Using Social Media to Create A Basic B2B Marketing Strategy

With the majority of the social media user base sharing personal updates, photos, and content, many brands sell themselves short when considering social media platforms for B2B business development. B2B marketing strategies on social media can be similar to B2C strategies, which have an end goal of qualified lead generation and expert branding as thought leaders. In addition, goals for B2B social media campaigns can include attracting top talent, finding investors, or receiving press and media coverage.

Just like with B2C strategies, brands that utilize social media for B2B marketing purposes must have a solid game plan, paying attention to important factors; target audience types, content types by audience, purpose of social network and general user engagement.

How to Become a Social CEO

For brands of any size or reputation, the CEO is a key figure in driving the “voice” of the brand, not some shadowy figure head who signs the paychecks. In the era of social media, the hierarchy of all organizations becomes flat – executives are just as easy to research and learn about as summer interns. Even if your business is a small startup, and your CEO title is informal, you are endowed with a set of expectations that you need to be clear about to be successful.

 

The 9 Social Media Mistakes You’re Probably Making Right Now

Social media has all but taken over the internet marketing discussion these days.  Many businesses just like yours have jumped on the bandwagon, intuitively knowing that there is something to it, but perhaps not fully understanding yet the long-term effects and implications.

While many younger business owners and entrepreneurs aggressively use social media, it may be harder for some to grasp the relevance.  Social media networks, like Twitter, have been the source of some marketing coups, but have also been a huge marketing nightmare for some businesses who failed to understand the rules and impact of immediate information.

How to Create a Social Media Policy for ANY Company

In the past few months, the reliance on the social web has grown to massive numbers, and a strong social presence is second only to a mobile presence as a top goal for many brands. One of the biggest challenges with social branding is figuring out how to determine ROI (return on investment), even if the investment is only time.

No matter the size or reputation of a company, a strong, fair, and clear policy is essential to driving the day-to-day business decisions. Many brands wouldn’t think twice about setting rules for employee time off, dealing with the press, or setting discounts to vendors – dealing with a worldwide communication platform should be no different.

How To Upvote Your Social Strategy (aka “how to use Reddit”)

Reddit describes itself as “the Front Page of the Internet,” and a more fitting description is really hard to come by. In just a few years, Reddit.com has seen a massive spike in traffic and influence, becoming the breeding grounds for many of the web’s most well-known (and infamous) memes, trends, and personalities.

Reddit works as a form of “community news.” Users submit content in the form of text posts or links to pictures, videos, blogs, or other web content. Submissions are made to topical sections called sub-reddits; each sub-reddit can be for any topic imaginable, and is independently managed and moderated by fellow users. Content can be voted up or down by other users, with more popular content rising to the top.

How social media helped promote a scholarship program for entrepreneurial students

Hello again! I’m Sara Aisenberg, and you might remember me from a guest post I wrote for Social Media Optimization about five common problems with SEO back in June. Today, I’m back here at SMO not only as a guest blogger but also as the associate director of educational outreach at SuretyBonds.com, a nationwide surety bond producer. As such, I’d like to do two things.

  1. Announce SuretyBonds.com’s first annual Small Business Success Student Scholarship Program
  2. Explain how our company has used social media to promote the scholarship across the Internet

A Facebook Page is Not A Marketing Plan

Early last month, a series of studies were conducted among the social media marketing initiatives of small businesses. A study from Pitney Bowes Software looked at small businesses who used social networking to target socially-conscious customers. Here’s some of the findings:

  • 57% of marketers say they use Twitter, compared with 31% of consumers who do so.
  • 51% of marketers use Google+, compared with 21% of consumers.
  • 41% of marketers have established a presence on YouTube, even though 53% of consumers use the video-sharing site.

Lessons from 2012 Social Media Disasters

As we approach the end of 2012, we begin to look back and discover that the lines between the online world and real life blur ever closer. It’s become a standard fact of life in these modern times that almost any action taken will have an online echo that someone, somewhere, will react to in a negative way. On the social web, everything is fair game, and brands have a responsibility to expect feedback for every public action they take. Several brands had some social media fires this year, but from the ashes, lessons can be learned.

Social Media: You’ll Need More Than That

Don’t place direct sales, advertising, and public relations on the backburner just yet. In an age consumed by, and made up of, the information on the Internet, a vast majority of businesses have adopted social media strategies into their marketing plans. Albeit, starting up social media campaigns is at the height of its popularity today, many organizations are discovering that their return is not matching their efforts being put into them.

Stick with your roots

Rise of the Second Screen

The “second screen” is a buzzword for tablets, smartphones, laptops, or other web-connected devices that users have on hand while watching the “first screen” – their main television or movie theater screen. Users typically use their second screen to share photos, browse their social network, or play a game during commercials or other forms of downtime.

In the entertainment industry, the concept of the “second screen” has become the main focus of boardroom executives, due to its ability to keep the focus on the main product, and monetize another form of communication beyond the airwaves. Over the past few years, apps and marketing campaigns from both Hollywood and the sports industry have made the second screen a key part of interacting and engaging with the product being shown on the main screen in many different ways.