This is the second blog in a two part series on Blogging for Business-to-Business Marketing. Part 1 covered the benefits of blogging, blog platforms and features.

This blog, Part 2, will consider the ongoing management and implementation of the blog, which focuses primarily on content. Other ongoing blog management considerations are building a blogroll and corresponding reciprocal links, updating other resource or content items like case studies, and supporting search engine optimization.

Content is king! Content is the fuel that will keep your blogging initiative alive and relevant. What’s more, when blogs are integrated with other social media  including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, these social profiles can disseminate your blog content.

The process of developing content is challenging, and requires a thorough process and schedule to ensure that your blog strategy stays intact. A Rule-of-Thumb is that the average blog does not begin to build authority until 50+ blogs are published. You do the math—one blog per week takes a year; two blogs per week takes six months. So be ready to consistently blog.

To guide content, define your target audience(s),  then brainstorm and define a content strategy and plan. You will likely have primary and secondary target audiences, so specific content should be developed for each audience. Note that content should not just be about you or your company or prospects and customers will tune out quickly. Research and identify topics that are important to each target audience. Check with relevant publications (magazines), associations, bloggers and trade shows.

The content plan should have a ratio of content for each audience, company and product info, industry topics and other items like case studies, new videos (video blogs=vlogs). Curated content should be part of the content plan.  That is, blogs or articles from other authors and bloggers, used with permission and credit (list the author and/or publisher name with hyperlinks).

The content plan should define a schedule, with blogs for the next week or month defined, and rougher ideas identified for later dates. Developing content over and over can become tedious so be sure to not carry the load alone! Research, identify and cultivate multiple sources of content. Some quick tips to make content make content management easier. Start with internal staff—solicit input and feedback from sales, customer service and technical experts from engineering. Reach out to other relevant bloggers. They are typically flattered to have there content curated with credit, and links that build search authority. If an internal manager cannot dedicate time to ongoing blog content, outsource to a qualified agency or freelance writer.

25 Content Ideas

If the above tips and tricks do not dymystify the process of blogging, it may be the week-in and week-out struggle with developing content ideas. To offer further assistance, we took the liberty of compiling 25 blog topic ideas so you can start blogging today!

With a content plan,  schedule, and ongoing content resources, there are several important elements to be aware of that should be used in each and every blog you publish, and things to do in support of the overall blog:

1. Each blog title should include keyword search terms
2. Use keyword rich blogpost copy
3. Categorize each blog by keywords for archiving, and use keyword tagging for SEO
4. Images should use proper meta coding to support SEO
5. Keep blog length to 400-1000 words (this blog is 883 words); break longer blogs into series (like this)
6. Use hyperlinks to resources, and links to offers to capture leads
7. Continually add relevant links to your blogroll, and request reciprocal links
8. Offer changing content and resources, ex: case study, project spotlight
9. Encourage social sharing and comments (see below)

Of course, please Retweet, Facebook Like, bookmark and comment on this blog!

For many business marketers, blogging has become one of the most important marketing tactics for several reasons. First, blogging  reinforces thought leadership and subject matter expertise. You can publish very specialized content that is searchable for years to come.

Second, when implemented properly, blogging can have profound effects on search engine authority in so many ways. Consider that each blogpost builds indexed pages. Also blog titles, page titles, URL structures and image Alt tags all support SEO. The typical blogroll can build reciprocal links, and interlinking within a blogpost can build back-links. Next, social sharing (Retweet, Facebook Like, bookmarking, etc) and linking to social profiles can build search authority. Finally, throw in Header Tags, keyword tags and Google Analytics and you have a powerhouse of search engine optimization (SEO) delivered to you website.

Third, your blog can be the center of your content marketing and social media program. When integrated with other social profiles, sharing tools and counter tools, blogs can effectively “automate” content deployment. How? With Retweet, Facebook Like and now Google+ counters, content is automatically posted in these respective profiles. Even LinkedIn profiles can be integrated for auto-updates.  Fourth, blogs can generate leads in a variety of ways. How? RSS registrations capture email addresses. Links to registration pages for email newsletter sign-ups. Place offers within blogposts that hyperlink to registration pages. Blog comments often contain customer questions or requests. And finally, website analytics can identify traffic from blogs.

Despite all these extraordinary benefits, the daunting task of creating and managing a blog can be a deterrent. Our goal for this and the second blogpost in this series is to demonstrate that blogging can be manageable and extremely effective.

