By Alex Romanovich, Social2B

The more I talk to small and medium-size businesses, the more I hear – “we need to build a better website!”

Don’t do it!

In the age of Social Media and ‘doing more with less’ you don’t have to build a website anymore, nor do you have to improve it. You have to, and you CAN, build a marketing platform. So, what does this mean?

Well, for starters, as a business you need to ask yourself – “What is it I want to do next? Grow my business? Generate Leads? Or establish or improve my brand?” Once you are able to answer this question, establish who your audience is and then select the appropriate marketing strategy – Social Media comes to the rescue!

Remember, as a business you need to solve problems and create value for your clients, while generating revenue, not the other way around! If you can deliver value, the revenue will come! And while you are adding value, you need to constantly improve your ability to do so.

Marketing platforms have been around for some time now. You are already familiar with many of them – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Yes, they are marketing platforms, because companies conduct campaigns and attract audiences, and even build brands, using these.

Except that many of these big names do not have all the necessary ingredients and tools to really answer some very important questions, nor do they give you total control. But even with limited control and hosted content, these ‘platforms’ give you the opportunity to target and select your audience, connect and engage with them, post content, and promote your products and services.

So why not build your own?

Here is what you would need to begin with:

* A database of contacts and the ability to manage this database using tools, such as a basic CRM system (even Microsoft Outlook, Mac Address Book, or Google Contacts will do for starters)

* An interactive and engaging website, providing an opportunity for your prospects or readers to review, engage, leave comments, interact, and other behaviors leading to some kind of engagement (purchase, content download, etc.). Social Media elements are great for this – they allow your brand to provide interactivity to other platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter

* A simple and efficient email management system, capable of providing additional information to your ‘Opt-In’ audience – this function can even be outsourced to ConstantContact, Campaigner and others

* A basic management and analysis toolset to better understand traffic patterns, interest levels, ‘Likes and Dislikes’ and the overall sentiment – again, Social Media tools can be of help here, allowing you to initiate and then monitor the conversation, in contrast to Search tools alone, which are of limited use here

* A value-added set of functions or a content library for your partners – they are important in helping your business grow and expand

* Finally, the ability to be flexible in adding new functionality, as the need to engage your clients, partners and providers changes – you can scale with the growth of the business

Here is the exciting part: the above can be accomplished with well-designed WordPress blogging software (open source solution, which means it is FREE) and a few plug-ins, combined with an intuitive interface and a simple and inexpensive hosting solution, giving you the power to innovate, listen to your clients better, and create new marketing campaigns.

So next time, when you are thinking of building a website, think again.

Don’t build a website, build a Marketing Platform!

Title: Social Communications and Healthcare: Case Studies and Roundtables
Location: The Graduate Center / CUNY; 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016
Link out: Click here
Description: The conference uses a proven half-day event format from 8:30 AM until 1:00 PM at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, New York City. The agenda will consist of several case study presentations in the general auditorium with 350+ attendees. The presentations will be followed by two moderated interactive roundtable discussion group sessions with 8-12 attendees each on very specific topics. We will also host a networking breakfast and networking breaks between sessions.

We will cover the following questions:

* How do you deal with regulatory and legal issues when planning and implementing social media strategies
* How do you connect with and tap into consumers who are already using the internet for healthcare information?
* What are the case studies of leading brands that use internet based social strategies to achieve communications objectives?
* What are examples of social communities that demonstrate how leading healthcare brands interact, educate, and provide value to consumers online?
* Why real-time social media tools such as Twitter are gaining momentum and what\’s the business case to use them?
* How has social media impacted crisis communications specifically for the healthcare industry?
* How do you sell social communications projects and prove ROI to senior management?
* How do you create effective partnerships with new healthcare media leaders beyond advertising?
* What are the best examples of how to use social communications to connect internally with employees and stakeholders?
* What are the tools, technologies, and best practices for monitoring and measuring social communications?
Start Time: 08:00
Date: 2010-05-11
End Time: 13:00

By Alex Romanovich, Social2B

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. – Bill Joy, Cofounder, Sun Microsystems

The word Crowdsourcing was coined by Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine, a portmanteau of the words ‘crowd’ and ‘outsourcing’. It is used to describe the phenomenon using group intelligence to solve problems and complete projects. A darling of Web 2.0, more and more companies are jumping on the crowdsourcing bandwagon, and even federal government agencies have begun to explore it, with the Federal Communications Commission crowdsourcing ideas on how to improve America’s broadband infrastructure.

