Welcome to this belated March hot topic list!  This list contains hot topics for the month that could do very well on social sites, and seeing that it is about a week later than usual, it is a great reason to get working on these today!  Ideally you could use this to help aid in linkbait and content creation for social media.  Hopefully these ideas can help you harness the momentum of a current hot topic and get more traction.  Here’s what will be hot this March in social media!

• March Madness
  This is hands down the biggest event of the month.  Productivity drops across the country when the NCAA tournament is on.  CBS has been streaming all games live over the web and there are so many angles to take with your linkbait on this topic.
• The Pacific
  Tom Hanks is producing this HBO WWII miniseries that premieres  Sunday March 14th.  This is a great opportunity to tie in with WWII linkbait, timelines, history and anything that is educational about WWII and “The Pacific” series.
• Hot Tub Time Machine
  A new movie that is in theatres on March 26th is called “Hot Tub Time Machine” and features some crazed party animals in an absurd premise.  The film features John Cusack, Craig Robinson and other cult stars like Chevy Chase.  There are many topics that can be related to this movie like” Worst Ideas for a Movie” “Stupidest Movie Premises [Where the Movie was Actually Good]“  “Time Machines in Movies  – The Master Guide”  .. the possibilities are endless.
• Spring
  March is the month where snow-dwellers see a glimpse of hope for better weather to come.  Dropping Spring related linkbait will be quite timely and well-received by users.  Putting facts and information on the wonderfully melty world of Spring is sure to perform well!
• NFL Free Agency
  Free agency just began, and there is a world of content that will appeal to NFL fanatics across the country.  Breaking down the best/worst moves , ideal matches for free agents still available are prime topics for social users.  Report cards, breakdowns and the winners/losers are always great angles to take.
• Brackets & Gambling In General
  These days it is hard to find an office without a NCAA bracket pool.  This is by far the largest gambling event of the year in America.  Last year even President Obama filled out his bracket.  Any analysis of gambling that ties in brackets will perform extremely well.  Also, stats around brackets, previous winners, best ways to choose ..etc will be hot topics in March.
• Taxes
  If there ever was a time that people would be receptive to tax information, March is that time!  Show how much people pay, the average return, how to save $$ and other tips and tricks as people definitely have taxes on their minds this month.
• Hockey
  On the heels of the Canada/US game, people are paying attention to hockey again.  Creating interesting lists that play off of Olympic athletes should be well received this month.  Comparing Crosby to Gretzky, breaking down the best goaltending of the season, doing follow-up on how the Americans NHL teams fared vs the Canadians teams – there are many possibilities to revisit this formerly frozen topic.

Happy March linkbaiting!

Have any other hot topics for the month of March?  Feel free to share examples below, and don’t forget to follow 10e20 on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed.

56982 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/03/10/the-march-%e2%80%9810-social-media-hot-topic-list/The+March+%E2%80%9810+Social+Media+Hot+Topic+List2010-03-10+16%3A03%3A34Greg+Finn

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Every smart marketer knows the importance of community.  Interacting with your audience without being “that guy or girl”  is a delicate skill.  Many times a community can be infiltrated “below the line” by using poor methods of engagement.  Other times this might be the dedicated job of a brand or community manager.  Leaving it in the hands of these people and making it their job to know the Ins and Outs and the language of the community and the way they interact can be extremely important to how your brand is viewed within that network.

Rules of thumb:

• Brand / Community manager should know EVERYTHING about the brand and or be a huge fan them-self.
• Community language and slang should be used.
• Brand should be transparent about being involved within the community.
• Off brand subjects and conversation is a must.
• Supply links when relevant to product pages or content pages on site but try not to overburden the user with links unless necessary.
• Don’t just share links to your own pages (be a good resource).

Here are some examples of niche communities and how to engage within them.

Fashion Communities

• StyleMob – Answer Style Advice Questions, Comment on user fashion, Post images, use forum to ask Brand Related Questions and receive consumer feedback.

• Fashionising – Heavy discussion about designers, fashion tips and style recommendations, and comment on blog posts.

• The Fashion Spot – Wide spread topics on forums, comment on fashion tips and include products and links back to site,

Male Related Communities

• Uncrate - Answer community allows users to post question and answers about products. “Real Advice from Real Men”.

