About aaronpearson


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aaronpearson has written 38 articles so far, you can find them below.


Search Marketers Pack ‘Em In at BMA Gathering

Filed under Infographic, Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 20 February 2012 at 22:52 {no comments}

It was a packed house last week at the BMA Minnesota monthly breakfast meeting to hear three local B2B pros talk search marketing. Clearly there’s interest in what can seem like a mysterious black art. (relevant infographic from Webmarketing123 below)

The local BMA team has the balance right here with two marketers sharing real-world experiences and one consultant-side specialist to go deeper into the science. In this case we had Nina Hale bringing the consultant perspective, paired with Heather Hayes, interactive marketing supervisor at Stratasys, and Craig Berdie, search marketing manager at 3M.

Hale observed that paid search marketing and natural SEO are great complements to each other. We all like the credibility and lower cost that comes from great natural search placement. On the other hand, when people click on those search results, we can’t control as well where they go, while with paid – while more expensive – we can set up campaign-specific landing pages to track ROI and optimize campaigns more effectively.

I found it interesting that Hale believes B2B buyers don’t want to see B2B ads on Facebook. I’m not sure it’s true. I would say, however, that you probably do need to be promoting a different kind of content to be effective in that more consumer-oriented “entertainment” environment. I believe it’s less effective for straight product or service promotion but could be quite effective for promoting engaging thought leadership content. But of course, that’s not as lead-gen-oriented, and thus the ROI is harder to assess.

All that said, Hale notes that having a good social presence – even without a huge number of followers or a lot of engagement – is quite important to the search engines. At this point, it’s probably the primary reason to consider a Google+ presence.

Hayes then shared the Stratasys approach. Stratasys makes 3D printers, ranging from lower-cost desktop models to huge systems that can “print” pieces several feel long. (disclaimer: Stratasys is a public relations client of ours) She talked about the need to balance keywords that generate lots of clicks with keywords that convert to leads, which is a great point.  A click is not an end in itself.

The other key part of Hayes’ effort besides the science of keywords is a detailed multi-channel content calendar. This builds in discipline to generate consistent content and also ensures that the content is aligned with the keywords. She confirmed what Hale said about the value of having a good social presence, claiming that engineers (her target audience) don’t engage well on social media but they effort improves their search results. She did note correctly that younger engineers use these channels more. (I saw that last year with our work with IEEE.)

The final presenter was Berdie from 3M. That company has really stepped up its commitment to search optimization, and in fact, they have an SEO Council in place to serve as a center of excellence.  Berdie observes that SEO was “once seen as shady” and is now seen as “a legitimate practice.” They get C-level support now because they have been disciplined about detailed analysis about which pages are getting exposed to search and how they are doing. Because they are able to show a significant potential financial pay-off, they are getting some funding and staffing increases to expand what they do in search. They expect every piece of content they produce to consider keywords.

All of the panelists said personalized search presents a new challenge. Personalized search refers to the way companies like Google give you personalized results to your search queries. Just because your company is listed first when you search on key terms yourself doesn’t mean the same will happen when your neighbor does it. Personalized search reduces access to information about how your search efforts are doing. For instance, Berdie says he has no access to information for the approximately 30 percent of searches on Google from logged-in users. On the other hand, the whole point of personalized search is to improve the relevance of the searches people do. That means that search should be working better. But it’s harder to track and assess.

I’d like to see more collaboration between folks focused higher up on the marketing funnel – like myself – and those farther down – like most marketers in lead gen roles. It’s great to see how we can benefit each other by producing the most compelling content that generates lots of engagement and conversation but that also motivates the right people to take action and move towards purchase interest. A healthy marketing communications program is carefully balanced across these phases.