The term blog comes from the combination of the terms, web and log. A blog is defined as a website containing articles, referred to as ‘blog posts’ or ‘blogs’, that highlight subject matter expertise, industry news, or any relevant information to the audience you are targeting. These blogs often times include links and images adding value to the readers experience. Managing a blog can provide your company with an opportunity to further extend your brand and the industry expertise you have to offer, but most importantly can drive your company to rank number one on search engines. The road block that impedes the ability to manage a blog is content development, and we hope to demystify why this is so complicated in ‘Blogging for B2B Marketing Part 2′. We will outline a process that will allow you to consistently add valuable content to your readers, month after month. As a marketing professional, we all know the first newsletter is easy to produce, but developing interesting, engaging content after that is a struggle. Blogging is no different, and that’s why having a process is so important.

Blogging Platforms

There are several options out there for what platform or software to use for blogging. The two most popular options are Blogger, which is owned by Google, and WordPress. There are several other platforms out there, but these two dominate due to both user-friendliness and features. A plethora of plugins are available on WordPress, some of which can amplify your SEO efforts, making WordPress the leading platform in our eyes. A chart discussing the pro’s and con’s of WordPress vs. Blogger can be found HERE. Keep in mind what you intend your blog to be; If intended to be a community where people come to interact and engage you might consider a platform such as Drupal, which is for building community sites. At the end of the day, WordPress offers a easy to use interface or content management system (CMS), coupled with excellent SEO-enhancing features, including Google Analytics. In addition, WordPress is extremely customizable. Not to mention, the basic version is free!

Still, costs can be incurred for design services, advanced development, hosting integration and ongoing content development.  No matter what platform you choose, be ready for the next step of developing content and publishing regularly, the subject of our next blog in this series.

List of 5 Blogging Platforms

1. WordPress
2. Blogger
3. Tumblr
4. Drupal
5. Joomla (Considered a Content Management System, but can be used to create a blog.)

A WordPress Walkthrough

WordPress gives us the ability to customize a blog as much as we want. As long as a skilled developer is on hand, you can build an extremely user friendly experience. FUSION b2b specializes in blog design with integration of social media. A thorough process of building a destination to extend your brand is important. With WordPress you are given that rich user experience, along with a robust content management system (CMS) on the backend. This CMS is so amazing and easy to learn we had to show you. Below you will see an example of a custom WordPress theme developed by FUSION b2b and the CMS that we use to publish our content.

Blog Example

1. Custom Designed Blog
2. RSS Feed Subscription and Search Functionality
3. Blog post with Title, Author, Archive Categories, Tags and Date.
4. Social Media Sharing and Integration
5. Customizable widgets tailored to target audience
6. Images hosted and search engine optimized
7. Not shown, blogroll with reciprocal links

WordPress CMS

1. Main CMS Navigation allows you to manage all aspects of your WordPress Blog.
2. Search Engine Optimized Title and URL.
3. Content publishing area; ease of uploading text, images, and videos.
4. Archive Categories; Allows users to sort through content by topics they are interested in.
5. Tags; often referred to as keywords. Help users find interesting content, as well as help SEO.
6. Plugin; often times help maximize SEO by amplifying each and every blog post. You can browse plugins by visiting HERE.

Important Features Every Blog Should Have

• Resource Links / Blogroll – This benefits SEO and acts as a valuable resource to your readers to find industry content
• RSS Feed – This allows your readers/visitors to sign up to be emailed when you publish a new blog. RSS = real simple syndication. We suggest using Feedburner, which is yet again owned by Google.
• Image Optimization – Images can be optimized for SEO in 3 ways; image file name, image title, image alt tag. Use strong keywords to take full advantage of images.
• Social Sharing – Add the social sharing features such as the Facebook Like button, the Twitter Retweet Button, the Google+ button, and the LinkedIn Share button. When your readers share your content it builds up your SEO and over time will drive your page rank higher on search engines.
• Call To Action – Each and every blog you write should have a purpose. Be sure to have a call to action to solicit a response from a reader. Often times these will be a link to a form the reader can fill out to receive ___ (insert offer here)___.
• Branding – Custom design should extend your visual identity and reflect company goals and vision.
• Tags and Categories – Both necessary functions for SEO and on-page experience. Users will have the ability to search your content, and sort through it based on these two important elements. Tags are keywords that explain the content of the blog post and allows users to see other content that has that keyword within it. The Categories allow users to sort blog posts by that segment so they can read all blogs on that topic.
• Utilization of Bold Face and H1 Header tags – Both of these rich text editinrg features help to build SEO. Be sure to use these, when appropriate throughout blog posts to maximize each posts effectiveness.
• Widgets on the sidebar – WordPress has a vast amount of ‘widgets’ available for use on the sidebar. Examples include Blogroll, Archive by month and Categories, Word cloud, recent Blogs, recent Tweets.
• Analytics – be sure to track and monitor your success with blogging. Before you even start blogging be sure to develop several key performance indicators (KPI’s) that you will keep track of. This may consist of total visitors to your blog, click-through to landing pages, or form registrations. Google Analytics integrates with WordPress quite nicely.
• Plug-Ins – Currently WordPress has 17,126 plug-in’s available on their platform. You can peruse through the various plug-in’s available by visiting the WordPress plug-in site HERE.

