I admit I went to see Miley Cyrus at the O2. Whatever rumours exist to the contrary, it was my kids that wanted to go. They badgered me at least once to buy tickets. I spent the first few tracks ogling a blonde dancer with my daughter's binoculars, and then there was a pause. The music lowered and Hannah, I mean Miley, addressed her adoring fathers. I mean fans. "This Summer I had to, you know, get away from everything and everyone and do some growing up. So I made a movie called ‘The Last Song'," she husked. I...

Guest blogger Chris Bagnall, managing director for DWA, questions whether there is the right share on the time, effort and budget spent creating content versus promoting it What content can doThe Internet has fundamentally changed the traditional B2B sales and marketing process. Prospective customers for a huge percentage of products and services can access a wide range of information to aid their purchasing decisions often without learning about a company through direct dialogue. The amount of content available online to aid decisions is vast but is it necessarily in the right format to be consumed by your audience and can...

It’s now back to reality after a fantastic Christmas and New Year break, the latter part of which was spent with friends skiing in the French Alps.  Don’t worry, the irony of returning to the UK in the midst of the most extensive snow fall for decades was not lost on me! That said the skiing was great and the company excellent. I went with a group of friends, a couple of whom are business owners. One of whom had organised the accommodation (yes all sourced and booked online), and very nice it was too, but knowing him as I do,...

I had the pleasure of speaking at an event dedicated to B2B marketers recently the theme of which was around digital marketing. I spend quite a lot of my time talking with B2B marketers and business owners, at events or in individual meetings, but it is rare that I have seen so much interest in one topic. That topic was social media. The whole room seemed obsessed about how to get out there and start ‘doing social media’. What really surprised me though was not the interest in the latest buzz phrase/‘must do’ marketing solution, but the fact that so many of the...

By Anna Goldie, online editor The time of year is upon us when some of us start thinking about our New Year’s resolutions and I want to hear about yours. No, I don’t want to hear about you resolving not to clean your finger nails with your pen lid anymore or finally admitting that you are more than a social smoker. I want to hear about the resolutions that are really important in 2010— the ones about the world of B2B marketing. Maybe you have learnt a valuable lesson in 2009 that you are determined to put into practice in...

Imagine a future (and we are talking two years max) where social networks will be more powerful than corporate web sites and internal CRM systems. If you don’t believe me, stump up $499 and read the Forrester report entitled “Future of the SocialWeb”. We all know the marketing landscape is changing at a rapid pace. We can see it first hand in the way we are consuming social media in our work and private lives; the odd blog, the Facebook update, the occasional tweet, the increasing usage of Linked In. Wherever you are right now on the social media curve,...

I was just on our B2B Marketing LinkedIn Group (a plug already!) and I read a response to a question I have heard a lot lately. “Where do I put my marketing spend in 2010?” Do I keep a good mix or bin traditional marketing in favour of digital, as it’s cheaper. The thing is, in today’s market I think this general talk of shifting away from traditional spend to digital is already outdated. “Digital” is not new anymore, I know we’re not yet hanging out with Star Trek's Captain Picard but come on; we’re online most of the day...

You can't run – but you can hide.The old maxim seems to have been reversed for social media, and it raises some big issues for those of us involved in making the web work in B2B marketing.What I mean is that when an individual contributes to the online content pool, that information is released to the mercy of others. You can't run away from it: once you've posted, it's out there and there's nothing you can do to get it back. This can work for you or against you: ask Domino's Pizza.But for me, the interesting point right now is...

Video used to be a nice-to-have for websites, with the cost of production generally precluding all but the biggest B2B brands from getting involved. But with changes in how search engines view and rate traffic, online video is becoming an increasingly important weapon for brands seeking to maximise the visibility of their websites, engage with visitors and ultimately convert leads into sales. The exclusive below, from our recent half day seminar on search engine marketing, covers this issue in detail, including interviews with presenters from Google, Salesforce.com and Base One Group....

We're currently looking at making some changes to the Base One web site, and naturally I have been tasked with ensuring that whatever we do is fully optimised for search. As search and social media are a core part of our offering, I decided to look at some of my competitors' sites to see how they go about ensuring they achieve page one positioning on Google for relevant search terms. I looked at some of what I would consider to be the top UK search agencies, and searched using obvious terms to see how well they were positioned. To my...