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Three Tips to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn’s Company Following

April 29, 2010 in B2B, Business, Communications, LinkedIn, Marketing, New Business, Technology, prospecting, social media, twitter by gtaylor | 1 comment

LinkedIn may have the answer for companies that have been trying to find out how social media will work for B2B. LinkedIn puts their members inside companies like never before with LinkedIn’s company following feature.

By following a company, you’ll know about job openings as they are posted, who’s been promoted and who’s left the company, other LinkedIn members that have joined the company’s network and business opportunities that may become available.

Example:

This feature can be beneficial for the follower and the company being followed.  Here’s a few tips on how to get the most out of LinkedIn’s company following:

Pay attention to your target audience

It may be fun following Starbucks, Google and Cisco, but if you’re a restaurant owner seeking franchisees, save the fanfare for Facebook. Follow companies that are relevant to your business for potential partnerships or referrals.

Add others to your network

If LinkedIn didn’t want its members to network with other business professionals, the company would never have been created in the first place.  Use company following as an opportunity to add more people to your network (refer to the previous tip for help on who to connect with).

Use the feature with Twitter

One of LinkedIn’s best partnerships is with Twitter.  As you add connections on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter if they have an account.  People do not update their LinkedIn account as frequently as they do their Twitter account.

LinkedIn has always been a great way to use social media for B2B communications between companies.  As LinkedIn continues to upgrade their features, social media and B2B communications opportunities continue to improve.

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Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your eBlasts

March 26, 2010 in B2B, Business, Communications, Design, Marketing, New Business, email, emarketing, internet marketing, prospecting by gtaylor | 1 comment

People still question the effectiveness of eBlasts even though they subscribe to receive coupons, blog and news updates via email. An eBlast may not be working for you because the design and content are simply missing the mark.

On a daily basis, my inbox is flooded with newsletters, webinar invites, LinkedIn invitations to connect and, of course, eBlasts. Some of the eBlasts look like they were thrown together in ten minutes or less, and nine times out of ten, they are deleted.

If you’re looking to get more out of your eBlasts, here are a few tips:

Don’t promote – provide value

The biggest mistake most companies make when sending an eBlast is too much promotion.  You should be more focused on providing information your target audience will find interesting, and hopefully, learn something from.  Open the door for questions and offer advice.  You can get a good idea of what people want to know from tweets and discussions on LinkedIn. Providing your recipients with value will keep them looking forward to receiving your eBlasts, and they’ll be more likely to share the information with others.

Include social media

In addition to having your social media profile links in your eBlast, include some notable tweets or discussion excerpts to show what you and others are saying about the topic at hand.

Link to other RELEVANT sources

Although you are sending the eBlast, it doesn’t have to be all about you. See “Don’t promote, provide value” above.  In case you haven’t realized it yet, you aren’t the only source of information. Post a link, and quick summary of some articles you’ve recently read.  It doesn’t hurt or cost any extra money.  Just make sure the links you are posting are relevant to the topic of the eBlast.

Frequency matters

I recently ran an eBlast campaign for a client that had a weekly internet radio show.  The eBlast went out the last Friday of the month.  The eBlast included all the episodes for the month, sound bites from highest rated shows and best comments from the audience chat room.  The eBlast acted as a monthly recap and informed the recipients of what was to come next month. Eighty percent of the emails were opened each month, and the traffic to the client’s website dramatically increased. If the eBlast would have been sent weekly, the audience response would have been completely different.

Hire help

Doctors aren’t marketing executives and marketing execs aren’t doctors.  Hiring a marketing agency to help create an eBlast campaign will get you the results you are looking for.  Determining how to get through the clutter and come up with a creative design and layout for your eBlast isn’t easy, so why not ask for an experts help?

Yes, social media is a great marketing tool to reach large and targeted audiences, but it isn’t the only option.  You still have to get your message to those prospects or customers who work at a company that blocks social media sites and eBlasts are a great way to do just that.

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LinkedIn Works with B-to-B Social Media Marketing

February 23, 2010 in B2B, Business, Communications, LinkedIn, Marketing, Technology, blogging, internet marketing, prospecting, social media, twitter by gtaylor | 2 comments

Twitter processes 50 million tweets per day, more than 100 million people actively use Facebook on their mobile devices, and LinkedIn has surpassed the 60 million member mark as of December 2009. Social media is not only changing how people communicate with each other, but also reshaping the way companies market their product(s)/service(s).

But, how does social media work in business-to-business marketing?