Part 2 of ‘Blogging for B2B Marketing’ will cover the content development process, integrating blogging into your marketing mix, and content ideas to fuel your blogging strategy.

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A  webcast entitled LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter Best Practices for Business-to-Business Markets is now open for  registration on the FUSION b2b website.  The free webcast is scheduled for Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 12 pm CST.

FUSION b2b  Social Media Manager Brian Reuhl and Chief Marketing Officer Neil Brown share  tips and tricks, new business-friendly features and real B2B examples for  these important new media platforms. The Powerpoint presentation deck will be  available to registrants following the webcast.

“Social  media is the fastest growing marketing medium in business-to-business, with a  growing body of success stories that measure lead generation, awareness  building, improved search results and more. But an effective social media  program is much more than managing social profiles. We intend to share more  advanced features of these important platforms”, explains Neil Brown.

To register for the free LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter Best Practices Webcast Click Here!

Everyone is talking about ways Facebook can help benefit your business, but rarely do they ever talk about the basics. The real trick to any successful Facebook marketing strategy is a strong foundation. That foundation is built through understanding Facebook, and how it leverages social connections around the world.

Facebook has made signing up extremely easy for everyone, and it shows with over 500,000,000 users. In order to create a business page you have to sign up for a personal Facebook account first. It is important to spend time creating your personal Facebook page, but I want to focus on business pages within this blog post.

Facebook has become more business friendly over the past year. They have increased the ease of uploading photos and videos, along with the size of photos and videos you can upload. Facebook also made a major change when they introduced the ‘Like’ button. This button integrates across the Internet and allows you to ‘Like’ any content that is relevant to your interests. This is important for your business because it gives Facebook users the option to ‘Like’ your business, and the content it creates. Within every business page there are tabs across the top of the page. The default tabs are ‘wall’ ‘info’ ‘photos’ and ‘discussions’. Another added benefit of a business page in Facebook is the option to build custom tabs.

Setting Up Your Page

Facebook will guide you through setup, and take you through six steps of creating your business page.

1) Add an Image - This is the most important, yet simple step in setting up your Facebook business page. This image should be your companies Logo. If you do not have a logo this is a great time to create one! Be sure to make your logo large enough that it can easily be read on your page.

2) Import Contacts- You can import your contacts in two ways. First, you may import by creating a contact file (easy to follow directions can be found on Facebook). The second way is by signing into your email account and Facebook will automatically import your contacts. This is an easy way to build fans for your business.

3) Provide some basic info – People want to know about your business! Tell them where you are located, your phone number, website, and general information about your business.

4) Post Status Updates – The reason a Facebook page is so important to your marketing strategy is it allows you to stay in contact with your customers easily. They are able to see important information you are posting such as links, photos, videos, or events. You can let them know what the company is up to at any time, from anywhere.

5) Promote your Page on your Website – You are able to build the amount of people who “Like” your business by adding a Like button directly to your website or blog.

6) Set up your Mobile Phone – You are able to update your business page from anywhere with your mobile phone. Facebook will give you an email that is unique to only your page where you can email status updates!

Once you have your Facebook Business page optimized you can begin to build relationships with your customers. You can begin to create custom tabs that are industry specific. If you were in the food industry you could create a tab titled “Menu” or “Recipes”. This unique feature will differentiate your Facebook page from others, and will encourage users to “Like” it. Adding content to your Facebook page is the #1 way to bring customers in. The Facebook Page shown directly below is WEATHER GUARD® Videos, with a custom background.