The benefits of crowdsourcing are immense – not only does the crowdsourcing model have the potential to significantly reduce expenditure in the long term by not having to maintain permanent staff ‘on the bench’, it also allows companies to engage staff on a per-project basis, thus benefitting from having the people with the exact skills and expertise to fit each particular project.

However, it can be a double-edged sword. The skills and expertise that are so easy (relatively) to capture by assembling a temporary, specialized workforce are also easily lost, and cooperation is often short term. ‘Crowdsourced’ projects also need to be managed carefully – when working with unknown entities, it is vital that they are managed properly to ensure the most positive outcome is reached.

There is also a lack of stability. But in these days of financial turmoil, when even the most indispensible employee is worried about job security, we are naturally led to ask: is there such as thing as stability anymore? Employees are fast becoming a liability for some corporations. As well as take-home salary, there are taxes, training, insurance costs, and so on, and companies are being forced to consider entirely new ways of working in order to survive, including open source and crowdsourcing models.

But crowdsourcing is not just for startups – Google Summer of Code, an initiative which invites student programmers to compete for places on a scheme to develop open source projects for mentors, is probably one of the best known and successful examples of crowdsourcing.

Non-tech corporations are getting in on the act, too: household products giant Unilever has recently decided to drop its advertising agency of 16 years, Lowe, and will instead use the crowdsourcing platform IdeaBounty to source ideas for its future campaigns, by submitting a brief to the public and choosing the best among the ideas put forward. Naturally using Social Media to source talent, ideas and resources.

Large corporations have always used occasional freelancers; crowdsourcing is merely an extension of this. If properly coordinated and planned with legal and human resources, the crowdsourced environment is a tremendous vehicle for communication – a way to massively increase knowledge, and by extension, the ability innovate and increase production. Yochai Benkler, of Yale University, in his book The Wealth of Networks, sums it up extremely well: “The world is becoming too fast, too complex and too networked for any company to have all the answers inside”. Crowdsourcing as a concept is still in its infancy, and the company that is able to effectively harness its power now will without doubt be in a superior position to benefit in future.

This concept is proof of why Social Media and Crowdsourcing are seemingly becoming synonymous. Many ideas, case studies, and even human resources are gathered and distributed using Social Media. There are a number of examples where large brands and small start-ups are using ‘crowdsourced’ models to feature new products, solicit opinions on new features and improvements, and form groups of affinity, or professional social networks.

Examples such as LinkedIn Groups, TheSocialCMO, The CMO Club, Social2B, Experts Exchange, and many others, provide fertile ground for thought leadership, member exchange, aggregation of expertise and ideas, and channels for distribution of content, thus ‘crowdsourcing’ content and user feedback.

The CMO Club, one of the fastest growing social professional networks of leading top marketers worldwide, is yet another example of a well integrated model, with ideas, research content, online and off-line conversation leading to an improvement in the quality of the marketing discipline. “I was really tired of low quality marketing conferences and ‘vendor-centric’ presentations and decided that leading marketing executives could do better”, stated Pete Krainik, Founder of The CMO Club. “The crowdsourcing of ideas and conversations, leading to action and improvement is what we are all about.”

And through my participation with The Social CMO Crew which continues to emerge as a thought leadership and digital marketing collective, again joint participation and action are leading to the creation of new marketing ideas, models, roles and channels.

@JeffAshcroft who founded TheSocialCMO and The Social CMO Crew in August of 2009 shared the following. “As we migrate further into this realm of social collective communications and action, new models, performing well beyond the sum of the parts, will continue to emerge and evolve resulting in exponential increases in reach, quality, effectiveness and social impact.”