• MadeMan – Young Men interacting about humor, sports, gear, “grub”, and women. Post comments and join in conversations about related topics.

• Art of Manliness -  This community requires member profile allows connection hub for men to brand. Community supplies member birthdays, events, and forums.  This gives the brand multiple levels of potential conversation.

Parenting Communities

• Cafe Mom - Thousands of conversations discussing multiple baby & children brand products to engage in, supply links within, and comment on. Comment on pictures that use products. Join and host groups to supply more content to curious users.  Write a daily journal, being transparent and clear.  The community manager here should be a real mother or father.

• iVillage Parenting – Message board based community that offers thousands of threads and open ended conversations.  Brand manager should be a transparent parent and communicative.  This community requires active conversationalists who will stay on topic and be insightful.  There are many opportunities to supply other users with links and brand related content.

Not leveraging communities that tie into your brand niche is a waste of many opportunities that are available online.  There are thousands upon thousands of communities dedicated to certain niches.  These communities and networks are stimulated on a daily and hourly basis by consumers who are actively seeking out information, posting thoughts and reviews of their own, or just stopping by to read up on new content.  By engaging with these users in a space that they are most commonly not marketed to, yet in a friendly, one-on-one level could help to create new customers and brand evangelists.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter here.  Get more 10e20 goodness by subscribing to our RSS feed here.

55699 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/03/08/interact-but-dont-be-a-jerk/How+to+Interact+Within+Your+Target+Communities+%28Without+Being+a+Jerk%292010-03-08+19%3A31%3A38Stephanie+Weingart

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Right now, as you are reading this, there is a blog being born.

There is a community about Fly Fishing with five hundred users and a “Work from Home Daddy” Blog Network with over forty-seven active blogs that have thousands and thousands of unique viewers.  Say you run an online ‘Bait and Tackle’ company, wouldn’t this be very valuable information?

Here are 5 easy steps that will help you learn where and how to start finding these magic portals of consumer engagement and information.

1. Search questions, not terms – this is the easy part.

If you haven’t already, search all of the brand terms and sayings that are a part of your business and trade.  You might be surprised what you find when you search for a question instead of a product name.  By searching for “How To’s…” and action terms like; “Fishing in the summer” you will find a plethora of blogs and networks of people actively discussing your niche.

2. Social Network Searches – Analyze the competition and what your audience might be doing online.

 

Search your chosen terms and questions on Search.Twitter.com and http://www.facebook.com/search/ .

 

You are now able to search Facebook users status updates.  This will help you to pinpoint who is an active audience and who you might want to target.   Take some time and research the audience.  What other networks are they a part of?  How do they prefer to communicate?  This will help you when you decide what Social platform to participate the most in.

3. Blogsearch – http://blogsearch.google.com/

By Searching Google’s Blog search engine you will be able to find sites that are hooked up to an  RSS feed that match your query.  You can set date range, specific searches and can omit spam blogs identified by Google.

4. Alltop – Alltop is a current list of Blogs/Networks/ Websites that are respected and popular.

All lists are broken down by category.  This reference point makes it easy to find any possible types of blogs there are…. Even Fishing Blogs! New features of Alltop allow the user to login and make favorite searches and recommendations.

5. Social Search – Joongel.com

Using a Social Media search engine such as Joongel.com will pinpoint sites that are community based and social.  The site is broken down searches based on the type of social site you are  looking for; shopping sites, blogs, social voting and bookmarking sites, gossip sites, questions  and answer sites, and more.  It comes with a Web Browser Toolbar and is extremely helpful.

While searching these sites, create your list of sites, networks, blogs, and communities.  After you have finished all 5 Steps, you will walk away with a few, if not hundreds of sites that pertain to your business.  Hopefully this will expand your horizons and open up communities that your brand will be benefit from in multiple ways.

What are some simple ways that you identify your targets online?

By the way, you can follow the 10e20 Twitter account here.

