Before I became a copywriter for a web-marketing agency, I once ran social media for a great B2B company. As a recent college grad, I was tasked with creating and executing a social media strategy. At that point, I had some ideas I knew could work, but executing is more than just having ideas. As this was a smaller company with almost no existing social media presence, I had more social media knowledge than anyone else in the company, even as a recent grad. I was the social media presence.

That may sound great, until you realize that when you’re the social media presence, you need to educate everyone else about social media, earn buy-in for everything, and prove value at every turn. That’s a tall task, especially if you’re learning social media yourself. And let’s face it, social changes every day, so even the most expert social media professionals learn every day. Truthfully, social media may not make sense for some companies. Investing too much time into social is a pitfall in itself, and while social media can yield real results for most companies, we don’t recommend that every single company out there set up a Twitter account.

With that situation in mind, we’ve put these tips here for you. This post will help you prove value and earn buy-in, make a plan that’s simple and executable, and get up to speed on social media. This is the article I wish I had read when I was my company’s social media presence.

The unlucky 13 social media pitfalls

Here’s what not to do in B2B social media. The common theme here is define success the right way so you can prove value and earn respect. Stay focused on your company’s bottom line and don’t slow yourself down with unnecessary distractions.

1. Don’t assume you know what you’re doing.

Just having your own Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for years doesn’t make you an expert in social media marketing for B2B companies. And even if you are an expert, stay humble and read — a lot. Instead of leaning solely on your own knowledge, be a sponge and constantly soak up all the relevant information you can. We’ve reviewed a number of  books that would make great additions to your reading list, and we’ve created a number of guides in our resources section that we think you’ll find useful. We also recommend blogs such as Marketing Profs, Hubspot and Social Media B2B.

2. Don’t hang yourself on social media.

Unless you’ve been brought in specifically to handle social media and only social media, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. You’ll be effective at generating leads and make yourself valuable to your company by posting great content on your company blog and concentrating on excellent email marketing. Don’t focus all of your energy on Facebook Statuses, Tweets or even LinkedIn Posts. Spend far, far more of your time on blogging and email marketing.

3. Don’t ask for a social media budget till you prove value.

Odds are, if you’re reading this post, you either have a limited or nonexistent social media budget. If your boss is already paying you to do it, he probably thinks you are his budget. Prove your value and the value of web marketing before you ask for a social media marketing budget. I know, I know. Really succeeding on social can require a budget, but you can get results without one. This isn’t the first place to spend, and it’s not the first place where you should try to persuade your boss to spend.

4. Don’t send your bosses a super lengthy strategy document.

They have limited time. When you have a plan, make them a short presentation — in PowerPoint or Keynote; they probably don’t use Prezi. Yes, in your research, you may find it useful to write a long document for yourself, but you probably get less access to the decision makers than their mailman gets. I made the mistake of passing on a social media research report, and it slowed down the process considerably. Instead, make your managers an easy-to-absorb presentation and make your information straightforward and instantly understandable.

5. Don’t waste days or weeks making the perfect social media policy.

Yes, it’s possible that your boss will want you to make one because other people may use social media in the company’s name. Yes, it’s important to have guidelines, especially if you work in a regulated industry. But if you follow this 8-word social media policy, you’ll be on the right track. If you truly need to show your managers a lengthy document, tweak some existing ones.

6. Don’t come off like a cheerleader for social media.

As a marketer at a B2B company, your main goal is to increase sales through your marketing efforts. One sale or large purchase order will likely more than cover any time or material costs you incur on social media or web marketing. You want to prove value by providing leads to the sales guys in your company and helping them out. You don’t want to alienate them by putting yourself at odds with them.

Unfortunately, a lot of inside sales guys and corporate executives perceive social media marketers as cheerleaders for Twitter and Facebook. They think you play around online looking at pictures of puppies. While I love puppies as much as the next guy — how could anyone not? — that’s not what I do! I help Gorilla and Gorilla’s clients reach people who become contacts, customers and clients. As Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey Cohen, authors of The Social Media B2B Book put it, your blood should be boiling when people regard you as a mere cheerleader for Facebook. We don’t blab away about how cool we are for working on social media; we get stuff done.

7. Don’t try to use every social media network.

When you physically embody your company’s social media presence, and you have to prove value to earn buy-in from decision makers, you need results — now. It’s a lot easier to succeed if you focus on one or two social networks than it is to succeed on seven different platforms at the same time. Pick only the ones that are relevant to your business. LinkedIn generates more B2B leads than all of the other social networks combined. Engagement on Google Plus correlates directly to your website’s search rankings. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Slideshare, and Vine can probably take a back seat, at least for now.

8. Don’t let a total lack of content stop you.

Content from your blog gives you that all-important stepping stone to your website, where you will capture email addresses. It’s true, email marketing pays off your social media marketing, web marketing and blogging. But, amazingly, you can grow your reach and build relevant social media contacts by sharing other people’s content. You can increase reach even if you have an utter, total and complete lack of content, and your company has a highly bureaucratic process for publishing anything on your company website.

Yes, if you can Post and Tweet your own great content, you can bring people back to your site and capture email addresses, and that’s where we recommend you start. But even if you have great content, you still want to follow the 10-4-1 rule on Twitter: 10 shares of other people’s relevant content per four shares of your content and one share of your landing pages. Social media is all about making the most of your resources, so make the most of the vast ocean that is the Internet. Share other people’s content when you don’t have your own to share. Just make sure that content is relevant to your audience, and if you can actually build a relationship with other content creators, they may share your great content when you post it.

9. Don’t brag to your bosses in jargon.

You’re wasting your time if you make reports about Klout scores, Favorites, Likes, RePins and ReTweets. Yes, these are all important measures of influence and engagement, but your bosses probably care more about leads. To generate leads and sales, you have to reach a specific, targeted audience of your prospective clients and customers. Show your managers how you reach potential clients or customers and reach people who spread your message or refer you to clients or customers. Don’t speak a foreign language to them about ReTweets, RePins, Shares, Likes and Mentions.

10. Don’t get legal involved.

This is more of a concern that your boss is likely to have, but don’t bog down your social media posts by involving lawyers. Some traditional companies new to social media will actually have their legal departments review every single social media post. Lawyers charge expensive rates, they don’t care about your social media success and most of them know next to nothing about social media marketing.

If your managers tell you they want lawyers to review your social media posts, or even blog posts, make sure they know lawyers will make your efforts ineffective and far more expensive. If you face this obstacle, try presenting a solid social media policy to assuage their concerns.

11. Don’t create multiple accounts on one social media platform.

You’ll have a tough enough time building up one social media account, so don’t render yourself ineffective by diluting your efforts. Instead of making a separate Facebook Page for your various products and services, build up one Company Facebook Page that features all of them. The same goes for Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other networks.

Unless you’re at a huge company with a massively diverse product and service offering, think GE for instance, you’re not going to crank out so much content that it makes sense to have multiple branded Twitter accounts. You have limited content. Unify it all behind one account to give it more power.

12. Don’t design custom covers unless you’re a designer.

I realize Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Twitter all allow you to add awesome, custom designed photos and art for truly kick-ass business pages. But, if you’re not a designer, it’s a massive time suck with little reward. To start out, you probably have yourself, no budget, and most likely, limited graphic design skills. Pick company photos, crop them to the right size using Cut My Pic, and upload them to your company pages. Keep your pages all unpublished, and ask for one, single review to get them live.