Marketing expertise group Social2B is an example of the crowdsourcing model on an international scale – with associates and experts based around the world, including the US, UK, Russia and Eastern Europe, and Argentina, they leverage a bank of multilingual, multicultural experts to call upon when needed. This new way of doing business allows even the smallest of companies to harness the power of a large group of specialized talent.

The above entities demonstrate how Social Media and Crowdsourcing are integrally linked and at the same time how these new modes of organization are leading to an acceleration in the development and refinement of new ideas as well as the generation of new business models and positive social outcomes.

You can listen to the BlogTalkRadio recording of the recent Crowdsourcing Interview with Alex Romanovich here:

Social media, social networking, and search are having an increasingly large impact on how your brand is thought of. The combination of these technologies and consumer generated media has greatly amplified the voice and impact of individuals.  The opportunity to support brand advocates as well as the challenge of effectively addressing critics has created a new world for marketers and communicators.   This conference will share the best case studies on how leading organizations protect and strengthen their brands.  We will cover questions such as:

- What are the best case studies of how leading brands manage their reputation?

- What are the leading insights and tactics to integrate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Social Marketing?

- What are the most effective technologies/tools to help you listen, monitor, optimize, and engage via social media/social networking and SEO?
- How has crisis management changed as a result of real-time social communications such as Twitter and Facebook?
- How do leading brands organize themselves for optimal reputation management?
- How are the best organizations actively listening and participating in social conversations?
- What is the role of employees in strengthening your brand across the social web?
- How do you manage the challenge of effectively representing both your personal and business identities on the social web?

ATTENDEE PROFILE

$195.00

Take a Social2B survey – win a free Social Media Marketing Assessment and a Free blog design!

Social2B is conducting a survey for small businesses marketing to multicultural markets. Take a survey, re-tweet it and mention Social2B via #social2b hashtag (Twitter), or by name – Social2B,  to be entered into a drawing to win a free Social Media Marketing Assessment and a free Blog design.

Click Here to take survey

February 9th, 2010. By Alex Romanovich.

Is Social Media just another channel? Yes, it may be, but it is so much more than that. Social Media is forcing corporations (brands) to look at how they engage with their clients, how they use information, and how they respond to events. It is forcing companies to treat Social Media as part of their overall value chain.

For the B2Bsector, marketing opportunities have always existed throughout the value chain – from logistics to marketing and sales. With the introduction of more pronounced and readily accepted Social Media Marketing techniques into the consumer marketing space, the opportunities for business to generate leads, improve customer service, and raise brand awareness in the B2B arena are becoming more pronounced. The most recent eMarketer polls, as well as B2B Magazine’s report titled “2010 Outlook”, indicate that Social Media Marketing (SMM) will become increasingly important to B2B marketers.

Note: This post continues at The Social CMO blog. Please click here.

By Alex Romanovich

October 13th, 2009

Alex Romanovich is the Founder and CMO of Social2B

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According to ENGAGEMENTdb’s recent “Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands” report on how deeply global brands are engaged in Social Marketing, big financial companies are not as much socially engaged as media, retail or technology companies of the same ranking.

However, it does not mean that a financial brand cannot “socialize” itself. On the contrary, it shows that the financial services industry, often too closed, hindered by government regulations and by somewhat “conservative culture”, is getting more and more open to “socialization”.

According to the same ENGAGEMENTdb’s report, even such giant conglomerates as Visa, ING, American Express, UBS, JP Morgan are, if not very active, are still quite responsive to the today’s demand of being social. Being most commonly engaged in six or fewer social channels, and having below-average engagement scores (as estimated by ENGAGEMENTdb), they have already started integrating social media into their marketing and customer communication strategy.

Today many financial organizations (big and small) are launching B2B and B2C based social media initiatives depending on whether they want to attract interest and business from other financial institutions, or simply generate demand with consumers. In both cases social marketing can be extremely successful, provided the right approach has been chosen.