Easy Ways to Engage your Customers

1. Status Updates
2. Photos
3. Videos
4. Events
5. Articles
6. Locations (check-in’s or store locations)
7. Promotions
8. Contests
9. Coupons
10. Resources
11. Links
12. Industry Tips and Tricks
13. Custom Tabs
14. Answer Questions / Feedback
15. Monitor your Social Media, Check it Daily if not hourly!
16. Ask Questions to your Customers

Get The Word Out!

Once your Facebook business page is established with information about your company and has been populated with content, you need to get the word out! Here is a simple list of tactics to engage in:

1) Invite your Facebook friends:  make sure to invite friends that you know will positively engage with your company. I would also be sure to invite your employees to your Facebook.

2) Add your Facebook to your Email Signature:  every email you send is an opportunity to invite someone to your Facebook page. Let them know you are proud of the content you are putting on your page.

3) Email Blast:  build a customized HTML email inviting everyone on your Email list to engage with your Social Media Pages. If you don’t have an email list start building one! Also know your audience: If you work with end users, reps, and dealers think about sending several different emails that will intrigue that audience to engage with your Facebook Page.

4) Advertise on Facebook: You know who you are trying to engage, so target them specifically! Facebook uses an extensive targeting methods to make sure your advertisements get to a specific group.

Integrating your Business Page with other Social Media

Once a business page has several ‘likes’, it is a good idea to integrate it with other social media initiatives such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, or a blog. This is done through applications on Facebook. YouTube videos can be directly posted to your Business page wall, or under your ‘video’ Tab on Facebook. Your Facebook posts can directly feed your Twitter account, so you can post once but it will go to both Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn can be linked to your Twitter account as well so it can then be posted to three different social media sites! We always suggest that your be a huge source of content for your Facebook! Whenever you have a new blog it should be brought over to your Facebook, and it should link to your blog. That one blog post will then populate your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

Custom Facebook Tabs

While getting the basics down in Facebook is very important, making your page stand out is most important! You can create custom page tabs with the application called FBML (Facebook Markup Language). It allows you to use HTML, converted for Facebook to create any type of tab you would like. Below you can see FUSION b2b’s Resources page which lists a Featured Campaign, White papers, Guides, and publications.

The most powerful feature of the custom tab is making it your landing page. When someone types “your company” within the Facebook search your company will come up, and when the click on “your company” it will take them to your landing page. By default your landing page is your Facebook Wall. You can create a custom tab and make it your landing page by:

1. Click Edit Page (directly under your profile picture)

2. Click Manage Permissions

3. Click down on the Default Landing Tab box and select the custom tab you’ve created

4. Click Save Changes

Personal vs. Business Facebook

When you create your Facebook profile you need to keep in mind who you want to connect with. If you’re looking to get your business into social media you should create a “just business” Facebook profile. Remember there are no rules against you having two Facebook accounts. Your personal Facebook can be catered to your family and friends, whereas with your professional Facebook can connect with potential Leads, Customers, Reps, Dealers, Distributors and Employees. You will impress your professional “friends” on Facebook by acting professional and being a subject matter expert in your industry!

Try It Out

The easiest way to learn Facebook is by trying it out. Start up your account, and start connecting with your business connections. There are several things you cannot learn unless you sign up. Soon enough you will be an expert Facebook Marketer! Shown below, a Facebook Events page for Tru Vue, a manufacturer of glazing for framing.

Basic Facebook Definitions

These are a basic list of Facebook definitions that have been included in this article. Please feel free to comment and add more definitions that you feel are important for someone starting out on Facebook to understand!

Profile Page: The main destination for personal Facebook pages. Someone’s profile page highlights his or her picture, user information, and interests. When you view other profile pages you first see their wall.

Facebook Wall: The Wall is located within a profile page. It allows other Facebook users to post links, pictures, and events. This is one way to communicate with other users, by posting content on their wall.

News Feed: Located in someone’s Home screen when they first log into their personal Facebook account. Updates of Friends and Pages come up on the news feed. When you post a status update, this is where a user will see it.

Group: A social page within Facebook that allows users with similar interests to connect on any given topic. You can create groups, or join an existing one.

Profile Page: The main destination for personal Facebook pages. Someone’s profile page highlights his or her picture, user information, and interests. When you view other profile pages you first see their wall.