546816 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/22/how-to-identify-target-blogs-networks-and-communities/Identify+Target+Blogs%2C+Networks+and+Communities+in+5+Easy+Steps2010-02-22+18%3A11%3A34Stephanie+Weingart

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Effective social media strategy and execution varies based on the type of business you’re in (B2B or B2C) as well as the particular business vertical.  Many marketers wonder if social media marketing is “right” for them, if they can be successful in social and how they’ll measure ROI.   These are important considerations for any marketer to ask before engaging in a new strategy or channel.

To help provide insight and answer some of these questions,  I want to share a couple of examples of real world Social Media Marketing cases with conversions and success metrics we’ve seen first hand.  And while these examples may not answer your particular strategic or tactical needs, they may provide  ideas on success metrics for different types of businesses as well as inspiration toward getting started in and measuring your social marketing efforts.

1. Internet Marketing Company - Business to Business (B2B)
Social Networking and Group Participation / Development on LinkedIn

This situation actually involves me in my role of business development at 10e20.  Recently I was on LinkedIn and a member of one of my professional groups posted the following message to group memebers: “looking to speak with companies with special focus on social news and bookmarking to help develop traffic to publisher website.” (Paraphrased) As soon as I saw this (about 2 hours after it was sent) I sent a private message to this member requesting a phone call.

The call was set up and several weeks later we were doing business together.  It’s likely that without participating in LinkedIn Groups, I would only have met this person offline at some date in the future, if at all.  And, because I was prompt in responding through the LinkedIn system, it gave me a leg up on competitors who may have only heard about this through second hand word of mouth.  The business lead was really quite targeted.

Conversion

• 1 new business relationship
• B2B Sale for ongoing consulting relationship
• Consulting revenue

ROI

By joining LinkedIn, joining several groups and being helpful to the community by answering some questions, this was one of the CHEAPEST new business leads I have on record.

2. Lifestyle Magazine Website - An online Lifestyle Magazine  + Blog Website, Publishing
Social News & Social Bookmarking

With a start up magazine/blog website that monetizes on traffic, impressions and cost per click (CPC) advertising, this publisher was working to develop new traffic and awareness of the website and its great content. Traffic was growing but with active participation in social bookmarking website StumbleUpon, and several other social news/bookmarking sites the new blog site accelerated its growth by having the content achieve rapid viral popularity.

The publisher has since built a sustainable ROI on time and investment in social marketing of content against advertising revenue.  Also, hundreds of new backlinks to the website have been developed as a result of social media content promotion.  The compounding effect of social news/bookmarking for this publisher is paying big dividends.

Conversion

• Traffic: 10’s of thousands of visitors as opposed to hundreds.
• Clicks on CPC advertisements: thousands of dollars worth as opposed to pennies.
• Impressions for CPM advertising
• Links for SEO and site authority: hundreds of natural links instead of one “here and there”.
• Advertising revenue

ROI

Creating content is part of the publisher/magazine business model so the cost that has gone into social really comes down to time spent bookmarking and submitting content.  The bookmarking efforts tally to a couple of hours per week.  Advertising revenue from CPC ads tied to social visits far outpaces the time invested for social bookmarking.  From this perspective the social media marketing is paying the business back many times over as most traffic is tracked to social media efforts.  This is not even counting the link equity (for search value) being built back to the publisher’s domain.

3. Consumer Fashion Brand - Major Women’s Fashion Brand 
Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter and more “profile” type sites.

A major national fashion brand with no social media presence worked over several months to establish a presence on social networking websites.  Organic growth of their audience on these sites surged to 10’s of thousands of fans and followers; over 75,000 between 2 brands and 4 social accounts in just a couple of months.

Public discussion on social networking websites provided direct consumer feedback to the brands about how to improve their products and customer service.  Additionally, social networking sites have provided a new channel to distribute deals messages increasing the foot traffic to key retail store locations for sales.

Conversion

• several hundred thousand dollars in new sales in three months of marketing
• new audience for the brand, reaching new, interested fans of the brand and engaging them
• more direct and effective Public Relations
• more direct and effective responses to customer service issues
• direct consumer feedback for product development. 1 new product is in development after only 3 months in social media

ROI

The equivelent of one mid-level employee’s salary to run a dedicated social media presence, strategy and management has yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars in return in positive online brand sentiment, consumer feedback for product development and actual product sales both online and offline.