With the help of Social Marketing B2C brands can solve such problems as:

• establishing newly found trust amongst a skeptical consumers base;
• making the right loan choices;
• allowing consumers to understand the perspective of the institutions;
• instilling fiscal responsibility and smarter spending habits;
• making stronger investment decisions;
• empowering consumers with tools for managing their assets;
• building community around common interests & brand affinities;
• understanding the broader context of financial culture and global market parity

For B2B brands this is a good opportunity to engage potential prospects, generate demand and leads by augmenting their marketing strategies with more interactive and conversational elements, allowing other businesses to listen, observe, engage, and participate.

All in all, the art of being “social to the point” has in its basis deep understanding of the industry of the brand that should be promoted. Of course, a variety of means and solutions can be used within a Social Marketing campaign. But the challenge is to adjust those solutions to a particular brand. Trying to estimate opportunities of any social engagement in the particular industry requires  a necessity of a solid industry analysis.

With correctly chosen and applied Social Marketing solutions, the financial services industry can engage in a powerful and proven way on both B2B and B2C levels. This becomes evident if we take a look at the recent success stories from Wells Fargo, H&R Block, Ernst & Young, Capital One, SmartyPig, American Express, Credit Mutuel, PENSCO, Equity Trust, Sterling Trust and some other financial brands, which have used social marketing incredibly well to not only create engagement but activate purchase intent.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company with operations around the world, providing retail, commercial and corporate banking services, sustains a high level of deep social engagement across multiple social media channels (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc). However, the greatest case study to date is of what Wells Fargo has done with their blogs. They have 5 (!) different blogs, each designed for a certain category of readers – potential customers and businesses, existing clients, and just people. But the crown jewel of Well Fargo’s blogging activities is perhaps a virtual world called “Stagescoach Island Community”, a kind of a branded community which lets members learn and experience money management in the way of an interactive game. The blogs stand out for their live conversation and there are always people from inside and from outside to react to the conversation.

H&R Block

H&R Block, an American tax preparation company with over 22 million customers worldwide, has done quite a bit with blogs, virtual worlds, Facebook, and Social Media programs. However, they did most of ‘Twittering’ during tax time, when they quite successfully engaged in an online dialog by first monitoring keywords, and directly responding to members. Twitter during tax time was their most successfully implemented social media solution, because it was just to the point. It helped increase the company’s popularity, attract more customers as well as sustain trust.

Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young, one of the largest global providers of accounting services and one of the Big Four auditors, among marketing goals, also had definite objectives targeted at human resources. They engaged in social media to seek out new hires fresh out of college. For this purpose, they created a sponsored Facebook group where they have online dialogs with graduating students and even start the interview process online. This is a pretty smart solution, because Facebook is the right source to reach graduates and find appropriate candidates. So, in their case, Social Marketing is a good way to boost the company’s reputation as employer and find work force.

SmartyPig

SmartyPig is another story of big success, though different from the mentioned above examples. SmartyPig does not promote services; it promotes a product – free online banking application which helps users save money for particular goals. It seems that an online application cannot be more social than SmartyPig.  Users can invite friends and family to be a part of their saving process. Built on a Web 2.0 platform, SmartyPig impressively utilizes Facebook, widgets, social networking applications (including videos), Twitter and a specially designed community-powered support site.  Launched in 2008, Smarty Pig already has users in all 50 US states, over 4000 followers on Twitter and over 1900 fans in Facebook. Exactly for the reason that SmartyPig is so interactive, so informal and so engaging, it is such a big success.

Each financial company, either big or small, which wants to go social, needs a social marketing campaign tailored to their particular brand. Whether you need to create a well branded community, or launch a series of blogs, or be actively engaged in social networking and present your brand in discussion forums – all efforts are distinct and individual. There is no way for a standard approach – however, there is always a necessity for a solid Social Marketing analysis and accurately selected marketing solutions.

By Kent Huffman

August 22nd, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless.

You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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The explosive growth of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and a host of other social networking tools has led to some significant opportunities for companies to promote their products and services in the Web 2.0 world. But it has led to some significant risks as well.

By definition, social media content is created by its users. Therefore, the content is not directly controlled by your company as it would be in the case of your official corporate marketing materials (Web site, collateral pieces, advertisements, etc.). Therein lies the potential risk. One way to help safeguard your organization is to publish an official corporate social media policy for your employees.

Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself

When considering whether or not you need to publish a social media policy, ask yourself a few questions. For example, do you know which of your employees are active in social media? Do you know what they’re saying about your company? Have you given them any guidelines as to what types of content are and are not acceptable?

The first step toward addressing these questions is to determine what stance your company should take toward social media. For instance, will employees be allowed or forbidden to participate on Twitter for personal reasons during business hours? How will that impact productivity, either positively or negatively? Who can and cannot participate in social media in an official capacity on behalf of your company?

What a Good Social Media Policy Should Contain

Your social media policy should begin by defining the term “social media” and detailing why a policy is needed in the first place. That way, your employees will better understand that the policy is not intended to restrict their activities online; rather, to protect the company from liability and brand damage. Explain how the company could be scarred by false or derogatory information on social media networks and how that information becomes a permanent part of the record on the Internet.

A well-written social media policy should also detail everything that your employees should and should not do when posting content online. For example, make it clear to the employee that he/she can or cannot:

* Identify himself/herself as an employee of the company
* Use the company name, logo, product photos, or other trademarked materials
* Discuss customers, partners, or other employees
* Offer recommendations for other employees (such as on LinkedIn)
* Post on social media sites during business hours

There are a few more obvious rules that should be included in your policy as well, such as forbidding employees to:

* Divulge proprietary or confidential information about the company, its products, and/or its services, including financial data, pricing, strategy, and the like

* Discuss or link to your competitors

* Talk directly to the media (those discussions should be referred to the corporate marketing department)

* Use vulgar words, ethnic or racial slurs, or derogatory comments of any kind

The policy should also detail the consequences that will occur when an employee doesn’t follow the instructions detailed in the policy, including stating that the offender’s employment may be terminated for repeated or egregious offenses. It should also cover the responsibility of an employee to report the actions of another employee who violates any of the terms of policy.

Before publishing your social media policy, it should be submitted to your human resources department and legal department (or corporate attorney) for review. After that, you should also ask your executive team to review it as well.

Make Sure Your Employees Understand and Follow Your Policy

In addition to announcing your new social media policy to all company employees after it has been properly vetted, the policy should also be included as a permanent addition to your employee manual. It should also be posted on your company intranet site.

Once your policy has been published and distributed, you might want to consider adding some follow-up procedures to ensure that the policy is being followed properly, such as:

* Sending monthly or quarterly e-mail announcements to all employees, reminding them about the importance of the policy and where to find it
* Making a list of all social media participants and regularly monitoring their activities online, at least by doing spot checks

How Your Industry Could Impact the Content in Your Policy

Some of the content in your social media policy could be—and should be—influenced by the particular needs of your specific industry.

For example, in the retail space, confidential supplier product information is one of the most common areas in which your company can be exposed. “At Best Buy, we are very committed to being an open and transparent brand, as we believe this builds trust,” said Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy. “However, in doing so, we need to be very mindful that not all information we have can be made public on social media sites, especially as it relates to proprietary manufacturer data that has been provided to us by our supplier partners.”

If you’re in the financial services industry, extraordinary care must be taken on social media networks to protect your confidential financial information. Eddie Reeves, CEO of Reeves Strategy Group and former Vice President of Media Relations for Merrill Lynch, said, “Obviously, when you’re talking about managing OPM—other people’s money—and the information related to that money, you have to take caution and discretion to a whole new level. That isn’t to say you can’t or shouldn’t use social media, because I believe you should, and I advise my clients to do so—not just with confidence, but aggressively. You just have to think carefully through your policies and procedures. Fortunately, most of the rules and policies that financial services firms already have on the books are usually sufficient with a bit of tweaking.”

