This builds some social proof for the ideas (“I can like this passage because others did”), but it also starts a community, or social network, around the Kindle readers of the book. It’s almost like a secret society where people leave messages for each other in the book. While you are reading along, you might pause a little longer on a highlighted passage because someone else thought it was important. In the past you might have checked a book out of the library and it had some notes in it, but that didn’t build any real connections. As more people read the Kindle version, and annotate their copy by highlighting passages and ideas, the collective version of what’s important grows. This is a very interesting development in group book reading.

Below are the 10 most highlighted passages from the The B2B Social Media Book. They are all from early chapters, which makes sense this early in the release of the book. However, the first part of the book is the setup for the later tactic sections, so we expect that even long term earlier chapters will be over-represented in this list. And just for fun, since this book does have two authors, we do get a bit competitive about whose chapters have more highlighted passages.

1. Highlighted by 18 Kindle users
Does your offer:
1. Solve a problem for the prospect?
2. Align with the product or service of the business?
3. Provide unique information not easily found in other online resources?
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

2. Highlighted by 14 Kindle users
For a B2B company to have successful search engine marketing in 2012 and beyond, it must leverage social media.
(Chapter 3: Yes, Chapter 3 in a Social Media Book Is about Search )

3. Highlighted by 13 Kindle users
Prospects don’t want to hear about your products. They want solutions to their problems.
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

4. Highlighted by 12 Kindle users
Need for Generating Higher Revenue with Lower Marketing Budgets
(Chapter 1: Why B2B Is Better At Social Media Than B2C)

5. Highlighted by 10 Kindle users
Maximizing content discovery can be done by producing awesome content and reducing fiction around sharing that content.
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

6. Highlighted by 10 Kindle users
Instead, it is one piece of a well-planned and executed inbound marketing strategy that is tightly aligned to business objectives.
(Chapter 1: Why B2B Is Better At Social Media Than B2C)

7. Highlighted by 10 Kindle users
B2B companies are better suited for social media marketing than B2C companies.
(Chapter 1: Why B2B Is Better At Social Media Than B2C)

8. Highlighted by 10 Kindle users
Reducing approvals and empowering marketing to ship online content is the single biggest lever you can pull to increase lead generation.
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

9. Highlighted by 7 Kindle users
Generating leads using social media starts with three core elements that are the linchpin for the entire online lead generation process: offers, calls to action (CTAs), and landing page.
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

10. Highlighted by 8 Kindle users
A lead is someone who raises his or her hand—a person who demonstrates interest in something that a business has to offer.
(Chapter 2: Five-Step Social Media Lead Generation Process)

Do you have the Kindle version of The B2B Social Media Book, and have you highlighted any passages? Have you ever highlighted anything in a Kindle book?

There is no group better to foster these learning discussions than a company’s channel partners, especially for those companies lucky enough to have built out strong channel partner programs. Channel partners know the niche and know the clients. They also have an independence that provides both authority and authenticity. These partners looked at all the solutions they could sell, and with their reputation on the line, chose to include your offering. When they enter a discussion, and a prospect checks out the channel partner’s background, the fact that they didn’t create a particular product makes it easier for them to be established as providers of valued advice.

While this is still a relatively new idea, some of the most innovative channel marketing managers are starting to support these efforts. For example, Lisa Caratozzolo at VMware has put together a visionary offering to support channel partner’s social media efforts, being launched February 14, 2012 at the VMware Partner Exchange show in Las Vegas (disclosure: VMware is a client). When describing why she put together this program, she said, “VMware sees a huge opportunity to help mobilize their channel partners on social networks. After all, our partners know better than anyone the substantial savings end-users get from leveraging VMware’s offerings, so the more they are out talking about the success they’ve had and answering people’s questions, the better it is for everyone.”

That’s not to say that there aren’t some challenges to getting channel partners involved in social media. As anyone who’s been following this blog knows, the key to engagement is to provide value to a community, and that usually starts with quality content. The challenge here is how to have the budget available to produce something of quality. Most channel partners don’t have the resources to produce videos, white papers and articles that will draw in and retain the audiences around a particular topic. This is where a supplier like VMware can make a huge difference.