SEO Captures Biggest Share of B2B Digital Marketing Budget

A Brave B2B Social Media Book

Filed under Resources by Aaron Pearson on 7 February 2012 at 00:14 {no comments}

A couple weeks ago I published here a Q&A with Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen on their new book, The B2B Social Media Book: Becoming a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads With Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email and More. Here’s my review of the book itself:

Kipp and Jeffrey have chosen to bravely go right to the heart of the matter: how to apply social media for B2B lead generation. While there’s more to social business than lead generation, it’s refreshing to read a book that says it’s okay for social media to bring you more leads. It will help us earn the budgets from senior executives to further develop social channels. As they said in the book, “Social media marketing isn’t about hugs, kisses, rainbows, or any other fluffy happy words.” Engagement, in a marketing sense, needs to lead either to new sales or repeat sales.

Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen

Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen, Authors of The B2B Social Media Book

The authors correctly note that compelling content is essentially the fuel that makes social media marketing work. They explain how to leverage blogs as central hubs of content to move prospective customers to the all-important Call to Action that leads to positive ROI for social media investments (“Tweeting a landing page doesn’t kill a puppy.”) They also correctly note that reach is underappreciated in B2B. In most B2B segments, we do need online advertising, media relations and other reach-generating tools to introduce new audiences to our content and value propositions.

That said, there are certainly creative alternatives to corporate blogs. Facebook can be used in similar fashion.  Sophisticated social hubs like Cisco’s The Network also work, though they are much more expensive to maintain. A blog is a great way to start. And of course, ideally, you’d use all these things.

I would also argue that the chapter on calculating ROI is overly simplistic, especially if your business model is built on long-term customer relationships.

Finally, it’s also important for readers to understand there are realms of social media program management that are just as important and that are beyond the scope of this book, including customer service and customer relations, employee communications, and corporate reputation management to name a few (think topics like social media crisis management or online customer communities for ideation). In practice, a marketer must collaborate effectively with these parties to thrive in this interconnected world.

But that’s not what this book is trying to cover (and in fact, Kipp hinted that perhaps B2B customer communities could be their next book). From tradeshows to Twitter to the mobile Web, Kipp and Jeffrey have given you a crisp tome on bringing real accountability to B2B marketing to generate tangible results in social media. Remember that engagement is a means to an end for a marketer, not an end in itself. This book is a very good guide.

It’s Time for B2B Social Media Marketing to Generate Leads

Filed under Discussion, Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 23 January 2012 at 14:16 {no comments}

A B2B Voices Q&A  With Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen

I just finished reading The B2B Social Media Book: Becoming a Marketing Superstar, by Kipp Bodnar (day job at HubSpot) and Jeffrey L. Cohen (day job at Radian6), hot off the presses this month. I recommend it. Despite the title, it doesn’t try to encompass everything you need to know about B2B social media marketing.  Rather, it tries to open the lock box to social media lead generation. Frankly, that’s the way we’re going to get a lot of B2B companies to start to take social media more seriously.

I’ll follow up with a longer review but I had a chance to ask Kipp and Jeffrey a few questions after reading the book, and here’s what they had to say!

Aaron:  You both obviously have a lot of passion for B2B marketing in general, and social media specifically. Why? Where did that come from?

Kipp: It is what I have always done. Since the beginning of my career I have worked with B2B companies mostly at marketing agencies and then here at HubSpot. I love the challenge of B2B. B2B marketing is the ultimate in problem-solving and storytelling. It is awesome.

Jeff: I, too, have always worked for B2B companies, including marketing agencies that focused on B2B and companies that sold through distribution. It is more exciting to live in a world where the product quality and company knowledge are the basis of a sale, rather than the correct Pantone color. The longer sales cycles require companies to build customer relationships that can be nurtured, rather than offering promotions and discounts.

Aaron: What is most misunderstood about B2B social media marketing?

Kipp: For me it is reach. In traditional marketing, B2B companies obsessed over narrow targeting because executing marketing tactics was expensive. Social media has changed this. Narrow targeting hurts B2B companies online. Bigger reach is needed to generate word-of-mouth and leads online. Even if a social media follow isn’t a potential fit as a customer, they have the opportunity to share your content with someone who is, but this is impossible to predict. Thus the need to actively build reach online. 