13. Don’t just ReTweet, don’t just sell and don’t post about every topic on earth.

This bullet briefly covers what to post about, and you’ve heard a lot of this before, so we’ll keep it as simple as possible (our form of ASAP). If you use Twitter, just pressing that ReTweet button is lazy! You share no opinions, no insights and none of yourself. It is highly important to ReTweet others, but do it the right way. The same idea applies to posting links on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Plus. You want to share some form of valuable analysis. You’re not at a news organization that shares purely news updates; you’re at a company whose social media value lies in its expertise.

Share that expertise in a way that genuinely helps and interests your target audience. Social media is all about a two-way conversation where you connect with real people. Don’t make every post about selling something; instead share your opinions and analysis on issues, news and trends that relate to your industry. Share how-to information that helps people in your target audience do their jobs. Your Twitter account and other social media accounts should sound like a real person, not an academic white paper.

Blah blah blah. Lots of articles out there will help you establish your brand voice on social media, and you can read a lot of this stuff on Facebook’s Get Started page. Last but not least, don’t post about every topic under the sun. Find out what information your audience wants and give it to them, that way you stay focused and get results.

Web marketing that works.

Want to get real results through web marketing? You’ve seen our leads-first philosophy in our recommendations. Now, see how we measure success. Click below to download our guide on measuring online marketing ROI.

Social media is a wonderful waste of time. It exists so you can look at pictures, watch videos and debate college football on your Facebook status right? …Well, not quite. We use social media to get new business by driving qualified traffic to our website and to our clients’ websites. Long story made short, it’s important to leverage social media and the hundreds of millions of users (me included) who willingly and freely toss out their personal and professional information.

Brand mentions and brand credibility on social media networks have a documented effect on how businesses rank on Google and how much traffic their websites bring in. As a way to gain both brand mentions and build up your business’ reputation, we recommend building out robust LinkedIn Company Pages.

LinkedIn has its own search function that people use to find jobs, employees, and companies that provide services they need. Often, users stumble upon company profiles by reading LinkedIn articles, but people also find businesses that rank within LinkedIn for certain services and keywords.

Optimizing your products and services page

The products and services section within a LinkedIn company page allows you to list your services and target terms that people search — or keywords — so people can find your business. And it also allows you to build your reputation as an expert provider of your services by earning and showcasing recommendations for those specific services.

Hubspot documented a great example of a company using this section well. The Products and Services area of a LinkedIn profile doesn’t just showcase the services your company provides, it also provides valuable links back to specific service pages on your company website. It only takes a few simple steps to build out this section and turn it into an effective channel for driving qualified traffic to your site. Let’s dive in.

First, start by adding the products and services you want to highlight. These should already exist on your company website. The whole point of filling out these pages is to drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into potential clients or customers.

Adding your products and services

• Log into LinkedIn and go the appropriate Company Page – in order to edit a LinkedIn Company Page, you have to have a LinkedIn account, and have access to the page. You will only have access if you created the page yourself or if the person who made the page gave you that access.
• Click on the down arrow that’s part of the “edit tab.”
• It will open up a drop-down list where you will click “add product or service.”

You’ll be directed to an 11-step menu where you can fill out information about the product or service. You don’t have to fill in every menu item. Fill out the service description, choose a category, and mark whether the offering is a product or a service.

Give it a name (use a keyword phrase), add a profile image, add a tracked URL using the Google Analytics custom URL builder and add a contact person.

If you’ve already made a YouTube video related to that product or service, add a video link to it.

As a general rule, take existing information from the company website and tweak it such that it’s short, sweet and to the point. It should accurately tell the reader about the service and sell it to them quickly.

Hit the biggest sales points for your product or service in the description and use bullet points to highlight the value-added benefits of that service. You’ll have a limit of 45 characters in the bullet list section, so be concise and get the best bang for your bullet.

The profile pic is 100×80 pixels. You can use a resized company logo, but an image specific to the service is more visually appealing. Just make sure the image gives the reader the right visual impression and doesn’t look terribly stretched.

Formatting and finalizing the products and service page

Okay. Now you’ve put together the individual products and services, it’s time to make the products and services page look good. Click on the products and services tab at the top of your LinkedIn Company Page so you can see what it looks like.

To edit the products and services page, click on the edit button (not the dropdown arrow) on the top right (you have to be on the products and services page).

The first thing you’ll want to do is write up a description of your company and its products and services in the first form. This is the first thing a person sees when he comes to the Products and Services Page, so you want to write up what the company does in as succinct a way as possible and highlight the brand message you want to send.

LinkedIn’s company products and services area is designer friendly. It allows you to put up to three banner images in at the top and have them cycle through like they’re on a slider.

The importance — outside of just making the section look nice — is that you can stuff links to your website into the images. Don’t just make the section look good, tell the visitor in big, bright imagery about featured services and drive traffic directly to web pages that can convert visitors into leads. This can work especially well if there are downloadable guides on the company website.

You need banner images of the right size: 646×222 pixels

Any variety of three images works in these slots, but the images have to make sense for the brand you’re trying to promote. Here’s one setup I like.

• A graphic that matches the company’s colors and brand and conveys on a high level the usefulness of the business’ value-added services
• A picture related directly to the company’s most important product or service
• A picture related directly to the company’s second most important product or service

Having nice images can be a game changer, but don’t let a perfectionist bent to get just the right images slow you down. You can drive traffic to your site from LinkedIn without three perfect pictures. Images are just one part of building out a successful LinkedIn Company Page. If you don’t have access to a designer, you can always pick one relevant image of the right size and insert it into your page along with a link to your website.

If you use the sample approach for picking out three images, use images that help you target the most important services first. By importance, I mean the product or service that you most want to drive traffic to on the company website.

You can also link to a relevant YouTube video in the profile to make this section more professional and visually appealing. Just remember, the purpose here is to create qualified leads and new business on your company website.

Customizing your products and services page

This brings us to the last level of customization in the products and services area. You can always change up the order of your products and services.

In your edit section, there is a tab just for this. The order of your services just depends on which service you want to promote the most. The higher a product or service is listed, the more visible it is to people on your products and services page.

The most important aspect of this feature is that the product or service listed first (highest in the list) will show up on your LinkedIn homepage as a featured product or service. If you have something you particularly want to show off, then it belongs first in the menu.

And you can even setup multiple variations of this section that will look different to people in different LinkedIn “audiences.”

This feature allows you to customize this section for LinkedIn users in different professions or geographical regions. It’s a useful way to promote relevant services to the people you want to reach and not have to constantly update the order of services on the page.

But, using this function only makes sense if you want to reach multiple groups of specific people (e.g., CMOs at construction companies or CEOs at inventory-tracking software companies.)

It’s worth briefly noting that in November 2013, LinkedIn unveiled the company showcase page. If you’re overseeing marketing for a company that has several well-known products or sub-brands — e.g., an iPad, iPhone, and iTunes — it may make sense to use this feature. These pages go beyond just listing products and information; they allow you to have a publishing platform specifically for a particular product or service that you want to promote — e.g., if there were news about the iPad, iPhone or iTunes. It’s still early. The book is still open on this feature, and brands are exploring ways to use it effectively, so don’t get too caught up in it just yet. Build out your products and services area first.

Reaping the benefits of a LinkedIn products and services page

Now, your products and services area has all the bells and whistles and is helping you drive traffic to your website. You’re happy and content with it, and you’re not ashamed to show it off to people who know nothing about your business. But you’re not done yet, because it has one more important job to do for you. The beauty of LinkedIn is the ability not only to bring relevant people to your website and expose them to your business, it’s also the shining recommendations you can get for your products and services. The more recommendations you get — especially from people who have LinkedIn profiles like those of your target audience — the better your services look.