Part of VMware’s social media program is to provide content to their channel partners on an ongoing basis. Partners provide filters and appropriate content is automatically pushed out to their social networks, as if they had written it themselves. This allows larger B2B companies with the resources to produce engaging content and for their channel partners to share it and follow up on the discussions that ensue.

The key is to know the channel partner community and build the infrastructure so they can establish themselves as topic experts in the relevant social networks. Your channel partners are part of your core team of social participants and you need provide them with the tools they need to succeed.

Is your B2B company providing your channel partners with social media content to support engaging with their prospects?

1. Explore Facebook Advertising

Normally I would work my way towards advertising as the last item in the list, but I am starting with it because it is so important to Facebook’s success. There are a number of ways you can use advertising on Facebook, but here are two that have been shown to be most successful. Sponsored Stories target the friends of your fans to grow your fan base. You can also target your own fans with updates to increase Page engagement. The Facebook ad platform lets you target by demographics and keywords, as well as set your budget so you can begin testing this to reach your B2B target audience.

2. Monitor Facebook Advertising Changes

Look for Facebook to roll out more targeted and creative ways to reach people on the platform. They have expanded their ads to the point that they are engaging and active, for example people can like a page right from an ad. Since this is so core to their business, look for a new, non-disruptive type of advertising that feels even more like regular Facebook updates. Facebook users may balk at new ideas, but if Facebook can come up with a way to show targeted, non-ad like content (as they are likely working on), advertisers would pay for that. They could be a pricey option for many B2B companies, but if you can keep up with all their tests on the advertising category of Inside Facebook then you can evaluate options for your company.

3. Get Ready for the Timeline

If you haven’t yet heard of the Facebook Timeline, it is the new way personal profiles are shown on Facebook and they are coming to Business Pages soon. If you don’t have the timeline yet on your personal profile yet, click the link above to get it. Not only is the layout more visual, but there is a great branding opportunity with the large cover image at the top of your page. Think how you want to portray your B2B company with a large horizontal image. Don’t assume the staff photo from the company holiday card is the best thing you’ve got. Get creative. But don’t make a Photoshop montage of your products either. The other big change about a timeline is that you can post items to past dates. This is a chance to build a company timeline with historic photos as part of your Facebook Page. This can give some depth to your presence on the social network.

4. Post More Often

With all the changes on Facebook, it is more imperative to post content more often than before, at least a few times per day. This means sharing blog posts from your company and other sources, posting photos and videos, asking engaging questions and showing the fun or human side of your B2B company. There is so much noise on Facebook, as well as an algorithm that only shows people content that Facebook thinks they are interested in, that you need to get people to engage with your content so Facebook will show it to them. There is a balance here. Look at the Facebook Pages of B2B companies that you admire for examples.

5. Drive Facebook Likes from Other Sources

One of the ways to ensure that you have an active Facebook for your B2B company is to make sure you remind people that it is there and they should like it. If you are still printing catalogs, include your Facebook Page address. Add it to email signatures. Display it at your tradeshows. Make sure employees know the kinds of things you share on the Page so they can tell customers and prospects. Start with your own network of employees, customers and partners, and grow the Page from there.

What have you been doing on your B2B Facebook Page and what do anticipate changing in the future?

Two recent charts with survey data from Marketing Sherpa show a changing landscape of B2B transactions. The first shows the change in average deal size from 2010 to 2011. More than half of the deals closed by B2B companies are under $10,000, with the largest number of them (32%) between $1,001 and $10,000. This indicates that many of the larger deals, sometimes thought of as the hallmark of B2B sales, are not happening in the same numbers as before. It is easy to speculate that this is partially the result of the economy, and companies are just not spending the way they have in the past.

The second chart shows that the length of the buying cycle is shorter. This is defined from first lead inquiry to purchase. While the most common cycle is 1-3 months in both 2010 and 2011, the number increased in 2011. The number of responses of less than a month also increased. There were fewer in the ranges of 4-6 months and 7-12 months in 2011, and only cycles of more than a year held steady. This follows the first chart pretty naturally. If sales are down then the time to complete those sales is shorter.

