Your CEO Should Participate in Social Media

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April 26, 2010 By 26 Comments

It doesn’t take long to discover that not that many CEOs actively participate in social media. Just last summer, for example, ÃœBERCEO noted that only two of the Fortune 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs had Twitter accounts!

If your B2B is using social media channels like YouTube, Twitter, Flickr or a business blog, here are some reasons your CEO should be regularly involved:

Participation, Active Involvement

CEOs should not be isolated from customers and potential customers. In fact, your company can seem more in touch with its audience if the CEO actively participates.

Of course, CEOs are, by nature, busy people; however, they should be part of your content marketing strategy. If B2B CEOs are regularly:

  • tweeting
  • writing a CEO blog,
  • appearing regularly on YouTube or
  • a podcasting

your marcom strategy can bring your CEO closer to your audience.

It’s not necessarily about involving them on EVERY channel, but your CEO should be involved somewhere that is clearly marked. For example, one of my clients, Stockholm University, draws attention to the vice chancellor’s blog as part of their social media strategy.

If you regularly receive a lot of discussion about your services on Twitter, get your managing director micro-blogging. From a customers point of view, there’s one thing to make contact with customer services and another to actually connect with the CEO of a company who takes your issues or comments seriously.

Beyond B2B Crisis Management

It’s typical to see the CEO wheeled out onto YouTube or the company blog if a crisis hits. There they are apologizing, assuring customers the matter is being dealt with blah blah blah.
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Filed Under: B2B, communication strategy, crisis management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Businesses that Blog Generate More Leads

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April 23, 2010 By 6 Comments

If you’re still not convinced about the value a blog can bring to your business, check out HubSpot’s recent study of 1,400 customers’ inbound marketing activities: The State of Inbound Lead Generation (free download).

The report reveals that businesses that blog regularly generate more leads than those that don’t blog.

leads business blog

Have you got enough leads

The number of posts you’ve published also has a direct effect on lead generation with fewer than 10 posts having no tangible effect whatsoever; in fact, you might as well not even bother blogging at all!

The tipping point seems to be 24+ articles published for leads to start coming in. And, unsurprisingly, the more articles you publish, the more leads seem to come along.

Why Blogs Are Good for Lead Generation

The reason blogs work better than “ordinary” websites is partly because they help your business increase the number of pages it has indexed in Google. With more pages indexed, and more keywords ranking in Google, you’re more likely to be found.

Blogs are also typically very good at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) straight out of the box, although there are things you can to do improve them even more.

Finally, blogs can be a great way of building and sustaining relationships with visitors to your site – although Facebook Pages seem to be increasingly popular places for this now.

Beware Blogging with Abandon

Although you might be tempted to rush out and start blogging right away on the basis of the HubSpot report, it’s important to bear in mind a few things to begin with:

1. www.yourdomain.com
Host your blog yourself. Don’t run a business blog on one of the free services like www.wordpress.com or blogger.com. You want all the google juice for yourself! It’s even better if your blog name / domain name includes your keyword: E.g. A dog trainer’s dream domain would be www.dogtrainer.com because people look for “dog trainer” in Google.

2. Design Matters
Although you don’t have to spend masses of money on getting a custom design, the more professional it looks the better. Appearances count, especially in B2B business blogging. Don’t just take my word for it.
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Filed Under: B2B, blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Malcolm McLaren Approach to Business Blogging

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April 11, 2010 By 17 Comments

I‘m a couple of years too young to have experienced the heyday of punk rock, but I was moved to hear of the death of Malcolm McLaren this week, one of punk rock’s greatest pioneering spirits.

malcolm mclarenFor all its opposition to mainstream culture, anti-authoritarianism and anti-capitalist ideology, I think that those of us involved in content creation and business blogging could occasionally benefit from approaching business blogs with a bit of punk attitude.

So in honour of Malcolm McLaren’s passing this week, here’s: A Punk Guide to Business Blogging.

DIY

Small business just starting out? Don’t be intimidated by the big business blogs out there. You can do it yourself. Define your niche, get an install of WordPress fired up, customize a great theme like Thesis and away you go. Make it happen.

Rebel

Whether you’re new to business blogging or have an established site, why not think about what you can do differently?