Ask for recommendations from people who have used your services. Draft up a list of people you wouldn’t mind asking, and all they have to do is press a button on your services profile to make your company look more credible. It especially helps if they have a lot of (more than 500) LinkedIn connections and fit into the target audience you want to reach.

That’s it. We hope you enjoyed your guide to building out a kick-ass products and services area on your LinkedIn Company Page. Go forth and generate some leads with your LinkedIn Page. Need more marketing and social media expertise? Click below to download our guide to measuring online marketing ROI or request a free marketing assessment.

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I think it’s great. It never ceases to amaze me that messages limited to 140 characters have changed everything from corrupt governments to the way we use the restroom. Next to the Internet, Twitter (which to me is almost one in the same with the Internet) might be my pick for the best invention/innovation of the past 30 years.

If you follow me, you know that I use Twitter for everything from sports rants to restaurant reviews to Tweeting about hunts and haunts around town. I get the majority of my news from Twitter. I can’t watch sports, or TV in general, without it. And it’s my go-to for making a recommendation on a movie, book, magazine or musician. Lately, my stream seems to be all about the Missouri Tigers…the SEC East Champion Missouri Tigers, that is.

But what I’ve come to realize is that I don’t like Twitter for marketing. Well, at least the kind I do – that of industrial marketing.

I know, I know, a marketer that is telling you that your company’s Twitter use COULD be in vain.

“Blasphemy!”

“Are you crazy?”

“This can’t be true!”

It’s hard to believe, right? Well, to a certain extent, it is for me as well. But at Gorilla 76, we’ve carefully watched the traffic patterns and we’ve concluded that at least right now, our time is best spent in other online marketing endeavors.

Gorilla 76 and our use of Twitter for industrial marketing

Before I can go on a rant about how Twitter simply isn’t working for our clients, I first should preface how we’ve been using it for said clients.

In short, we’ve been using Twitter the right way. Or at least in accordance with what all the social media pundits are recommending. We Tweet 4-5 times a day. We send links out to our own content, as well as links to curated content. We interact with industry thought leaders, potential customers, brand champions, members of the press, etc. We’ve grown our followings, being careful to actively block out spammers and inactive accounts. And we’ve always responded immediately to a response or request.

We’ve studied this stuff like mad and guess what. It’s not really working.

Fruits of our labor

At Gorilla, we’ve always believed in the importance of marketing with goals in mind. And currently, for all of our clients, our goals are to grow lead lists. This happens from on-site conversions – stuff like white paper downloads, newsletter signups, case study inquiries, etc. And from the numbers we’re seeing, Twitter simply isn’t acting as the conversion vehicle we thought it would.

For instance, for one of our clients, year to date, three, I repeat, THREE, leads have been gained from all of 2013’s Twitter use to date. And guess what – they weren’t good leads. One was a competitor, one was a vendor and one was a marketing agency (probably trying to sell the “power of Twitter”!). That same client, however, via Organic Search, had received 54 conversions to date this year. That’s 18 times more conversions. So think about it – where should we be spending our time? On Twitter? Or signed into the company blog writing keyword rich content increasing our chances of showing up in search? We decided on the latter.

Let’s look at another example. A large local industrial painting company. This client has seen less than 300 visits to their site this year from Twitter. Worse than that? Zero conversions. That’s right, no one has come from Twitter, submitted information and entered their sales funnel. The result? We’ve adjusted strategy and allocated more time to blogging, LinkedIn and other online endeavors.

One final example. This one, well, it’s actually not a client at all. It’s us. Now, one would think, for a marketing agency, even if it’s a B2B industrial marketing agency, Twitter must work well….wrong. The results are slightly better than what we’ve seen with the other clients, but since February of this year, we’ve seen 20 conversions from Twitter. Zero have been sales qualified leads. For Gorilla, we’re going to continue to play in the Twitter sandbox, keeping expectations within reason. But for our clients – it’s pretty much on pause across the board.

Time investment for Twitter

Sure a Tweet might only be 140 characters and realistically doesn’t take that long to type, but finding the material, crafting the right message, and doing this several times a day…well…it all adds up. Not to mention there’s the account maintenance (constantly finding new people to follow and interact with), there’s the monthly scheduling out of calls-to-action on your site, there’s the scheduling out of company content and there’s the immediate response that’s needed if someone pings you. There’s the daily constant monitoring to see if anyone is speaking good, bad or otherwise in the first place. There are the journalists and industry thought leaders that you constantly try to connect with as well as the job-seekers and students that seem to inquire often.

Long story short, using Twitter for industrial marketing requires serious human capital, and honestly, we just don’t think it’s worth it. To us, it’s very hard to dedicate 15-20 hours a month to something from which we’re not seeing results. We think it makes a lot more sense to instead focus on efforts that are paying off, increasing results in those arenas two- and threefold.

Too much buck, not enough bang

So, a lot of work requires a lot of money. A lot of money is, well, a lot of money. If we’re truly being good stewards of our clients’ money, how can we possibly recommend that they continue to use Twitter, when we know it’s simply not delivering the results we once were hoping for?

We can’t. At least if we’re smart we can’t.

Because while Twitter isn’t performing up to our expectations, other marketing avenues are. LinkedIn, content creation, Facebook (yes, Facebook) are delivering the results we’re after. We’re seeing high engagement rates as well as significant conversion rates (yes, we track everything to see how it leads to on-site conversions, etc.)

To do the above and to do it right, significant time must be allocated to Twitter use every month for our clients. After running campaigns for several of our clients for several years now, we’ve finally decided, it’s simply not worth the time investment. At least right now, it’s not. It’s our job to figure out when it’s relevant again for the industrial marketing space.

So social media doesn’t work in industrial marketing?

No. That’s certainly not the case at all. For our client base, we’re currently seeing great results with Facebook and LinkedIn.

Facebook is a great tool for fostering internal company culture and engaging the local community. Is it driving conversions on site? Well, technically no. But there’s still a high enough engagement rate that we can still justify using it as an awareness tool.

LinkedIn is perhaps the most valuable tool in our social media toolbox right now. We’re seeing the best traffic (meaning most conversions) come from LinkedIn. Our guess is that it’s due to the mindset of the audience. When signed into LinkedIn, one is in the business mindset. It’s business time.

Twitter and Gorilla

At Gorilla, we’re going to continue to play in the Twitter sandbox as far as our own marketing is concerned, keeping expectations within reason. But for our clients, we can’t afford to play around.

Now – share your thoughts and let the onslaught begin!

By Kyle Fiehler

Despite the implication in the book’s title, that it focuses solely on social media, The B2B Social Media Book is really a book about inbound marketing strategy. Its authors cover everything from the evolution of search and keyword strategy, to business blogging and why there is absolutely, no way in hell you shouldn’t be doing it.

Anyone seeking a primer on why content generation matters, how it increases visibility and drives traffic to your site and yes, how social media achieves these ends, would do well to read this joint effort of the social media sages Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey Cohen.

The subtitle of the book, “Become a Marketing Superstar,” is a metaphor the authors return to throughout the book. At times, it has the effect of making the reader feel like a kindergartener striving for a sticker. But the overall strategies for reaching that level of “superstardom” are worth paying attention to.

