time with Dena , Darragh and Leo . I also had the privilege of meeting Martina Skelly of activate.ie (who I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to speak with as I had not had my morning triple espresso). Next time Martina!

The event was held in the Radisson Blu , a venue where I’ve managed to meet numerous online marketing folks for some reason. It seems to be the new Dublin venue of choice.

The day started off on a very casual note — just the way I like it. Everyone in the room introduced themselves ( except those who were late ) and everyone felt immediately at ease. There were no awkward “Am I going to be asked to get up and give an elevator pitch?” moments. Again, it was just the way I like it.

Damien, who is amazingly comfortable speaking in front of people, kicked the morning off on the topic of grassroots media campaigns using examples from Techcrunch and Hotelicopter, and then dove straight in on the subject of “influencers.”  I have a feeling a lot of the presentation was ad-hoc, but it felt very prepared. Damien didn’t need to bother with fluff. Yet again, just the way I like it.

I was expecting there to be a lot of focus on Twitter but was very grateful that here was no focus on any one medium in particular. This was my biggest fear about the day — listening to someone rattle on about Twitter. It was nothing like this.

Damien went on and covered a lot about negative reputation management, which was quite interesting and a subject I feel will be very important in coming years.

There was then some audience participation and I got the most value from the day at this stage when the idea of “photowalks” and facilitation came up. There were some good nuggets of information here.

The next part of the workshop focused on SEO and reputation management. I believe there could have been a lot more said on this subject but I’m a little biased in this area. Leo and I provided the names of some tools for this part. As they are paid tools, I’ve included screenshots showing how they can be used in relation to Damien’s presentation. The tools are OpenSiteExplorer and MajesticSEO . Below I have included some sample images of reports I ran for Mulley.ie on OSE.

In the next example I used Majestic to run a basic link report on the same site. You can use both tools to complement each other and analyze the link graph of any site you choose. If anyone from the workshop would like me to run a report for them, let me know. We have lots of credits with each and it’s sometimes better to try before you buy. I can highly recommend each of these tools.

The next part of the day was extremely interesting, valuable, timely, topical, and relevant. Darragh Doyle, the Community Manager for Boards.ie , gave a talk on the very high profile security breach on the boards.ie website. Darragh went into some great detail on the steps that the Boards and Daft team took to resolve the situation and it turned out to be the perfect example of how to do crisis management right. It was almost as if the security breach was intended from the start to serve as the perfect case study for this workshop.

Next up was the topic of “ owning the search results for your own name .” There was some good stuff here.

On a whim, Noel Rock gave a fantastic spur-of-the-moment talk on Soccer Stars for Haiti . He did a great job considering he was put on the spot like that. Noel’s talk transitioned smoothly into the final official area of the workshop. Christian Hughes (who despite having lots to say, can talk the talk) gave a quote I still remember that’s worth mentioning:

A”Anything ‘viral’ is doomed to fail as the idea of ‘viral’ is inherently flawed. There’s no such thing as ‘ a viral;’ things ‘ go viral.’”

The day closed with a nice informal open session. I’m not so sure this would be suitable for “newbies” as there were a lot of high caliber PR and marketing folks who knew what they were talking about throwing around some interesting ideas. These were smart people. I doubt it could be recreated though.

The day finished earlier than I expected. I was very thankful — not because the content was bad (quite the opposite) but because I hate sitting down for a whole day. The length of the workshop was absolutely perfect.

The Feedback.

• I would have liked to see more actual case studies.
• I think the length the day was perfect. I wouldn’t try to make it longer.
• I would have liked if we all went to lunch together.
• I really liked the open session at the end. I think this should be an official part of the workshop.
• I liked the “no pitch” policy. I think it’s important even if some people did ignore it.
• I would have liked more info and examples on dealing with the mainstream press and their process.

In Conclusion.

The day was great. The day was valuable.

Would I recommend this workshop? Yes .

Would I pay for this workshop? Absolutely .

Without a doubt, one of the most popular shiny new objects of many social media marketing programs is Twitter. There are Twitter books, Twitter conferences, Twitter blogs and numerous articles devoted to Twitter marketing .  Unfortunately, there’s not enough time left over after reading all the promises of marketing nirvana from using Twitter to actually implement recommendations.

Fortunately, social media masterminds at companies like Seesmic, TweetDeck and HootSuite — to name a few — have developed tools to make our Tweeting lives easier. Or at least more efficient.  We use such tools here at @toprank to grow own Twitter presence as well as for clients on a daily basis and have learned quite a bit about Twitter best practices and which tools work best.

Here are five Twitter account management tools to help you keep your Twitter activity in check – whether you tweet for one account or many.

1. HootSuite.com

HootSuite is a great – and free – tool for managing multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Ping.fm accounts.

The Twitter and social media management tool allows you to personalize columns, so you can view multiple feeds from the same social networking account or multiple feeds from different social networking accounts. For example, with my personalized Twitter tab (shown above), I can view my Twitter home feed, Twitter mentions, sent Tweets and a saved search for “online marketing” – all from one screen.

Plus, HootSuite allows you to create a message and choose which social accounts you want the message to be automatically posted to.

2. CoTweet

Like HootSuite, CoTweet is a free and easy tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts – up to five – with a single login. It also allows brand and keyword monitoring through Twitter search.

This Twitter management tool’s true distinguishing feature is its workflow management capabilities (shown above). When an @ reply comes in to an account, you can assign it to a person on your CoTweet task to respond to.  They’ll be notified via email and on their own CoTweet page. Plus, the tool allows you to take notes on Twitter users for your co-users to see.

3. EasyTweets

EasyTweets is a low-cost Twitter management tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts – the more you pay, the more continuous searches, feeds and accounts you can track.

With this tool, you can automatically post RSS feed content and track RSS traffic in Google Analytics. That way, you can easily track traffic from Twitter and understand what users do when they get to your site.

Another useful feature, the Twitter management tool lets you set up continuous searches for brand mentions (shown above), and auto follow some or all users who mention your brand. Plus, you can be set up to send SMS or email alerts when people mention your brand. So wherever you are, you won’t miss your chance to respond to a prospect.

4. TweetDeck

This free desktop browser helps you keep track of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace activities from multiple accounts. Like the other tools mentioned here, you can update your accounts, follow topics with saved searches, and manage conversations with @ replies and direct messages from within TweetDeck.

But the social media management tool offers some more advanced features as well. TweetDeck allows you to record, share or watch video clips, and view YouTube videos, from within the tool (shown above). Plus, you can share and view photos, as TweetDeck now supports Flickr, Twitgo and mobypicture.

5. PeopleBrowsr

This Twitter and social media management tool, currently in Beta version, offers a very simple, visual browser-based dashboard view of social activity. PeopleBrowsr uses an interface similar to email, with the Twitter or other social feed appearing as a list in the center of the screen, and additional options in the left nav (see above).

PeopleBrowsr allows you to create and manage groups by adding public or private tags to any users from any of your different social sites. Then you can view everyone in a group in a widget of their own.

Whatever time you dedicate each day for Twitter – whether its hours or minutes a day – there’s a tool available to help you better manage activities. Try out some of our suggestions, and let us know what you think.

Of course there are more Twitter management tools than what we’ve mentioned here including:  Seesmic ,  Tweetvisor , Splitweet and others. What’s your favorite Twitter management tool?

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | 5 Twitter Management Tools You Can’t Live Without | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Microsoft Outlook 2010 Will Make Social Media Mainstream This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

For many readers of this blog social media is mainstream, but I travel the highways and byways of this country and experience first hand in my workshops and presentations the amount of folks that “just don’t get” social media. I think they’ve heard the hype and know they should get it, but it still feels a bit foreign and geeky at best and downright silly at worst.

Microsoft Office 2010 , in beta release now, may change the game on social media and turn participation into email plumbing. The MS Outlook 2010 blog reveals the new features that led me to this conclusion. (Although in stunningly Microsoft fashion the first bit of info on the page deals with a crash report update.)

Here’s the deal – depending upon who you ask, Microsoft Outlook, including Exchange, powers somewhere around 65% of enterprise email and probably more than that when it comes to the small business desktop. GMail and other SaaS tools have begun to eat away at this margin, but many a computer user sees the Internet through the eyes of MS Outlook. This post isn’t a plug for MS Office, I haven’t downloaded or tested the new version yet, it’s simply an explanation of the impact I see this new release ultimately having.

In November 2009, Microsoft announced both the beta of Microsoft Office 2010 as well as the Outlook Social Connector . The Outlook Social Connector brings together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook experience.

As of today, the beta release includes connection plans that give users the ability to add LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace interaction, giving every Outlook user the ability to enjoy the benefits of social media without any effort. This will get millions hooked and participating as simply a form of enhanced email – social media participation will become email plumbing and that will make it ubiquitous.