Jeff: The notion that social media marketing is a business-to-consumer-only activity is most misunderstood. Many conservative B2B companies think that just because there is less volume of conversation around their company, products and industry, that social media is not for them. This ignores the benefits that social media brings to search, and the ability to leverage and share the knowledge and expertise imbedded in B2B companies to build and nurture relationships required for lead generation. 

Aaron:  Why the intense focus on lead generation in the book?

Kipp: Lead generation is the genesis of B2B success. Marketing must generate leads and revenue to survive. Yes, branding, public relations and other aspects of marketing are important, but they can’t compensate for the lack of a solid lead generation strategy. If lead generation is sound, all of those other aspects of marketing can supercharge it. 

Jeff: We know that social media adoption is very slow for B2B companies, no matter what online surveys say. We chose this important slice of social media activity, lead generation, because when success, it demonstrates real value of social media. It is much easier for C-Suite executives to endorse rolling out social media across an organization if it has already generated revenue through this one approach.

Aaron: I especially liked your more integrated focus on bringing prospective customers along a path from initial reach to signing on for content (like liking a page) to ultimately responding to a call to action and becoming a lead. Give us an example or two of who does that well.

Kipp: Breaking Point Systems down in Austin, TX is crushing it. They sell network testing equipment, which is a high-consideration and long buying cycle B2B purchase. We featured their vice president of marketing, Pam O’Neil, in the book. They have an awesome blog, a website that is super SEO-optimized and a social media presence that is engaging and drives traffic and leads back to the website.  Pam told us that they have a 2800% ROI from their online leads. 

Clear Risk is a finical services company in Canada that is also doing a great job. They have an awesome Facebook page, Twitter page, LinkedIn Page, blog as well as a calls-to-actions and lead generation offers. 

Aaron:  What about nurturing existing customers?  Private B2B communities are big in some industry segments like enterprise software, for instance, but this seemed to be less of a focus in this book. Why?

Kipp: Honestly, that is another book. You’re right. Lead nurturing as well as customer retention is huge revenue-centric application for social media. We just didn’t have the real estate to cover it properly in The B2B Social Media Book, so we decided to save it for another one. We think that having a solid customer generation strategy is the right first step, and too many companies still need to improve that. Lead nurturing is the next step.

B2B Companies Need to Be Prepared for Crises Too

Filed under Discussion, Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 18 January 2012 at 21:42 {one comment}

I attended a Minnesota Business Marketing Association breakfast yesterday that served as a reminder that crises can happen to B2B companies too, not just cruise ships. Unpleasant things happen – planes with executives crash, workers strike, products fail, plants close, tornadoes strike.

The speakers were Jon Austin, former spokesperson for Northwest Airlines and now with his own firm, and Paul Omodt, VP at Padilla Speer Beardsley and a former PR person for the Northwest chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association. When I was in college in the Twin Cities, I saw Austin in the local media more than I saw the White House press secretary. You can imagine the issues they had to deal with.

Jon Austin at Minnesota BMA on Crisis Preparedness for B2B

Here’s the quick takeaways:

First, yes you probably need some kind of crisis plan, even as a B2B company. Think of Arthur Anderson.  Respected, in business for like a hundred years, and then thanks to the Enron collapse, out of business in the blink of an eye. Austin noted that what killed Arthur Anderson was not the lawsuits filed, because those took 10 years to get through the courts. Instead, in the first month or two after the Enron collapse, they had clients calling them up say, “We love you guys and know you didn’t have anything to do with what came down in Houston, but we just can’t have you signing off on our financial statements.” Reputation damage killed them.

As Austin put it: “Dinosaurs were pretty dominant at one time, and now they’re pretty damn dead.” Don’t be a dinosaur.