Friend: A social connection between two Facebook users. A friend must be requested, and the recipient of that request must accept.

Fan Page: A page within Facebook that represents a topic or company that you have the ability to ‘like’. This is the Primary location of businesses on Facebook.

Like: A term on Facebook to show that you are interested in a given Fan Page, topic, or content. Often times you will see ‘like’ buttons across the Internet that allow you to show off your interests by clicking them.

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(PUBLICITY: PART 2 of 2)

Per the prior post, the popularity and use of free publicity historically increases when the economy tanks. In the midst of this seemingly extended downturn, PR is certainly gaining priority in the construction marketing mix. At the same time, PR is changing significantly. So how can you refine your PR to realize greater results?

PART 1 of our series will examined how PR has changed, and how your PR program can change to leverage new PR opportunities. PART 2 of this series focuses on the specifics of PR distribution options.

As always, please share your comments and personal experience to bring some broader perspectives to our discussion!

News Distribution Tips

As you might expect, there is no “silver bullet” or single solution that address all needs. Most marketing practitioners use a combination of approaches for getting news and PR releases in front of editors and influencers.

Fusion B2B, and PR programs for Fusion’s clients use a several options for news distribution. Heather Hawes, Account Executive shares her process. “First we post news on our websites and blogs. This allows for Retweeting and bookmarking. Next we distribute to our own editor (email) databases. The news announcements are also formatted to included links to these respective internet domains. Depending on how “big” the news item is, we will then distribute using both free and paid services. We still realize the majority of placements thru our own, custom editor lists.”

“Distribution services increase news reach and placements, particularly across the internet, and with blogs that would be hard to identify“, adds Neil M. Brown, Managing Partner of the Fusion B2B.

So which service should construction marketers use for distributing news announcements and press releases to your targets? No question, there are more options than ever. The following table list some of the top news distribution services that range from free to substantial fees for more value-added services. The table includes CMA’s ranking based on quality, costs, network scope and Google PageRank. Note that the service name hotlinks to the respective websites.

#	Name	Cost	Distribution Network	PageRank
1	PRWeb	$80	250k RSS, 30k journalists
2	BusinessWire	$395-$675	Nat’l/Regional Selects/200 Industry Selects
3	PRNewswire	$415-$715	85,000 registered journalists
4	Marketwire	$285-$485	300k RSS, 8k news & broadcasts
5	24-7 Press Release	$0-$49	60,000 editors/journalists/bloggers
6	PR.com	$0-$199	Vertical Industry Selects
7	Cision	$250-$350	300k outlets/Monitoring
8	Vocus	$380	250k RSS, 30k journalists/bloggers
9	Free-Press-Release.com	$0-$30	Country and Industry Selects
10	1888PressRelease.com	$0-$29	Websites, RSS Feeds,Blogs

Per above, depending on the importance of the news, you may opt for free distribution for minor releases, to the highest level of services for news that requires the broadest distribution, or specific features like financial disclosure compliance which BusinessWire and PR Newswire both support.

Our staff often uses a combination of free and paid, thus ensuring that multiple news sources will pick-up the news.

Fusion ranks PRWeb highest by virtue of the combination of reasonable fees, broad distribution and high Google PageRank. Upon review, Businesswire and PR Newswire are the top-end services, and very similar. Although Businesswire pricing is more reasonable for smaller clients.

We have experienced excellent search results using 24-7pressrelease.com and Free-press-release.com. After this exercise, we are inclined to further evaluate PR.com.

Following are some additional services we found but did not analyze. In the meantime, what services do you prefer and why? Please comment, Retweet and bookmark!

#	Name	PageRank
1	Newswire Today	PR6
2	Press Release Network	PR6
3	Thomas Net News	PR6
4	PR Log	PR6
5	PR-Inside	PR6
6	ClickPress	PR5
7	PR Leap	PR5
8	PR Zoom	PR5
9	Pressbox.co.uk	PR5
10	Free Press Release Center	PR4
11	EcommWire	PR4
12	PR Free	PR4

Many companies have not yet taken advantage of even the most basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. In most industries, SEO can be critical to achieving improved search results for websites — thereby increasing website traffic, and quite possibly sales and market share. Website programming, design and development as a foundation to increase or optimize search engine results that include your industry’s keywords.

As more and more business is conducted through the internet, how can business-to-business marketers leverage this important medium? An SEO foundation should include such optimization techniques as: meta-tag, alt-tag and title-tags coding, URL structure, site indexing and mapping, link building, keyword content or “landing” pages, blogs and social Media.