Here’s a list of activities, from MS site, that you can do inside Outlook 2010 when it comes to LinkedIn for Outlook

• Connect to your LinkedIn account to view your colleagues’ status updates and photos next to an e-mail message they sent you.
• Your colleagues’ latest contact information from LinkedIn automatically updates his or her Outlook contact. Whenever someone changes a phone number, e-mail address, or other contact details, it’s automatically updated in Outlook — you are always up to date.
• Synchronize your mobile phone with Outlook to stay up-to-date — you don’t have to worry about keeping track of new phone numbers and contact info — contacts’ information from the Web is synchronized to your mobile phone.
• Grow your professional network directly from within your Inbox — add colleagues with one click.

I’ve been preaching the merits of hacking together this kind of integration in your social media system for some time, but now anyone, whether they want to or not, will almost automatically have is handed to them. Combine this with Office 2010 Web Services version in the cloud and Office for Mac 2011 to include Outlook and you may see Microsoft regain some footing.

To recap, here is what you can do today to get started with the Outlook Social Connector.

1. Download the Office 2010 Beta at www.Office.com/beta
2. Update to the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector using the instructions on the Microsoft Download Center .
3. Get the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector at www.LinkedIn.com/outlook .

Related Posts:

• Designing HTML Email for Webmail Apps
• Give Zoho Credit for Being Aggressive
• The Businesscardless Office
• The Crowd Spoke and Was Heard
• Office Live Will Turn Some Heads
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Microsoft Outlook 2010 Will Make Social Media Mainstream This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

For many readers of this blog social media is mainstream, but I travel the highways and byways of this country and experience first hand in my workshops and presentations the amount of folks that “just don’t get” social media. I think they’ve heard the hype and know they should get it, but it still feels a bit foreign and geeky at best and downright silly at worst.

Microsoft Office 2010 , in beta release now, may change the game on social media and turn participation into email plumbing. The MS Outlook 2010 blog reveals the new features that led me to this conclusion. (Although in stunningly Microsoft fashion the first bit of info on the page deals with a crash report update.)

Here’s the deal – depending upon who you ask, Microsoft Outlook, including Exchange, powers somewhere around 65% of enterprise email and probably more than that when it comes to the small business desktop. GMail and other SaaS tools have begun to eat away at this margin, but many a computer user sees the Internet through the eyes of MS Outlook. This post isn’t a plug for MS Office, I haven’t downloaded or tested the new version yet, it’s simply an explanation of the impact I see this new release ultimately having.

In November 2009, Microsoft announced both the beta of Microsoft Office 2010 as well as the Outlook Social Connector . The Outlook Social Connector brings together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook experience.

As of today, the beta release includes connection plans that give users the ability to add LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace interaction, giving every Outlook user the ability to enjoy the benefits of social media without any effort. This will get millions hooked and participating as simply a form of enhanced email – social media participation will become email plumbing and that will make it ubiquitous.

Here’s a list of activities, from MS site, that you can do inside Outlook 2010 when it comes to LinkedIn for Outlook

• Connect to your LinkedIn account to view your colleagues’ status updates and photos next to an e-mail message they sent you.
• Your colleagues’ latest contact information from LinkedIn automatically updates his or her Outlook contact. Whenever someone changes a phone number, e-mail address, or other contact details, it’s automatically updated in Outlook — you are always up to date.
• Synchronize your mobile phone with Outlook to stay up-to-date — you don’t have to worry about keeping track of new phone numbers and contact info — contacts’ information from the Web is synchronized to your mobile phone.
• Grow your professional network directly from within your Inbox — add colleagues with one click.

I’ve been preaching the merits of hacking together this kind of integration in your social media system for some time, but now anyone, whether they want to or not, will almost automatically have is handed to them. Combine this with Office 2010 Web Services version in the cloud and Office for Mac 2011 to include Outlook and you may see Microsoft regain some footing.

To recap, here is what you can do today to get started with the Outlook Social Connector.

1. Download the Office 2010 Beta at www.Office.com/beta
2. Update to the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector using the instructions on the Microsoft Download Center .
3. Get the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector at www.LinkedIn.com/outlook .

Related Posts:

• Designing HTML Email for Webmail Apps
• Give Zoho Credit for Being Aggressive
• The Businesscardless Office
• The Crowd Spoke and Was Heard
• Office Live Will Turn Some Heads
• Powered by Contextual Related Posts

Like this post? Share it with others

I attending the SMC event a few nights ago and one topic that came up was Forrester’s recent decision of not allowing their analysts to blog about social media unless it was on the official Forrester blog. Here is LaSandra Brill , Janet Fouts and Erin Robbins take on personal and corporate brands:

Photo credit: freezelight

Dear “SEO Consulting Services New York” and you too “Starting A Home Business”,

I have an admission to make: I don’t like comment spam. You are comment spammers. Our readers don’t like you. I don’t like you. You’re not welcome here.

Our Akismet filter has been doing a good job of filtering out spam and our commenting filters within Disqus catch most of the non-automated spammy comments. But they still persist. Most people active online have real names (obvious I know, but stay with me). If they don’t use their real name, it’s popular to use a “handle”.   I can see that it might be reasonable for some people to have a few different handles, but for the most part, singular identities are the norm.

Where the “identity crisis” comes is the persistent and pervasive use of what I consider, spammy handles in blog comments. Doing this is as old as blogging itself.   It started with legitimate beginnings though. For example, I used to put “toprank” in the name field when making comments on other blogs since that’s my handle. Today, I just use my own name.  Apparently, there are a large number of people named, “internet marketing minneapolis” or “insurance leads”. I don’t think so.

We “no follow links” within our blog comments due to abuse by SEO spammy types. Actually, most of them are not professional SEO’s at all. Pro SEO’s would not be so obvious and stupid as to blatantly use keywords as a person’s name when the links are no followed. It’s a waste of time.

So, to “internet marketing india” and “buy viagra and ciallis here”, I’m pretty sure those aren’t your names or your handles. My position with this blog is that if you opt NOT to identify yourself as a person, then the comment has no place here.

My preference is for readers to use real names. When people do that, their comments also tend to be more thoughtful, intelligent and useful to other readers. Additionally, when people use a handle or nickname to reference themselves online, it’s usually a good comment. However, with the popularity of Twitter, most people use their Twitter handle which is often a one-word name anyway.

I simply draw the line with people (or bots) that insist on using keywords they want to rank for in search engines as their “Name” in our blog comments.  Same goes for those that decide to use a two word name that then decide to link to a sales letter for some kind of “automate all your online marketing” software.

We’ve published a  blog comment policy several years ago, but after adding Disqus as our comment management system, we cannot link to it in the same way. However, there should be a link at the end of each blog post now so readers can our guidelines for commenting.

After blogging for 6 years, I’m not ambiguous in my thinking about this. I’d be curious to know if readers think this is extreme, but I have no problem saying that I’m pretty firm in this policy and not buying in to the argument that there’s an implied reciprocation that should happen when people comment that involves a keyword link in exchange.

If you’re a long time blogger, what decisions have you made about a blog comment policy?

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Open Letter to Blog Comment Spammers | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

I often get asked the question – how do you keep up with it all?

And if there is one thing I pride myself on is being organized. As anyone on my team can tell you from having been in my office is that it is very organized which I feel spills over into my digital life as well.

I can say that life was a lot more chaotic before I found Google Reader (hat tip to Robert Scoble who turned me on to Google Reader).

A typical day starts at 6am with answering the new email that came in over night and then some morning reading in my RSS reader (see photo of this mornings Google Reader). I break out my reading by several meta-topics like Must Reads which is mostly keeping me up to date on things like Facebook because of my book and the new book coming out in November as well as B2B Marketing trends, Primary are blogs that I frequent such as the majors like Mashable and the individual blogs like Web Ink Now (plus a ton more), some personal stuff like Sailing blogs, Avaya blogs and Google alerts on Avaya and our Competitors, Novitaz which is an In-Store Digital Ad Network (who I am a marketing advisor for) as well as a feed of all my Favorite Facebook friends status updates just to be sure I don’t miss anything (note on how to do this – create a friend list – then take the RSS feed of their status updates and import that to Google Reader, then there is the Ye Olde Vanity search in case people are talking about me on blogs or elsewhere, my Delicious friends feed which is a great way  of seeing what other friends are tagging (such as Charline Li, and Brian Solis) I use this mostly as a “safety net” in case I miss something hot – they will most likely tag it, Research such as Forrester or MarketingProfs usually premium content, but stuff I want to know about as soon as it gets produced, then my SlideShare Technology feed so when folks post new presentations and tag them with the Technology category I get them in this feed – its a great source for ideas and keeping up to date on technology and  finally Magazines – I canceled every magazine subscription expect for BtoB Magazine and BusinessWeek – everything else comes in here such as Wired, Fast Company etc …

Things I share on Google Reader appear on my lifestream on Friendfeed which collects shared items from other feeds like:  my personal Delicious feed, YouTube feed,  SlideShare feed, my StumbleUpon, my Flickr, and my Digg feeds and then pushes them out as updates via Twitter.

Throughout the day I follow toggle between TweetDeck, retweeting good posts and reading new posts on my Google Reader and sharing them (during lunch or after work). Weekends are devoted to Blog posts and writing the new book.

With over 300 feeds coming into my Google Reader, Twitter alerts popping up all over the place and email coming in by the truck load its easy to feel overloaded fast. My advice would be don’t let Google Reader (or any social activity) over run your life – remember you are in control!