Take Bodnar and Cohen’s formula for determining the ROI of a B2B social marketing effort, for instance. It goes something like this,

[Total Lifetime Value – Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA)]/ COCA= ROI

Here the COCA includes all the associated costs of social media efforts, from an employee’s salary over the time spent on a given social media task, to overhead costs such as maintaining a blog or paying a designer to spruce up the post.

This formula allows marketers a way to justify the investment of time and money in social media, proving to the higher-ups that we’re not simply tweeting pictures of cute puppies and casually perusing Facebook. Concrete strategies like this one make the cutesy language (“Math not hugs”), and excessive use of the exclamation point easier to take.

As the authors mention in the introduction, the book is actionable, with each chapter accompanied by exercises to complete as you read. The B2B Social Media Book is filled with useful tools and advice, like the equation above, for maximizing the impact of social media efforts. These are ultimately what make the book a worthwhile read, rather than the motivational-speaker sort of reassurances that you can one day be a marketing superstar too!!!

Last week, I attended the B2B Rising Event at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown St. Louis. I didn’t really know what to expect. To be honest, I was a bit reluctant to go.

It was a full day out of the office. I hate sitting in one place all day. The Cardinals were starting their 2013 playoff campaign in the afternoon.

The excuses were as plentiful as Carlos Beltran postseason home runs. And I’m kind of the Senor Octubre of signing up for things, and then at the last minute, buried by work, skipping them. Or asking someone else from the office to go.

But just as easy as these excuses are easy to make, so is manufacturing missed opportunities. So I went. And I’m glad I did. Lots of learnings. Here are a few of them.

IT folks are running B2B marketing programs…say what?

So the word “around the water cooler” is that many B2B-focused companies task their IT departments with executing their web-marketing. Notice I didn’t say “setting up”. I said “executing”.

Say it ain’t so.

This is equivalent to Walter White teaching English.

IT readership, don’t take this the wrong way. Nothing but love. I’m simply saying you’re not trained marketers. Which you’re not. Just like we’re not trained network guys. It’s not fair to task the IT crew with executing web-marketing. Web-marketing is a job for web-marketers. And a very important one at that.

IT and marketing – please, don’t get the two mixed up.

Pay attention to what Kathy Button-Bell is doing

Kathy was the opening speaker at the day-long event. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer for Emerson. While all the presenters were great (and I really mean that – very impressive lineup that delivered above lofty expectations), Kathy’s presentation really hit home.

And while her presentation was loaded with valuable information and stats about marketing leadership and innovation, I think what inspired me most about what she discussed was that she “got it”. She talked measurement. She talked goal-driven social media. She talked about bridging marketing and sales.

As we know, in the B2C environment, there are many renowned marketing innovators and big ad agencies. But these thought leaders are a little harder to find in the B2B space. Kathy is one that needs to be on your radar. Pay attention to what she’s doing and then replicate. Or at least try.

Here’s a promo video for the event where Kathy talks a bit about what she and the event would be covering.

In B2B marketing, focus on the metrics that matter

Anyone who has ever logged into Google Analytics or uses marketing automation software like Hubspot, knows that there’s now more data at your fingertips than ever before. Which is great. Until you drown in it.

It’s really important to know what your goals are and report accordingly. Is your website driving leads or on-site conversions? Is your email marketing leading to a spike in sales? Are you gathering good lead intelligence? Because that’s what you need to know and that’s what you need to be able to report at your monthly marketing meetings. Trust us – the boss cares much more about that kind of data than pages viewed, bounce rate, new visitor %, etc.

My business partner actually wrote a really great post about this. Check it out here.

B2B marketers, coexist with sales and HR and IT and…

We preach often about the importance of sales and marketing being on the same page. But company integration doesn’t stop there. In modern marketing, lines are blurred more now than ever. In order for an online marketing campaign to really take shape, the marketing department must not only get on the same page as the sales team, but they also have to be in sync with HR, IT, senior management, etc.

Silos must be destroyed. Partnerships and coalitions must be made.

As marketers, we must realize that today we have a “seat at the table” that is better and more prominent than ever before. It’s our job to make sure we show up and take that seat. And deliver sales-driven impact while sitting in it.

Focus on hiring the right talent, not training the wrong

If you can write, you can work. That’s one of the big takeaways I got from the BMA event. And this is especially true in B2B marketing and content marketing.

Nearly every speaker at B2B rising was a trained journalist. And nearly every speaker focused on the importance of the ability to communicate via the written word.

At Gorilla 76, more than half of our people (okay, small sample size I know – but there are six of us now) are Mizzou journalism majors. We take the written word seriously. You should too. It’s crucial for success in modern web-marketing.

The four Ps still exist…kind of

No, we’re not going to tell you that your five-figure college education was a waste. Or that $1.75 in late charges from the local library (said in my best Will Hunting voice) went to waste. The basics of marketing are much still the same. Like everything though, they’ve just changed a bit.

Instead of product, we must now focus on the solution that a product provides. Instead of place, we must focus on the access to the product at hand. Instead of price, we must highlight value. And instead of promotion, it’s all about education. The basics of the four Ps are still intact. They’ve just grown up a bit.

Branding still matters

With the rise of inbound marketing and sales-driven marketing, it’s easy to lose sight of the stuff that marketers clinched to so tightly for so many years. That stuff – from strong branding to creative print marketing and tradeshow displays – still matters. In fact, it’s always mattered and always will matter (going out on a limb here). Just because you use marketing automation software or have a strong inbound strategy in place, doesn’t mean you can be careless with your brand.

The reason? Emotion. Before you continue, check out this campaign from Grainger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OoX0nG4lzI&list=PLzGQz6MjmcZLbAHNNYjtxYH5lWNuEd0bK

With B2B purchases – which are often really big purchases and/or relationships – a huge investment is at hand, whether monetary or resources allocated. Thus an emotional connection is relied upon. Personal risk is involved with these purchases. Reputation and maybe even a job are on the line. And while a company is making the purchase, it’s still really important to appeal to the person at the company making a purchase. While this is marketing 101, you have to have the foundation set before you can hammer out the highrise.

One more learning…

Attend the next BMA St. Louis event. You’ll be inspired if you do. There’s good stuff happening in this town.

By Kyle Fiehler

The folks at Caterpillar know a thing or two about the hard-hat-wearing lifestyle. They also know a thing or two about B2B social media strategy and industrial marketing.

Kevin Espinosa, social media manager at Caterpillar recently spoke at the Sheraton in Clayton, another quality event hosted by the Business Marketing Association of St. Louis. I was lucky enough to attend. Having recently come on board here at Gorilla76, I’ve been thinking a lot about maximizing the impact of social marketing in a B2B context.

Espinosa and Caterpillar jumped into the game before the playbook had been written up. While others were dismissing social media as a fad or something sketchy their kids were up to, they realized early on the power of social platforms in connecting buyers to sellers. After all, isn’t that what markets are all about?

Okay, so someone looking for a 150,000 lb dump truck probably doesn’t hop on Facebook right away to get one (although apparently it has happened). But that line of thinking dismisses one of the biggest opportunities a well-planned social media presence provides—establishing your company as an industry thought-leader. Filling info gaps with your hard-won expertise designates your company as a source worth keeping up with. Any armchair enthusiast can write a blog post about earth-movers, but only Cat knows what it takes to re-equip them for a winter trip across Antarctica.

Potential customers should already have you in mind when the right time in their buying cycle comes along, because you have been consistently providing them with innovative content. Lead-nurturing in its most classic form.