Second, drill on crisis plans. It’s time-consuming to put these things together and it can be a relief just to finish but without practicing their implementation, they are still likely to fail you. For one thing, people panic. Is this a crisis?  Do I really pull the trigger on this plan now?  Practice makes them comfortable. Second, it’s a great way to learn if it really works, if the roles are all covered. You don’t want to find out you haven’t adequately prepared for the likely contingency that your CEO will be oversees, your phone system will be swamped, and your email wil be down. It’s a chance to be comfortable with the plan and identify any weak spots in it.

Remember 9/11? Austin was with Fleishman-Hillard by then, working on the United Airlines account. The crisis plan called for flying all the key crisis team members to Chicago as a central coordination point. The team hadn’t considered the possibility that U.S. airspace could be completely closed down. Fortunately, Austin was able to drive to Chicago from Minneapolis, but you can bet all those airlines learned from that experience.

The more realistic the rehearsal the better. We have a great product offering that I’ve written about before called Firebell  for drilling on a crisis. The strength of Firebell is it’s been designed to simulate a crisis on a social world, letting you see not only what happens on the local TV news but also what happens on your Twitter account, Facebook and other social channels. (blog post on it or email me)

Finally, keep the plan refreshed. A reorg can eliminate a team of people important to executing the plan. New products are developed and old ones are sunsetted. New markets are entered. Crises are not viewed the same all over the world.

Interesting comment from Omodt – some insurance companies will lower your company’s premiums if they know you have an effective and up-to-date crisis plan in place – something to look into.

In closing, says Austin: “Be a mammal. Don’t be a dinosaur.”

Digital on the Rise in B2B, But Audience Engagement Lags

Filed under Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 5 December 2011 at 23:40 {no comments}

Recent research from Forrester has good news and bad news, from my perspective. On the one hand, Tracy Stokes, in “Marketing Budgets for 2012 Expose a Fear of Commitment,” notes that B2B marketers are moving to digital even faster than their B2C counterparts. Unfortunately, how they are doing so seems to be putting immediate gratification (i.e. leads) over the kind of richer relationship-building enabled by social media and creative digital programming.

First, the good news. According to Forrester’s research, which I would treat as directional rather than quantitative because of its small sample size, more than half of B2B marketing leaders see an economic recovery in their industry next year, compared to less than a third of B2C marketing leaders. Also, digital media now comprises 28% of B2B marketers’ budgets, ahead of their B2C counterparts (22%).

Are you investing in the long-term relationship?

Wow, right? Except what are they spending it on? Not innovation, which is expected to be cut in half from an already small base. Not brand building. Not relationship building. Transactions. Or at least that’s where the emphasis is.

I understand, I’m empathetic, really.  If you don’t win today, there is no tomorrow. But that’s a little like the federal government cutting taxes to spur economic growth without a plan to address long-term deficits. Ultimately, there’s a nasty price to pay.  What are some of those costs? Here’s four:

  • Commoditization
  • Reduced customer loyalty
  • Declining pricing power
  • Reduced market focus

Ouch. As with everything in life, success is about finding a healthy balance of investment through the marketing funnel – and beyond it to nurture customer advocates too. I’ve been part of award-winning communications plans that piled heaps of interest into the top of the funnel only to be plugged up at the bottom, and that’s no good either. But we have great opportunities now to do build stronger B2B brands and increase customer and prospect engagement all while effectively driving sales.

Building an positive and engaged bond between your brand and your customer is a powerful defense against commoditization. Leveraging social media to improve product development and customer service grows advocates and reinforces loyalty. A real commitment to listening to customers through social channels is effective (and cost-effective) at reminding you what your brand really is all about, and what it’s not about, so the organization stays focused on where it can be most successful. Here’s to a digitally engaged 2012!

