SWEET FACT: According to the report, Social Strategy for B2B Marketing 2011 (Global Web Index), B2B decision makers are the most socially engaged in the world when compared to average Internet users. It’s important to go beyond looking at social media as just a brand awareness exercise to seeing it as a valid lead generation channel.

What are some of the reasons you need a social media strategy?

• There are distinct principles to reaching a Business to Business audience.

• B2B must go beyond having a mixed bag of tactics that alone are meaningless.

• Social media can intelligently engage prospects and build a valid sales pipeline with the precise channels in place.

• Establish yourself and your business as an industry thought leader.

• Build a valuable search marketing practice to be found online.

• Create an additional customer service arm by learning to respond to enquiries in real time.

& most of all…

Deliver against measurable targets.

This kind of effort requires research, analysis, planning & coordination. The skills and messaging used on these platforms are very unique and also need to be customised to your industry. A strategic plan ensures you have tangible results. Without one, it becomes a big fat waste of time and money.

If people hover over your photo or profile on Google+ a neat caption will pop up. This is a great opportunity to highlight your skillset or specialisation. It works not unlike a tagline. Did you know you can customise what shows up?

Now look at my hover text above. You’ll see that in addition to my company, I have a tagline a bit like my official title. You could put a number of keywords that give a glimpse of what you are about. You only have seconds on the interwebs to make an impression. You have to dictate that you’re worth circling.

5 Steps to Customise Your Hovercard Byline

1. Go to your Personal Profile page and Click ‘Edit Profile’.
2. Click on ‘Employment’ to edit it.
3. Check/Tick the first box as ‘current employer’.
4. IMMEDIATELY after the name of your employer (in the same box), add any text you want to have show in your hovercard.
5. Click “save” and “done editing.” Done & done.

You may need to login and log out for it to show up.

If you don’t have anything in your current employer box, the hovercard text defaults to the following hierarchy (in order):
1. Places Lived (top location)
2. Occupation
3. Profile Tag Line (under your name)

Place what you want to say in your hovercard in any of those boxes instead.

Have you set up a Google+ Business Page for your business yet? We have a FREE simple 33 page Google+ Guide, packed with all the information you need. Download it now!

In which of the following, if any, does your organisation plan to invest in 2011?

Key findings:

• 80% of marketers plan to increase the volume of digital projects in 2011
• 76% of the marketers plan to invest in Facebook & 69% in Twitter
• Overall, 95% of respondents plan to use some form of social media in 2011
• 67% of marketers are increasing investment on Unpaid/Earned Media
• Just 14% of all marketers surveyed plan to increase investment in paid traditional media

While these statistics were taken from a global sample, the last point is reflected in the outlook in the latest IBISWorld Report on advertising services in Australia for the next 4-5 year.  Advertising services industry will have to reinvent its services to be more in line with increasing media fragmentation.

The survey respondents were split roughly evenly between the three target groups: agencies, brand marketers, and technologists from around the globe but mostly from North America.

It really depends on your purpose….

Straight from the horses mouth – Facebook Help Section….

“Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations of any type are not permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization. We have created Facebook Pages to allow organizations to have a presence on Facebook”. Indeed businesses are only allowed to open fan pages NOT profiles. A business which opens a profile page is in direct violation of terms of service.

Want to know if you have a personal profile set up for your business or a Facebook Page?
If people can just ‘like’ you to become a fan you have a Facebook page, otherwise if they have to ‘request to be your friend’ it is a personal profile.

A Facebook Page is a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users.
• Facebook Pages are indexed (registered) in search engines – making it easy for people to find
• Your Page can have multiple people updating it called administrators
• Traffic Report – Facebook Pages captures data on visitors too like age, gender etc
• There are no limits to the number of fans you can have on a page
• HIGHLY Recommend – You can add Facebook Applications like Video or Static FBML to enhance the experiences fans have with your      Facebook Page
• Driving word-of-mouth to a wider circle of friends.
• Ability to send very targeted private messages to your fans to specific regions, age groups or genders of

If you want maximum sharing capabilities and additional applications, than you need to push people over to your Facebook page politely.
BTW you do need to have a personal profile to have an account, but nobody can see it or access it without your prior permission.

We know there are numerous platforms for getting word out there in the world of marketing and there are a few important tips for viral sharing. But there is one thing that counts the most when it comes to encouraging people to really get involved. And that is creativity.

This Greenpeace clip below, if you haven’t seen it, is witty, intelligent and a pleasure to watch. With the right thinking, it doesn’t need to break the bank either. Some might call it Brand Jacking (in this case Facebook) but in my opinion, when done right, there is nothing wrong with that. So I am sharing it here and on my other social networks.

Take a look and see for yourself….

I would love to hear your current favourite creative clip in the comment section below.

Well for the first time last week, we saw Facebook Advertising trump Google Organic search as the leading source of website traffic.

Just to give you an idea, usually Google organic search dominates over 1/3 of the traffic sources for most of the websites we get to look behind. Referring website such as Twitter, Facebook COMBINE to make another third of traffic sources. Direct traffic mostly accounts for the last third.

However last week we got out eyes on Facebook advertising out doing Google search referrals for the overall month on a clients website.

Wait it gets better – the daily spend for this particular client was just 92 cents.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments sections below?

Also if you want to know how to get started on Facebook advertising, I did a little ‘How to’ video a couple of months ago that makes it super easy for you to understand.

The certainty of breakdown is quite phenomenal.

Let me know you thoughts below!