“People are sick of the advertising part,” Espinosa pointed out. And it’s true, whether it’s on the web or between the covers of a magazine; we’re so bombarded with advertisements that reading often feels like a hunt for actual content. What is far more persuasive (and a lot less expensive) is earning a retweet or repost from a respected industry source. Cat can blast the web and trade journals with ads for a new line of skid steer loaders, but if the unaffiliated @skidsteerloader showers it with 140 characters of praise, instant legitimacy.

Social media is just one tool in the B2B web marketing toolbox, but its usefulness in establishing your reputation can’t be underestimated.

Last week a Facebook post rolled across our company’s stream and caught our eye – just not exactly in a good way. Out of respect to this business, we’ll refrain from identifying them (even though a screenshot of their post would have made a great visual here, dang it!). The post read:

“Don’t forget to listen to our radio ad playing tonight during the [town] vs. [other town] football game on [radio station]!”

Think about that for a second. In other words, “we would like to advertise that we’ll be advertising tonight. Make sure you listen to our ad so we can convince you to buy something!” If this were 10 years ago, I wonder if they would have sent direct mailer postcards the week before the big game to advertise their ad? That would have been expensive, so yay for social media!

Believe me when I say that social media posts should not be over-thought. Success is about reacting quickly. Long approval processes eliminate the opportunity to post something timely. If companies buy into this, kudos to them. BUT – that doesn’t mean you should post without thinking.

Consider these questions before going post-happy:

• Does this post support what my company is trying to accomplish as a business?
• Does it provide valuable information for my audience that will help them do their job better? Or am I just promoting my company?
• Is the content of this post relevant and appropriate for my brand’s image? Does it support the culture and brand perception we wish to project?

Now don’t forget to sign up for the Gorilla newsletter. We’ll be sending out tips on how to not miss the print ad we’re running next week!

Related blog posts

Search engine success for B2B companies depends heavily upon social media

Speak to your audience as if they were…real people

Twitter fixed my sh*tter

Two consistent observations follow from our experience working with B2B companies on their web marketing strategies:

A. Most businesses care considerably about placement in Google search results
B. Many don’t believe social media is relevant for their company

As for point A, they’re right on. Search engine optimization matters – a lot. What they don’t often realize is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to achieve positive search results without participation in social media. Fast Company posted a great article a couple weeks ago titled “SEO isn’t what you think it is” and it concluded with this point:

So rather than asking yourself, “How do I optimize my website to better rank with search engines?” ask, “How can I optimize my brand so that it’s a sought-after participant in relevant conversations?” Answering that will bring you top rankings on the search engines and much, much more.

I’d highly recommend reading that full article – it’s short but full of good insights. In the meantime, I’d like to dispute point B from above.

In the context of search engine optimization, what follows are two big time misconceptions about B2B social media marketing that should be put to rest.

Misconception: My customers are old school and don’t use social media, so neither should I.

Good point on the traditional customer base – we see that often. But I’ll make a very strong argument here that your customers aren’t your only audience. When you share original content like blog posts or white papers and they get picked up by an industry journalist or publication, you gain exposure among their audience (just like when you send out a press release). What does this have to do with search engine optimization? Everything. Google rewards you in search results because you’ve gained additional credibility. Think of it this way. When the village newspaper picks up your story and links to your site, you get some points from Google. When CNN picks up your story and links to your site, you get lots and lots of points from Google. Consider everything in between part of a sliding scale.

Misconception: No one cares that I’m having a double cheeseburger for lunch (or about any other status updates at that).

OK, I kind of tricked you with that headline. Though I do love cheeseburgers, it’s true – that stuff doesn’t matter. In fact, businesses who are sharing that kind of information are completely missing the mark. But here’s the reality. Search engines (like Google) are all looking at your activity in social media. Those participating in discussions about your industry and contributing valuable content and opinions about things that do matter to your audience are being recognized by Google as influential parties. Google rewards these influencers with better placement in search results. Period.

We’d love to hear your stories about success or failure with social media in search. Please share your comments below. And if you want to talk social media strategy, get it touch with us. Thanks for reading.

Related articles that you might find useful:

LinkedIn for new business part 1: lead prospecting

Twitter fixed my sh*tter

How to market with patience in a tough economy

This is the third of three blog posts on using LinkedIn as a new business tool. Here’s how I’ve divided them up.

• Lead prospecting
• Monitoring your industry
• Promoting your company

On to part 3: promoting your company.

A few rules of thumb

Promoting in the social media channels is all about making connections and nurturing relationships. Here are a few pointers:

• Be consistent. This isn’t like running a TV spot where the commercial aires and then you sit back waiting for calls to come in. Social media marketing takes time, effort and patience. Either be consistent or don’t do it at all.
• Don’t be pushy. It’s very easy to unfollow or block people in social media. Learn through experimentation how to balance promotion and other communication with your prospects.
• Be genuine. People want to converse with real people. Act as you would in person and you’ll earn the respect of your audience.

Write a thorough personal profile

Consider your personal profile to be your online resume. When potential customers or partners seek you out, what do you want them to know about you? LinkedIn will guide you through completion of your profile in a few easy steps. Be sure to give some thought to the “skills and expertise” section. These labels become searchable categories, so include the areas of expertise that you want to show up for in searches. A missed opportunity by many is the “websites” field. Create descriptive links to important pages on your company website. Not only will these links help drive traffic to your site, but they’ll help with search engine optimization of your site as well.

Fill out your company profile

LinkedIn is more about individual people than it is about companies. At this point in time, there’s not a whole lot you can do with a company profile. That said, a complete, well-written profile demonstrates a level of professionalism expected by those who seek you out. Craft a descriptive  company overview that paints an accurate picture of what your business does and how you differentiate yourself from the competition. Take advantage of the products/services tab and write succinct descriptions of your most important offerings.

Share news and articles to drive traffic to your company website

LinkedIn allows you to add updates to your business and personal profiles. When you write a press release, news update or blog post on your website, make a habit of adding a summary and link on LinkedIn back to that page on your website. You can even automate it by including a RSS feed from your company blog (click here if you’re not familiar with RSS feeds) or other free add-ons like the WordPress plug-in that I use.

If your website/blog is well designed and full of valuable information for your customer, then actively utilizing social media channels like LinkedIn provides a big opportunity to promote the content on your site, drive visitors there and further engage them.

Connect with industry organizations and media

One of the biggest complaints we hear about LinkedIn (and social media in general) is that “my customers are not using it”. First of all, it’s worth finding out for sure whether or not that assumption is true. You may be surprised. If you do in fact find it to be true, don’t underestimate the power of connecting with and capturing the attention of journalists, trade organizations, business journals, bloggers and leaders that have the power to spread your message to their big and likely qualified audiences. Believe us, they are on LinkedIn. Think of LinkedIn the way you might think of traditional PR. If you consistently push out good content, it’s likely to be picked up.

Give and you’ll receive

Consider how you can help other people on LinkedIn. Make introductions between contacts that you think would benefit from knowing each other by sending a LinkedIn message. Write recommendations on the pages of impressive people with whom you’ve done business. Comment on interesting posts written by others and share ones you enjoyed. Be genuine and others will be happy to help you as well.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear about how you’ve found success with LinkedIn and any tips your might have, so please feel free to add comments below.