We have talked about meta, alt and title tags as well as link structure in our previous blog – Search For Dummys.

Another SEO best practice are Site Maps. Typically a secondary navigation text link placed in the footer of the web page, and linking to a sub-page with a simple outline of website content and sub-links. In the same location, redundant text navigation links for all primary navigation should be placed. Site Maps and Text Links allow search engines to index all of your website contents and sub-links to determine search rankings. XML Site Maps should be submitted to key search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Because many search engines rank websites based on how many hits a link receives, link directories and related industry links increase search rankings. Dedicating a sub-page or pages to industry links and establishing reciprocating links to websites for industry publications, associations, trade shows and related information websites will improve search rankings, and drive traffic to your website. Bookmarks are similar to links, and new sites should offer Bookmark links like Delicious and StumbleUpon.

Before posting your company’s enhanced website on the worldwide web, be sure your website content includes keywords that correspond to the meta-tags for those pages, or even dedicated landing pages or sub-pages for your site’s top keywords. As referenced previously, these pages should use keywords in URLs, title-tags and meta- tags to ensure the best search results.

Now more than ever, Blogs and Social Media are a major determinant of Search Engine Results. Best practice search optimization requires that your website link to an active blog, as well as, key Social media profiles including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more.

With a Search Engine Optimized website, your company can undertake Pay-Per-Click (PPC) media buys or Directory Submissions (another media buy). Without an optimized site, both of these media programs would be futile toward increasing search results and traffic. Implementing these functions with an optimized site will achieve substantial increases in both rankings and site traffic.

Make sure catch the first part of this article to learn about meta tags, alt-tags, title tags and proper URL structure – look for Part I of the article: Search For Dummys

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As business-to-business marketers implement next-generation websites that feature enhanced functions, many companies have not yet taken advantage of even the most basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. In most industries, SEO can be critical to achieving improved search results for websites — thereby increasing website traffic, and quite possibly sales and market share.

SEO relates to website programming, design and development as a foundation to increase or optimize search engine results that include your industry’s keywords. As more and more business is conducted through the internet, how can business-to-business marketers leverage this important medium? An SEO foundation should include such optimization techniques as:

• Meta-tag coding
• Alt-tag coding
• Title-tags
• URL structure
• Site Index
• Link building
• Keyword content or “landing” pages
• Blogs and Social Media

Though invisible to the user, meta-tag coding uses html coding for keywords and descriptions of the page’s contents, thus enabling the search engine to correctly index the web page’s contents. Meta-tag coding is possibly the most fundamental SEO technique, yet critical to most search results.

Alt-tags are the file names, image captions or descriptions for images contained on your website. These are useful when search engines index or “spider” your website. The engines automatically turn off images and read only text. However, the engine does read image file names. Therefore, instead of image filenames such as “DCP0003.jpg,” images should be re-named “KEYWORD.jpg,” to increase search results. Title-tags are the descriptive words at the top of the browser window that, more often than not, only list the company name or website address. Like meta-tags and alt-tags, title-tags should be simple and keyword heavy.

Perhaps the most neglected SEO task is URL structure. When linking to website sub-pages that are often served via databases, the URL that appears on the “http” line often includes obscure database code with multiple backslashes. To eliminate this search engine hurdle, ideal URL structures use the base domain name, along with simple keywords or keyword phrases in place of this coding, and eliminate excessive backslashes.

To continue reading this article and learn more about site maps, search engine ranking, link building, and role or blogs and social media in your company’s SEO strategy – look at Part II of the article: Search Engine Optimization: Top Priority Marketing for Business-to-Business

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by Pavel Solyak

A spam-less Twitter feed is just too good to be true. Increasingly, spam in becoming a problem for Twitter users as spammers are finding new and innovative ways to clutter up the emerging communications channel. Ten years ago search engine optimizers have developed link farms to take advantage of search engine’s dependence upon link popularity. Mostly automated, link farms are landing pages containing groups of hyperlinks to other sites and no content. It took Yahoo! and Google several years to catch on and change algorithms to stop spamdexing users with irrelevant results, but was it enough?

Perhaps link farms have lost some of their appeal to spammers. Getting little love from search engines, not generating much traffic (or revenue) and paying for the domain, spammers had to find new grounds. And this is how Twitter Spam Farms were born.

