Prospects and customer want solutions to their problems. They don’t want to hear about your products in a blog post. Once you identify your target audience and their pain points, you can begin creating top-of-the-funnel content to connect with them by solving their problems. With the right content in mind, on paper and on screen, how do you make sure that your content is found, read and shared by your audience?

Start by making it remarkable!

And then here are 10 ideas for make it captivating:

1. Use Keywords in the Headline

No matter what you writing about, you have to include the words that your prospects and customers use when talking about your solutions, business and industry. These are used in the questions they are asking in search engines and of their social network connections. The most important keyword location is the headline. See the headline above (and most of the ones on this site) for an example. They always include B2B Social Media or B2B and relevant terms. That’s how B2B marketers find what they are looking for on this site. Posts without those obvious keywords are just not found by the audience.

2. Use Adjectives in the Headline

Even keyword-based headlines need to be interesting and compelling. Or captivating. As this one is. No matter where you prospects and customers see your headlines, they are looking for something that will be worth their time. As you are establishing your authority on your subject area, every post is an opportunity to draw in new visitors. Interesting and different descriptive words, like adjectives can do that.

3. Find a Compelling Image

In this post I used a recent Instagram photo I took of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. While not entirely relevant to this post, it is a captivating image, which relates back to the headline. Rather than use the same stock photography images of light bulbs or the diverse team around a conference room table, look for interesting images that set the tone for a post. Search Flickr for Creative Commons images and make sure you give credit back to the photographer. Hone your own skills as an Instagram photographer and use your own images. You want to use images that will draw someone in, make them click and make them keep reading.

4. Don’t Talk about Your Products

Successful blog posts are not about products. Your website already does that. Provide real value to prospects and customers by providing solutions to their business problems. Demonstrate your industry expertise by giving them something they cannot get elsewhere.

5. Solve Prospects’ Business Problems

One of the reasons “How To” posts are so popular in different industries is that they answer people’s questions. Search engines are designed to provide the most relevant results to every search. If B2B prospects are trying to find answers to their problems, your posts have a better chance of showing up if you are answering their questions. And using their terms.

6. Share Customer Stories

Leverage your existing customers to tell your story of how your solved their business problems with your products and solutions. These are not just case studies where your product helped your customer reach business nirvana, but a real, human story that is interesting, remarkable and captivating. Ask yourself if you would read the story before you hit publish.

7. Use Video

Video is a powerful way to tell a story, share an important detail or present a point of view. A post with embedded video can capture someone’s attention in a different way than a written post. This is an easy way to share the thoughts of an industry influencer you met at a trade show, but keep it short. Definitely under five minutes, and under three minutes if possible. Video viewing dropoff is pretty significant at two minutes.

8. Experiment with Different Formats

Every post should not always be 500-800 words on a subject. Try shorter posts if you have a simple comment about an industry news story. A link to the story and three takeaways work. Consider an occasional longer analytical post that really takes a point of view. What about an all image post where you show 20 examples of what others in your industry are doing well, where you only have a line or two of explanation. Mixing up your post format keeps things interesting and keeps you from writing the same post over and over.

9. Use Subheads to Make it Scannable

People on the web scan. Subheads make it easy to glean some information from your post without taking the time to read it. That’s why list posts do so well. They match the way people consume information. Scan this post as an example.

10. Remember Social Networks

And finally, getting found in search is just part of the equation. Getting found on social networks is also key. Keep headline length in mind for social networks. Know how images show up on Facebook and Google+. Make sure your post description is captivating, as that may be what shows up on networks.

Remember, all of these ideas will help remarkable content get found, read, shared and clicked, but if your content is not worth reading, none of this will help. And keep in mind that blog posts just to drive traffic are not enough. Include calls to action (CTAs) at the end of every post to bring your prospects into the sales funnel.

What are other ways that you have made your B2B social media posts more captivating?

Some of these results were featured on eMarketer, but you can download the full Social Media Marketing Strategy Report for free from Ascend2 (registration required). Below are a selection of the results.

