Comments for B2B Voices

Comment on Education & Thought Leadership Will Drive Most B2B Content Production Plans to Be “Brick Heavy” by Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:47:00 +0000

These are not either/or.

The centrepiece is the thought or research. This can then form a long, in-depth document and/or a a host of shorter ones, more focused to an audience, stage or message. Often the shorter documents act as standfirsts for the longer one.

In many companies, however, the long document is long because it is unfocused – it is like a newsletter trying to have an article for everyone. Often this is to appease a salesteam who still want their oldfashioned collateral, often it is because the delivery methods aren’t well focused but still send everything to everybody.

If you stand back and consider the buying team and what will move each of them to the next stage, then you will have a much more focused set of documents with both light touch and deeper delve options.

Comment on SEO or social search: What’s a B2B communicator to do? by Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:42:00 +0000

B2Bs that aren’t content generators should be. In order to improve visibility online today and improve a search engine ranking, you need to produce quality content on a regular basis. It’s the content that establishes trust amongst target audience members and the search engines over time.

Comment on Is Social Media Central to Your B2B Communications Strategy? by Blog Posts to Read for February 16, 2012

Blog Posts to Read for February 16, 2012 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:07:56 +0000

[...] Is Social Media Central to Your B2B Communications Strategy? Are we at the point now where social media is at the center and all channels feed off it? CLICK HERE TO READ MORE [...]

Comment on SEO or social search: What’s a B2B communicator to do? by This is the week that was: When the web changed « Earnest about B2B

This is the week that was: When the web changed « Earnest about B2B — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:34:25 +0000

[...] Traditional SEO and PPC technique have proved invaluable for online marketing strategies. The rise of Google has meant your page rank can make or break your success as a company. The concept social search has added to the mix of what is needed to ensure you are found online…but what is more important? This week B2B Communicators gave their views… [...]

Comment on Other Voices: Julie Meredith, Radian6 by Aaron Pearson

Aaron Pearson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Great post! In particular, worth noting that when banks face any sort of reputation crisis (and there seems to be one every week somewhere), they play out both online and offline, and the communications, executive and legal teams need to be ready for that. Thanks Julie!

Comment on Do Most Online Communities Fail? by Allan Schoenberg

Allan Schoenberg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:50:00 +0000

Chris — Thanks for the note and really it seems to all come back to listening doesn’t it? I hate people judging success based on the amount of conversations. The foundation of all of this goes to just paying attention and understanding what is being said. I like your comment on be “effective” — and that is something to always consider when measuring success.

Comment on Do Most Online Communities Fail? by Allan Schoenberg

Allan Schoenberg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Rachel — Very well said.

Comment on Do Most Online Communities Fail? by Rachel Happe

Rachel Happe — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:28:00 +0000

My pithy response is that all communities look like a failure before they look like a success… because they are not like light switches. The key to understand is whether you are effective at driving behavior change in the community you have (and like Chris says, all organizations have a community whether they choose to recognize it or not). If you cannot effect a change in behavior in your community that is more efficient or effective than your other means of doing so, you should not scale your community and yes your experiment in community building may have failed. If you can effect a behavior change but it’s not at a scale that is impactful to the organization, you have a different challenge on your hands – but it’s not one of failure – it’s a milestone on your path to success.

Comment on Do Most Online Communities Fail? by Chris Selland

Chris Selland — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Many communities do fail but that’s really not the point – the majority of large organizations are still at the ‘paving cowpaths’ stage with their communities. What’s important is to recognize that customers are increasingly social and communicating and interacting with each other. Whether that interaction is taking place on YOUR community, your competitor’s community or a third-party community site (and often, it’s all of the above) what’s important is to structure your efforts in a way in which your interactions with them are as constructive & effective as possible.

Comment on Is Social Media Central to Your B2B Communications Strategy? by Allan Schoenberg

Allan Schoenberg — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:41:00 +0000

Some very good points Aaron. I think companies are still struggling with who “owns” social media. B2B companies typically already lack the resources of B2C companies, which I think puts more of an empasis on having an internal champion. But I can see this changing as more customers use these networks.