“How does social media apply to our target audience of business professionals, and help us achieve our B2B revenue goals?”I’ve had this question thrown at me scores of times by many an enterprise executive, and in my fair share of B2B boardrooms. And as I frequently explain, even though the word “social” modifies these media, the Social Web is not merely a consumer playground, but a business marketplace brimming with B2B potential. The reason is as simple as it is profound: While consumers use social media to enhance their personal lives, professionals engage with social media to advance their livelihoods. ...

"Il faut cultiver son jardin"   Candide, Voltaire, 1759          It's not often this site gets to quote 18th century French philosophers, but a recent report brought this phrase to mind, and I will explain why – and why it matters to you in your work as a B2B marketer....

Is social media an effective tool for data enhancement and cleansing? If so, how should it be conducted?...

Guest blog by Liane Dietrich, managing director of LinkShare Social networks have been much enthused and debated since their inception. Some of us wonder what we ever did without them, others will never understand what grown people might see in sharing their daily exploits with their ‘network’. However one thing is for sure, nearly every Online Marketing Manager is no doubt still asking themselves the question “how can we make money out of them?”. Whilst the pure user side of social networks is straight forward, those trying to monetise them face a number of obstacles as they try to strike a balance...

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  Ian Irving, Director of Corporate at leading experiential agency RPM The B2B industry has a more wary approach to embracing new mediums in comparison to the B2C market.  Whilst consumer brands have been quick to jump on emerging communication methods, business brands have often relied on more traditional mediums. Whilst it can be argued that this approach has proved effective in the past, I don’t think that the traditional thinking behind B2B marketing and events has been challenged enough.  With the recession still taking hold, it's time for B2B marketers to reassess the marketing mix and take a closer look at...

Media buyers and social media enthusiasts, put your weapons down and listen. I appreciate that traditional media people may feel threatened by social media, but I'd like to offer an idea that puts the two in a more harmonious context. It's easy to see the present situation in the marketing world as two extremes – a war between the guys who book conventional media and the social media evangelists – but if you step back a bit and look at media in general you see a different picture. Because there are not two but three types of media: •Paid media....

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...

Great news that Twitter and LinkedIn have finally enabled update sharing – what took them so long? Finally this innovation provides a means of updating the two primary business-focused social media platforms in one go. Goddamit, it might event get me tweeting again!As Twitter founder Biz Stone (great name) says, "it's like bringin' the peanut butter and chocolate together!"Quite.LinkedIn is also promising further integration down in the next few months – is B2B social media finally coming of age?...

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,...