World-Class Social Practices for B2B Companies

Filed under Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 26 November 2011 at 19:57 {2 comments}

One of the themes of my writing about social business in 2011 has been that it is time to move beyond experimenting (though don’t STOP experimenting) to pursue social business endeavors that are meant to drive real business value. You can imagine what that means for 2012.  It means if you are not doing this by now, you are probably falling behind your competitors.

So it’s worth keeping an eye out for what those competitors are doing, especially the best ones.  Weber Shandwick recently conducted a study in conjunction with Forbes Insights to identify what makes brands social – and how. What was particularly noteworthy about the online survey (which was fielded this spring) was its global scope – 1,897 senior executives from larger companies across 50 countries in North America, Europe, Afria, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Executives were selected because their roles put them on the front lines of “brand sociability.”

From this, we were able to highlight what the industry leaders’ practices were compared to the average respondent. We called it the 9 Drivers of World-Class Sociability. You can read a full white paper on it here (and check out the infographic at the end), but I thought I’d pull out three of the drivers that have more resonance to B2B companies:

1. It’s Not the Medium, and It’s More Than the Message. It’s natural for us to get started in social and digital channels being enamored with the channels themselves. Do we need a corporate blog? Or Twitter? Should we try to build a LinkedIn community?  But the use of social channels has become so ubiquitous that it’s no longer notable whether you are using them but HOW you are using them. The message part speaks to the fact that one of the keys to that how is to focus on original content specifically for social channels. Forty-five percent of world-class companies do this, compared to only 28% of global companies in general. This is not necessarily easy or cheap but it is unquestionably the way you break through. I keep coming back to Cisco’s The Network as the B2B gold standard. They have editors as employees and a team of top journalists contributing articles to the site. They can pitch story ideas just like freelancers pitch magazines.

2. Listen More Than You Talk. And there is one audience in particular you should listen especially closely to – your customers. Social media can be great for this. World-class companies are 77 percent more likely to constantly monitor or research their fan pages to determine what their customers want from them than other global companies, and are nearly twice as likely to have changed a product or service based on specific recommendations from social network fans. If you are a B2B company with a big brand presence, like Oracle in enterprise tech or Intuit in SMB, you might be able to do much of that listening in public social channels. On the other hand, you can also construct an online community for your customers so they can better connect with each other and you can harvest product and service ideas more intensively. FICO has done this for some of its enterprise offering quite effectively leveraging a cloud platform, providing a user-conference feel all year round. But ask your customers first where they go to exchange ideas and information before embarking on such a project. It’s much easier to go where your customers already are.

3. Count What Matters – Meaningful Engagement. Business-to-business marketers know it’s about effectively reaching the right high-value customers and building deep relationships with them, and not about reaching a million poorly targeted people. After that trade show, you don’t treat every lead the same. It’s no different on social channels. It’s one thing to get someone to follow you. It’s another thing entirely for them to engage with you in a way that demonstrates either brand loyalty if they are an existing customer or readiness to buy if they are a prospect. We need to focus a lot more on these folks. And keep in mind that metrics can be very misleading because a highly respected influencer writing a positive blog post is a lot more valuable to you than a similar post from someone with little credibility.

Of course, that’s not an excuse to avoid metrics but emphasize those that point to engagement and ultimately ROI. World-class companies, for instance, are much more likely to use the number of contributors to their online communities as a key metric, not just page views. They are more likely to look for ways to measure revenue contribution, sales conversion, reduced call volume and other metrics that point more closely to ROI. The average global company still relies primarily on page views.

Enjoy the infographic.

Based on a study by Weber Shandwick and Forbes Insight

Content Fusion: How Stories Are Shared in a Social World

Filed under Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 28 October 2011 at 13:13 {no comments}

It’s become apparent for some time in the world of professional communicators that traditional ways of thinking about how we package and share content – or, stories, if you will – are inadequate for the Web. One of the very best videos to articulate the problem, Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, is now several years old. It also pointed to the solution.