The healthcare industry is fraught with social media concerns because of the potential liability issues related to medical content posted online and recommendations about other health-related sites, as well as the confidentiality requirements surrounding patient records, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Marketing Officer at American Health, noted, “There is a delicate balance between the interest in utilizing new technology to engage and educate consumers and protecting consumer information. While a social media site that allows people with medical conditions to network or a site that allows patients to track their medical calendars may be valuable and useful, we must be mindful of the chaotic nature of the Internet and its vulnerability to privacy violations.” Mallikarjunan added, “A good social media policy must have mechanisms in place to guide employees towards the proper ways in which to engage customers. Furthermore, we must ensure that employees understand the depth of social media and the need to maintain a professional and respectable presence on all publicly available mediums.”

Other industries that may require special content in their corporate social media policies include travel and hospitality, publishing, media and entertainment, professional services, and government.

Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies

A number of major corporations have published their social media policies on the Internet for everyone to see. Here are a few examples:

* Cisco Systems
* ESPN
* Gartner
* Hill & Knowlton
* HP
* Intel
* New York Times
* Opera Software
* Plaxo
* Porter Novelli
* Sun Microsystems
* Wal-Mart
* Wells Fargo

Finally, here’s an easy-to-use template from SHIFT Communications that you may want to use as a starting point.

For more information about how you can protect your company with a customized corporate social media policy, contact Social2B.

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… CY: wait… I: wait… YCat: wait… C: wait…

By Kent Huffman.

July 24th, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

The Company

Greenlight360 describes itself as an “Internet television network” that will produce and air original episodic Internet TV and films. The startup is based in Boston and intends to provide a platform for emerging talent to gain exposure and monetize their art while providing great original television programming to their viewing audiences.

You may want to think of Greenlight360 as the next HBO or Showtime . . . but online.

The Challenge

With most startups, one of the main obstacles to success is the lack of brand awareness. Greenlight360 was no different.

Since it was to be primarily an online operation, Greenlight360 executives needed to create a buzz on the Internet. And they wanted to do it quickly. So they decided to focus on several hot social media platforms, including Twitter.

The Solution

Marci Reynolds, COO and VP of Sales & Marketing at Greenlight360, developed a carefully planned strategy to build a quality following on Twitter. Her approach began with creating “buyer personas”—detailed profiles of the targeted users—in order to accurately define the types of followers that Greenlight360 wanted to attract. Keeping those personas in mind, Reynolds identified a number of tweeters (using various tools such as TweepSearch.com, Twellow.com, and HootSuite.com), followed them, and read their tweets for several days.

She then began tweeting about topics that would be of interest to those same people, including publishing a variety of content written specifically for them. In addition to quality, relevant tweets, Reynolds ensured the content was sent on a regular basis: approximately 5-7 tweets each day. She also sent tweets at times where they would receive the most exposure, such as the coveted lunchtime slot: 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

The Results

Within 60 days, Greenlight360 had developed a loyal following of almost 600 quality people on Twitter and experienced a lift in Web site traffic originating from the content of the tweets and the company’s Twitter profile.

“I am very excited about the success we’ve experienced using Twitter. Our follower base is very targeted and continues to grow every day. Our content is re-tweeted on a regular basis. And, this past Friday, we had our highest number of #FollowFriday recommendations — five different Twitter users recommended us to their audiences,” said Reynolds. “Twitter has been a very effective tool in launching our new brand name online!”

“We have also learned a lot about our targeted audience through reading their tweets and understanding what content they find interesting and relevant,” Reynolds added. “We will continue to use Twitter as part of our pre-launch buzz strategy and to build momentum and television viewership post Web site launch.”

Kent Huffman, Advisory Associate at Social2B, said, “The process that Marci Reynolds developed and followed at Greenlight360 is identical to the process that I wrote about in my recent Social2B blog post. It’s straightforward and effective, and it can be applied to almost any situation on Twitter.”

Follow Marci Reynolds and Greenlight360 on Twitter.

Follow Kent Huffman and Social2B on Twitter.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… CY: wait… I: wait… YCat: wait… C: wait…

By Kent Huffman.

June 15th, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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Twitter. It’s all the rage in the social media world these days. But how can you best leverage it for tangible business-to-business marketing purposes? One way is to build your own community within Twitter.

