If you have already read J.Leigh Brown’s post about adapting your thinking regarding social media, but are still not convinced that you should include a social media strategy as part of your 2010 marketing initiatives, please consider the following:

Ten Reasons to develop a social media strategy in 2010

1. Real time search results – Google and other major search engines have incorporated Twitter into the results. You could potentially be bumped in the rankings by an outside party tweeting about your company or products.

2. Reduced marketing spend in 2009 – If budget cuts forced you to go dark in 2009, a social media strategy can help you reconnect with your customers and prospects.
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Is it just my imagination or is the Social Media landscape expanding faster than global warming on the Arctic’s polar ice cap?

On the publishing side of Social Media, we’ve got key players such as Wikipedia and Digg. On the sharing front, it’s Web sites like YouTube and Flickr. In the social networking arena, the heavy hitters are Facebook and LinkedIn. And don’t forget Twitter, which has taken blogging – in this case, microblogging – to a whole new level.

At this stage of the game, B2B marketers probably feel like they need a scorecard to keep track of all the Social Media players, their positions, strengths and weaknesses. The question is, which player is paying its dues right now in the minor leagues, poised to make a dramatic leap to the big leagues?

I don’t have that answer, but I do know one thing: Social Media is here to stay. And here’s
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Last week Google announced that they will be including tweets in their search results, and will be building a real-time search that includes Twitter and other providers.

What does that mean to a B2B company looking to optimize their web site for search? While the details of how tweets will be incorporated into Google results are yet to be determined, it is becoming clear that B2B marketers cannot dismiss social networking mediums like Twitter.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released survey results reporting that 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others.

The Google announcement is yet another reason to consider
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In my last blog on Creating and Maintaining a B2B Blog I offered some suggestions on who should write your company blog and how often you should post.
In this installment, I’d like to follow up a bit more on the frequency of posting and give some direction on what you should be posting.
The question we are often asked is, “How often should I add new content or post on my company blog?”
The simple answer is: When you have something relevant to say.
When you post and what you post is related. Let’s assume you’ve identified an internal “expert” or core team of employees with the responsibility of managing to your company blog. You now need to determine the frequency of posting and create a realistic schedule.
Let’s start at the top.
1.    Think Strategically
       a.    Does your company have a marketing and communications strategy? What you
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As social media continues to make inroads into the B2B universe, more companies are including blogs as a communications tactic. According to the Society for New Communications Research, 16 percent of Fortune 500 companies support a corporate blog while Forrester Research reports the number is closer to 29 percent. Both reports are one to two years old so I suspect the numbers are much higher today.

As acceptance of blogging continues to grow I thought it might be helpful to give some advice on how to create and maintain a company blog. This is the first of several blogs, each focusing on a specific topic.

Let’s start at the beginning. You’ve decided to create a blog but are faced with two important questions:
1.    Who should write the blog?
2.    How often should you post?

Some companies are fortunate and have an “industry expert” on staff, someone with broad industry
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A recent article in emarketer cites a study of senior-level search engine marketing executives who are not satisfied with how SEM is working for them. How about you?

As you plan for 2010, you should consider techniques and tactics that will help you get more and better B2B search results - organic, paid or both. You probably think I'm going to talk about landing pages, page URLs, meta descriptions, inbound links and other arcane tips. Nope. I will leave that to my colleagues, or at least to another time.

Today I want to urge you to use the "secret weapon" that will increase your search engine marketing results. It's called integrated marketing communications. Yes, boring, traditional marcom. Except that there is nothing traditional about web-centric, digital marketing communications the way we practice it.
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Ah, yes, the joys of summer! Warm weather has finally arrived in the Northeast. It’s hard to believe that the calendar year is almost halfway gone.

Now is a perfect time for marketers to take stock of their business-to-business programs. After all, the economy is starting to rebound and certain sectors are once again showing signs of life. But the big question is, when will we finally turn the corner? I’m placing my bets on the first quarter of 2010. (Nothing scientific here; just a “gut” feeling.)

In anticipation of a turnaround, marketers should take a step back and put their b-to-b programs under the microscope. Here’s some advice:

1. Revisit your goals and objectives. Is your b-to-b program in line with the goals and objectives of your business? If not, it’s time to make some adjustments.

2. Assess your priorities.
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Chances are your audience won’t be waiting patiently for you to return as the economy flips its frown upside-down. As marketers, we are challenged to reach our audiences where they want us to reach them, not where we think they’ll be. Listening and researching are imperative in order to offer a successful and relevant campaign.

Here are a few tips to consider:

Think like your audience. Could it be that they are no longer flipping page by page through your industry trade publications but rather reading an online version? Or do they prefer
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What Search Can – and Can’t – Do

Our friends at Enquiro recently published an article making some cogent points about search. 

On the one hand, it’s exciting to see search, including SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) flourishing as a marketing option. On the other, it’s alarming to see so many people jumping into an admittedly-sturdy lifeboat in a raging sea.

Rather than seeing search as a marketing channel, Enquiro suggests, we should view it as a connector, connecting interested prospects and customers with your place in cyberspace.

A similar article in Ad Age compares search to trade or in-store promotion.
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According to a study reported in the online edition of B-to-B magazine, display ads on the web have a positive impact on search activity, improving clicks for organic and paid search by 155% on average, depending on the industry.

The study by Specific Media, an online media distribution company, analyzed comScore Ad Effectiveness data over a 12-month period.  While the study was largely consumer-focused, there’s no reason to believe the results would be different for b-to-b or industrial marketing.

And while not conclusive, it gives credence to the theory that online display advertising has a branding impact.

In our experience, search, both organic and paid, routinely enjoys significantly better performance than other online media, as measured by click-through rate, time on site, pages viewed, bounce rate,
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