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.

What is FBML?  Facebook Markup Language, FBML for short, is simply HTML for Facebook.  FBML allows you to take HTML coding and insert it into the FBML application.  Facebook does its magic on the back end, and your fan page will never look the same.

Sound easy enough?

Unfortunately, you can’t just copy the coding on your website and paste it into Facebook.  You have to keep your coding within the Facebook wall size in order for your images to appear.

FBML allows your Facebook page to act as a landing page or microsite.  Using Facebook for a landing page or microsite saves you money because you don’t have to host the page on your server and don’t have to pay for a domain name.

Below are a few examples of fan pages using FBML:

Wendy’s ‘Get the Party’

SeaWorld’s Photo Adventure

Donato’s Pizza

Sunkist Soda

As you can see, your Facebook page can be customized to fit your business or product.  How will you spice up your Facebook page?

With over 60 million members, LinkedIn has proved to be a viable network.  A b-to-b social media strategy wouldn’t be complete without recommending using LinkedIn as a medium to communicate.  But, most people fall short of getting the most out of LinkedIn. Here’s a five tips to point you in the right direction.

Setup a Company Profile

Every company needs a profile.  There’s a large number of business owners that are active on LinkedIn, yet fail to have a company profile.  It’s nice that a link to your website is on your profile, but people want to know what your company does immediately after they see your profile.  Take a few minutes to setup a company profile, write a paragraph or two about what you do, follow the rest of the prompts and be sure to include your blog feed for the ‘news’ section.

Use Third Party Applications

Apps like HootSuite and TweetDeck are perfect for monitoring your LinkedIn network activity.  If you use HootSuite or TweetDeck to monitor your Twitter account, adding the extra tab, or column, is worth it.  Not only are you able to see status updates, but you also see what questions people in your network have asked, what groups they may have joined, any articles they submitted and what new connections they’ve added to their network.

Get Involved

If you are serious about social media, then you need to get involved.  Look at what groups people in your network are involved in, or, search for groups relevant to your business and join them.  Participate in the discussions or start a discussion of your own.  Don’t be afraid to use LinkedIn’s Q&A forum. You’ll be surprised how many people are willing to give you some advice.  Looking for blog ideas, browse through some group discussions, you’ll never know what you may come across.

Network in Person Too

People get so caught up in social networking that they forget about going out and meeting people.  Use LinkedIn Events to find out what networking events are coming up in your area.  Contrary to what you may think, people do attend these events.  If anything, it’s fun to see how many people recognize you from your LinkedIn profile picture.

Follow People

When LinkedIn added Twitter updates to their list of features, they quickly added a ‘follow’ option.  You can choose to follow people the same way you can on Twitter.  It’s a great way to keep in touch, and see what they are doing if you don’t use the available third party applications.

As a social media strategist, I have attended my fair share of webinars and workshops, and have found only a few of them helpful and interesting.

Half of them are about the social media basics, defining social media, or using the big five (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) for your business.  The other half may have a speaker that has been successful in using social media and want to share their success stories with everyone.

Here’s a few tips on choosing a webinar or workshop that will benefit you or your company:

Research the organizing company

You don’t buy a TV without shopping around.  If you’re going to invest your time into attending a ‘How to Use Social Media’ workshop, look to see how the presenting company uses social media.  It’s easy to find out how long a company has been using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and creating blog content.  As Google continues to integrate social media into their search results, a company’s social media presence will be more noticeable.

Search for hashtags

Most organizer’s promote their event with a hashtag (#).  The hashtag makes it easy for not only the organizing company to see what people may be saying about their event, but also makes it easy for people to see what others may have thought about the webinar/workshop.

Crowdsource

If you don’t ask questions, you’ll always be in the dark. Maybe some of your followers on Twitter or connections on Facebook attended a previous webinar/workshop given by the same company.  Ask them what they though or if the information was useful. Usually, you’ll get an unbiased answer.  If you really know your followers, you’ll value their information.

Review previous transcripts or presentations

Most webinars are archived for viewing at a later time.  Quickly skim through the podcast or slideshow.  Skimming through podcast make take a little more time than looking at slides but spending ten minutes of your time to avoid wasting 90 minutes is understandable.

Follow your instinct

If you’ve researched the company’s social media efforts, crowdsourced information, searched for hashtags, listened to the podcast or reviewed slides and you’re still unsure, rely on your gut feeling. Your time is valuable.  Besides, you know your social media skill level better than anyone else.

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.