These are 3 simple and real world examples of social media conversion and ROI.  One could go on and on with examples of positive social media marketing case studies.  It’s important to note too that for every success case there are likely an equal amount of social strategies that were fumbled and not properly executed.  With that, take stock of your current strategy by conducting regular audits, competitive analysis and measurement through analytics and benchmarking.  If not you can become part of the road kill and believe me, the road is littered with companies that fumbled their strategy.

We’re curious to know: what have been some of your experiences and cases with identifying, measuring and benchmarking social conversions and success metrics?

537219 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/17/3-examples-of-real-world-social-media-conversion-and-roi/3+Examples+of+Real+World+Social+Media+Conversion+%28and+ROI%29+2010-02-17+21%3A26%3A45Jake+Matthews

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This year’s Super Bowl ads seemed to disappoint viewers (although that seems to happen every year). Amidst controversy of banned ads and soaring costs (about $3 million for a 30-second spot), we still managed to see the same tired commercials (wow, look, some Go Daddy girl is ripping her shirt off while Danica Patrick gawks at her for the umpteenth time) and familiar brands (Coke, Budweiser, et al). With the increasing popularity of social media and viral marketing, I wonder if major brands will start moving away from the exorbitant costs and scrutiny that comes with Super Bowl advertising and take their campaigns online.

Pepsi’s already made the shift — a few months ago they announced that, for the first time in 23 years, they were not going to advertise during the Super Bowl, electing instead to focus on social media marketing. I think it’s a smart move — $3 million is going to go much farther online than in a one-time 30 second ad, especially in the age of DVRs and streaming video. With social media marketing, Pepsi can tweak its messaging to cater to different markets and demographics instead of trying to come up with a single ad that can appeal to the masses.

Also thanks to social media, you don’t have to air a commercial during the Super Bowl in order to reach millions of viewers. I saw this Old Spice commercial on TV and thought it was really funny:

The next day I checked Reddit and saw that the commercial was one of the most voted up stories of the day:

The comments were littered with remarks from users about how much they loved the ad and that they’re going to give Old Spice a try. This commercial cost a fraction of a Super Bowl commercial and already seems much more effective, as it’s getting laughs, views (nearly 200,000 views on YouTube already) and being shared.

So what does this mean for Super Bowl advertising? Well, I don’t think they’ll be going away any time soon; even though people have DVRs and can buffer the big game, a lot of folks still tune in to catch the commercials since it’s as much a part of the Game Day tradition as beer, chips and shouting expletives at the television. However, I think big brands need to start rethinking their advertising strategy:

1. Don’t just think about the Super Bowl audience, think about its viral spread potential. The Old Spice commercial is a perfect example — it had the humor element that tons of Super Bowl ads try and go for, but it was so absurdly amusing that it really resonated with the younger Internet demographic and is being spread around a lot. Think about ads that are so memorable, people will want to share them with their friends. The same goes for Google’s ad — it wasn’t the stereotypical funny/vaguely sexist angle that you usually see on Game Day. They went with a sweet little ad that stuck out among the others and is getting tons of buzz via blogs and social networks.
2. Speaking of sharing… What about flashing a Twitter or Facebook account or a microsite URL at the end of the ad for a wider branding spread? I don’t remember seeing any mention of social networking account profiles in the ads. The Internet is becoming such a huge part of marketing that I feel it’s important to cross-brand as often as possible. Heck, an ad could have even made fun of Twitter or Facebook and incorporated their profile into the spot. I could easily see Budweiser setting up an ad where someone “gifts” his friend a Bud Lite on Facebook and the idiot friend smashes his hand through his monitor trying to grab it.
3. Work backwards. Google’s ad had already been airing via its Search Stories channel on YouTube, and the response had been so positive that they decided to air the ad during the Super Bowl. Instead of trying to create a successful ad for the Super Bowl, why not test out some commercials online and air the most successful one?
4. Think about your ROI. Maybe other big brands need to pull a Pepsi and think about where their dollars are best spent. It’s not like we’re going to forget about Pepsi if they don’t spend $3 mil to remind us they exist once a year. Other brands should follow suit and shake things up a bit — invest a little more in social media and viral marketing to see if it benefits them more than a commercial spot. Not only can it yield positive results for them, it’ll open up the Super Bowl spots to other brands and diversify the commercials for once.