• Tweet This!
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5 Steps to Successful Facebook Advertising This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Currently Facebook boasts somewhere in excess of 400 million users and growing. You’ve probably heard this line by now, but If it were a country it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India only. There’s a pretty good bet that some members of your ideal target customer reside in and visit Facebook land, but the trick is to find them.

Facebook’s advertising platform is a vehicle worth exploring. The tool allows you to place small display type ads in the right sidebar of Facebook pages and profiles. At this point it’s not as effective in pure response as well targeted Google AdWords campaigns, but it’s not really the same kind of vehicle and you won’t find AdWords in Facebook, at least for now.

Like many things Facebook, setting up and running successful campaigns isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Below is a description of five steps to consider as you explore Facebook advertising. (Bookmark the Facebook Ad Help Center and return to get answers to the Facebook Ads process)

Target

One of the best things about Facebook advertising is the ability select who sees your ad using a number of variables, including keywords. You can target by geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. (I know someone who wanted to send a birthday message to his wife and targeted so narrowly that she was the only who would see the ad.) Demographics are pretty straightforward, the real trick is expanding your keywords to the point where you have a large enough audience to get the job done. Facebook used to have a tool that let you search for the hottest topics being discussed but they shelved it as they build a more robust analytics package. Check out all of your targeting options here

Attract and Engage

The first thing you must do is decide whether you want people to be directed to your own web page or something on Facebook like a Page, Application, Group or Event. If you are already the administrator of your Facebook Page, Group, Event, or Application, you can select it from the drop down option. The thing that’s nice about using ads to promote your pages and events is that Facebook puts a “Become a fan” or “RSVP to this event” button right in the ad. People don’t even have to visit your page to take action. There are some pros to sending them to a link on your web site (better tracking options) but by sending them to assets on Facebook you have the ability to multiply their actions through the natural social wall activity that occurs when someone RSVPs to an event. (All their followers automatically see that action.)

Some users find Facebook ads a good tool to promote events or get new fans to the pages. From an engagement standpoint think in terms of using the ads to promote content and value and not so much to sell something. The most successful use of ads on social networks is to create deeper engagement so you have the ability to sell once trust is built. Think about putting white papers on your Fan Pages and promoting that content or creating a free event, like a webinar, and advertising that event. In both of these cases you’ll have the opportunity to sell a bit once you’ve proven you know your stuff. (One quirk of note – when you promote an event created with the Facebook event app the title of the ad will automatically default to the title of the event, so name your event wisely )

You don’t get much space in these ads so use it wisely. Your headline (25 characters) should grab attention immediately with a benefit. You’ll get another 135 characters to describe and entice in the body of the ad. You also have the option to upload an image. Take this option. It may be the most important aspect of your ad so choose wisely. Facebook users are very image driven (it’s the largest photo sharing site in the world) and the visual graphic you choose will make or break an ad. This is an element you must plan on testing (see below)

Budget

Facebook advertising works a bit like AdWords in that you bid for keywords and compete to get your ads shown. How effective you are at this depends upon the competitiveness of your keywords. You can choose between a cost per click (CPC) model where you pay only for clicks or a cost per thousand (CPM) model where you pay per 1000 ad views. Most research I’ve read suggests that the CPC model is slightly more effective in terms of ROI. (Here’s a nice Glossary of Facebook Ads terminology in case this is starting sound buzz wordy.)

To start your campaign you must determine a bid per click and daily budget. You can set both of these numbers very low, but don’t expect much. Initially you are just testing so you’ll want to set your click bid somewhere around the Facebook suggested amount and a daily budget you can live with, something like $50 or more to start. You can always adjust these. Learn about the Facebook Ads Manager here .

Test

No matter where or what you should always test your advertising. Online applications like this make it pretty darn simple. You can and should create multiple ad versions. Once you create an ad you will have the ability to create similar ads and run those as well. You’ll be able to easily view which ad is performing the best based on clicks. Facebook does need to approve your ads so make sure you are familiar with their guidelines .

The simplest thing to test is your image. I’ve seen ads go from no response to mega response with a better picture. Mind you I had no idea it was a better picture or I would have used it in the first place, but testing told me so. Here are some suggestions from Facebook on improving your ads .

Analyze

Once you create and launch your campaigns you need to start tracking and tweaking. Facebook has a tool that gives you some information on actions taken inside the Facebook platform. So, if you are running an ad for an event or Facebook page you can use the Facebook Insights tool to monitor interaction.

Facebook Insights is a nice reporting tool as it can give you information about the actual, not targeted demographics and interests of the people clicking on your ads and keywords that drew that interest. This will help you narrow or broaden your targeting. Page admins can access Insights by logging in and viewing the box titled Insights in the left sidebar. This is only visible to Page admins. If you click on See All you will get full reporting. More information on Insights here and from the very useful blog Inside Facebook .

Facebook does allow you to run ads that point people links outside of Facebook and in order to track these ads you simply and monitor them using your own analytics tool such as Google Analytics . If you are using Google Analytics simply use the URL builder tool in Analytics to create a link to your page that contains tracking parameters and place that in your Facebook Ad as the destination link.

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For many marketers, considering mobile marketing year after year is the same story. The year starts off with lots of hype about it finally being the "year of mobile marketing" … and after a month or two, the excitement dies down and reality hits. Most teams realize that they lack the experience or knowledge on what type of messages people will actually engage with and bow to the fear that only a fraction of the people they care about will respond to advertising or marketing in a mobile environment. Predictably, their attention turns elsewhere and mobile marketing initiatives stall. Is this year really going to be any different?

It's hard to predict, but I can say that this year does represent a unique moment where all the different aspects of mobile marketing that have long been preached by believers as signifying a cultural shift that matters to marketers are coming together. There are five concepts in particular that signify this evolution in my mind, and paying attention to their rise is the strongest indicator that mobile marketing may be reaching a new stage of reality:

1. The Shortcode - Similar to the URL system that has allowed brands to have specific destinations online, the shortcode is giving brands a way to allow direct messaging from their consumers in an easily memorable way. Simply send a single word or a message to a five digit code from your mobile phone and you will get something in return. The simplicity of this format is an important prerequisite to make it truly likely that people will actually use it as it offers a memorable syntax that enables an actionable message to be memorable enough to stick in the minds of consumers on the go.
2. LBS (Location Based Services) - One of the biggest new abilities that new phones are offering is the ability for your phone to know specifically where in the world you are. The potential of a personal GPS in your pocket, so to speak, ofers up all sorts of localized marketing possiblities. Of course, the potential for location based advertising could certainly backfire if people start to get inundated, but used right LBS can be a boon - and offer an important basic capability that enables all sorts of innovation in mobile device tools and marketing.
3. APP(lications) - By now you have probably formed an opinion about Apps, and whether or not you feel like they will save the world, there is no denying that letting someone download a branded tool to enhance their experience of your brand offers great potential for engagement, lead generation and even direct sales. The App revolution, more than anything else, is fueled by a new level of utility in content for mobile devices. The popular tagline "there's an app for that" is based on this ubiquitous utility. When you can find an app to enhance just about anything you are doing, the net effect becomes transformative. Marketing can now do that too.
4. AR (Augmented Reality) - You see a lot of hype about the potential for augmented reality these days, as it finally evolves beyond the realm of science fiction. Whether it is a service like Yelp's Monocle or more practical computer-based effort from USPS that I blogged about some time ago and referred to as "holocam marketing" at the time. Through your mobile device, you can now add a new layer to your interactions that offers more knowledge, more opinions and more suggestions - all live.
5. DMPs (Direct MobilePayments) - Underpinning all these advances is the simple question of how people will be able to move money around. The potential for micropayments has always vastly outsized the reality. The only environment that has ever come close is Apple with iTunes, where you have a linked account and can easily click a button on a device to trigger a micropayment from your own account without having to re-enter or re-confirm credit card details. As the recent text-to-donate campaign for Haiti from the Red Cross showed the world, trying these payments to user's phone bills may offer another solution. If the behaviour of using these direct micropayments can be extended for consumers beyond donations, it would fuel many other marketing efforts.

Photo Credit: Mobile Marketing Watch

Having a great time in Vancouver. If you want to see how great, check out my pictures from Day 1 and Day 2 .

Join the Mobile Webinar Win an HP iPAQ Glisten This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Join me for a free web panel discussion – Mobile Marketing for Small Business – February 18th at Noon CST – Register here for Feb 18 Mobile Marketing Event

As mobile devices evolve to powerful hand held computers, smart marketers are embracing this evolution with mobile centric marketing initiatives.

Everything about your marketing online and offline must begin to consider that entire market segments use the mobile device to find everything from food to legal services locally and abroad.

One lucky attendee will be chosen at random to win a HP iPAQ Glisten , a modern, feature-rich 3G world phone that meets the increasing demands of today’s mobile professionals. (does not include activation or AT&T service)

Join me with a special expert panel, Feb 18th at Noon CST as we discuss:

• Ways to get your business ready for mobile shoppers
• How to market through Text and SMS campaigns
• How to make your web site mobile browser friendly
• Integrating mobile technologies into your offline efforts

GoToWebinar is the presenting sponsor of this Duct Tape Marketing webinar.