LinkedIn may be a forgotten network, but it can drive traffic to your site or blog, help qualify leads, or expand your customer base outside of your normal demographic.  LinkedIn is a very powerful social media network.  If you are not using LinkedIn, here’s five reasons why you should:

1. Networking Potential

Twenty years ago, businesses used dictionary size directories, called phonebooks, to locate a company that may benefit from their services.  You dialed the number listed in the phonebook and you either talked to the secretary, who transferred you to a voicemail, or you were lucky enough to get through to the individual you wanted to talk to, but were quickly told that your weren’t interested. There was no chance to build a relationship with that person, or someone else in that company. LinkedIn allows you to network, share interests and helpful hints with professionals all over the world.  Whether it be over the phone, in a discussion, or simply messaging back and forth, LinkedIn can help make that initial interaction go smoothly.  Not to mention, your new LinkedIn connection can potentially be your new follower on Twitter or Facebook friend.

2. Validates Your Expertise

Many people have “guru” or “expert” in their Twitter or LinkedIn bio, and few live up to the name.  Group discussions and the Q&A forum give you the opportunity to share your expertise or past experiences that are relevant to the discussion topic or the question being asked.  Small business owners who are just starting their business frequent the Q&A forum with questions from branding to inventory management to public relations.  Taking time to answer a question may help you reel in a new client.

3. Displays Leadership

Being a follower only counts on Twitter.  Creating a group on LinkedIn allows your leadership skills to shine.  Groups are a great way to build an internal social network.  Target individuals who have a common interest and invite them to join your group. If you can’t dedicate the time to starting a group and moderating the activity, join a group and spark some interesting discussions and debates.  People want to interact with others and offer their two cents to the discussion at hand. Once people see that you are an active contributor to group discussions or news links, they are apt to view your profile to learn more about you.  If the company you work for has a company profile on LinkedIn, they’ll view that profile as well.  A little group participation can go a long way.

4. Qualified Lead Generation

Why pay for a lead list when you have a tool such as LinkedIn to assist your new business development.  I’ve had a few free trials of contact list databases and while they provide some insight to past marketing activity for a particular company, I have found LinkedIn to be more beneficial.  While you can’t view someone’s profile and know right off the bat what they are looking for, you can see who they are connected with, what events they attended recently, what groups they are a part of and if they’ve asked any questions or participated in any group discussions.  Pay attention to who has recommended them and why.  You may even discover one of your contacts or friends knows the individual you are trying to contact.

5. Inbound Marketing

LinkedIn can make your phone ring.  The more you participate, the more people in your social network trust you.  If all you are doing is posting links to your website, your chances of attracting a new customer is slim.  Going back numbers 2 and 3 above, active participation (and correct answers) displays your expertise and leadership skills.  Let your LinkedIn activity and company profile do the talking for you.  Monitor your website and/or blog analytics.  Get an idea of where your traffic is coming from. Chances are LinkedIn is going to account for at least 10%, if not more, of your website’s traffic.  Convert those visitors into customers.

LinkedIn is a valuable social media network for business-to-business marketing. The results may not come as quickly as you want them to, but building a trustworthy business relationship takes time.

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Don’t Settle for Being a Tweeple – Transform Your Company into a Twilebrity!

February 19, 2010 in B2B, Communications, Marketing, emarketing, social media, twitter by MOster | No comments

Photograph by Michael Halsband for Vanity Fair

The six women are profiled in the January 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, glamorous in trench coats and stilettos, flashing their mobile devices as they would the hottest designer bag. Who are these women, and why are they – and their handheld PDA’s – worthy of editorial coverage in a national publication?

They are twilebrities, Twitter’s version of celebrity. A twilebrity is someone who devotes a vast amount of time, energy and skill to tweeting, and is rewarded with a massive flock of followers. It is not necessary to be a traditional celebrity before being assigned twilebrity status, but some celebrities have reached Twilebrity status.

Who is next in line to join the twilebrity ranks? Ideally, your company is. Now, before you protest that you simply do not possess the time or resources to tweet your days away, allow me to clarify: I refer to becoming a twilebrity in your industry. The goal, at least initially, is to build a thriving online community of b-to-b connections. Establish a strong presence on Twitter among those in your field, and word will get back to consumers.

You can start building your follower base by heeding the unspoken rules of twilebrities. The most sacred law? Give in order to receive. Twilebrities are generous to their followers. As referenced in the Vanity Fair article, the most popular twilebrities (of the non-celebrity origin) respond to the majority of those who send them tweets. They are also exceptionally good listeners, paying close attention to their followers and often recommending certain followers to their hefty audience. Though at first glance this may not appear to be the case, at its core, Twitter is all about conversations as opposed to isolated tweets. This is part of its allure.

Gaining twilebrity status for your company is about much more than glitz and glam. Twitter, more so than any other social media network, is in the process of taking over the world. Its army of members has grown at a frenetic pace over the past two years. Make no mistake: Adding a social media strategist to your staff or campaign to amp up your Twitter account is a worthwhile investment, one that has a high potential ROI.

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