B2B Social Media Marketing Objectives

Top objectives for B2B marketers were improving customer engagement, increasing web site traffic and increasing their content reach. While the first could be a high level goal, if other parts of the business are focused on that objective, the other top objectives are more tactical. While they can certainly be measured, they are really a means to an end. And lead generation is not a large priority of B2B marketers using social media. But it probably is a priority objective of other marketing efforts. This is one reason B2B marketers are still failing with social media.

• 43% of B2B Marketers say improve customer engagement is their most important objective
• 37% of B2B Marketers say increase web site traffic is their most important objective
• 34% of B2B Marketers say increase content reach is their most important objective
• 29% of B2B Marketers say increase lead quality is their most important objective
• 27% of B2B Marketers say increase lead quantity is their most important objective

B2B Social Media Marketing Tactics

Creating content are the top activities for social media marketing for those surveyed. Content is what drives lead generation and other top of the funnel activities, so these tactics are on track. But if lead generation is not a stated goal (above), it means that B2B marketers are not capitalizing on these tactics and including calls to action with every piece of content.

• 40% of B2B Marketers say creating articles/blog post content is their most effective tactic
• 32% of B2B Marketers say creating research/whitepapers is their most effective tactic
• 29% of B2B Marketers say creating audio/video content is their most effective tactic

B2B Social Media Marketing Execution

While those B2B marketers surveyed indicated that various content types were their top activities in social media marketing, it turns out those same activities are the most challenging for them to complete. It is a different mindset to create content at the top of the funnel, or even to serve customers, that solves prospects’ and customers’ problems, rather than promoting the features and benefits of your products and services. Here are some B2B blogging ideas to help you to execute these activities.

• 32% of B2B Marketers say creating audio/video content is the most difficult to execute
• 32% of B2B Marketers say creating research/whitepapers is the most difficult to execute
• 31% of B2B Marketers say creating articles/blog post content is the most difficult to execute

B2B Social Media Marketing Obstacles

And finally here are the main obstacles to success for B2B social media marketing. These are common problems at B2B companies. Who is going to do it? How do we measure the value and does the rest of the organization understand what you are doing with social media?

• 37% of B2B Marketers say staff limitations is the biggest obstacle to achieving objectives
• 36% of B2B Marketers say inability to measure social ROI is the biggest obstacle to achieving objectives
• 27% of B2B Marketers say lack of organizational committment is the biggest obstacle to achieving objectives

Do these survey results match what you see in your B2B company or those you work with? What are some of the ways you have dealt with some of these challenges and obstacles?

• Digital Integration
• Content Marketing
• Analytics

The project itself is a great example of content marketing. It is featured on the Google Think site, with a narrative written in an informal, friendly style. The research also has its own landing page, complete with an overview video. There are links to download the complete whitepaper or a presentation version (both as PDFs), with no registration required.

Each of the three subject areas (Digital Integration, Content Marketing and Analytics) has its own page including a short video, links to download just that chapter of the whitepaper or the whole whitepaper. There is also a link to take an assessment survey on each topic.

Rather than summarize each section, I have included the key findings below.

Digital Integration Key Findings:

■ Companies still struggle to integrate digital tactics deep into broader marketing campaigns, but there are a few key points of leverage (such as pushing to mandate an objective “Channel Consideration Review” early in the process) that can help weed out reflexive channel bias, opening the door for digital influence.
■ Armed with past performance data and evidence from external best practices, a growing number of marketers are pushing to develop standardized campaign architectures, which offer a strong platform for promoting the best applications and integration points for digital tactics.
■ Increased digital marketing efforts demand continuous and collective management, something few companies are designed to support. The value destroyed by this misfit approach—although hard to quantify—is potentially very large. Several companies are taking steps to restructure as a result.

Content Marketing Key Findings:

■ Many companies are attempting to overlay a coverage model on their existing campaign-oriented content production efforts; this helps to orchestrate a continuous flow of content aligned to the topics and issues customers care about but introduces a hidden danger.
■ Many companies display a troubling overemphasis on tools, shallow consumption metrics, and process—placing a greater emphasis on producing a steady flow of content than the quality of the content.
■ More progressive companies have consolidated strategic and creative guidance for content, to help business units get more impact from their content and to stitch together cross-BU points of view that have broader impact in the marketplace.
■ In selecting what content to create, marketers should place greater emphasis on the power of communication channels versus the competitive noise they have to contend with; many organizations seem to pursue content strategy with little regard for the clutter they are competing with.
■ B2B marketers have been slow to push into more visually engaging content (typically relying largely on text-based content) due to concerns about skill and cost but most directly due to perceiving it as a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have.