Related articles

LinkedIn for new business part 1: lead prospecting

LinkedIn for new business part 2: monitoring your industry

How to market with patience in a tough economy

From the archives: A print ad campaign for a pre-construction company

I’m always flagging useful articles and blog posts that I think would be benefit our audience – articles about new trends, technologies, or just insightful ideas. Sometimes I’ll Tweet links to them, post them on Google+ or email them to an individual, but usually after I read them, they just become bookmarks that die. So I’d like to make a habit of putting them together in a blog post from time to time. This compilation of articles from February and March is my first crack at that.

5 Reasons You Need to Meet in Person | Inc.com

So this one might not be a marketing article like the next four, but it’s a pretty common topic of discussion at Gorilla and I wanted to include it. We’ve worked with clients from California to Florida to DC. GoToMeeting is a great tool and phone calls certainly work, but there’s nothing quite like sitting down in the same room and hammering it out. My favorite point from this article: “Most business conversations are focused on solving a problem quickly and efficiently, while business relationships are built when people take the time to share and learn more about each other.” We’re a big believer in that. Read the article

Google’s Search, Plus Your World | Social Media Examiner

OK, so the full article is actually titled “8 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site With Google+” and it’s a good one. But the point I wanted to highlight is a few paragraphs in: Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” rollout.

Over the past few months, Google has lead the charge in allowing your search results to be influenced by your social network. Google wants to give searchers the best possible results when they’re trying to find something; that’s how they remain the best search engine. So when someone does a Google search and they see that 8 of their friends recommend a company that appears in the results, isn’t it logical that that they’ll be more likely to chose based on such a personally-qualified endorsement? This trend of social media influencing search results will only grow, so take note. Read the article

8 Social SEO Strategies To Start Using Right Now | Search Engine Land

The last article gave you a sense for what Google is starting to do. This one gives you some ideas for applying it. If you care about search engine optimization for your business, your strategic participation in social media is now an absolute requirement. Read the article

Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs to Understand | Mashable

If you haven’t paid much attention to the new Facebook brand timelines, here’s a good starting place for learning about the changes and picking up a few ideas on how to use them to your benefit. Read the article

How Pinterest Is Becoming the Next Big Thing in Social Media for Business | Entrepreneur.com

If you work in marketing, you probably couldn’t be more sick of hearing about Pintrest at this point. But if you’re a business owner and you haven’t dabbled in it yet, it’s certainly worth seeing what all the hype is about. Pintrest is essentially a web-based bulletin board for posting photos and commenting others’ photos. It’s probably most beneficial to businesses who sell something visual – like food, or shiny objects. But if you’re in the B2B marketing world and willing to be creative, there are certainly possibilities. I’m just diving in myself. Read the article

Some other articles by Gorilla that you might like:

How can I use Google+ for business?

Twitter fixed my sh*tter

How to market with patience in a tough economy

First and foremost, let me clearly state that I don’t blame clients on wanting perfection. Let me repeat that: I don’t blame clients on wanting perfection. They should want perfection. I too strive for perfection. The idea of a missing comma or the inconsistent use of punctuation in a bulleted list is enough to drive me up a wall. I hate the idea of publishing something that poorly represents myself or the Gorilla brand.

But, in today’s B2B web marketing world, if you continually focus on the micro, you’ll get buried by savvy competitors who are more focused on the macro. While you’re perfecting a blog post that was meant to be timely, your competitor will write three more that are “good enough” and will steal engagement from your potential readers. While you tweak and tweak and tweak your website before it launches, your rival will launch their site and will then be revising an improved round two version based off of real customer feedback before yours ever hits the web.

See where I’m going with this?

Just a little more than a year ago, I read Rework by the gents at 37 Signals – a really, really successful web application company based in Chicago. At Gorilla, this text has almost become holy and is one of the seminal reads for our current beliefs on best web-marketing and general business practices.

Throughout the book, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, examine a theme of going with “good enough” and an idea of creating something that can be turned into great later – that is, if it even needs to be. In one instance, they even say: “It’s OK to wing it. Just get on the plane and go. You can pick up a nicer shirt, shaving cream, and a toothbrush once you get there.”

To me, that’s a really powerful idea. I don’t know about you, but this is very relevant to projects we’ve worked on, and are currently working on, at Gorilla. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve seen blog posts or e-newsletter blasts get knit picked to the point of irrelevance.

Don’t let this happen in your B2B marketing initiatives. Don’t get hung up on the minute details. Yes – whatever you put your name on, absolutely has to be good. But “good” can be closer to “good enough” than it is to “perfection.”

Thanks for reading my rant.

Seems like more and more, we’re being hired to execute email marketing campaigns for the companies with which we work. And really, that’s to no surprise.

Besides being extremely cost efficient, especially when compared to their print counterparts, and quite effective (we see open rates often in the 40% range – top that direct mail!), they’re a breeze to build, simple to edit and can be measured to extents that would make Claude C. Hopkins’ head explode.

Let’s take a look at a few best practices so that you can build and launch a successful email marketing initiative.

1. Pick a good email marketing platform

At Gorilla, we currently use Campaign Monitor for our marketing newsletter and all of our clients’ newsletters. It’s very easy to use, customizable, provides terrific analytics and is really cheap to send (5 bucks per campaign, one cent per recipient). The backend dashboard is as intuitive as it gets, and there are lots of tools that can be used for the more savvy user (A/B testing, etc.).

There are lots of great options for email marketing software. The key is to simply find one with which you’re comfortable. We’re really comfortable with Campaign Monitor – it’s hard not to be.

2. People are visual

Stop and think about what messages/emails get your attention, and more importantly, your precious time. Chances are, they’re going to be visually strong and copy short. Make sure you consider how you can deliver your message visually when writing your next campaign. And remember – the visual and the text don’t have to tell the exact same story – but instead, work as complements. Like beer and brats.

3. Know your audience; master your message

Marketing 101, right? Correct. But it seems like the majority of email marketers don’t get this. Chances are, any company that has access to your inbox has a product that at some point you were really interested in. But now, their messages get deleted before they even have a chance to tell their story. Part of that could be due to a dull product. But more than likely that’s due to not knowing one’s audience, and not knowing the message to tell that audience.

Stop and think about your subscribers: are they the right subscribers in the first place? Are you giving them a message they’ll want to read? Some of the newsletters I receive might only have one story that interests me. But that’s one more than most of the newsletters that hit my inbox.

4. Don’t personalize

Seems like weird advice, right? Well, normally it is. But in the case of an e-newsletter that is accompanied by a custom template, don’t feel like just because your software allows you to insert your recipients name (Dear Fred) that you have to. In fact, I’d probably advise against it. It feels cheap, less premium and definitely canned.

Your eblast is simply a piece of communication from your brand – embrace it. Don’t feel that you have to try to make it look personalized; if that was the case, you’d probably just send it from your regular email anyway.

5. Write a killer subject line

It needs to interesting enough to get someone to give you 10 seconds plus of their already overbooked day. And it needs to have a compelling call-t0-action that drives one to click through.

6. Short and sweet

When it comes to an ebast, the one thing you have to remember is less is often more. Spare the 9 paragraph story, and instead, post it on your site. Then simply give your campaign list a taste of the story, giving them the ability to click through if they want more.

7. Figure out what’s working and adjust accordingly

As we mentioned, software like Campaign Monitor will let you measure your campaign’s splash. You’ll quickly notice which stories were the most popular, and which stories would’ve best been left on the editing room floor. Regardless, it’s your job to take this data and form it into a more successful campaign the next time around.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you in the inboxes!