What do you guys think? Should Super Bowl advertising get a bit of a shake up in light of the possibilities social media marketing presents? I’d love to see creative online marketing attempts from bigger brands, and I think that’s where they need to start focusing your efforts. Your thoughts?

524319 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/09/are-super-bowl-ads-becoming-a-thing-of-the-past/Are+Super+Bowl+Ads+Becoming+a+Thing+of+the+Past%3F2010-02-09+20%3A57%3A01Rebecca+Kelley

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Welcome to the 2nd Social Media Hotlist of 2010!  This list contains hot topics for the month that could do very well on social sites.  Ideally you could use this to help aid in linkbait and content creation for social media.  Hopefully these ideas can help you harness the momentum of a current hot topic and get more traction.  Here’s what will be hot on social media in February!

• Valentines Day
  This Hallmark holiday <ducks> is always popular – especially if you get creative when putting together really creative lists.  Hint: If you talk negatively about V-day, you can get a lot more conversation and traction
• The Oscars
  Get your Oscar-related linkbait in now!  There isn’t much time left before Oscar night (March 7th), so get your content in early!
• Black History
  Take a look back at African-Americans who were pioneers in your industry, or look at how some of these folks helped us get where we are today!

• Bioshock 2
  This is the followup to one of the most critically acclaimed games of the past decade.  The game releases on February 9th and has a great deal of societal and historical influence and can be tied into a great deal of topics.
• The Wolfman
  This February movie release stars a fan favorite, Benicio Del Toro, who has to wear makeup that took 3 hours to put on (and one hour to take off), so mix in some special effects/hero & anti-hero/monster/cosmetics linkbait around this release.
• Kathryn Bigelow
  Another Oscar related topic, Kathryn directed ‘The Hurt Locker’, which is a film up for many awards, including best picture.  If she won, this would be the first time the award would go to a female.  And guess what? The director’s ex is James Cameron (who is also up for best picture).  Who else broke the gender barrier?  Who are some of the people who did so in your field?  All will make great linkbait topics!
• President’s Day
  Have any odd presidential facts or tie-ins with your industry?  Put them together as President’s Day is Feburary 15th.
• Super Bowl Spin-offs
  Follow up on spin-offs to the Super Bowl and use them as linkbait.  From the Puppy Bowl to the Lingerie Bowl, these spin-offs can be a less croweded space than Super Bowl linkbait.

Happy February linkbaiting!

Have any other hot topics for the month of February?  Feel free to share examples below, and don’t forget to follow 10e20 on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed.

52289 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-february-%e2%80%9810-social-media-hot-topic-list/The+February+%E2%80%9810+Social+Media+Hot+Topic+List2010-02-05+21%3A08%3A03Greg+Finn

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How much do you trust your fans?  Do you trust them enough to manage your Facebook fan page?  Do you trust them to converse with other fans that might have customer service-related questions or complaints?  A job like this should not be left in the hand of a customer.

Facebook Fan Pages are now thought of as the Brand Community or the Brand Hub.  Facebook users are accustomed to asking customer service questions and reaching out to the brand on these platforms.  If there is another fan behind the driver’s seat, how can the brand be sure they are being represented well?  Because these fans are not trained brand employees, the brand may not not be represented properly.  Why do some brands still allow this fraud to happen when there is a vast amount of knowledge about Facebook all over the internet?

There are many potential Brand Identity Disasters that can occur from misrepresentation on Facebook.  For example, 7Eleven is a very popular franchise, with their 24-7 Slurpees and delicious coffee drinks.  The Official 7Eleven Facebook page is really well done — it has over 185K fans that actively engage with the brand.  However, the brand name is commonly misspelled.  What about when the average consumer searches for “711″ on Facebook?

Here is what they will find:

Problems:

• Over 35 thousand fans have joined a fan page that never updates content and displays a poor image of the brand
• The fan page insults competitor brands with harsh language
• People who misspell the brand name have no option to find the official page

Sometimes the brands who are not participating within social media are subject to letting their fans take over completely.  For example; CVS is currently not participating in Facebook.  The CVS fan page is completely taken over by fans in a negative way.