Analytics Key Findings:

■ The smartest companies dedicate a greater portion of their marketing budgets to improving their fundamental understanding of effectiveness, interactivity, and causality across marketing programs.
■ A central hub for marketing data is becoming more common but is still a long-term aspiration for many companies. Regardless of the data environment, marketers should be focused primarily on extracting insight and decision-support value from the data they do have (which is a lot of data). The single most important factor for success is getting the smartest people you can find to tackle your most important analytical challenges. Ninety percent of your analytics spend should be on people.
■ Pipeline analyses often overemphasize contact-level web analytics data, neglecting important off-site and social behaviors and collective account-level behavior.
■ Conversion attribution modeling efforts typically ignore key aspects of a supplier’s engagement with potential customers (especially nondigital touchpoints). Marketers should make a greater effort to place estimates of digital impact in proper proportion and context of broader marketing strategy and the market environment.
■ Experiments are difficult to design are often executed poorly, rendering results unreliable and wasting time and money. It is a worthwhile effort to create very strict process guidelines to validate experiment design in advance of execution, so results can be confidently applied to decision making.

If any of these findings reflect situations at your company, download this study for details about these findings, recommendations how to overcome them and examples from companies like EMC, CSC and Level 3.

The lion’s share of real engagement happens in Linkedin Groups, especially for B2B companies. But not all Linkedin Groups. Most are veritable spam fests where unscrupulous marketers spam links to promotions or try to drive clicks to their blog posts.

So how do you find the really good Linkedin Groups? How can you tell which ones are worthwhile, and which ones are worthless?

You could just join a bunch of groups, follow the activity that occurs in each one and learn that way. But that’s time consuming. And since there are nearly 1.6 million Linkedin Groups and you can only join 50 at a time, finding the genuinely worthwhile groups that way could take a lifetime.

As an example, I used Linkedin Group statistics to analyze the three B2B social media groups I’ve been a member of to see which one is the best.

I’d rather spend more time in one Linkedin Group where I can have real discussions with other professionals who are interested in exploring a common topic, then spread myself thin over a bunch of groups, particularly if some of them are spammy.

Here’s how to use Linkedin Group Statistics to see which ones to join.

1. Review the Group

Go to the Linkedin Group you’re considering joining. But don’t join right away.

Instead, scroll down below the “Top Influencers of the Week” box in the right-hand column and find “Group Statistics.” The “3,759” number you see in the image is not accurate. Every group uses the same generic artwork. So ignore it and click “View Group Statistics.”

2. Review the Activity

Once you’re in the Linkedin Group Statistics page, click the “Activity” tab and check out the graph on the right. “Discussions” are new posts left to the Group and “comments” made underneath new discussions. A better way to think about “discussions” is as “new posts,” because if no one comments, they aren’t actually discussions.

3. Compare Discussions to Comments

The chart will give you a snapshot of whether or not people are having conversations. If the number of discussions is much higher than the number of comments, people are leaving new posts, but they’re not starting conversations. Unfortunately, this is the case most of the time in Linkedin Groups.

Now and again, as in the Linkedin Group used in the example above appears currently to be hosting healthy conversations, but not until recently. In fact, comments surpassed discussions just last month. Could it be a fluke?

4. Look at the Conversations

Let’s check it out and see. Just because there’s a healthy conversation going on, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a worthwhile group. A low ratio of discussions to comments is necessary, but not sufficient. So hop on over to the group’s activity feed and see if the discussions are interesting to you. If they are, join up.

As a rule of thumb, closed groups tend to be less spammy than open groups because they are actively monitored by a community manager. Some Linkedin Groups have rules for what they do and don’t allow. If they have rules, the manger will send them to you if your membership is approved.