This past November, along with SEO agency Evolve Digital Labs, Gorilla 76 co-hosted and presented at our second Get Digital Seminar in St. Louis. The event was an all-day, learning-intensive introduction to web marketing. Above is a 5-minute highlight video from my presentation on measuring results across across web marketing channels, including your website, social media and search engines. A summary of my session follows.

So much data out there

The quantity of raw data available to marketers today can be totally overwhelming if you don’t know how to parse through it. The first third of my presentation focused on how to distinguish between what can be measured and what should be measured. The key is in understanding how to filter through it all, make sense of what bits matter and infuse your learnings into adjustments to your web marketing strategy.

What dictates success or failure?

A common thread from one presentation to the next throughout the day was constructing a web marketing strategy around real business goals. In this session on measurement, I emphasized the importance of measuring against these goals and counting your successes and failures not just by direct sales, but rather by other critical factors for your business such as lead generation, brand awareness and thought leadership.

Measuring the performance of your website

During the middle third of my session I shifted the focus from “what” to “how” in measurement. I used the pyramid graphic below to illustrate the crucial idea that your website is home base. Measurement needs to begin there because your website is your property and you have total control over what happens there. It’s your place to capture leads, publish valuable content for your audience and define who your brand really is. Using tools like conversion tracking in Google Analytics lets you understand your success or failure in doing these things.

Measuring the traffic drivers to your site

After measuring your site’s success and or failure, your attention can turn to the social channels where your content is promoted and the search engines where your content is found by active searchers. Measurement in these channels revolve around your ability to engage your audience and drive traffic to your website, where you then can funnel visitors toward conversions.

Measuring opportunity

Measurement of your own performance is only a piece of the pie. From keyword research to content publishing opportunities to identifying influencers in the social channels, there is plenty to be learned about your marketplace. While tools exist to help you get the job done, there’s plenty of grunt work to do as well.

Reporting and adjusting

All these learnings go to waste unless you do something with them. I concluded the day by emphasizing that you must make use of the data you’ve collected by generating reports for yourself, your boss, your business partners or whoever would benefit from seeing it. Then figure out how it can be used to make your marketing strategy more effective.

Future seminars and corporate consultation

While no future seminars are planned at the moment, you can check out the Get Digital site for updates. We also put on 1-2 day private, customized seminars to help businesses implement a web marketing strategy. You can contact me (Joe Sullivan) at joe@gorilla76.com if you’d like to discuss a corporate consultation engagement like this.

Let me begin by saying that I’m no Google+ expert. In fact, I’m a rookie. That’s why this blog post is a book review and not a lesson from Joe Sullivan on how to succeed on this platform. I read Google+ for Business, by Chris Brogan to jumpstart my own experimentation in this relatively new social network and I’m writing this post to share my biggest takeaways.

Though Google+ for Business provides a good intro to how the platform works and its basic features, I found that the value of the book is less about technicalities and more about applying business knowledge in a way that will make this social network a valuable tool for you. That said, it’s a good read both for those who want to learn how to physically use the platform as well as those who are looking for more strategic applications.

Here are the four most important things I walked away with:

Google+ presents a big opportunity for SEO and findability

Google indexes the content posted on Google+. Google never had access to the content posted in Facebook, and though they once had an agreement with Twitter that allowed Tweets to show up in search results, that agreement no longer exists. What’s posted on Google+, however, is different. Google owns this new social network and it’s sure to use the content posted there to serve up better results when people are looking for something in their search engine.

To take it a step further, when someone follows you on Google+, your content is more likely to show up in their Google searches. Why? Again, Google wants to show people the most relevant search results, and since that person has chosen to follow you, they’ve essentially already told Google that they’re interested in you or your busienss. So Google listens and responds accordingly.

Use Google+ to target and segment

The interface is strongly focused around the ability to segment both your audience and who you’re listening to. When you post something, you can choose who sees it by organizing your connections into “Circles”. What you share with one prospective client base might be different from what you share with another. What you share with your family or friends might be different than what you share with any prospective client base.

Similarly, you can (and should) segment those you follow. Create a circle of journalists. Read what they’re posting and get in the habit of commenting. Build relationships with them. Create a circle of competitors and keep an eye on what they’re doing. Create a circle of prospective clients. Observe what they’re talking about. Build relationships before you have the opportunity to sell to them.

Share and comment. Results will follow.

Comment on what other people are saying and offer interesting opinions on the matter. You would do that in real life conversations, wouldn’t you? So why not do it here?

Look for interesting things to share with your audience that will bring value to them. Actively seek out content that they will appreciate reading. Brogan emphasizes the importance of putting a system in place for sharing. Set up a RSS reader like Google Reader and subscribe to relevant blogs. Or at least make a list of websites that produce content of value to your audience. Check them out daily and see what you can find to share.

To be successful, you need to schedule time in your day for reading, finding info, sharing and commenting. Once you’ve made a habit out of being active, people will begin looking to you as a good source for information. The content you post doesn’t have to be yours. In fact, only some of it should be. The point is that you’ve become a curator of valuable stuff for your audience.

Be a real person. People buy from people they like.

This was the most valuable takeaway for me. It’s a an obvious truth in business, but I think it’s easy to overlook this one when you get caught up in a shiny new tool like G+.

Brogan says, “People want to follow your interests, not just your company updates.” Think about conversations you have in real life, and put yourself in that mind set. Your interactions with people on Google+ (and really any social network) should mimic them.

Brogan encourages sharing not just business-related content, but bits of personal things too. He poses the question, “Do you prefer buying from someone pushing a sales agenda, or do you prefer buying from someone you feel understands you and you feel you understand? Several reports and studies over the years boil down to the same thing: We buy from people we like.” This doesn’t mean that you have to post pics of your family vacations. It means allowing your audience to see that you have real human interests.

Find creative ways and unexpected ways to show you’re an interesting person. Give your audience a window into what happens behind the scenes at your company. Post photos and if possible, videos. Share some of the process in your work, rather than just case studies or end results. Depending on your business, try out the live group video chat feature –Hangouts. I’ve been helping my sister launch her pastry chef business over the past month. Think how engaging a live webinar-style Hangout might be for her audience. “Watch and learn and I prepare the world’s best German chocolate cake.” What’s the equivalent of that for your business?

In conclusion…

However you choose to use Google+, think of it as an extension of how you do business already. Engage with people like you would in real life and you’ll figure out how to make it a successful tool for you.

Like many, I’m in the learning and experimenting phase with this platform. I’d love to hear how you’re using Google+, successes and failures you’ve seen, as well as any ideas. Please comment below. Or, uhh, comment on my Google+ page.

We’d like to thank Derek Mabie, President of SEO company Evolve Digital Labs, for contributing this post to our blog. With no further ado, here’s Derek.

After executing so many search campaigns, I find it hard to imagine starting any place except keyword research. I suppose you could begin by tearing into a site revamp if you absolutely wanted to, but in pretty short order you will need a keyword strategy to start making educated, influential decisions. I HAVE consulted for brands and clients who, so it seems, can only move forward if they break it or their backs are against the wall. So if you are the type of person who refuses to read the directions, maybe you should consider abandoning this read and just start breaking things that appear in your website audit. Remember before you go, correlation is not causation. If you are looking for an overview of search engines’ functionally and why it works that way, I recommend this read, The SEO Guide for Beginners.

For those not ready to fly solo, let us begin.

I would like to dive right into the tactics, starting with keyword research. If you are just beginning, don’t be concerned with mastering the art and science of keyword research. So what should you be concerned with? Gaining two primary insights: the volume of relevant searches performed and the level of competition. You can achieve this through the completion of two simple tasks using two simple tools.