Problems:

• Over 6 thousand people became fans of an imposter brand page
• The fan page has no brand information
• The fan page lacks any fan engagement on the Wall
• The photos that are uploaded by fans hurt the brand tremendously

Fan photos include an image of a letter from a CVS employee who is upset with the store and how it operates, images of a man who scams people outside of a CVS parking lot, and a faulty flu shot done at a CVS pharmacy.  These images have the potential to turn many customers away from CVS.  When choosing not to participate in social media, brands like CVS should look at competitors like Walgreens, who are extremely active and powerful on Facebook.

Facebook fan pages have the ability to serve as a Community hub where consumers can come and show their appreciation to other fans.  But fans can also actively show their complaints and aggravations with the brand.  Facebook users have become familiar with this practice.

When your customer comes to your Facebook fan page, asking questions about products, complaining, and looking for more information, who do you want behind the driver’s seat?  There are many resources out there to learn about implementing great Facebook fan pages.

Here are some tips on how to better control your brand on Facebook:

1. Search: Look for your brand terms and misspellings of your brand name on Facebook.  Make a list of how many impostor fan pages are out there and tally up the total number of fans that are engaging on these pages.  This is your audience!

2. Prepare: Are you ready to take over these fan pages?  Do you have the right content?  You will need photos, oodles of brand information, witty status updates, and a strategy to implement in order to engage and stimulate the fan base.

3. Create: You will need to create an official Facebook fan page and build it as if it is your website.  You should build tools and “Tabs” that are brand specific.  For example, if you are a movie theater, you’d want a unique way to show movie times.

4. Control: Taking control of the impostor pan pages is easy.  People at digital agencies have frequently dealt with this issue and work hand in hand with Facebook to take control.  It is extremely important to make sure that fans of the brand are getting the correct information.

519315 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/02/02/how-to-deal-with-brand-identity-theft/How+to+Deal+with+Brand+Identity+Theft+2010-02-02+20%3A44%3A20Stephanie+Weingart

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This morning I attended a Business.com webinar about B2B Social Media. While much of the information was fairly introductory in nature, there were some interesting tidbits that I thought I’d summarize/share.

Nowadays, social media seems to be about trying to keep your head above water and staying updated with the latest marketing trends in order to help your business and reach a relevant audience. The webinar shared a quote from a small business owner who stated, “At the end of the day, if we have spent a lot of our time tweeting, facebooking, and ‘me’tubing, I’m afraid [individual productivity] is on a rapid decline. What really gets done in a day that helps improve the bottom line?”

Below are the main social media challenges cited by small businesses:

It’s no secret that social networking usage among adults has grown rapidly in the past few years:

If adults are turning to social media and social networking sites, isn’t that a good opportunity for businesses as well? Absolutely — in fact, many businesspeople are using multiple social media sites and resources for business information:

However, there is a difference between B2B direct media and B2B social media.

B2B direct media:

• Tends to evolve slowly
• Is comprised of established best practices
• Is reasonably predictable
• Has a clear optimization path

B2B social media:

• Evolves extremely rapidly
• Can be comprised of temporary best practices
• Can be frustratingly unpredictable
• Has a shifting optimization path

A lot of B2B social media “half-truths” and myths have been floating around:

Myth#1: Nobody Uses Social Media for Business

A lot of business owners feel that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just for keeping up with friends. The fact of the matter is that social media resources are broadly used. Businesspeople are using multiple resources and investing aggressively in different media channels.

Keep in mind, however, that the perceived importance of using social media for business depends on the industry. This chart illustrates that different sectors regard social media marketing to be more important than others:

Myth #2: Community is the Core of Any Social Media Strategy

The word “community” itself is often misunderstood — it’s the core spirit underlying social media, but there’s a difference between “community ethos” and “community creation.” Social media provides the opportunity, but not the obligation, to interact with others. The webinar shared this Venn diagram to help illustrate the point:

Myth #3: Metrics are Difficult to Measure

Social media is very measurable. Its success is no more difficult to measure than other online marketing, as long as you’re clear about business goals and make measurement a priority. In fact, B2B companies are usually better at measurement.