We’ve compiled a short list of several ways spammers might try to get you, and things you should watch out for. Also we’ll give you valuable tips of how to protect your account against unwanted twitter-solicitors.

Spammers will use Twitter by replying to your @username, which then causes Tweets to show up in your timeline or mentions.

Get unsolicited DM’s (Direct Messages) that often include a promotional link or are typed in all caps.

Spammers will follow you in hopes of you following them back. They might have deceiving names like ‘GoogleGuru1’ or simply ‘JohnDoe’. Check their profile, and if there is no bio, only a couple of tweets, followers in double digits while following thousands of users – don’t bother adding them.

Many complain that twitter is full of ‘bots’. Sure, many bloggers and news outlets use syndicating technology to update tweets every time something gets updated on their site, blog, or Facebook. What’s worse, are spammers who use ‘bots’ or rather scripts for their deceptive techniques. An example of such script might be an algorithm that follow, then un-follow people with the goal of keeping a follower to boost follow/follower ratio. Another one might be to re-tweet random tweets from public timeline, in hopes you will add them as a follower.

Re-posts. Many spammers will post duplicate content several times a day on their accounts so the same message appears regularly in the timeline. Not only this is considered spammy, but it violates Twitter terms of service. Cross-posting the same content on multiple accounts is also considered a violation of Twitter code of conduct.

Have you encountered a spammer? Here are several tips how to clean up your account:

Alert Twitter of spam by sending a DM to @spam with @username of the spammer you’ve encountered.

Don’t follow spammers. Take the time to check their account bio before you follow them back. Look at their last 10 most recent tweets; if you see anything about making money online fast, get rich quickly, lose 20 pounds in 5 days or getting hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers by following a link – report to spam.

Block the spammer by heading over to their account page and clicking ‘block’ link on the right side.

Use Twitter Spam Applications like TwerpScan or TwitSweeper to clean up potential spammers.

Don’t use automated programs. Inevitably you’ll see promotions like “Get 1,000 followers in one day, just click here”. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Those programs will follow a number of questionable people in hopes they will follow you back. Don’t forget Twitter is a communication tool used to build relationship – it’s about quality, not quantity.

We also recommend taking a look at the Twitter Support page for security FAQ’s. Feel free to comment on this post or find us on Twitter at @FusionB2B if you have any questions.

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by Pavel Solyak

Despite the many benefits and relatively low cost of social media, the majority of B2B marketers are only now considering the implementation of social media initiatives. For some categories, there are still opportunities for leadership and mindshare. At FUSION b2b, we believe every marketer should implement social media as part of an overall marketing program. Here’s several tips to get started.

Establish Profiles on Key Social Media Networks.

There are thousands of social networks out there targeted at different communities of people sharing similar interests. Creating profiles on all microsites is a large time-consuming investment. While they may have their place, it makes more sense to concentrate on the top 4 major networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Keep in mind that Social Media marketing is very dynamic and is likely to change overtime, so it is crucial to keep an eye out for trends and shifts to determine what other social networks would be beneficial. (ex. 2006 MySpace was number one Social Networking Site)

Create Social Media Hub on your corporate website.

Incorporate social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube and others into your corporate website. Make sure to have social media links prominently displayed on your site such as “Connect with us on Twitter” or “Become a Fan.” Make sure to have your website in every social media profile you have.

Inter-link your social media.

Your social media hub should already be linked to all external corporate social media properties, but don’t forget to inter-link those properties between each other. When your blog is updated – an RSS feed should automatically send a Tweet on twitter and change your status on Facebook and LinkedIn. A new uploaded YouTube video or Flickr Photo should be mentioned in your blog and updated through Facebook.

Research.

You want to use Social Media to connect to the right people, which in turn will take some research. Identifying Fans, Friends, Followers and supporters is not an easy task as most have online screen names rather than their actual names. Use your PR and clients lists to connect with publications, dealers, reps, users, thought leaders, trade shows and associations. Invite them to join you, or simply follow them – most will reciprocate.

Use directories and lists.

Twitter directories like WeFollow or Twellow and lists often help identify additional Fans, Friends and Followers. Some social networks will recommend people you should “Friend” or “Follow” based on their interests, location and other factors. Look at who others are following, perhaps you will find their connections relevant. Remember, however, that it’s not about the number of followers, but the quality of them.

Content.