So which B2B Linkedin Groups are the healthiest?

I compared the following Linkedin Groups:

• B2B Online Marketing
• BtoB Marketing
• B2B Social Media

Here’s what I found:

With more than 200 discussions posted in recent months, both B2B Online Marketing and BtoB Marketing do have more activity. But that’s not an indication of worthwhile conversation because they both have too few comments. There’s almost no conversation occurring there at all in these group, and since conversation is engagement, these are, you guessed it, spam fests.

B2B Social Media, on the other hand, has around half the volume of new discussions being posted, but those discussions most recently have started drawing a healthy number of comments. As of January, the engagement level has picked up sharply. For readers of this site, if you like what you see in the Group’s activity stream, this is the one to join.

Are there other ways you have evaluated LinkedIn Groups, or are there other B2B social media or marketing groups that provided value? Let other readers know in the comments below.

B2B marketers need to understand these four reasons that Google+ is the next killer platform for marketing, and why it should be an important part of your B2B marketing mix.

1. Number of Active Users

According to GlobalWebIndex, Google+ now has 343 million active users, more than any other social network besides Facebook. Google+ is far ahead of Twitter, and light years ahead of LinkedIn.

Notice that qualifier: “active” users. The 343 million number is not a measure of the number of people who signed up for Google+ accounts, and who may or may not ever log on. Rather, it is a measure of the number of people actively participating on Google+. Over a very short period of time, Google+ has confounded critics and become a platform that cannot be ignored.

2. Circlecentric Marketing

Google+ circles enable you and your B2B company to market in a more intimate way to people who are following your company.

Consider this: because Google+ users can circle your company page, it means they have opted in to receive information from you without having to fill out any forms or communicate via email. That’s true on other social networks, of course, but what’s different is how you can then interact with them.

On Google+, you can do research on the person who has circled you, circle them back, and (most importantly) add that person to unique circles based on how that person fits into your target market. This means you can provide that person with highly useful and specific information, instead of just a general communication blast.

Furthermore, B2B companies can begin to interact with that individual in other, more personal ways. And this means that, in addition to creating a better communication channel, you can make those users feel like you notice and care about them. For example, by sharing that individual’s content and inviting them to private communities, private events, and private hangouts, you don’t just send them a message; you build and strengthen a relationship. And this is a cornerstone of any marketing mix.

Martin Shervington provides a more detailed description of circlecentric marketing.

3. Better Organic Search Results

In Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s upcoming book, The New Digital Age, he is quoted as saying: “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

This is the clearest statement yet from Google (which tends not to be very clear) highlighting how authorship is becoming extremely relevant in search results on Google.

This essentially means that if you are posting on Google+ correctly, your content will be ranked higher than content posted elsewhere. Furthermore, because of Google+’s tight integration with the Google search engine, your posts are treated much like regular webpages (unlike posts on other social networks), and will therefore rank higher in search results.

4. Google’s Long-term Vision

Google+ is a social destination and a social layer across all Google properties. The integration they have made is breathtaking. It places a social layer upon:

• Gmail
• Google Maps and Local
• Google Now
• Android
• Google Wallet
• Google Offers
• Google Chrome
• Google Search
• Google Adwords
• Google Calendar and Events
• Google Play
• YouTube

What Google is really saying is that “Google+ is Google.” And this integration will only go deeper and become stronger over time.

It’s no secret that Google’s business model is to sell advertising. There’s nothing wrong with that and, in fact, their strategy is a brilliant one. Google wants to provide more and more relevant search results to users, so users will do more searching on Google. This means advertisers get better value from Google, which means Google sells more advertising.

Google has created Google+ to be the killer platform for B2B social media marketing. What is your B2B company doing to take advantage of it?

We have a tendency to focus only on B2B related surveys, but a general audience survey can be helpful in providing guidance and discovering your audience on social media channels. To paraphrase a line from the funny Tim Washer, all B2B prospects and customers are people, so their general internet usage is something to consider.

Let’s look at some of the survey results with a bit of thought around each stat and how it applies to a B2B audience.

