Tag Archives: social media

Going beyond the status update – content marketing for b2b marketers

Posted on June 22, 2012 | 1 Comment

So this is my first blog post in a while since migrating the blog in it’s entirety from wordpress.com to a self hosted platform.

I wanted to share my presentation from the recent B2B Marketing Summit, in London on 14 June 2012. At this multi stream event, 150 b2b marketers had the opportunity to attend conference presentation across 4 streams including content marketing, social media, data and lead nurture and generation.

In opening up the day in the content marketing stream, I talked around an eight step approach to get people thinking more strategically about content – focusing on audience and their information needs at different stages of the buying process.



Please share the presentation if you agree with the central proposition and offer a comment or two on your own b2b content marketing challenges below.

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Posted in B2B, Social Media

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Packaging your story: Social media for b2bs

Posted on February 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

Espresso do a great job of using Slideshare and have a real knack in producing slides that can be effortlessly clicked through but that leave long in the memory. Packed full of ideas, tips and examples, here’s a great deck giving a useful overview to social media for the uninitiated which can be skimmed in minutes or talked at for an hour.

If you know someone who needs an overview – a boss, manager or team member – do the decent thing and pass it along. Only when good ideas go viral do they have a chance of taking off.



 

RSS/email subscribers may need to visit the blog to see the slides.

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Posted in Digital, Social Media

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Business blogging – my latest for Smart Insights

Posted on January 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

My latest effort for the influential UK digital marketing blog, Smart Insights is my third post in a series on business blogging. This piece concentrates on ways to ‘seed’ your blog posts once they have been written and published – so they are seen by as many people as possible.

 

The highlights include:-

1. Promoting it on your own website.

2. Using blog indexes.

3. Using email.

4. Using Twitter.

5. Using Linkedin.

6. Using Facebook.

7. Using bookmarks.

8. Using other content formats.

Visit the blog post to read more and also click on my name to read my previous business marketing posts on topics including social media for business, email marketing, using video in B2B and two posts on Facebook, one on how to use Facebook for business and one with lots of relevant Facebook business case studies showing best practice.

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Posted in B2B, Digital, General

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Ten social media trends for 2012

Posted on January 16, 2012 | 1 Comment

An interesting set of slides from Comscore which previews/summarises the key findings from their latest social media report. (Using SlideShare to preview downloadable paid/free content is itself an interesting example of content marketing in action that will be explored more in a future post).

It’s not a surprise to me to see data which supports claims such as

  • Social networking is the most popular online activity in the world
  • Microblogging platforms like Twitter have emerged as a disruptive new force in social networking, news and entertainment
  • Mobile devices are fuelling an addiction to social


Slides 20-26 detail how Facebook truly dominates the social scene. How the site is even winning in most individual countries and regional markets is pretty astounding too.

What trends are you expecting or hoping for in 2012?

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Posted in Digital, Social Media

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Links worth a click #17

Posted on January 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Some informed viewing for you this week.

First up, Coca Cola’s approach to social media in video form. Sure it’s big budget, but there are smart lessons in here. Love how they’ve used the word liquid which is a creative way of linking their strategy to their products. How could you do something similar?

Second, a video showing how Google search continues to evolve to the personal needs of the user.

Finally, the latest user data from Linkedin (for January 2012) shows how the platform continues to add users around the world. Some interesting intelligence for presentations.



 

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Posted in Digital, Links worth a click, SEO / Search, Social Media

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8 key issues to review to ensure your business blog supports company goals

Posted on January 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

My latest effort for the influential UK digital marketing blog, Smart Insights went live today. In it, I offer eight ways to ensure your blog does all it can to achieve company goals, including

1. Staying on topic.

2. The importance of keywords.

3. Being helpful.

4. Ensuring ‘stickiness’.

5. Following a formula.

6. Talking in multiple voices.

7.  The importance of good design.

8. Lead nurturing.

It’s the second in a series on business blogging. Click on experts and my name to read my previous B2B marketing related posts on social media for business, email marketing, using video in B2B and two posts on Facebook, one on how to use Facebook for business and one with lots of relevant Facebook business case studies showing best practice.

Hope you find it useful.

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Posted in B2B, Digital, General

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Things that happen every 60 seconds online

Posted on January 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Business Insider published this fantastic infographic detailing some of the amazing things that happen every 60 seconds online. I can’t vouch for the statistics but if you haven’t yet realised that your business can benefit from embracing the web, hopefully this does the trick.

 

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Posted in Digital, Social Media

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Links worth a click #16

Posted on December 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Some informed reading to kickstart your week. Better late than never!

First up, a beginners guide to setting goals in Google Analytics.

If you’re in the client service game, getting to know your client is critical to long term business success. Here are ten useful tips.

Are you working with your social media super influencers?

If like me you’re writing a blog, here are some tips  on building a blog that might be bought for big money in the future. 

Is Google+ credible competition for Facebook? The numbers speak for themselves.

Finally, 17 great examples of content visualisation in action (that’s infographics to the layman).

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Posted in Digital, Links worth a click, SEO / Search, Social Media

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B2B social media case study: BASF chemicals

Posted on November 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Whilst conducting some research into social media uptake in the speciality chemical sector, I happened across a great slide deck that outlines how chemicals giant BASF goes about it.

With a dedicated social media manager and senior management buy-in, this is about as socially emersed as B2B marketing gets.

Slides of particular relevance to me include

[Slide 4] The statistics that support why they engage on social media

[Slide 11] How different tools and platforms like content, dialogue, news flow and aggregation are used separately and together

[Slide 14] How it is all brought together as a social newsroom (FirstDirect also doing this)

[Slide 17] How to use call to actions on Facebook



Sometimes we have to see how the big boys do it, in order to take the best from it. We may not all have the resource to bring to bear, but the attraction of social media for the smaller B2B firm is that, like most digital marketing, it doesn’t take a lot to stand out from the crowd in your sector.

Play to your strengths, identify your niche and above all, add value to the people of most interest to you.

NB: Note to RSS/email subscribers, a Slideshare is embedded which may need a trip to the blog to view in full.

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Posted in B2B, General, Social Media

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Links worth a click #15

Posted on November 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

A week with some great online content, tips and tricks.

PowerPoint as content: PowerPoint gets a hard press, in and out of meetings. But, used correctly, it can be turned into social media gold. Have a quick read of this blog post and see what ideas it sparks for you and your customers.

Business blogging: Here’s a piece for those amongst you managing or considering blogs, a list of ten great things to include in your thinking.

Some useful advice next on designing paid search (pay per click) campaigns that deliver.

Apparently, it’s no longer six degrees of separation when it comes to human relationships. According to Facebook, its 800m users give you access to anyone in the world (if they are on Facebook) in only 4 hops.

Using video? You should be. And it should be optimised. Here are some tips on how to optimise online video, with a natural focus on YouTube.

More next week. Happy Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping weekend!

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Posted in Digital, Links worth a click, SEO / Search, Social Media

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