This is the ONLY way to succeed on the web – posting well-researched, helpful content. You wouldn’t walk up to a person on the street and start selling them your product. First you have to establish your expertise. Developing quality content for your blogs and social media is no small task, but you can also reference articles written by others by re-tweeting them via tinyURL or posting a link to content relevant to your industry. If your connections like your content, they will keep coming back and recommend you to others.

Be original.

Create your own relevant content. Examples of relevant content includes: new products, attending trade shows and events, news releases, new brochures, new videos, customer information, market/business info. Don’t just sell – your content needs to be educational and informational. It’s a good idea to provide tips. Don’t be afraid of holding back information.

Sign-up for Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a free tool that tracks keywords on the internet and alerts of their popularity. For example you can have a daily email that will notify you when keywords such as “Knaack”, “Weather Guard”, “Construction”, etc. are used. This helps you monitor the conversations and be able to respond to any questions in a timely manner.

Measure.

Have your agency do periodic category analysis using advance analytic tools to track progress. Is your Social Media strategy working? What tools are most effective? What feedback are you getting from users and followers?

Involve employees.

You can have a cool blog and a well-polished Facebook profile, but if there are no social connections –people likely won’t find it or read it. To get your Social Media project of the ground, use the connection you already have – your employees. Ask them to join your network or become a fan, comment on your blog or invite their colleagues to join. Keep in mind, however that not all your employees are right for Social Media. In any company, employees have different levels of passion about their jobs, and it’s your job to find employees who have most passion for what they do. Engage them first, others will follow.

Encourage Feedback.

Engage your customers and clients in positive feedback. Ask them to become your friend on the web, leave a comment on your Facebook wall or recommend you on LinkedIn. Ask them to post their suggestions or ideas for future or contribute to your next blog. All those things will generate conversation and buzz around your brand.

Communicate.

Get in a habit of communicating using Facebook and Twitter instead of internal e-mail. Create an event for company party, send out an invite to all your employees, then take some pictures at the event and tag your employees in the picture. Answer general questions using twitter, do updates and alerts, post videos on YouTube.

Don’t Spam.

Social Media is powered by people – real people like you and I. If they feel like someone is soliciting them, they will instantly block you or delete you from their friends. It can happen if you don’t post enough content, or you post too much and too often, your content is not relevant to them, or you are being too pushy with your ideas. Either way, you want to avoid this. Share information, put it out there for people to see, but don’t spam.

Mobile.

Social media is highly integrated with mobile technology (mobile telephones, wi-fi computers, PDA’s). Why not take and upload a picture of your booth at a trade show in real time? Sure, it’s a little blurry and dark, but it’s also original, timely and peaks interest/curiosity. Increasingly social media is going mobile with all the new devices and applications. Time to start using it?

Spread the Word.

Add social media links wherever you can, not just your web-site. Make sure your e-mail signature has a links to your company’s Facebook or Twitter. Why not have all employees do the same? What about brochures and literature you send to your reps and distributors or PR releases?

Keep you information up to date.

Spend time every week to update your social profiles: do updates, add pictures and events, communicate with your friends and followers. The more often your page changes content, the more likely people will come back to it and see what’s new. And not just people, Google crawlers who rank websites put higher weight on those website who change often, thus bumping up your standings with Google and doing wonders for your SEO.




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No question Social Media or Social Marketing is the marketing topic du jour.
And while the benefits of Social to B2B marketers are becoming more obvious,
traditional marketing still delivers measurable sales. For many marketers,
the website is the foundation of marketing activity. Integrated with social
media, websites become even more potent a marketing weapon.

Certainly every B2B market has its own nuances, but old fashioned new
product launches, special promotions and sales and channel programs are the
marketing that drives real sales. Advertising and publicity build awareness
and even direct response.

Its important not to forget what marketing strategies and tactics deliver
sales, as it is easy for a marketer to get sucked into spending hours on
social media with little sales results to show for it.

To be sure, all marketing activities should be planned, budgeted,
prioritized and integrated. Social Media supports traditional marketing, it
does not replace. For most of our B2B clients, we consider the following
tactics:

• Brand identity, graphic themes, messaging, taglines

• Website, search optimization, social media

• Advertising

• Publicity

• Brochures, literature and content

• Sales programs, promotions and training

• Channel marketing

• Trade shows and events

• Direct marketing including email and webcasts

• Photography and video

What traditional marketing do you implement and how does Social Media fit
into the so-called marketing mix?

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