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Go look at Anne Holland’s Which Test Won . Sorry to bypass the quiz screen, but my post’s title already gives away the answer.

“Version A, with its main visual of the printer itself, enticed 37.2% more visitors to complete the online call-back form, thus generating more sales leads for the industrial printers.”

While an awareness of the customer’s use of your product is important, repeating what they already know (what an codes on a can look like) obscures the real information they want. And that’s what B2B marketing thrives on … information.

Do as I say, not as I do
At the trade show I was just at, this was the first time I displayed a sample of a user’s product, not our equipment. But it was the best way to show what our product does at a trade show where most visitors don’t know. In Anne’s example, the visitors had already clicked on a link, so they knew what to expect and were interested in the product.

So, choose the appropriate image based on the situation. But don’t feel guilty next time you put your product front-and-center.

Just about every business with a web site does something to market and promote it. When those companies are asked about web analytics, it’s surprising how many look back with a blank stare.  This isn’t the case with mature online marketers but it does happen a lot with new business web sites and blogs.

For many companies that are new to web analytics the idea of digging in and finding useful information can be daunting.  It’s common marketing sense to measure what you’re marketing, but making sense of analytics data doesn’t always find time in the mix of duties a small business or new web site owner is responsible for.

The amount of information that analytics packages deliver isn’t always easy to sort through and turn into business decisions. So what should those that are new to web analytics do? Keep it simple and start off with the basics.

Each analytics package is different in features, price and learning curve. I’d suggest starting out with Google Analytics as it’s free, feature rich, and not too complicated to learn. Start off by looking at the items below.

• Unique Visitors – Unique visitors are are an important metric as it counts everyone as one for any given time period. This means that if you had 250 unique visitors, 250 different people visited your site at least once. If your unique visitor number is low, it could mean that your site is either having issues in search engines, or need more content.
• Traffic Sources – Are you getting traffic from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, or other sites? Referring information can help you see where your traffic is coming from which you can then use to make decisions on where and how to promote your future content.
• Referring Keywords – These are the phrases that someone put into a search engine and arrived at your site with. Ideally they’d be keyword phrases that related to your company. If not, then it may be an indication that you’re either not optimized, or optimized for the wrong phrases.
• Top Content – No matter what size your site is, knowing what pages get the most traffic can help you when building out new pages. Using the same format, or building out content on that topic, can help drive more traffic. These are also pages that call to action (CTA) buttons should be added if you want your visitors to do download a white paper or do something specific.
• Location – If your business wants a strong local presence, the location area in analytics can tell you country, state and city of where your visitors are coming from. Are your visitors actually local? That’d be a good thing to know.
• Campaign Tracking –  Track visitors from sources where you are marketing to a particular goal page or conversion.

As you feel more comfortable with Google Analytics you can then start to explore other actionable data including conversions, trends and features such as the most often used search terms on your internal search engine. Features like goals, top entrance/exit pages, bounce rates, and time on site are also a good metrics to use in understanding how visitors are interacting with your content. Visit the Google Analytics Help page to find out everything you need to know to make the most out of GA.

Web analytics can be overwhelming as there is a lot of information to be analyzed and then decisions that need to be made from that data. Instead of trying to jump in and consume it all, take it one step at a time.

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Basic Tips on Web Analytics | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

What is this man doing?

1. Stepping out of the booth to check his phone?
2. Can’t make the long walk to the restroom?

moar funny pictures

This was right across from our show booth, and this guy was like this for ten minutes. Since men don’t take that long to water the bushes, we decided he must have been checking his BlackBerry.

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Your Business Is Worthless if It Depends on You This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with John Warrillow (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes

The title of this post might sound like fighting words for some, I mean, you work and sweat and pour your life into this thing and I have the nerve to suggest it’s not worth anything? According to my guest for this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Warrillow , author of Built To Sell , only 1 in 100 business owners is successful in selling his or her company each year.

It’s the biggest shame in the entire small business world to think that people slave away at something, often times sacrificing far more in terms of health, family and wage then those employed by BigCo, only to discover that there is nothing to sell at the end.

Creating a business that’s an asset is done intentionally and doesn’t happen automatically, even for very profitable businesses. As Warrillow and I discuss in this session, one of the first keys is to think in terms of building a business that can run without the owner. Any potential buyer is going to look beyond a P&L to discover if the business is really run by the relationships of skills of the owner. If that’s the case, if the owner can’t walk away without any dip in productivity, then the asset is significantly downgraded.

If you find yourself thinking, I want to start a business or I might want to slow down a bit in five years, now is the time to add Built To Sell to your strategy and planning must read list. It’s essential to start setting the value building process and tactics into motion and nurturing a view of your business as a potential.

The first step in this process is to find a way to remove yourself from sales and marketing and product innovation. Until you can successfully do that, you’ll have a hard time convincing outside buyers,

The next very important step is to focus on creating positive cash flow. I know every business has that as a goal, but if you began to look at cash flow as something over and above the debt service the buyer just took on to buy you out, it might look a little different.

Built To Sell is the first book I’ve come across that speaks about building a business to sell in the practical, simple terms that any small business owner can access in a systematic way.

My favorite quote from our interview – “Most small businesses run their business like they watch a movie, they have no idea what the ending will be.”

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For some reason there is a lot of confusion about the word Content lately. Back in the late 90s when the internet was just heating up we all heard alot about how “Content is King”. But these days for B2B Marketers I think we need to take it a step further and say that “Content is Media”.

If you have been following my thoughts on the 4 C’s of Marketing – it all starts with content. Building a solid content creation engine is critical to B2B marketers today. Why?

Its the content that gives you the opportunity to have a discussion with the Media, its the content that gives you the opportunity to create conversations socially, its the content that gives you the opportunity to re-engage with leads in your system that you may be nurturing on that sames topic, and its the content that allows your sales team to start a conversation with their accounts about that topic.

If you follow Seth Godin at all you will know that Mass Media in forms that we are used to like Advertising isn’t working for or B2C breatherin. Sure anyone  can take out an ad in a major publication but his point is more about the sustained effort over time to create a brand using advertising hasn’t worked for years and is just too expensive and too inefficient to build a brand.

I think B2B marketers really need to think and act more like a media house themselves. What is your publishing calendar? Can you stick to it? Does it relate to the major growth initiatives of your company? Your Content engine should be able to answer all these questions – and when you do then you will be able to use your Content as Media!

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The PR industry is in a state of flux with increasing importance on getting into the content and social web business. Consumers are spending more time with digital and social media. Advertising dollars are following. That means less budget to staff newsrooms and reporters, journalists and editors to pitch.

Understanding the needs of their “customers’ customer” is essential for PR agencies and communications professionals to remain relevant and productive. “Push PR” is increasingly being complemented by “Pull” tactics – optimization for discovery. Being able to provide value is essential and here are 3 ways a better understanding of SEO can do just that.

1. Fish where the fish are.

There were over 14 billion core searches in Dec ( comSore ) vs 285 million who watch TV in a given month ( Nielsen ). Consumers rely on search daily to find news and information. PR and communications types need to understand the consumer search behaviors and preferences (keywords) of their clients as well as the publications they want their clients to be covered by.

2. Journalists rely on search.

According to TopRank’s “Journalist Use of Search survey”, 91% of journalists, editors and reporters surveyed use standard search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing to do their job. That preference was mirrored by findings in a recently published “ Social Media & Online Usage Study ” (pdf) by George washington University and Cision where 100% of those surveyed use Google to research stories.

3. Optimization is about more than SEO.

Search engine optimization, digital asset optimization, social media optimization and even micromedia optimization (ie real time SEO) are buzzwords all representing opportunities for Media Relations and communications professionals to influence discovery by making it easier for various types of search engines to find, index and rank their content.

It’s imporant that communications people understand the different search options consumers and the media are using to distribute and consume news. If content can be searched on, it can be optimized. That includes everything from press releases to video to Tweets.

Search Engine Optimization or “ SEO ” as an umbrella term is typically concerned with any kind of work that influences any kind of search engine to do what it does best and hopefully in favor of the content being promoted. Most people mean optimizing content for better visibility in Google, Yahoo or Bing when they employ SEO tactics.

It’s important to note that many publishers are already using SEO tactics to make their news stories better suited for discovery and ranking on search engines. These efforts have resulted in substantial increases in traffic to online news sites, improving the attractiveness of advertising.

Digital Asset Optimization or “ DAO ” is a term TopRank has used and promoted since 2007 that makes reference to the different types of media search engines like Google have started to display (aka Blended or Universal search results) depending on the query. Search results are no longer limited to web pages and can include images, video thumbnails, news, blogs, books and local information. Optimizing for these different types of media involves understanding what digital assets can be created, keyword optimized and published online for search.

Social Media Optimization or “ SMO ” is a term initially made popular by Rohit Bhargava and added on to by several others in the SEO world including TopRank. While many social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn keep the bulk of their content behind a login and away from search engine spiders, many social interactions produce content that can be indexed and included in search results. Journalists and consumers increasingly participate with social channels to watch, share, contribute and curate information. If PR and communications can understand how to influence keyword use of social content then their news will be easier for analysts, reporters and journalists to find.