First understand that any and all keyword research is completed with the aid of Google’s data, specifically the external keyword research tool. This is the same data any search marketing company could, should, and does use.

The tool is about as difficult to operate as the search engine itself. Simply enter industry key terms or your website (domain or page) – and voila! Idea, volume, and competition are all there.

Before you start jumping up for joy, let’s debunk the info just a bit.

1. Local volume refers to searches performed in the United States, not your town or specific location.
2. The volume is not a fact, but an educated estimate (although sometimes I question this).
3. The competition is only correlated with the pay-per-click campaigns, not organic results.

Unless you have ” ” or [ ] wrapped around the term, you don’t necessarily have an accurate volume for the term. Instead, Google is giving you the volume of term or phrase query frequency. As an example, Google may show “shoe” searched hundreds of thousands times a month. Unless you include a filter (“” or [ ]) for the data, however, Google is displaying the overall, inclusive usage of the word shoe in a query. It could be referring to women’s shoe, kids shoe, shoe sale, or even shoe sales in St. Louis MO.

Now that the first action is complete, it’s time for the much easier step two: the underrated and underutilized Eye-Test. To me this is a common sense approach to SEO, quickly accomplished by visiting the search engines and asking yourself, “would my company and domain fit in with this list of ten domains or brands?” If you are a small Bed and Breakfast in Orlando, Florida and you search “hotel rooms, Orlando,” it only takes a quick glance to realize what a difficult climb that could be.

By no means is this a compilation of cutting edge Search tactics, but it is common sense discovery. In my opinion, the Eye Test is for motivation. Those who are new to Search need this incentive and sense of reality. Those two actions can help provide both. If you are not one that is shy on motivation, but do need affirmation, you will need to develop an acute sense of competitive balance. That takes time and effort. Sometimes a professional.

These exercises will provide you with a solid starting point for your SEO journey. Understanding the opportunity of organic search success for your business, should guide your investment, whether it is dollars or time. Compared to other marketing initiatives, SEO provides you with generous amounts of insight that allows you to strategically shape your digital plan. Forget expensive, hit-or-miss focus groups; Google’s keyword research tools yield reliable, valuable answers to the question: What are people searching for? The revealed lists of terms will direct you to tackle a myriad of on-site and off-site improvements, such as content creation (how much and which kind) and Paid Search campaign implementation.

If you have any interest in pr, search engine optimization, how to use social media to promote your business or how to find ideas for blog posts, I have a great resource for you. Newsjacking by David Meerman Scott – about a 2-hour read by the way – is all about reacting in real time to real world occurrences and injecting yourself into the story. The basic takeaway is that today you have a huge opportunity to get noticed if you are willing to act fast.

As things happen in the news, journalists look for information. To distinguish their story from those of their competitors, they need a hook, or details for the “second paragraph” of the story that might offer a fresh perspective. That’s where the opportunity lies – but only if you act RIGHT AWAY. Create commentary on what’s happening in the news via blog posts, tie it back to your business and you may find your commentary listed as a resource in Google searches for related keywords before other have the chance to own it. Then take it a step further by promoting your blog post in the social channels, emaling and/or Tweeting writers who might be looking for other information, and posting it on press release sources like Business Wire or PR Newswire.

Scott also spends a chapter identifying how you can find news to “jack”. Being active online and using the right tools plays a huge role here. Consistently monitoring relevant industry and non-industry news sources and blogs through a RSS reader like Google Reader, following relevant hash tags on Twitter and setting up Google Alerts for important key phrases are starting points.

As a small business owner, one of the strongest takeaways for me was the idea that you don’t need to be a corporate giant to successfully jack news. In fact, your chances might be better as a small or medium-sized business, or even as an individual. To quote chapter 7,

“Like a dinosaur’s tail that wants to twitch, requests to act must travel a long way up to the slow-moving corporate brain, then all the way back down before anything can happen.”

If your business is nimble, this isn’t the case.

Newsjacking is a quick, worthwhile read. Check it out here.

Related blog posts

The best content is right under your nose

How to measure your online marketing success

Five ways to make your business more efficient using social media

We’ve put together this web design RFP template as a resource for companies looking to hire a web design company. It’s rooted in our beliefs about RFPs, which you can learn more about here.

I got a call from an out-of-town buddy a few weeks ago asking me for advice on which of two running backs he should start in his big fantasy football matchup that weekend (it was between Cedric Benson and Willis McGahee for you other NFL nerds out there). For some reason, that call – which was not at all an uncommon sort of call from this particular friend – got me thinking.

You know how you have those out-of-town friends who you talk to about once every six or twelve months, and when you see their name pop up on your ringing cell phone you go, “Oh man, I can’t take this right now”? It’s not because you don’t want to talk with them – in fact they might be one of your best friends and you feel a little bit guilty for not answering. It’s because you know it’s gonna be an hour-long conversation to really catch up. And you don’t have an hour right now. Too much of a commitment, right?

Well, I have plenty of those friends too and I do the same thing. But when the guy I mentioned in the first paragraph calls, I always pick up. So I started thinking about why that’s the case. Here are the things that came to mind:

1. The conversations are almost always quick (usually 5-10 minutes long)
2. The topics of our conversations are about simple, timely things 90% of the time (football, something funny that happened, a quick question, etc.). In other words, we don’t begin by catching each other up for 20 minutes each on our lives because we already know what’s going on.
3. He’s an entertaining guy, and the call consistently ends in us laughing about something absurd

What’s really interesting to me is that when I compare the cumulative, quick and manageable conversations that I’ve had with this friend over the past year or so, I’m certain the minutes spent talking far surpasses the minutes spend talking to any of my hour-long-conversation buddies. And the relationship is stronger. Furthermore, when he or I might have something of greater importance to talk about, we both know the other will be reachable.

So why am I writing about this on a marketing blog?

It’s because I believe the exact same parallels can be drawn to the way a successful business-to-business brand in today’s marketing environment captures the attention and builds a relationship with their customer.

I love a reading a great business book, navigating a well-thought-out and engaging website or reading a well-crafted white paper that educates me on a topic of interest. But putting these big, time-consuming works together is a massive project for those who developed that content. Comparison: hour-long-conversation. It’s a commitment and not something that can be done every day or week. More like every few months or years.

The strongest and most engaging business-to-business brands on the other hand, embrace the idea that not every piece of content they produce for their audience has to be a masterpiece. They realize they don’t have to wait until the perfect time to release it. That’s why these brands write multiple blog posts a week, create infographics, produce raw viral videos, put on half-hour long lunchtime webinars, etc., etc.

Great brands develop and maintain a strong relationship with their audience through frequent and simple engagements. Though they might hang their hat on their bigger productions, they complement those with smaller pieces that keep their audience interested all the time. Compare the following to the bullet points listed previously in this post:

1. Their content is short and sweet (again – blog posts, infographics, etc.)
2. The topics of their content are timely and focused so they can be delivered quickly (not broad and all-encompasing)
3. Their content is engaging and/or entertaining and relates to their customer at a human level.

See the parallels? I think they exist because customers are real people. Business-to-business brands that actually think about how real people interact in their daily lives have much a better chance of capturing the interest of their customers and building a long-lasting relationship.

I’d love to hear your comments on this one below. Please feel free to contribute.

Related Blog Posts

The best content is right under your nose

Marketing lessons from a college kid looking for a job