67% of US Internet users use social networking sites

That’s two-thirds of all internet users, so when someone says that your prospects and customers are not on social networks, they are wrong. They probably are. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are looking for business-related information on social networks, but if you can connect with them and provide value (through content), you can build and nurture these relationships.

71% of women surveyed use social networking sites

If your target personas are women, or even skew more towards woman, take another look at how you are using social media to drive lead generation. Women are more likely to use social networking sites than men, so a better understanding of how they use it and the kinds of content that appeals to women will attract more prospects. I don’t mean make all your ebooks pink, but think about the differences in the way women and men solve problems, gather information and share information on social networks when developing your content strategy.

83% of 18-29 year olds use social networking

We all know that a greater percentage of younger people use social networking sites than older people, but the next age group of 30-49 is still at 77% usage. It slides all the way down to 32% when you get over 65. If your goal is to reach older executives on social networking sites, that will be a challenge. They are just not there yet. But as prospects are researching online for business solutions, social networking can play a part for anyone. If an intern or a junior employee is the one who seeks out information about your products, or fills out lead forms, what kinds of things are they searching for? These would be less technical results than what an engineer would look for.

16% of US Internet users use Twitter

With the overemphasis on Twitter in marketing and media, it is hard to accept that only 16% of US internet users are on Twitter. And the demographic data shows that is skews younger and more urban, so that does not necessarily provide much guidance for finding and reaching a B2B audience. Many B2B companies start with Twitter because they think it is easy to tweet, but they quickly run out of things to tweet without a plan. Twitter’s best use is to help amplify your own short and long-form content. It is also worthwhile to ask your customers if they are using Twitter, and what value they get from it. This can help guide you in connecting with prospects on the social network.

20% of US Internet users use LinkedIn

While the study mentioned above did not report LinkedIn usage, a previous Pew study did. And I can’t write a B2B article without talking about LinkedIn. This is a surprising result in certain business circles. It seems that every business person is on LinkedIn. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. But with usage at only 20%, there are certainly B2B prospects are not on it. Use this information to dig more into your customers’ behavior to understand how to maximize your LinkedIn efforts.

67% of US Internet users use Facebook

The percentage of Facebook users matches the overall social networking usage numbers. While it is not an exact one for one match, you can interpret this to mean that your audience is on Facebook. It is possible to use Facebook grow your audience, build connections and drive leads, but it requires content creation, compelling images and sponsored posts to increase the reach of those posts. It is work, and it takes times, but you can get results from Facebook.

How else would you look at these statistics to find your B2B audience on social media sites?

Photo credit: Flickr

Here are some ways to use social media to break down the silos in your B2B company:

1. Align Sales with Social Media

The lack of alignment between sales and marketing continues to exist as more B2B companies use social media to generate leads and improve their prospecting. Short of doing an exchange program where you embed a marketer in your sales team and a sales person in your marketing team, this starts with communication. Make sure that each team understands the other’s challenges. Marketing is now responsible for more of the journey through the buying process than ever before. Prospects no longer come to sales to learn about the company and how they can help. That information, as well as recommendations, are all available on the social web. When marketing and sales work together to develop personas and social media content to address those personas’ issues, they both have skin in this game. If both are responsible for creating a process where marketing can generate leads that sales wants, this results in not just better leads, but sales.

2. Get Customer Service On Board

As B2B companies establish social media accounts on major platforms, usually by marketing to start pushing out company messaging, customers and prospects will start asking questions. These could be simple pre-sales questions that can be easily answered with a link to an FAQ document, or they could be customer service issues that need to be addressed by a customer service rep. What usually follows is a lengthy email exchange between the social media person and the customer service rep, resulting in a response back to the customer. If the customer service team were actively engaged online, this would tighten their connection with marketing, because they would need social media training, an understanding of what online documents are available and visibility into the content calendar so they would know what is being shared when. Major announcements drive awareness and cause an increase in customer service questions. The customer service can also contribute to creating social content based on their communication needs.