There’s a plethora of blogs out there that all sound the same, look the same and ultimately leave readers feeling the same.

One of the great things Malcolm McLaren did was stick the proverbial two fingers up at the establishment and the standard way of doing things.

How is your blog rebelling? Are you getting a reaction? Are people talking about you?

Be individual

Being yourself is essential. Don’t try to be another Chris Brogan or Seth Godin. And definitely don’t try to mirror your brand on something else. Look at your strengths and what makes your take on your industry different and play to them.

Give readers of your company blog a different flavour to the rest of blogosphere. Although some won’t like what you’re doing, you may well find there’s an audience who’ve been looking for a voice like yours.

sex pistols

Malcolm McLaren took on the world with the Sex Pistols

Celebrate the freedom of thought

One of the great things about the punk movement was the way bands, artists, poets and magazines broke the rules and tackled the topics they wanted to cover. In any way that they wanted to cover it.

Mashups aren’t just the domain of Web 2.0. Punks were mashing up all kinds of eclectic diversity with their creativity.

Ask yourself: what topics interest you? What way do you want to express yourself. Embrace the freedom of thought like a true punk and dare to be different.
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Filed Under: Best Of, blogging, communication strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Conversation is Marketing

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April 7, 2010 By 13 Comments

Is your business just listening, not engaging in the conversation? Are you monitoring what’s being said out there about your brand and then responding? Or maybe you just broadcast the message “Our products are great” on every channel open to you in some form or other.

conversation marketing

Is your business starting conversations?

With so many companies producing great products (or widgets!), it’s not just about the quality of the product anymore: it’s also about the conversations you’re having about your brand because conversations engage people, they draw prospects in. Conversations lead to sales.

The Channels Don’t Matter

You don’t have to focus on Facebook, Twitter, a business blog, YouTube, etc. These are just the channels, the tools.

If you’re going to transition your marketing from the old way of doing things to the new, online way of marketing, you need to drum it into your head that starting conversations on the Net about your brand is the way to go.

And by that I don’t just mean telling people how brilliant your product is. Tell them the story of the brand. Why widgets matter? Why you’ve dedicated your life to working with them! How to use them. Listen to other people’s suggestions. Get excited about ideas others have that you’ve never even thought of. And more importantly, be everywhere online and ready to have these conversations.

Conversation Marketing: Thinking Like a Publisher

With content marketing increasingly putting emphasis on quality content – cool videos, online tutorials, How Tos, Polls, You Name It, etc– the quality of the conversations you’re having around your brand will effect how people respond.

The very best online marketing right now is not a flash banner blinking on the corner of a screen. And it’s not a really cool picture. It’s something that starts a conversation that pulls people in and gets them talking and engaging – whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter or your business blog or wherever.
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10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Corporate Blog

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March 30, 2010 By 28 Comments

Like you, I want to drive traffic to my website. Not just trickles: I want stacks and stacks of visitors! And then some.

Here are ten of the things that I do to generate traffic; maybe they can help you as you seek to drive oodles of traffic to your own site:

1. Blog with WordPress

Ever since I made the switch from ExpressionEngine to WordPress and Chris Pearson’s Thesis Theme (no affiliate link) I’ve seen my traffic rise and rise. Sure, it was a bit messy shifting blogging tool, and I lost a year’s worth of posts, but I learned my lesson and now make weekly backups. And I definitely don’t regret changing.

traffic

Still after more traffic?

WordPress is an easy blog system to use. There are stacks of plugins to help you do whatever you want with your installation and since the Scribe WP plugin (no affiliate) for optimised copywriting appeared on the scene I’m even happier. I’ve seen my site perform better in Google and that’s brought in traffic. A massive 600 percent more traffic than when I used ExpressionEngine.

If you don’t take my word for it, the Top 100 bloggers can’t be wrong.

2. Blog Often

Google seems to like it if you blog regularly. Of course, people come only back regularly if they like what you’re doing, but I’ve also started seeing my posts turn up higher than they “should” in Google since I increased from 2-3 posts a week compared with 4-5 times.

Although it can be tough to write four or five posts a week I find that a bit of forward thinking, a bit of planning, a bit of inspiration from other people and some occasional hasty scribbling seems to keep things ticking over.
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