Here’s a story related to me by an editor in the TopRank Journalist use of search survey that illustrates the intersection of search and social media:

“I was writing a column about the planned partnership between Google and Yahoo.”

“I tracked down potential sources first using Google and LinkedIn, and came across a white paper prepared by a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute.”

“While I could not easily find an e-mail address, I went to Facebook where I located him, then sent a message. He replied and we followed up with a phone interview.”

Micromedia Optimization is a new term that basically means real time optimization of status updates and content sources that are indexed and included as real time content by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The same micromedia content can be shared and discovered on platform specific search engines such as search.twitter.com and across social networks that provide the opportunity to syndicate such content. Google Buzz, Facebook status updates and LinkedIn updates are also included in this category.

The takeaway that I think is most important for communications professionals is to understand the nature of search and how to match up optimization tactics with channels of disccovery. Using keyword research for both standard search and social search optimization of news content along with ongoing web analytics and social media monitoring are key.

I’ll be discussing these strategies, tactics and a lot more at SMC Louisville tonight 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. ET on at the Louisville Visual Art Association. I hope folks can brave the snow (safely) and make it out. You won’t be disappointed!

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | 3 Reasons PR & Communications Pros Need to Know SEO | One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Hat tip to my colleague at Edelman Digital , TJ Kelly for sending this to me last week.

As you can see from the chart above , more than 30% of Twitter’s visitors were under 25 up from about 20% of its visitors at the end of 2008; thank you in part to celebrity adoption and the mainstream media mentioning Twitter over 20,ooo times last year on television (can’t find the source). Twitter has also extended its global reach expanding in Indonesia, Japan, Mexico to name a few.

What this means for brands.

Brands now have the opportunity to reach more people in more places  on Twitter.  They need to open up the firewall and be ready to engage in multiple languages by empowering their employee base to serve as brand evangelists. The important thing to remember is that Twitter is just a tool and if the masses move to something else (ah em … Google Buzz ), brands need to be ready and try to forecast consumer behavior in order to stay one step ahead of the game.

One model I use when creating strategic social media plans is to follow the Forrester POST Method (People, Objectives, Strategies, and Technologies or tools) in that order; and notice that technologies is considered last.

A friend of mine who is an experienced corporate marketer started a new business. The store just opened and being the good pal that I am, I was able to provide some advice regarding marketing on the web – specifically regarding blog marketing.

This is a new small business, so considerations for what to do about a web site included: cost, functionality, flexibility, ease of maintenance and marketability. The web site needed to serve as both an online representation of the business, but without transactional functionality, as well as a host for landing pages used with email and PPC campaigns.

My recommendation for a low cost, easy to use and search engine friendly content mangagement system? Blog software.

What often happens when friends ask for advice regarding web marketing is that I’ll make some recommendations in a casual setting or email links to a few resources like this one on blog marketing tips , then a few weeks or months later, the conversation will turn to, “So, how is your blog or web site doing?”, and I find out that the site/blog was either not started at all, it was created in a way that blows away any chance of SEO or marketability outside of advertising or it was built using resources with no cost of entry but without the capabilities to scale if successful.

Something along those lines happend with my friend’s blog.

What was the issue? The blog was started using Blogger.com, which by itself is not a problem, but the blog address selected was: nameofstore.blogspot.com. This is understandable because it’s the default URL selection when you create a blog with Blogger.com.

However, picking a third party domain for the blog address violates one of the most important rules in sustainable blogging: Always host the blog address with a domain name you control. That means yourdomainname.com/blog or blog.yourdomainname.com or yourdomainnameblog.com.

Otherwise, you give up control. How so? What if the blog host goes down? Free services rarely provide support. Also, what if the service does not support the functionality you need? You can’t change their entire platform to suit your individual needs.

There are other reasons for keeping the blog address as part of your own domain name including the ability to change blog software services without having to change your blog address.

Of course there’s also a benefit for search engine optimization if you host the blog as a sub directory of you main company domain name such as yourdomainname.com/blog. Blogs are very linkable entities and other blogs tend to be enthusiastic about linking, so any links to your blog can be percieved as a vote of credibility to your main web site since the blog and the web site share the same domain name.

Now back to our tale of the small business blog. My friend had only made one post on the blogspot.com URL so nothing would be lost by moving to a dedicated domain name. My own experience with Online Marketing Blog was different. After blogging for nearly 2 years at a blogspot.com address, I decided to move to a dedicated domain name and Wordpress. It took some talented optimization and 6 months of aggressive promotion to recoup the linking footprint (100,000+ inbound links) that was lost. Of course, now our traffic is multiple times more than what it was.

What my friend decided to do was register a domain name and setup a hosting account. Since there was no main company web site to attach the blog to, this makes the most sense. Essentially, the blog became the company web site. With more and more businesses, this is becoming a very practical, cost effective and functionally efficient way to manage web site content: Using blog software as a content management system.

As my friend asked what to do next, writing everything down in a notebook, it became clear that there’s a litany of things you COULD do with setting up a blog. Even if we filtered it down to what one SHOULD do, the list was amazingly long. As someone new to the whole idea of blogging and this not being a formal consulting arrangement, I decided to create what I think, is a short list of what a small businesses CAN do when starting a blog.

1. Decide the purpose of the blog.

Do this before going out and registering a domain name or anything else. Is the blog going to serve as a journal for starting the business? Is it a search marketing tool? Is it to be used to demonstrate thought leadership and create credibility? Will it be a communication tool for customers? Will it also serve as the main company web site? Is the purpose some or all of the above?

I could elaborate on setting up each of these types of blogs if I ever decided to write that book, but for now, we’ll stick with a blog that serves as a company web site, hosts landing pages, serves as a small business resource and marketing tool.

2. Pick a URL.

If the purpose of the blog is to support company brand and audience, then the URL should be part of the company web site. Ideally, the blog hosting situation allows for a sub directory such as companysite.com/blog.  Otherwise, a sub-domain such as blog.companysite.com will work and you can can host the blog elsewhere, separate from the company web servers. IT will like that.

If the purpose of the blog is independent of the primary company brand, or messaging, then a dedicated domain name such as topicgoeshereblog.com might work better.

It’s tempting to use a keyword only domain name, but those keywords will not be a silver bullet for search engine rankings. A catchy, meaningul brand name for the blog will go much farther as content can always be optimized for search engine rankings.

3. Pick blog software.

In most cases, WordPress is the way to go. An inexpensive Linux platform hosting account that supports PHP and mySQL can be secured for $10-$20 per month. However, should the blog get really popular, expect to upgrade to support increased demand. It’s entirely worth it.

The blog software will need to be installed on the server that will host it and the database will also need to be set up. This is fairly straightforward, but in all honesty, it’s best to have someone that knows what they’re doing help. As an example, I do very little of the technical work on our blog and prefer to have a specialist (Thomas McMahon) take care of maintenance, adding plugins, design and functionality updates. We have outside programmers do any heavy lifting in the application development department.

Wordpress software is open source, ie free, so if you are code/technically savvy and you have the time to figure it out, it’s certainly doable. There is no one “right way” to setup a blog. There are literally hundreds of shades of gray.

It can cost a hundreds to thousand of dollars for a blog consultant to install, setup and customize the design of your blog. You’re not paying for the software, you’re paying for expertise that will save you MONTHS of time and allow you to get to market more quickly and efficiently.

4. Customize the blog.

After installation of the core blog software, there are a number of customization tasks.

First, the blog design should be modified to match your branding. If you don’t hire a consultant to do this, there are many free templates that can then be customized, but many of them require a link to the author at the bottom. Personally, I’m not a fan of those, but they are a low/no cost place to start. Design customization involves modifying the CSS, JavaScript, graphics and possibly a few database elements.

The second set of customization tasks involves plug-ins to improve the adminstration, front end functionality and the SEO friendliness of the blog. Thanks to Twitter and Thomas for this recommended minimum list of plug-ins:

• Redirection
• HeadSpace2
• Google XML sitemaps
• Gravity forms
• All In One SEO
• PostPost
• ACE WP Plug
• ComLuv
• Disqus
• Members only
• Cookies for comments
• Section widget
• Page order
• Related posts
• FeedSmith FeedBurner Plugin
• Sociable
• Askimet or WP-SpamFree
• Post Teaser

5. Create a content plan.

In concert with the purpose of the blog, it’s important to generate a basic editorial guideline for creating content. The easiest way to manage this is by creating categories for the kinds of content you plan on posting.

Before you create those categories, it’s a good idea to do some keyword research as the categories will become excellent repositories of related content. Why not make it even easier for search engines to understand and rank them?

Common keyword research tools include: WordTracker and Google . Paid keyword tools include WordStream.com and KeywordDiscovery.com

Once you identify which keyword phrases best represent the content you’ll be publishing, use them to name your content categories. Each time you make a blog post, that entry will be associated with one or more categories, creating a very search engine friendly repository of content.