B2B Social Media Marketing Takeaways:
1. If you sell an expensive, complex product, it is more important than ever to embrace social media. With fewer sales in 2011, does 2012 look any different? This means that every customer and prospect is more important to your sales conversion. You need to work harder to discover new leads and work harder to retain customers. Social media can assist with both discovery and retention.

2. Consider expanding service offerings or other smaller sales to support larger customers. If buyers are not upgrading products or systems, they will require more support in the near term. Look for ways that social media influenced content (ebooks, custom videos) can support those relationships in the absence of enhanced paid support models.

3. One of things that we have learned about the buying cycle in the social media era is that prospects contact a sales rep after 60% of the cycle is complete. This means that a company no longer contacts you for general information, but they seek it out themselves from the web, including social media platforms. This makes a social media presence an important part of reaching prospects. Your B2B company needs to demonstrate expertise by sharing valuable information to be included in the consideration phase of the buying cycle. This is no longer a linear process and there are many stops along the way.

How have your B2B buying cycles changed and are you able to use social media to address these changes?

1. 81% of B2B Marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging.

2. 77% of B2B Marketers said their websites are not that effective at generating leads.

3. 60% of B2B Marketers have implemented a social media strategy, or will in the next year.

4. 90% of B2B Companies actively participate on Facebook.

5. 53% of B2B Companies actively participate on Twitter.

6. 47% of B2B Companies actively participate on LinkedIn.

7. 33% of B2B Companies maintain an active blog or blogs.

8. 63% of B2B Marketers are either vaguely aware or not aware what is being said about their companies online.

9. 47% of B2B Marketers are satisfied with their social media strategy.

10. 35% of B2B Marketers don’t think social media is critical for their business.

11. 26% of B2B Marketers don’t know how to measure their social media success.

12. 14% of B2B Marketers don’t know if their competitors are active in social media.

Do any of these stats represent the social media adoption situation at your B2B company?

In the world of online commerce, once books arrive in the warehouse, they can be shipped. Once the ebook version is available, it is for sale and ready for download. But because the official US publication date is still listed as January 24, 2012, we are still treating this as launch day. Our launch day webinar, How to Master B2B Social Media Marketing, is scheduled for 1pm ET today, thanks to Hubspot. We hope you can join us.

B2B Social Media Lead Generation Live and In Person

We are thankful for all of our readers of SocialMediaB2B.com for all of your support, readership and comments over the years. We started this site to help educate B2B marketers and communicators about the power of social media. The B2B Social Media Book grew out of that same effort. Now we have to get books into people’s hands to continue to educate them and we know one way to do that is to get in front of people. We already have some initial B2B social media events scheduled, but would like to schedule more. If you are affiliated with a professional organization and would like a program about B2B Social Media and Lead Generation, please let us know. We can also consider corporate events. We would love to meet you in person. Hear about the challenges you face. Answer your questions about specifics in the book.

Early Reactions to The B2B Social Media Book

The early response during this soft launch has been great. Here are some of the reactions.

Just opened the cover to “The B2B Social Media Book” by @kippbodnar & @jeffreylcohen. I should be a marketing superstar in T-minus a week!

— Thomas DiScipio (@TomDiScipio) January 20, 2012

@smb2b Chapter 13 – Making Trade Shows Social. I had to read it twice, very clever stuff. B2B Social Media Book buyth.at/a2k7d! #b2bsm

— John Newbury (@johnnewbury_) January 21, 2012

Just started reading The B2B Social Media Book. @b2bsm Yes! Share best practices = increased influence. Love content that delivers #B2BSM

— Kathleen Thompson (@Kathleen_T_H) January 7, 2012

Really enjoying #B2BSM book by @kippbodnar & @jeffreylcohen so far. A must read if you’re in B2B.

— Eileen Nolan (@eileenpnolan) January 6, 2012

The B2B Social Media Book – A Reviewvsb.li/Lf5a2y @kippbodnar #B2BSM

— Domino Theory (@JYoffie) January 9, 2012

It’s Time for B2B Social Media Marketing to Generate Leads bit.ly/ynBNdJ – my interview with @kippbodnar and @jeffreylcohen

— Aaron Pearson (@apearson) January 23, 2012

Here are more reactions to The B2B Social Media Book.