Several months ago, I became interested in Twitter when a colleague told me about his positive experiences with the popular social media tool and insisted that I check it out. After signing up for an account and reading a few tweets, I immediately saw its potential as a community development tool. Being a long-time B2B marketer, I decided to build a group of folks interested in marketing who could inspire and help each other grow professionally by sharing ideas and information. But I didn’t know exactly how to go about creating that community.

I ultimately decided to treat it as I would any other important marketing initiative—by first developing a well-defined strategy and a set of related tactics. Over the next couple of months, I created and then tweaked the strategy and honed the tactics through trial and error. I then boiled everything down to a seven-step process that I’m sharing with you here in hopes that you can use it to develop your own B2B community on Twitter.

Step One: Define Your Goals and Target Community

Before you launch your presence on Twitter, determine what specific goals and objectives you want to accomplish. Then parlay that into a methodical plan to build a community around that goal, including defining your target audience.

Step Two: Find and Follow Like-Minded Tweeters

Once you’ve set up a Twitter account, use www.Search.Twitter.com, www.Twellow.com, www.TweepSearch.com, www.TweetBeep.com, and similar tools to find other tweeters who share the same interests as you and would appear to make good members of your fledgling community. Then follow them.

Step Three: Read and Learn

For a week or two, read the tweets posted by those whom you are following and learn from them. Understand what their interests are and how they use Twitter to communicate with others. Note which tweets and tweeters are the most appealing to you and why.

Step Four: Create Effective, Compelling Tweets

When you’re ready to begin tweeting, first determine what topics you will write about. One of the most effective strategies is to position yourself as a subject matter expert in one or two areas. Make sure those topics directly relate to the community you’re trying to build. And take a thoughtful approach by writing clever, interesting tweets that are likely to be retweeted by others.

As is the case with pretty much everything on the Internet, content is king on Twitter. Build a strong foundation for your “Twitter brand” and give other tweeters a reason to follow you by adhering to these basic dos and don’ts when composing your tweets…

Do…

· Feature newsworthy items

· Divulge “inside information”

· Share original thoughts and ideas

· Participate in conversations

· Provide useful links

· Ask engaging questions

· Inject personality and humor

· Retweet when appropriate

Don’t…

· Discuss what you had for breakfast

· Tweet too frequently or infrequently

· Ignore questions or comments by other tweeters

· Try to promote your product or service in every tweet

Step Five: Develop Unique Content for Your Community

In addition to writing focused, compelling tweets, another important key to success in building a strong community on Twitter is to create special content that will be of interest to your followers. One of the most effective types of content enables the members of your community to easily find and interact with each other, such as lists of experts and leaders who tweet about subjects that directly pertain to your community. In my case, I developed a series of unique marketing-related lists:

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-cmos-on-twitter

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-marketing-book-authors-on-twitter

· www.SystemicMarketing.com/top-marketing-professors-on-twitter

Other types of content can be very effective as well, such as blog posts—where you can discuss specific subjects in more detail (such as the post you’re now reading)—and other online and offline resources related to your core topic(s).

By creating this content, you’re providing a forum for your community that enables its members to connect to others like them. As a result, you’ll develop a reputation as a knowledgeable facilitator who is more interested in giving than taking. That can be very powerful.

Step Six: Grow Relationships

As you expand your following on Twitter, you’ll naturally gravitate toward specific tweeters with whom you can most closely relate. Develop a closer relationship with them by publicly commenting on their tweets, retweeting them, and recommending them to your community, as well as privately engaging them in one-on-one conversations, both online and offline. Do whatever you can to help them without asking for anything in return.

Step Seven: Wash, Rinse, and Repeat

Once you’ve found your “Twitter rhythm,” continue to expand your community by growing your followers list, cleaning it up from time to time, and repeating steps two through six indefinitely. You’ll find that creating and participating in your community will be a very rewarding experience, not only for you, but everyone involved.

In the final analysis, building a B2B community on Twitter is about creating value in terms of content and relationships. Even more basic than that, it’s about giving, not taking. That’s really what will help keep your community healthy, active, and growing.

Read the Greenlight360 Case Study that describes how this process has been used to produce real, measurable results on Twitter.

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Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman.

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