Create an editorial calendar or schedule of posts to keep you on topic for your audience and true to the purpose of the blog. Leverage interactions with blog readers as well as your analytics to know if your content and keyword picks are productive or not.

6. Pick your blogging team.

In the case of most small businesses, the blogging team is a team of one. That’s fine, just be sure to document what’s working and what’s not so when the time comes, you can get your blogging team mate up to speed quickly.

Since blogger’s block (like writer’s block) can really dampen a good thing for a small business blog, go ahead and keep a good number of posts in draft mode. Add to them as you get new ideas and inspiration. Or facts and examples. That way, you’ll have a steady stream of blog posts ready to publish in advance. In fact, you can schedule blog posts in advance using WordPress.

7. Make it easy to share.

Blogging in a vaccum is inevitable blogging death. It’s essential that you solicit comments in your posts, respond to comments quickly, create and enforce a commenting policy. Being responsive is an essential part of attracting subscribers .

Don’t covet the comments either. Visit other blogs in your industry and write useful comments. Those bloggers may notice you and it can become something more, like an invite for a guest post, collaboration or simply a new online friend.

Make it easy for readers of your blog to save and share your content with sharing buttons or widgets. It pays to create accounts on the more popular services and develop social networks there. Your contacts on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and similar services will watch for your next post and vote for the good stuff, which can drive your content to be exposed on more popular areas of those web sites. More exposure can mean more traffic. The social bookmarks tool is handy for adding such functionality to any web page and Thomas offered several new blog promotion tips last week.

8. Get your social on .

RSS feeds come with blogs and it’s worth taking the time to make sure the RSS feed is readily available and obvious for people to subscribe. Submit your blog and RSS feed to our HUGE list of blog and RSS directories .

Set up social profiles on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as appropriate and automate the sharing of links from your blog posts to those services. In other words, you could use a service like TwitterFeed to publish your latest blog post to Twitter and Facebook automatically.

Be sure to publish your blog URL everywhere you publish your web site address.

9. Make static.

If you’re using the blog as a CMS for a small business web site, then make your static web pages such as those for About our Company, Product/Service pages, Contact Forms, etc. The blog can be customized to have a home page like any other web site as well. That way, visitors arriving on your site can see what they expect from a company selling products/services. At the same time, blogging creates a rich and frequent source of useful content that’s syndicated via RSS, promoted automatically to relevant social channels and leaves the door open for interaction via comments.

10. Measure. Test – Test. Measure.

It’s important that you set goals for the blog, a plan to execute tactics and most of all, measure progress. Most web site measurement is focused on web analytics and metrics specific to different types of marketing such as with email, SEO or PPC. Standard web analytics software such as Google Analytics will address the vast majority of your needs.

I would also recommend social media monitoring and analytics. Monitoring can be as simple as the RSS feed from search.twitter.com combined with the RSS feed from the results of a search on Google’s blog search. You could also use services like socialmention.com , trackur.com or more robust social media monitoring tools such as Techrigy SM2, ScoutLabs or Radian6.

Social monitoring tools will help you understand what your customers are saying about you on the social web as well as uncover new interaction opportiunities with influentials. Real time search means real time marketing and social monitoring can facilitate that. One example would be if a competitor Tweets a deal on a product. Your Twitter search on that competitor or product would create an alert. You could then decide to offer a deal at a lower price or some other counter offer.

Another example is if a customer complains about your company. Before others jump on the bandwagon, your social monitoring tools would alert you and you can then qualify and address the situation quickly.

As web analytics and social media monitoring tools become increasingly intertwined, you’ll be able to identify many other key metrics for the effect of your social participation on bottom line business goals.

There you go. Ten tips for starting a small business blog.

This was a long post and yet, it’s nowhere near a comprehensive guide to create a small business blog. Even though there is plenty of free blog software and advice available online, many companies would benefit from having professional help with a business blog.

The funny thing is, my friend will look at this post and say, “This is the SHORT list?”. Blogging can be simple to start, but no one said it wasn’t hard work.

If you’ve created a blog for your small business, what has your experience been? Did you do it yourself? Do you get expert help? Have you set up a small business web site using blog software? we’d love to hear about your experiences, challenges and successes.

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Ten Must Read Tips to Start a Small Business Blog | 3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

If you believe some pundits and fanboys, the coming of the iPad and the new market for Tablet PCs that it is expected to open up will revolutionize how I use a computer. It will change the way I browse the Internet, do email and make coffee in the mornings. Here are a few choice marketing promises from the Apple website about the iPad:

“See and touch your email in ways you never could before.”
“Lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen.”
“Feel completely immersed in whatever you’re watching.”

Now take a deep breath and let’s take a look at reality. The iPad is not a mobile device, it’s too large for that. And it’s not meant to be used at a desk (ie - at work for most people) since it would be too awkward for that (or you could get the external keyboard and mouse, but then it’s just a glorified monitor). So if it’s not good on the go and not good in the office, what does that leave? Two places: the couch and the bed.

What does this mean for how the iPad and tablets may change the way we use the computer then? Actually, not much - but that’s not to say they won’t matter or have an impact. Ironically, I believe that it will be “mainstream” media that realizes the biggest transformation. Here are three of the biggest shifts in media that I believe the iPad and Tablet PCs will bring as they hit the market in the next several months:

1. Digital Magazines - For years now magazines have struggled to create digital versions and hardly any have found a profitable model to charge people to access them. Premium content, archived articles, or niche content are all micropayment models that have been tried, but it’s just not a powerful enough reason for someone to pay extra. With the full interactive touch screen tablet PC, you can finally create an immersive magazine experience that duplicates the quality and design of the magazine layout. Full page images, unique text layout and most importantly … you can even go beyond by incorporating video or interactivity right into the story. If the story mentions a YouTube video, you can embed it right there and let someone watch it. Chris Anderson shared the vision for Wired’s new iPad version of the magazine last week at the TED conference and it demonstrates the vast potential of this new type of device for magazines.
2. Interactive Television - One of the behaviours that we know is growing is the idea that people are multitasking while watching TV. When ads come on, they go to the laptop sitting on their lap to do something else. The iPad and other tablet PCs have the potential to completely transform your TV watching experience. Now you can add complete interactivity to any program. Everything from live voting on a reality show to managing your Fantasy Football team, to interacting with an ad as it is being shown on screen, to watching extended bonus scenes during or after the show. There are limitless possiblities for how you could enhance programming through delivering extended content onto a device that is in your watcher’s hands while they are watching TV. More than that, you could build in the programming controls so the tablet would also become your remote control. You could argue that some of this is already possible with a laptop, but the intuitive nature of a touch screen will make it far easier for programmers and advertisers to make the tablet experience part of the live experience of watching a program.
3. eBooks & Social Reading - The one prediction I have heard that I do agree with is how the tablet could change the way that we read books. Everything from integrated links and images to live notetaking, to sharing notes with others in your community are all major shifts in behaviour when it comes to reading books. For students, the other major benefit (in time) could be that finally you don’t need to lug tons and tons of books around with you for any class, you can just load them up on a tablet or iPad device. Even more importantly, the ease of sharing notes around a particular book will make reading and studying much more informed and perhaps lead to a next generation version of Cliffs Notes where you can get the context of a certain piece by how others have described it.

If you believe some pundits and fanboys, the coming of the iPad and the new market for Tablet PCs that it is expected to open up will revolutionize how I use a computer. It will change the way I browse the Internet, do email and make coffee in the mornings. Here are a few choice marketing promises from the Apple website about the iPad:

"See and touch your email in ways you never could before."
"Lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen."
"Feel completely immersed in whatever you’re watching."

Now take a deep breath and let's take a look at reality. The iPad is not a mobile device, it's too large for that. And it's not meant to be used at a desk (ie - at work for most people) since it would be too awkward for that (or you could get the external keyboard and mouse, but then it's just a glorified monitor). So if it's not good on the go and not good in the office, what does that leave? Two places: the couch and the bed.