3. Get Product Team Blogging

The marketing or social media team usually own a blog at most B2B companies. This means that there will be certain kind of posts with a specific target and tone. One of the best ways to broaden the tone and scope of a company blog is to add writers from other parts of the organization. Look first towards the product team. This doesn’t mean they should write about your products, but about their view of the world. A product team that is creating solutions in response to customers, competitors and industry have a unique perspective that can add to your company’s thought leadership. Planning and executing their regular blog contributions tightens the connection between marketing and product teams that would not otherwise exist.

4. Launch an Internal Social Network

There are many options for an internal social network and the resistance to this approach is eroding. Yes, these programs are often called Facebook for the enterprise, but they are more about collaboration. One way to use an internal social network is to free information from email, hard drives and employees’ brains. Rather than share a customer presentation with your team by email, share it on your internal social network and tag it so others can benefit from your hard work. If you have told a compelling story, there is no need for others to re-invent the wheel. You can also ask questions of the company. I have seen examples where someone is in a meeting with a customer and has asked a question on the network, only to get a answer a few minutes later, while still talking about the topic.

5. Create a Social Media Council

A social media council can help any company that is planning to become more social. Gathering people from all functions across the company, including marketing, sales, customer service, HR, IT, legal, finance can get everyone on the same page about how social media can be integrated across the company. This is not about getting everyone to talk about what the company should tweet, but it is more about process. How comfortable is the legal team with your company’s planned social media presence? How does HR approach comments made on social media by current and prospective employees. What does it mean for sales and customer service now that anyone can easily contact the company on Twitter? Getting everyone in the same room can really serve to make sure they are aware of what’s going and that they are part of the process to move forward.

What are other ways you have used social media to break down the silos at your B2B company?

Photo credit: Flickr

If your first tendency is to shout that they are doing it wrong, you are not alone. But we don’t know what specific tactics these companies are using and what their goals are. If they are not creating compelling content or they’re not driving prospects back to their websites, then social media traffic will be small. If they are focused on lead generation, and the social traffic converts at a higher level than general traffic, they might be fine with how much traffic social drives. Start with trends that you may find in these statistics, but make sure you review your own social media metrics against your goals and other tactics.

Changes in Spending

49% of B2B marketers plan to increase their marketing budget in 2013. (Source)

9.5% of B2B marketers plan to decrease their marketing budget in 2013. (Source)

67% of B2B marketers plan to increase their digital marketing budget in 2013. (Source)

70% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spending on website development in 2013. (Source)

56% of B2B marketers plan to increase their spending on social media in 2013. (Source)

Content Marketing

93% of B2B marketers using content marketing use their website. (Source)

65% of B2B marketers using content marketing use social media. (Source)

58% of B2B marketers create their content internally. (Source)

35% of B2B marketers use personas to guide their content creation. (Source)

A B2B buyer will find three pieces of content about a vendor for every one that the company provides. (Source)

Traffic Sources

41% of B2B website traffic is driven by organic search. (Source)

40% of B2B website traffic is direct. (Source)

Only 2% of B2B website traffic is driven by social media. (Source)

Photo Credit: flickr

We start with a bold call to action for B2B marketers, followed by a very tactical list of planning questions, and then we go up a notch to planning theory and how to apply it. Next is an article that questions whether a new Facebook tool is right for B2B? Yes, I’m quoted in the article, but it too is about how you plan to test a new function to determine its success. And finally we present a list of top B2B influencers on Twitter by Michael Brenner. Okay, so I’m on this list too, but if you are looking for influencers in your industry, looking for content to share with your followers or just looking for example of B2B companies and people doing a good job on Twitter, they are all here on this list.

What else have you seen recently that has helped you in your B2B social media planning. Your own posts, or even interviews with you, are okay, because clearly it didn’t stop me.