The important thing is to identify your main focus areas:

1. Where is the real opportunity? Make sure your target audience is clear. Use 3rd party sources like Comscore and Nielsen to investigate target audience participation in social media. Survey your customers, look into which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your website, and find out where your best leads come from.
2. Immerse yourself in key channels. Each social media channel has its different nuances. Immerse yourself and commit to finding out how these sites work and what matters most for your business.
3. Do less with more. You won’t have the resources to execute effectively on everything, but you can do less (social media) with more (resources).
4. Stay organized to stay focused. Carefully target your initiatives for specific target audiences and objectives.
5. Focus on business metrics, not social media metrics. Business metrics are more important when it comes to benefiting your bottom line.

The webinar concluded with a POST analogy:

People — Understand how your target customers use social media during the business buying process.

Objectives –Align social media and activity with business goals.

Strategy — Determine how your objectives will change your relationships with customers.

Technology — Choose the appropriate tools and tactics to deploy.

Overall, the webinar shared some interesting stats about B2B social media adoption. Hopefully you found the information valuable!

51109 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/01/26/social-media-for-b2b-companies/Social+Media+for+B2B+Companies2010-01-26+22%3A09%3A43Rebecca+Kelley

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One of our biggest mantras here at 10e20 is to test out various social media outlets for clients and find what work, regardless whether or not it’s currently a “hot topic.”  Believe it or not, social media is more than just Facebook and Twitter, and one of my favorite sectors (for buying unwanted gadgets) is community deals sites.  A week or so I posted over at Search Engine Land about how to use these deals sites to help your business.  I broke down how you can use this to help your sales and talked about the following items:

• Don’t be too promotional
• Make sure the deal is easy to see from the submission
• Offer affiliate commission
• Use coupon codes
• Have a really good sale

If you want to read more (with full details), head on over and read the full post!

50897 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/01/25/how-to-use-social-deals-sites-to-help-sales/How+to+Use+Social+Deals+Sites+to+Help+Sales2010-01-25+20%3A30%3A36Greg+Finn

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One challenge some companies face in social media marketing is how to bridge the gap between stale corporate or e-commerce sites and social networking websites.  What is the link between your site and social networking sites?  How do you get people FROM social sites back TO your corporate site and visa versa?

Some “experts” posit the best solution is to just to slap badges on your homepage saying “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook.”  Or “make sure your site links are on all your social profiles” so people will see your link, click on it and visit you.  These are foundational points, but there’s more to successful social awareness for your company than showing your site visitors where your official socials account are.

The important and missing link  for some marketers may be adding a blog to their main site. Why?

Online social media users are constantly looking for new and fresh content. A site blog provides an opportunity to reach these users with fresh content related to your business.  With ongoing, strong and effective content creation – and sharing of the site blog content into social – you can create a tremendously effective link between your social networking presences and your main company website.

To demonstrate, here’s a graphic:

Site Blog Influence in Social Media (click to enlarge)

Though a blog on a corporate or product site is not a new idea by any means, it’s often overlooked for its added social sharing and conversion value.  If you are not a publisher, you’re simply not producing a lot of content that can be shared in social media.  Blogs provide this platform.  A blog provides an opportunity for visitors from social sites (who saw the content you fed in from your blog) to click back to the blog and then be only one click away from areas on your site where they may convert for product purchase, inquire for service or RFP, or perform another action such as CPC, email sign-up, RSS subscription, etc. And though social is not about selling all the time, all marketers have a responsibility to make their efforts pay off at some point.  Being able to access more opportunities for conversion is a true benefit with blogs.

There are deep considerations as to what type of content goes on a site blog, the technology to use, what the editorial schedule will be and who will contribute, but if you can settle these questions and a few other key strategy issues, a blog can be a fruitful effort and a core link in your social strategy.  It can drive deeper connections to your social profiles, sending traffic from social back to your blog and main site, and can provide greater reach to new audiences in search, social news, other blogs and mainstream press.

49995 Commentshttp://www.10e20.com/blog/2010/01/20/bridging-the-social-gap-are-site-blogs-your-missing-link/Bridging+the+Social+Gap%3A+Are+Site+Blogs+Your+Missing+Link%3F2010-01-20+23%3A18%3A25Jake+Matthews

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