What does this mean for how the iPad and tablets may change the way we use the computer then? Actually, not much - but that's not to say they won't matter or have an impact. Ironically, I believe that it will be "mainstream" media that realizes the biggest transformation. Here are three of the biggest shifts in media that I believe the iPad and Tablet PCs will bring as they hit the market in the next several months:

1. Digital Magazines - For years now magazines have struggled to create digital versions and hardly any have found a profitable model to charge people to access them. Premium content, archived articles, or niche content are all micropayment models that have been tried, but it's just not a powerful enough reason for someone to pay extra. With the full interactive touch screen tablet PC, you can finally create an immersive magazine experience that duplicates the quality and design of the magazine layout. Full page images, unique text layout and most importantly … you can even go beyond by incorporating video or interactivity right into the story. If the story mentions a YouTube video, you can embed it right there and let someone watch it. Chris Anderson shared the vision for Wired's new iPad version of the magazine last week at the TED conference and it demonstrates the vast potential of this new type of device for magazines.
2. Interactive Television - One of the behaviours that we know is growing is the idea that people are multitasking while watching TV. When ads come on, they go to the laptop sitting on their lap to do something else. The iPad and other tablet PCs have the potential to completely transform your TV watching experience. Now you can add complete interactivity to any program. Everything from live voting on a reality show to managing your Fantasy Football team, to interacting with an ad as it is being shown on screen, to watching extended bonus scenes during or after the show. There are limitless possiblities for how you could enhance programming through delivering extended content onto a device that is in your watcher's hands while they are watching TV. More than that, you could build in the programming controls so the tablet would also become your remote control. You could argue that some of this is already possible with a laptop, but the intuitive nature of a touch screen will make it far easier for programmers and advertisers to make the tablet experience part of the live experience of watching a program.
3. eBooks & Social Reading - The one prediction I have heard that I do agree with is how the tablet could change the way that we read books. Everything from integrated links and images to live notetaking, to sharing notes with others in your community are all major shifts in behaviour when it comes to reading books. For students, the other major benefit (in time) could be that finally you don't need to lug tons and tons of books around with you for any class, you can just load them up on a tablet or iPad device. Even more importantly, the ease of sharing notes around a particular book will make reading and studying much more informed and perhaps lead to a next generation version of Cliffs Notes where you can get the context of a certain piece by how others have described it.

div class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5teyRpJfosk/S3hJ4xw0-lI/AAAAAAAAC8w/49serAY25M8/s1600-h/googleppc.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;”img border=”0″ height=”200″ src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5teyRpJfosk/S3hJ4xw0-lI/AAAAAAAAC8w/49serAY25M8/s200/googleppc.jpg” width=”200″ //a/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”div style=”display: block; float: right; height: 60px; margin: 8px; width: 52px;”script type=”text/javascript” tweetmeme_url = ‘http://marketing-expert.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-money-with-pay-per-click.html’; tweetmeme_source = ‘The Marketing Blog’;/scriptbr /script src=”http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js” type=”text/javascript”/script/divspan style=”font-size: small;”Whether you’ve been using AdWords for years or have never even heard of pay-per-click advertising (PPC), know that it’s an essential part of any Integrated marketing program.nbsp; I recently provided some of my most valuable bpay-per-click/b advertising secrets on an interview with Jonathan Taylor and Russell Portwood at Blog Talk Radio (a href=”http://www.blogtalkradio.com/beginnerinternetbiz/2010/02/13/how-your-business-can-profit-from-google-adwords-1″listen here/a).nbsp; During the interview we discussed how to get started with Google AdWords and some valuable secrets for making money online./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”If you’re not running any campaigns on Google AdWords, I suggest that you open an account.nbsp; The beauty of PPC advertising is that you only pay when an individual clicks on one of your ads.nbsp; You might have tried PPC in the past and generated a lot of clicks but no conversions.nbsp; Perhaps you tried it for a short while and found it too complicated to manage.nbsp; I know how you feel…/span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”bThe Long PPC Road/b/span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”When I started in Internet marketing, pay-per-click was just coming on to the scene.nbsp; The premise was great, only paying for an action, but the results weren’t so good.nbsp; Over time, as the tracking become more sophisticated and the quality of analytics improved, results started to improve.nbsp; I’ve spent over 5 years making small distinctions in pay-per-click advertising campaigns that have dramatically improved my results.br /br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b /b/span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b /bMany people believe that to get quality traffic you need to spend a ton of money or always be in the #1 paid position.nbsp; Nothing could be further from the truth.nbsp; Some of my highest converting keywords cost the least.nbsp; Additionally, and here’s a free tip, I often get higher conversions when my ad shows in positions 3 - 6.nbsp; I find that prospects clicking in the ’sweet spot’ are more buying oriented than just doing research./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”To be effective with PPC, you need to run a number of campaigns on your own.nbsp; I attended at least half a dozen workshops on pay-per-click advertising and spent close to $1,000 on so called PPC courses only to find that there wasn’t a lot of “new” information designed to improve the effectiveness of my campaigns.nbsp; What I learned through trial and error was certainly more valuable.nbsp; iAlways seek hands-on experience if you wish to be success./i/span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”bPPC Made Simple/b/span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”In a couple of months, I’ll be sharing everything I know about PPC advertising in my next book, i”PPC Made Simple.”nbsp; /iUntil then, I wanted to share a few tips you can use right away to start improving campaign performance./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b1.nbsp; Set a budget of $10 - $20/day.nbsp; /bIt doesn’t take much to determine if a particular type of PPC campaign is going to be profitable.nbsp; Start with a small budget to generate clicks and watch your campaign closely.nbsp; Usually, for around $100 you can determine whether or not you’ll be successful./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b2.nbsp; Do your keyword research.nbsp;/b Start with the a href=”https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal”Google AdWords Keyword Tool/a to find frequently searched upon terms.nbsp; In addition, do some competitive research using any one of dozens of tools that reveal what terms your competitors are bidding on.nbsp; Once you’ve compiled a list, focus on buying keywords.nbsp; Use the Microsoft Commercial Intent tool to optimize your keyword list./span/divdiv class=”separator” style=”clear: both; text-align: center;”a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5teyRpJfosk/S3hKQ2P9tQI/AAAAAAAAC84/0mHE64-Ux8E/s1600-h/computer2.jpg” imageanchor=”1″ style=”clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;”img border=”0″ src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5teyRpJfosk/S3hKQ2P9tQI/AAAAAAAAC84/0mHE64-Ux8E/s320/computer2.jpg” //a/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b3.nbsp; Use a tool like the Google AdWords Editor to help manage your campaigns./b The tool costs nothing and can help you stay on top of the performance of your campaign.nbsp; Additionally, you can easily manage multiple campaigns simultaneously./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b4.nbsp; Use the AdWords Dashboard.nbsp;/b As usual, Google AdWords comes with it’s own resources for evaluating campaign effectiveness.nbsp; Learn the value of your AdWords dashboard.nbsp; This gives you information about your click-through-rate, cost per click, and overall campaign metrics.nbsp; The more you understand the data being provided, the more effective you can make your campaign./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”b5.nbsp; Implement Google Conversion Tracking./bnbsp; When you implement conversion tracking, you can quickly and easily see which keywords and ads drive sales.nbsp; This is the most important aspect of any PPC effort and essential for long term success.nbsp; If you know which keyword/ad combination is most effective, you can optimize your PPC budget./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”These are just a few tips to help you improve the performance of your pay-per-click marketing campaigns.nbsp; Again, it’s essential that you start using Google AdWords in order to learn how to implement successful campaigns.nbsp; Even though you may have four or five campaigns that don’t generate a favorable return, one profitable campaign can more than make up for it./span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”br //span/divdiv style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;”span style=”font-size: small;”Once you launch your campaign, utilize the metrics provided by Google to refine and improve your campaign.nbsp; By learning the ins and outs of pay-per-click advertising you are improving your overall knowledge of Internet marketing and finding new ways to promote your products or services.nbsp; In addition to generating sales, PPC is a great tool for lead generation as well./span/divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”For more free marketing advice, visit the a href=”http://www.marketingscoop.com”marketing experts/a at http://www.MarketingScoop.com.img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30060900-5761106680940562778?l=marketing-expert.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Want to meet with us in 2010? The Redfly team will be traveling the globe to attend a wide verity of Internet marketing and blogging events in 2010. Why not get in touch if you’re at any of the same events or even nearby and we can go for coffee or just shoot the breeze?

Below is a chronologically listed schedule for the remainder of this year. Do say hello!

January 23rd: Mulley Communications Online PR Workshop Dublin

The Online PR workshop run by Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications is putting on it’s inaugural workshop dedicated to online public relations, reputation management, online communications and crisis communication. The event will be held at the Radisson Blu hotel in Dublin and is set to be a sure fire hit.

February 4th: Dublin Web Summit

The Dublin Web Summit run by Paddy Cosgrave will take place in Trinity College Dublin. It will feature influential keynote speakers such as Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, and Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress as well as delegates from a massive array of Irish companies (and a guest appearance from bohemian economist David McWilliams ) .

February 15th – 18: OMS & Search Engine Strategies (SES) London

The first search related conference of the year kicks off with a double whammy. The online Marketing Summit and Search Engine strategies have teamed up to offer search geeks and search engine marketers everywhere a bumper 4 day search conference featuring the legendary author of Web Analytics An Hour A Day, Avinash Kaushik . The conference will feature well known guest speakers such as Richard Baxter , Lisa Myers , Ciaran Norris , The lovely folk from Ayima SEO and legend in his own right, John Myers of Mediavest . I’ve also heard there is due to be quite a large knees up at the LondonSEO party. To get a 20% discount on the cost of this event, use the promo code 20SPG when registering.

March 6th-7th: Wordcamp Ireland

Another inaugural event, WordCamp Ireland will be held in Kilkenny, Ireland (which for some reason I’ve never been to). Wordcamp promises to be two days of everything Wordpress related. The event is being run by Pixel Pusher Sabrina Dent and will feature well known bloggers and techies such as Donncha O Caoimh , Joost de Valk , Niall Harbison . Redfly are also one of the sponsors of this event for which we have been promised that there will be a “Redfly Cocktail” made available to all attendees.

