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Content is set to be one of the biggest trends in B2B marketing for 2012, but the concept is not all that new. Corporate blogging began circa 2004 and with the growing ubiquity of social networks many companies have been creating and sharing content as part of their marketing strategies. It’s become central to customer engagement and brand awareness.
To be effective, orignal, quality content is key and  until recently companies had often underestimated the time and resourses required. The excellent infographic below (knicked from Jeff Bullas) shows that B2B marketers …

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Adding social sharing buttons to marketing emails significantly increases click-through rates according to a survey just released by GetResponse, an email marketing software company. In addition, recipients are more likely to share content on Facebook than on other social networks.
The survey showed that fewer that one in five email marketers actually include social sharing buttons within their content.  Considering the exceptionally high performance results for newsletters that include social sharing buttons ( an average click-through-rate (CTR) 115% higher), you’d wonder why more email marketers are jumping into social.
Here’s a handy …

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Creating brand awareness and enhancing corporate reputation are most often the objectives of content marketing initiatives, but marketers are finding that having quality content actually drives in quality sales leads, according to a report published by eMarketer.
“Informative, nonpromotional content in the form of webinars, white papers, videos, blogs and peer recommendations on social networks and forums can attract prospects,” said eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher, author of the new report, “B2B Lead Generation: Using Content to Acquire Customers.” “It can also be used to build and maintain ongoing relationships with potential buyers—a …

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The majority of moms online don’t mind getting marketing messages via social networks as long as those messages are directly relevant to them. This is the main finding of a study carried out by social media agency Big Fuel and SheSpeaks, a women’s social engagement platform.
The study, titled “Her-suasion,” surveyed more than 1,000 women from the SheSpeaks community on their social media habits, and results are reported on the 72% of women surveyed who are mothers with children under the age of 18.  It finds that mothers are more likely …

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The primary goal for businesses and brands using social media is to raise awareness and generate exposure, according to this week’s survey of fans of the Sherrilynne’s PR & Social Media Training & Consulting Facebook page.  It’s a fact backed up in the Social Media Marketing Report 2011 published last week by the Social Media Examiner.
Fewer than half of businesses using social media see it as a means to generate sales leads, a finding consistent in both surveys.  This means that social media is seen as important for public relations, …

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The professional social media marketing community website, SocialMediopolis.com, today released a list of the Top 100 free social media resources for downloading.  The list entails free eBooks, white papers, newsletter and magazine subscriptions, research briefs, technical papers, buyers guides and more.  A  huge range of social media and technology subjects, appropriate for small businesses as well as enterprise level companies are included
Highlights include training materials on how to  market on Facehook as well as how properly to use Twitter, manage Yelp, Digg and other social service sites. This list will …

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In 2011,  social networks are likely to surpass one billion unique members, according to a report by international consultant Deloitte.  Also, they may deliver more than 2 trillion advertisements.
However the data shows that advertising revenues directly attributable to social networks may remain relatively modest compared to other media.  With per member annual advertising revenue of about $4, that implies total 2011 advertising revenues of about $5 billion.
This is a divisive issue. Some people see social networking as the technology sector’s “next big thing” that will overtake search advertising. Others take …

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There are plenty of social media monitoring tools out there, some free, others can be quite expensive. And,
although many are very clever, tests have shown that none can be trusted to accurately reflect and report on the sentiment of conversations online.  That’s because they lack one important feature that is absolutely necessary to do the job well…a human brain! That’s why I’m introducing Sherrilynne’s social media analysis.
Order now to find out who is saying what about your brand on the social Internet!

Is sentiment positive?
Is social …

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It’s been almost two years since Facebook introduced private family groups, and then last October the concept was extended with the introduction of ‘secret’ groups. But many people are unaware of this function or don’t understand how to use it.
The original idea behind them was to let family or other intimate groups of individuals share very private content without exposing it to their larger Facebook friend communities. The launch last autumn extended the concept for use among other small groups, for example sports teams or book clubs.
The function is easy …

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It’s that time of year again..time to look back over the past 12 months then to look ahead to the next year.  Here’s a summary of this blog’s most popular posts of 2010.
10.  Facebook profile, page or group? This post explains the various ways to have a presence on Facebook. People are really confused about the options and choices.
9. Free report: who’s talking about you in social media? This limited offer for a short social media sentiment analysis sure did prove to be popular.
8. How to handle feedback This post …