News and Marketing Articles from mhn

Five Easy Ways to Grow Your B2B Twitter Following

james@marketinghelpnet.com (James Hills) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:53:50 GMT

There are lots of fun ways to grow your twitter following if you are a consumer brand looking to reach potential customers. What about business twitter users though? Many of the same tactics can be used, but B2B social marketing can be a completely diferent beast!

This list though should apply to pretty much any business-to-business twitter user from an IT company to a commercial lender.

Before you start though, it is essential to have a goal in mind. It really doesn't matter what that goal is, but if you don't know what you want to accomplish it you never will! A B2B marketer should have that goal in mind when tweeting. After all, these are simply techniques to grow a twitter following.

Ultimately it is your responsibility to keep your twitter followers satisfied.

Who Said Twitter Doesn't Matter for Business Marketing?

james@marketinghelpnet.com (James Hills) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:39:08 GMT

Tonight while attending an Elgin Chamber Business After Hours, I met a guy I hadn't know previously. After exchanging hand shakes and introducing myself as being part of a social media marketing company in Elgin, the guy recognized the company name and immediately goes "oh you're the one that tweets"!.

Immediately two important marketing goals were accomplished. A positive impression was made on a potential partner, and there was an opening to communicate more about what I do and how social media can help a business grow. Even better was the fact that I received confirmation that my efforts to share our insight and expertise hadn't just fallen on deaf ears and had instead been received and remembered.

In all honesty, I am not a hardcore twitter guy and I don't tweet 20 times a day. However, I know how to use it and I use it effectively for myself and our clients. Part of this success is that I have goals in mind whenever I tweet or share something on Facebook.

Many businesses think that to be effective they need to be a big business, a consumer business targetting kids, or need to be on twitter 24-7 sharing stupid pieces of personal information.

In fact, even sharing useful information that people can find value from can be valuable - and that's what we try to do.

For us, that includes blog posts such as this where we share real world examples of how social media can impact business. It also includes things like photos that we post on our facebook page from events we attend and interesting things we come across Overall, our communication strategy is designed to produce content think our friends and clients can find benefit from. While every business is unique and every industry has unique communication needs, virtually every business can benefit from building relationships through tools like twitter, Facebook, and a company blog.

PR is an Opportunity That you Can't Afford to Miss

james@marketinghelpnet.com (James Hills) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:24:20 GMT

Media is like lighting and you will never know when it is going to strike.

As such, it is essential that you always be prepared to talk and that you are polite and knowledgeable about the mission and role of the media. This should be true for your staff as well.

As with many pieces of advice on social media and public relations that I share here, it springs from events that I am part of in the real world.

This is no different!

Last week while visiting the Chicago Boat Show with a friend of mine, we ran into a situation with an exhibitor who simply refused to speak to a reporter after he introduced himself as a member of the media. This was even though my friend was wearing a press badge, was polite, professional, an even presented a business card identifying himself.

It is simply shocking that in today's fast paced world that this business owner would throw away an opportunity to generate positive press for his business - yet it happened! Sadly, this happens more often than you can imagine.

My friend had been excited to have found this company that runs fishing charters from downtown Chicago. However, because of the poor reaction from the owner of the company they lost an opportunity for being featured on the site, as well as social media exposure to the site's thousands of readers.

As I mentioned above, this isn't an uncommon occurrence when media work with small business owners.

To make matters worse, In today's world, many people have personal followings on Facebook and twitter that rival that of newspapers. As such, it is even more important to always be prepared and open to discuss matters with the media - unless you really couldn't care less about giving the public a positive impression of your company.

Social Media and Planning Social Interaction

james@marketinghelpnet.com (James Hills) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:00:00 GMT

It seems like it should go without saying, but social media is about more than just hard-core marketing of a product or service. With respect to marketing efforts involving social media, you should consider it as planned social interaction. After all, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others aren't magic and they aren't just places to advertise. Instead, they are simply ways to enhance communication with customers and prospective customers.

Interacting socially online isn't much different than it would be in the real world. Think of it this way, If someone walked into your place of business would you go up to him and say "Thanks for coming, download this ebook!" would you tap him on the shoulder repeatedly trying to convince him to buy this product or that? Would you walk up to someone at a restaurant having a conversation with their friend and say, "You know, that is a nice tie, I sell ties, visit my site!" No, you wouldn't. Or at very least you shouldn't, because customers will walk right out the door and never come back. Worse, they will tell their friends what an ass you are and you'll get a bad reputation.

The same is true in social media, but the trick is to develop a plan and a framework for how you can develop natural conversations and integrate those into your overall marketing program.

Just because you have a Facebook page, it isn't going to suddenly skyrocket you and your business to the stars. However, it is an opportunity to enhance your ability to communicate with your customers and interact with them on a social level - nothing more. That's where we come in and work with clients to better understand their business and how they can have a great conversation that makes people want to be a part of what they are doing.