March 27th: Irish Blog Awards (Galway)

The fourth annual Irish Blog Awards (which takes place in a different county every year) will take place in Ireland’s “Culture Capital”, Galway. The blog awards, run by Damien Mulley (Is there anything he isn’t involved in?) is set to be a night of fun, frolics, recognition and … well, cool awards. Redfly is also sponsoring the best group blog category. Good luck to everyone who makes the shortlist!

April 22nd-23rd: Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Sydney

The Search Marketing Conference & Expo in Sydney is “Australia’s #1 Search Marketing Event and is the “must-attend” Search Engine Marketing and Social Media event of the year in Australia”. SMX Sydney will feature speakers like Greg Boser, Todd Freisen and the always lovely Gillian Muessig or SEOmoz .

May 17th-18th: Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced London

SMX Advanced in London is the only search marketing conference designed exclusively for experienced internet marketers. We’ve heard some great things about SMX Advanced sessions and have never been in the US for the Seattle event. No speakers have been announced at the time of this post but we’re positive that this is going to be great. Dedicated to a conference without a schedule or speaker list? It must be good. To get a 15% discount on the cost of the event, enter the promo code REDFLY010

May 20th: IIA Congress Dublin & Net Visionary Awards

The IIA Annual Congress 2010 will be held on Thursday 20 May in the Crowne Plaza Dublin Northwood followed by the Net Visionary Awards 2010 that same evening. The IIA Congress usually operates on an annual “theme” of which most of the sessions are (at least loosely) based on. We’ve been a member of the Irish Internet Association for nearly two years now and this will be our first congress.

Spetember 17th-19th: Think Tank San Diego

For the past two years, something urgent has always come up to prevent us from attending this. Hopefully this year will be different. Think Tank is a conference with a difference run by one of the nicest blokes in the industry, Dave Klein of PurposeINC (Yes, the same Dave Klein who runs the Pubcon Charity poker tournament and fixes back problems). This is an invite only event and caters for experienced online marketers with a friendly no-pitch setting.

October 4th-6th – Search Marketing Expo (SMX) New York

The third Redfly SMX of the year because we’ve never been to an SMX before and believe they deserve a chance considering the good things we’ve seen and heard. SMX Seattle promises Sessions that are fast-paced, Q&A-packed, frequently controversial, always informative…and don’t stop to cover the basics. For those fluent in search engine marketing, SMX Advanced is full of others who speak your native language.

October 11th-13th: A4U Expo London

A4U Expo in London is one of the funnest events with the widest verity of attendees of any other conference. A4U focuses not only on the affiliate marketing industry, but the search industry that surrounds it. While we keep our involvement in the affiliate space fairly clear of the Redfly blog, the quirky and incredibly intelligent people you can meet at this conference makes it a must-attend.

November/December: Pubcon Las Vegas (Exact date TBC).

If A4U is one of the funnest conferences, Pubcon Las Vegas is without a doubt the funnest. Let’s face it, it’s in Vegas, it can hardly be anything but fun. Pubcon is the de-facto search marketing conference. It’s one of the oldest and most respected conferences of the year. Those who have been to one (or a few) know that it needs no introduction, those who have not should come along with us this year for the educational and online marketing event of the year.

Get In Touch.

If you would like to arrange a sit down, some lunch or just a chat at the bar at any of these events, get in touch. We’ll be more than happy to get the first round in.

Take a moment to think about, and count, the number of B2C social media success stories that pop into your head.

I’ll venture to guess that you could immediately name five to 10, if not many more. From Ford to Dell to Zappos to Best Buy , B2C social media winners – those organizations that caught on early and created a cult following of brand cheerleaders via the social web – are hard to miss.

But how about the B2B social media winners? I’m guessing these weren’t as easy to name.

And yet, there are just as many B2B organizations successfully conquering social media. While their stories might not be as well-known, we think these 5 B2B social media winners are doing a pretty doggone good job. Tell us if you agree.

1. American Express OPEN
American Express OPEN is the company’s division dedicated to helping small business owners succeed. It has based its marketing strategy around the social web, realizing that social media has become a priority for small business owners.

Since 2007, AMEX OPEN has relied on its OPEN Forum to provide business advice and insight. The social site includes a blog with frequently updated content, and a large collection of videos that users can rate and share via other social networking channels. In the site’s “Idea Hub,” forum members can network with one another and with industry experts, as well as customize topics to their specific interests.

The social site has been extremely successful, increasing unique visitors 525% over the past year – from 160,000 in December 2008 to nearly 1 million in December 2009.

2. HSBC
To target business entrepreneurs and provide them with an active forum to share and gain knowledge, HSBC has created The HSBC Business Network for both customers and non-customers.

It’s evident that the HSBC Business Network truly thrives on its members.

The site includes a network of blogs, and invites members to create their own blog to share their personal experiences with other entrepreneurs. Currently, the network is made up of 148 blogs from members.

The site’s homepage is populated with content from users: the most popular recent blog post, forum post and user profile.

3. Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising has been using social media as a vehicle to listen to, educate, support and market to their customers and potential customers since 2006. However, the past year has seen a distinct effort from Microsoft to reach customers through social web participation.

An AdCenter Community site as well as blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook presence, videos, photos and social media coverage of industry events along with proactive listening and community manager participation have been instrumental for growing the AdCenter community and providing customers with an opportunity to be involved with how Microsoft does business with them.

4. Archer
The social media strategy for Archer Technologies, provider of risk and compliance solutions, and a 2009 Forrester Groundswell Award winner for B2B social media, revolves around two components.

First, the Archer Community is an online social network that gives customers a forum to interact, share best practices and provide feedback to help drive Archer product development. The second component is the Archer Exchange (pictured above), an online marketplace that enables clients to download applications developed by other clients or by Archer.

The two social sites have been successful at driving website traffic and attracting new members: The Archer Community receives 20 new members, 4,000 unique visits and 400+ downloads every week, while the Archer Exchange boasts 17,000 unique visits, 90,000 page views and 1,200 downloads.

But the real benefit has been enhanced product development as a result of user feedback and sharing. Archer tells Forrester that its Archer Community directly helped form its Business Continuity Management, Mobile GRC and Data Feed Manager applications.

5. Cree
LED Manufacturer Cree is embracing social media to build awareness and promote the benefits of LED technology, rather than directly sell products.

At the center of its latest campaign, “ LED Revolution ,” is an interactive social website. On the site, visitors can submit their bad lighting photos (think bad 1980s office fluorescent lighting) to win LED recessed downlights. The site’s blog is posted to almost daily, and humorous videos encourage visitors to, “Break Your Fluorescent Shackles!”

Cree also leverages Facebook and Twitter in a push/pull approach for the website.

Hear from Ginny Skalski, Cree social media specialist — who happens to have a background in journalism and community management rather than marketing – in this video on the Social Media B2B blog.

Of course, these five B2B social media winners are only part of a much longer list of companies that are successfully interacting with customers, building brand awareness and driving traffic to their websites through the social web. What are your favorite B2B social media success stories?

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© Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | 5 B2B Social Media Winners | One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Cedric Chambaz, marketing manager search and SMB at Microsoft Advertising  - and a speaker at our Online Business Communities seminar on March 3rd on his admiration for Intel and his hatred of Marmite

Cedric Chambaz, marketing manager search and SMB at Microsoft Advertising  - and a speaker at our Online Business Communities seminar on March 3rd on his admiration for Intel and his hatred of Marmite

Question: With Google unveiling its Nexus One and Nokia and Samsun also preparing handsets to rival Apple’s iPhone, will 2010 be a tipping point for B2B marketers’ use of the mobile channel?

Question: With Google unveiling its Nexus One and Nokia and Samsun also preparing handsets to rival Apple’s iPhone, will 2010 be a tipping point for B2B marketers’ use of the mobile channel?

Being sensitive to customer behaviour and needs is just as important online as it is in the physical world, says Darren Guarnaccia, VP of product marketing, Sitecore

A little planning goes a long way if you want to make the most of the social media landscape, says Gifford Morley-Fletcher, director of strategy and inbound marketing at Base One 

A little planning goes a long way if you want to make the most of the social media landscape, says Gifford Morley-Fletcher, director of strategy and inbound marketing at Base One 

Stuart Wheldon, client services director, Eloqua on the critical questions B2B marketers need to ask before embarking on a lead scoring programme

Stuart Wheldon, client services director, Eloqua on the critical questions B2B marketers need to ask before embarking on a lead scoring programme

Paul Hatcher, web development director at Base One, wonders if B2B marketers get too caught up in the glamour of social media and forget their audiences

Paul Hatcher, web development director at Base One, wonders if B2B marketers get too caught up in the glamour of social media and forget their audiences

Jim Pennypacker, president and CEO at Dance Communications, presents a simple model for understanding how to improve your thought leadership marketing capability

Jim Pennypacker, president and CEO at Dance Communications, presents a simple model for understanding how to improve your thought leadership marketing capability

Marketing automation is a term increasingly bandied about by marketing technology vendors; but is it something that more B2B practitioners should be taking notice of? Claire Weekes reports

Marketing automation is a term increasingly bandied about by marketing technology vendors; but is it something that more B2B practitioners should be taking notice of? Claire Weekes reports

Reviewed by Paul Godwin, planning director, Positive ThinkingPublished by John Wiley Sons