If you want to know what the book is like before you buy it, here is a free download of Chapter 1 of The B2B Social Media Book in pdf form. Many of the online booksellers also have a sample download available on their sites.

Available at the Following Online Locations

Amazon Hardcover
Barnes & Noble Hardcover
Books-A-Million Hardcover
800ceoread Hardcover

Available in the Following eBook Formats

Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Nook
Books-A-Million ePub

But despite its reputation as a service for brides and decorators, only 58% of the visitors to the site are women. And just like its diversity in users, brands on Pinterest aren’t limited to department and grocery stores. News sites such as Mashable and Time Magazine are also using the site to spread cover art, articles and copy included in its news stories.

Pinterest still has a long way to go in terms of its search capabilities and smartphone and tablet apps, but there is value for B2B marketers to start exploring. Here are four reasons B2B should start to look into using Pinterest.

1. Pinterest’s Push Mentality
Pinterest may be one of the few social media sites that requires little, if any, interaction with others – and although that may seem counter-intuitive, it’s also one of its strengths. While Twitter and Facebook require constant upkeep to stay on top of fan and follower comments, questions and shares, brands are able to push out content on their own time without a brand page to constantly update. Just be sure to tag and categorize pins with keywords that make sense for searchers, and pin them to boards that are similarly well organized. Pinterest’s search abilities are lagging, so making pins easy to find is key.

2. SEO value of inbound links
This one is a no-brainer for marketers looking to drive traffic to their content. Pinterest’s major selling point for users is the way it connects images – whether they’re product shots, infographics, photographs or even websites – with a stored link, making it easy to come back to pins’ original sources in the future. These links are logged as inbound links to these respective websites, boosting SEO. When it comes to determining what is “pinnable” on your B2B website, consider helpful FAQs, blog posts, product images, infographics and videos.

3. Niche Value
As many popular social media sites shift from mass appeal to niche servicing, B2B companies are able to better hone in on the industries and people most important to them. Leverage Pinterest’s “pin what you know and love” mentality by creating industry-specific boards and using specific keyword searches to find like-minded pins, boards and users.

4. Expert Positioning
Not sure if your company’s products or services lend themselves to being pinned? Expand your reach beyond your own products and use Pinterest as a way to show your expertise and experience in your industry, location and relationships. Utilize Pinterest’s open boards, which allow multiple users to pin to one board, to collaborate with your B2B partners and clients. If an important tradeshow is coming up, start and share a Tradeshow Must-Haves board that pins comfortable shoes, hotel and restaurant recommendations, and handy smartphone apps that position your company as a trusted expert and friend.

What would it take for you to begin exploring Pinterest for your B2B company?

For some organizations it is not currently possible to create a blog, but B2B marketers are still interested in creating and sharing content. In addition to the awareness benefit that sharing new content brings, marketers need to understand how to create remarkable content on a regular basis. Here are six ways to create and share content without a blog.

1. Email
This is the easiest one because you can do this now with no learning. The next time you attend a conference or industry event, make notes about the 5 most amazing things you saw. Whether you have an email program and customer distribution list or not, you can still write up your thoughts from the event. If you send regular emails, use this information in your next email. If you don’t communicate this way, provide your write-up to your salespeople, and they can use it as a reason to connect with prospects and customers.

2. YouTube
Shoot a short video on your phone with one of your product managers describing how one feature of your product solves a specific problem. Interview a customer telling a similar story and you have two different ways to showcase what your products do. Make sure you shoot the video in a quiet place so the audio is clear. Post these on YouTube and provide the links to your employees. They can share them on their social networks or include the links in an email as mentioned above.

3. LinkedIn
Companies can now post status updates on LinkedIn. While these often contain links to other content, it is also a good way to provide general company updates to those following you. You can also use it to curate news coverage about your company. Post links to stories and add a comment in the status update. Even though you may have a newsfeed on your LinkedIn company page, posting the most important ones as status updates will show them to your company’s network.

