By Alexandra Reid
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few months, Pinterest is a new, visually stunning social bookmarking site that is breaking records for new visitors. It received nearly 11 million visits the week ending Dec. 17, 2011, outranking Google+, and experienced a fourfold increase in unique visitors from September to December. I’ve written on Pinterest here before, but I thought it might be helpful to also share with you the recording of a Focus roundtable I participated in yesterday on the rise of Pinterest in B2B.
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By Alexandra Reid
Blogs are widely known for their SEO-driving potential because they are comprised of content, which is what search engines use to locate and index results. With Google’s Panda update, content has taken centre stage and businesses that post quality material frequently have the best chances of being noticed when their audiences search for relevant terms.
In fact, as reported by Brafton via Search Engine Land, 92 percent of marketers say that content creation is either “very effective” or “somewhat effective” for SEO, and 57 percent of marketers have said that they have acquired new customers from their blogs. On the flip side, 60 percent of business decision-makers say branded content helps them make better purchasing decisions.
I’ve read a ton of information on how to optimize content for search engines, and the vast majority of it can be boiled down into one fundamental rule: write content for your readers, not search engines.
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By Alexandra Reid
With the rise of social media, today’s B2B sales landscape is more complex than ever before. There are hundreds of social media channels. Within them, a vast number of conversations are taking place, from short greetings to passionate discussions about businesses and their products, new social and technology trends, even what people had for breakfast.
The process of digging through these conversations, uncovering qualified leads, developing them into prospects and closing sales through social media is becoming even more complicated as revenue cycles shorten and large sales become less frequent in a struggling economy.
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This week marked the one-year anniversary of our new blog. We thank you for being with us and participating in our conversations, which covered a whole host of technology marketing issues.
Last month, we offered new counsel for startups from startup founders themselves. Screenreach, Host Analytics, CommentAir, Genevolve and NanoScale all weighed in on the specific issues that all entrepreneurs should be aware of, including the importance of strong teams, ways to overcome the status quo, how to ensure your product meets a specific market demand, attracting a flagship customer, and how to bring to market a compelling product that is protected by a rigorous intellectual property strategy.
We also explored the benefits that could come from industry and academia working together, what an IP coordinator should know and tribes in a techno world. Of course, this list just scrapes the surface. Read ahead for more.
January 3: When selling yourself as faster and cheaper is no longer enough: Part 2 by Francis Moran & Leo Valiquette
January 10: Putting your assumptions to the test by Francis Moran & Leo Valiquette
January 18: Wanted: Partners willing to take a leap of faith by Francis Moran & Leo Valiquette
January 23: What an IP coordinator should know: Are we getting value for our money? by David French
January 25: Dealing with the devilish details by Francis Moran & Leo Valiquette
January 30: Preparing for a major offensive by Francis Moran & Leo Valiquette
January 31: You really can achieve great things when industry, academia work together by Jason Flick
And on a related note…
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By Alexandra Reid
Vimeo recently announced a number of site upgrades that will help businesses upload, showcase and share videos faster, wider and more beautifully than ever before.
The video hosting and sharing platform’s popularity skyrocketed last year, with an 82 percent membership and 48 percent unique visitor increase from 2010. It’s a good thing then that Vimeo decided to update its features to compete with other popular video channels in 2012. As a huge fan of Vimeo myself, I look forward to seeing these numbers increase further, and with all the hype surrounding “new Vimeo” I suspect they shall. Vimeo even attracted the attention of BBC News, which reported that the channel could pose a significant challenge to YouTube in the coming year.
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By Alexandra Reid 