B2B Marketers Need To Get Real About Social Media and Customer Engagement
from Enterprise Irregulars
B2B marketers need to get more focused on how fast their prospects and customers are changing as a result of social media. It’s time to question long-held assumptions and look to social media as a means to connect with prospects and customers more effectively.
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25 Questions To Ask When Executing B2B Content Marketing Campaigns
from Search Engine Land
With the new year upon us, search engine marketers are focused on putting the foundation together for campaign execution throughout 2013. Central among the strategies meant to deliver B2B SEO results will be content marketing.
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The Planning Fallacy: Why B2B Marketers are prone to exaggeration
from Earnest Agency
As a marketer, you’re now under more pressure than ever to prove your worth – and demonstrate ROI. Your budget is under scrutiny – and no doubt, you need to put forward a strong case to justify your spend. So what do you do? Be bullish about the potential return – ever optimistic about your ability to deliver the goods, but knowing it’s the only way you’ll get go-ahead.
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Is Facebook’s new messaging feature good for b2b?
from BtoB Magazine
In recent months Facebook Inc. has been quietly testing a new revenue-raising feature: paid messaging. So far, the service is aimed at individual users, but b2b marketers have been watching the tests and wondering if paid Facebook messaging would work for them.
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Top 50 B2B Marketing Influencers On Twitter
from B2B Marketing Insider
Who are the top B2B Marketing influencers on twitter? To answer this question, I looked at a variety of factors including twitter followers, profiles that included “B2B marketing,” the focus of their tweets including the hashtag #B2BMarketing, as well as a variety of social scoring tools using the keyword.
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Photo: Flickr

If you were using Answers, here are 6 ways you can use LinkedIn to connect with prospects and customers and generate leads:

1. Start and Manage a LinkedIn Group

There are two ways to interact with Groups. The first, and most common for B2B companies, is to create your own Group and encourage customers, prospects, employees and partners to join it. Rather than using your company name, create a name that represents your industry or your target audience. Posting content with links back to your website, third party articles and asking questions to get people talking requires the dedicated time of a community manager. Even though members of the Group can be emailed with updates, and can be sent a weekly email from the Group moderator, there is no visibility of the Group posts to non-members.

2. Participate in LinkedIn Groups

The other way to create a presence in LinkedIn Group conversations is to participate. This is not just the job of one person at a B2B company, but can be handled by several people, including subject matter experts. Start with a point person who joins many Groups and receives updates via email or RSS so they are alerted to relevant discussions. They can let the most appropriate person at the company know about the discussion, and even offer suggestions of what to post. The best approach is a mix of your own companies content, third party articles and short and engaging answers. It is best to be consistent so people get used to seeing and engaging with people from your company. Most groups are dominated by a handful of individuals and by regularly providing valuable contributions to the group your company representatives can join that level.

3. Post Status Updates on Company Page

Build a following on your Company Page by promoting it on other platforms (including your website). Post updates and links to company content that followers will see in their feed. Engaging posts will be seen by your followers’ network and will drive traffic back to your website. These updates can also be targeted by company size, industry, function, seniority and geography. Over time you will learn the right mix of content and offers for your followers. LinkedIn will show you impressions and engagement percentage stats approximately 24 hours after the post.

4. Post Photos and Files on Company Page

Taking a page from Facebook’s playbook, LinkedIn gives companies the ability to post photos and other files directly on their Company Pages. This may create more engagement and extend the awareness of your LinkedIn Company Page, but you need to mix these sparingly into your posting schedule along with links that drive visitors, especially prospects, back to your website to get them into your lead funnel.

5. Encourage Employees to Post Status Updates

People can post status updates on their personal profiles. Most, if not all, of your employees have profiles on LinkedIn. Encourage employees to keep their profiles up to date and share company content in their status updates. Coordinated employee updates are an underutilized resource for spreading B2B company blog posts, ebooks, webinars and other educational content. An active profile includes updates from other sources besides the company blog, so it is helpful to provide suggestions to employees of other sources of great content.

6. Encourage Employees to Connect Slideshare to the Profile

Slideshare has always been easy to connect to a LinkedIn profile, even before LinkedIn bought the presentation sharing site. If employees don’t have their own Slideshare account, encourage them to connect the company Slideshare account to their LinkedIn profile. This means that whenever the company publishes a new deck or ebook to Slideshare, it automatically appears on employees’ profiles as an update. These decks should include their own calls to action, giving prospects another chance to learn more about the topic presented in the deck or PDF.

What is your B2B company doing on LinkedIn to connect with prospects and help them along their buying process?

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