4. Twitter
Twitter has changed from a place where people post their thoughts to a site where many people and companies also share links. When building your B2B company Twitter account, you definitely want to share other industry content that is relevant, but you can also post thoughts from your employees. Interview your subject matter experts and post their responses over a series of tweets. This can be a fun way to get more employees involved in Twitter. Encourage employees to retweet these interview tweets.

5. Facebook
Posting photos and sharing non-work-related activities are great uses for a Facebook Business Page before you have ramped up your social media content machine. Once a week, share an employee photo. Make sure you are capturing photos of an community events. Include a brief story about the event and provide a link to the organization. These kinds of things show the human side of a company, especially on a platform that many people use personally.

6. Google Plus
Besides it’s benefit to search results, Google Plus is really good for having conversations. Ask leading questions. Provide insightful information. Reach out to people in your industry to engage them in conversations. Since these conversations are threaded, someone can join in and catch up just by scrolling.

If you start using these other ways to create and share content before you have a B2B blog, you will also start growing your networks on these platforms. This means that you will have an active community, and know where people are more likely to engage and share company content, when you do launch your blog.

If you have other favorite ways to share B2B company content without blog, please share in the comments below.

If you have one great tip about creating or distributing content, share it in the comments, and you might see it in future post.

B2B Content Marketing as Trojan Horse
from Marketing Interactions
I sat in on the Content Marketing for Real Marketers webinar and there were many great points made, but two of them stood out and prompted this blog post:
Content draws 10X more media attention than product launches.
Diminishing the brand representation in favor of the story enables it to spread.
Read more

Feed Me Seymour – Why Your 2012 Marketing Approach is Hungry for Content
from Marketing Trenches
As I sat down yesterday with a couple members of the Right Source team for our check-in on our 2012 tactical plan, I was reminded how our marketing, like that of many of our clients, is heavily dependent on content. We use the term content marketing all the time in our industry, yet to many folks outside of the industry – and to many of our potential clients – it means very little.
Read more

Five Tips For Better B2B Marketing Content
from B2B Ideas @ Work
There are more ways than ever to match your marketing messages to the needs of your customers with more personalized, relevant and actionable information. The more you can customize your content to relate to your best buyers, the more buyers you will attract, and the more conversions you will drive. Here are five ideas that will improve your B2B marketing content.
Read more

Eight keys to successful content curation
from Heinz Marketing
There are plenty of good, tactical guidelines out there for content curation (as well as rationales for why it’s so important). But in addition to the day-to-day tactics and objectives, here are eight keys to making your content curation efforts more efficient, effective and productive.
Read more

Infographic: A History of Disruptions in B2B Marketing
from It’s All About the Revenue
“We’re gonna change the world” has become the battle cry for many tech startups. When you’re bootstrapping a company against all mathematical odds, the only thing better than ambition is wild ambition.

But let’s face it: very few companies actually change the world. After all, it’s a tall order.

This infographic, A History of Disruptive Innovations in B2B Marketing, looks at breakthrough technologies and processes that forever changed one segment of the world: the lives of B2B marketing professionals.
Read more

Not another social network, you said. We are already challenged to come up with enough quality content. And learn a new platform? And see if our customers and prospects are there? Again, none of this matters anymore. Google Plus has always been about leveraging our social connections to provide better search results. But now Google is showing Google Plus results as top results in search.

It shouldn’t matter to you that Twitter is calling it “a bad day for the Internet.” Marketers need to roll with the changes that happen all the time in social media.

Lots of resources already exist online and off for learning about Google Plus, the platform, but for the time being, B2B marketers need to create personal profiles and business pages for their B2B companies. Yes, Google Plus is great for engagement because of a threaded comment system. Multiple people can manage a page (which wasn’t possible at roll-out). Circles really do allow you to segment outbound messages. There is not an ecosystem of management tools for Google Plus yet, so it will be a manual process to share content on the platform.

But for now. Get on there and start sharing content. Want to drive traffic to your blogs? Need more downloads for your ebooks and white papers? Share links on Google Plus. Prospects still find their way to your site and your content by search, and Google is giving B2B marketers another tool to help with that.

This really should be at the top of today’s to do list for B2B companies. Circle Social Media B2B on Google Plus while you are there.