By Alexandra Reid
Although still invite only, Pinterest is skyrocketing as a popular social media platform among businesses and consumers. And while it’s not critical that B2B businesses launch their own boards right away, it’s certainly worth your while to check out the site and determine if and how it could be worked into a social media marketing strategy.
I’ve played around and done the research on behalf of our clients, and thought it might be helpful if I shared my findings for other B2B businesses interested in pursuing the new social channel.
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By Alexandra Reid
Whether or not blog comments are valuable has been debated for a long time in the blogosphere, but recently it seems more people are standing even firmer on their chosen side of the debate.
In a recent article by GigaOm, blogger Mathew Ingram brought up the comment debate once again by calling attention to the ongoing battle between TechCrunch writer-turned-venture-capitalist MG Siegler and VC Fred Wilson. Siegler “doesn’t have comments on his blog and has written several posts defending his decision, saying they are 99-percent bile and a waste of his time,” writes Ingram. While Wilson says “Siegler is missing a lot by not allowing comments.”
Ingram goes on to list some of the prominent individuals who have decided to turn off blog comments for various reasons, including Matt Gemmell and Seth Godin.
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By Alexandra Reid
Francis Moran and Associates now has a branded page on Facebook. As the community manager here and a social media professional, I’m delighted. But I think it’s important to explain why we took so long to decide that this was a good idea, in case any of you are also humming and hawing about allocating resources to support activity on this platform.
The value of Facebook to B2B businesses has been debated for some time. While the platform was launched in 2004, it didn’t gain major traction among businesses until 2009, and even then it was considered to be primarily a B2C channel. Only until recently has it become more or less conclusive among social media professionals that Facebook can also be an extremely powerful B2B channel.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a technology journalist and editor, Noah Kravitz is used to being on the perceiving side of the media lens. But for the last week, he has become the media’s focus as a dispute lasting more than a year with his former employer Phonedog.com escalated into a court case The New York Times says “will establish precedent in the online world, as it relates to ownership of social media accounts.”
The dispute began in October 2010 when Kravitz, a writer living in Oakland, Calif., quit his job at mobile phone site Phonedog.com. While at the company, Kravitz began engaging a following on Twitter under the name Phonedog_Noah. After almost four years, he had built a community of 17,000 followers. When he left, Kravitz said Phonedog told him he could keep his Twitter account in exchange for posting on the account occasionally for the company, reports The New York Times. As they were parting on amicable terms, Kravitz agreed. He began writing as NoahKravitz and developed his community for eight months after leaving the company. It was at this time that Phonedog sued Kravitz, saying the Twitter list was a customer list. It sought damages of $2.50 per month per follower for eight months, totaling $340,000.
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By Alexandra Reid
It has been another hot year for social media in the B2B space. While B2B companies are known for being relatively slow in adopting new trends, 86 percent of them are using social media today, and 69 percent of B2B marketers planned to shift more of their budgets towards social media in 2011. Looking ahead, Forrester Research reported that B2B companies will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009.
B2B marketers used social media in a number of ways in the past year to connect, collaborate and share more directly and effectively with their communities of stakeholders, customers, prospects, fans and other influencers in their respective industries. As B2B marketers became better at listening and engaging with their communities online, many have managed to harness the full potential of social media to improve business functions internally, provide their communities with immediate service and information and boost visibility and reputation for their businesses across multiple channels.
While this list represents only a handful of the B2B social media marketing trends in 2011, I felt, through my own research over the course of the year, that these were paramount.
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