Issues: Online, people simply do not consume much of their information in linear form in a singular format in a singular vehicle the way that you might have consumed a traditional printed newspaper or sat down and watched the network evening news on television. Hypertext destroyed linearity, encouraging us to jump from story to story and to share stories more easily with each other. XML separated the form of a page from the content of a page, which meant that suddenly content could be syndicated in many places and be presented differently in each place. Witness Flipboard. Social media growth means most often the content I consume comes from friends or organizations I trust rather than traditional news sources, even if it was nevertheless created by those traditional sources.

Weber Shandwick, my agency, has introduced a new model for online storytellers, which every organization should consider themselves to be. It’s called Content Fusion, and it harnesses and works with this new freedom to separate content from format and channel.

Here’s the way to think about it: Every company has stories. Think about the stories you have to tell first.

Then, think about format. Some stories are better suited to text, some to video, photos, audio, or some combination.

Then choose content vehicles. Only now do we start to say, “Should this be a news release?” Or a white paper, a blog post, a podcast, a presentation… Probably a combination, because different people respond differently to different content vehicles.

Okay, now consider communications channels. They may be branded channels, like your website. They may be “earned” channels like the opportunity to place your story with traditional media, online or off. They may “shared” channels like Facebook, where you have some control, but you share it with your audiences.

Finally, prepare for and encourage conversation. Not only do your stories travel farther when shared by others (witness the power of “friends of friends” on Facebook), but they carry more credibility. Plus, the content can be reshaped in new and unexpected, mashed-up ways.

Watch the YouTube video and tell me what you think.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata Talks Tech at MN Blogger Conference

Filed under Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 10 September 2011 at 15:46 {2 comments}

I actually caught two sessions from Julio Ojeda-Zapata today, who is a pretty well-known techie here in the Twin Cities as a reporter and columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and an author (fellow attendee recommends iPad Means Business). First one was on Posterous and the second on mobile blogging in general.

Posterous is great for making seamless blogging of lots of different content formats as easy as possible. Worth noting today that there are some notable restrictions on commercial use of it, like no ads allowed, however. (sounds like Tumblr doesn’t have these rules) interestingly, Julio notes that Guy Kawasaki, who is a Posterous investor, uses some sort of form of Posterous for his Holy Kaw! site, which does do advertising and some other things Posterous doesn’t do. I’d say it will get more commercial friendly so they can make some money.

He also reviewed tons of mobile blogging and related apps for us (iPad and iPhone only). A few from, as he says, “completely crap to awesome,” (admitted overstatement for effect):

* Blogger: Not optimized for iPad. Very basic blogging, there isn’t a lot of flexibility, very dumbed down.
* Tumblr: not optimized for iPad. Quick posts work just fine. Dashboard well done for handling different format types. Easy but limited.
* Tumbleroo: Watched it just crash. iPad optimized. Can send to twitter. Because it’s for tumblr, you can schedule posts. Crashed again. Hmm.
* WordPress: Hugely popular blog platform and the one we use here. App is optimized for iPad. Blog management features. Oops, just crashed. Still limited flexibility for basic posts.
* Blogger+ starts to get more interesting. Ugly interface, a little more flexibility. Can publish to multiple platforms. Weird thing is just that you have to create separate containers for text, for images, etc. But overall a richer experience.
* Blogbooster is not optimized for iPad but awesome for iPhone. Clearly gives title and description for photos, can use a slider to set image size. Supports many different blogging platforms.
* Blogpress supports many platforms, and is optimized for iPad. Button to assign location is nice. Automatically adds this line: “Posted using blogpress from my iPad,” so need to delete that. When you click and hold on an image it opens up a bunch of options for formatting. For instance, You can wrap text around phot, which you can’t on a lot of mobile apps. Can assign a URL to the photo. Also asks if you want to notify your Facebook friends.
* Blogsy Is a favorite, supporting WordPress, Blogger, and Posterous. Buttons on the right let you pull in images from flickr, favorites, image sites. You can drag the image into the post and then move it where in the post you want it. Pull in videos. You can search for assets from within the app. Only weird thing is you can’t type on rich text side, have to go to the HTML side.
* Posterous app: Remarkably flexible in redirecting your content, very easy to post images. Can repost to other blog platforms. Seamless effortless, frictionless blogging.

Squarespace got the nod for the ultimate iPad blogging app. Close to a laptop replacement. Very nice look at your blog stats. You can Go as far as you can to use your mobile device as a creation device, not just a consumption device. Note the iPhone app is distinctively different.

20110910-024632.jpg

Live from Minnesota Blogger Conference

Filed under Uncategorized by Aaron Pearson on 10 September 2011 at 12:49 {one comment}

Well we are through the morning keynote by Lee Odden and the first breakout session at the Minnesota Blogger Conference at Allina Commons in Minneapolis. Not surprisingly, Arik Hanson and his colleagues have put on a really nice event here.

My mission has been to find out what we can do here to make our b2b blogs better.

So far, I have in fact picked up some great ideas along with some things to maybe experiment with.

So 3 things to start:
1. Content is King but Creativity is Queen: From Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog fame. What this means for me is that yes we must take our substance seriously, but it can be so much more impactful if cleverly conveyed. Which leads to …
2. Lots More Visuals: I attended a session on Tumblr, which has really been breakthrough in making posting lots of different formats easier. The expert, Patrick Rhone (his most popular site is Minimal Mac) describes it more as a clever content curation platform than blogging platform but I think those lines can get blurry. I have some concerns about the reliability of the platform, especially on Internet Explorer, after watching, oh, about ten crashes, but it has a lot of promise and you can bet WordPress is learning from Tumblr’s growing popularity too.
3. To Stand Out, Stand for Something: From Lee Odden again. This may be obvious but I do think it’s hard to keep a good focus on one domain so you really stand out in that domain. There’s just too much competition out there to be everything. You can always add another blog.

I’ll try to post again here.

20110910-114701.jpg

Mission Impossible: B2B Blogger Goes Rogue

Filed under Case Study by Aaron Pearson on 8 September 2011 at 00:02 {2 comments}

Update: Folks, my previous version implied mom bloggers are in it for opps with Wal-Mart, et. al. Obviously, that’s not true and wasn’t intended and moreover there’s some great opportunities for partnerships with those companies if handled properly. My apologies – my wife blogs too and there’s a lot of great stuff out there, which is really my point.  Look forward to meeting you all Saturday.

Saturday is the 2nd Annual Minnesota Blogger Conference in Minneapolis. I happened to be looking on Twitter when a batch of tickets was release and decided to take the plunge and nab one.

Folks, I’m going to be the ugly duckling at this gig. You’re all B2B marketing people, so you know what I’m talking about, right? What we do is often not pretty, almost never glorious.  Mainstream appeal, not so much. We’re hawking servers, or accounting services, or industrial filters for heavens’ sake. We think this stuff is big-time important, but our kids don’t particularly care.

But so what? I believe there are principles of good blogging that transcend these differences and I intend to find out what they are. In fact, I’ve set a goal for myself:  Be Like Allan Schoenberg.

Plus, I'm on a mission!

Our little operation here at B2BVoices Nation is not big but we do okay – 4,700 views in June has been the recent high water mark.  And Allan’s posts seem to be consistently tops in readership. What if I could be like Allan? What would that do for us, if I pulled my weight for once?

My mission, if I choose to accept it (well, okay) is to try to generate Allan Schoenberg blog post readership. It’s to your benefit folks because it means this stuff will be more interesting for you! Plus, in my last post, I noted blogs trump LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter on influence over business technology purchase decisions, so hey, this could benefit some of you too!  Stay tuned.

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