We are in the B2B Social Media Era, Either Board the Social Media Train or Get Left at the Station

If you are in business today you need a social media strategy. You know like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter…

It is no longer possible to use the excuse that your business is business to business so you don’t need to participate in social media.

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Answers, Blogs…, the B2B world has come of age. Regardless of whether your business is B2B or B2C social media is a viable marketing strategy today!

In a recently released B2B Social Media Benchmarking study the writing has been left on the station wall. Businesses are using social media and they are using it at a very high rate. If you don’t have your social media marketing strategy in place yet it is time to get on board.

The 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study from Business.com gives us some great insight into the use of social media for businesses today. For those of you who really like the numbers here are some that should get things rolling.

The top 5 social media resources as the most popular for business information:

• 69.1% – Attend webinars or listen to podcasts
• 62.2% – Read user ratings & reviews for business products or services
• 62.1% – Visit company or product profile pages on social media sites
• 55.1% – Visit company blogs
• 54.5% – Conduct searches for information on social media sites

This information can be broken down to company size and the comparison is very interesting.

Small Businesses less than 100 employees:

• 67% – Attend webinars or listen to podcasts
• 63% – Read user ratings & reviews for business products or services
• 61% – Visit company or product profile pages on social media sites
• 54% – Visit company blogs
• 54% – Conduct searches for information on social media sites
• 34% – Subscribe to RSS feeds of business-related news of information sites
• 28% – Use Twitter to find or request business-related information
• 27% – Save business-related links on social bookmarking sites

Medium to Large Businesses 100+ employees:

• 84% – Attend webinars or listen to podcasts
• 70% – Visit company or product profile pages on social media sites
• 70% – Read user ratings & reviews for business products or services
• 66% – Conduct searches for information on social media sites
• 64% – Visit company blogs
• 62.1% – Visit company or product profile pages on social media sites
• 48% – Subscribe to RSS feeds of business-related news of information sites
• 46% – Use Twitter to find or request business-related information
• 36% – Save business-related links on social bookmarking sites

In all but one case – reading user ratings and reviews for business products or services – a higher percentage of mid- to large-sized company respondents reported utilizing a given social media resource than did small business respondents. The fact that small business respondents show more active interest in business product/service ratings and reviews makes sense – small businesses typically lack the more formalized purchasing process found in mid- to large-sized companies, and these ratings and reviews provide additional, useful information to support the purchasing decision process.

When it comes to active participation on social media web sites, such as participating in online business communities or forums, or asking questions on Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers or LinkedIn Answers, there were no significant differences between small company and mid- to large-sized company respondents.

When it comes to online social community participation there seems to be very little difference when it comes to company size.

Small Businesses less than 100 employees:

• 52% – Participate in online business communities or forums
• 50% – Ask questions on Q&A sites (e.g.LinkedIn, Yahoo Answers…)
• 29% – Participate in discussions on 3rd party sites

Medium to Large Businesses 100+ employees:

• 52% – Participate in online business communities or forums
• 46% – Ask questions on Q&A sites (e.g.LinkedIn, Yahoo Answers…)
• 32% – Participate in discussions on 3rd party sites

If you are in business are you active on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Answers? Do you have a blog? If not why not? We are in the digital age changes are only a click away. Just jump aboard this “social media train” it can be fun, informative, and rewarding. If you aren’t on any train yet try LinkedIn.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Businesses Are Using Social Media – What is Your Social Media Strategy? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Everyone is all astir over Linkedin finally connecting its status updates to twitter, but in my opinion, this recent update is not as wonderful as it first seems. In fact, in the few days since it’s been started, I’ve already seen the quality of status updates on Linkedin degrade because people aren’t using #in for sending tweets, but instead are sending all of their tweets over to Linkedin. I’ve learned more about cats, sports teams, and other equally irrelevant information (for Linkedin) in the past few days because people haven’t exercised the proper awareness of how to use the new Linkedin Twitter connection effectively.

A good example of the right way to use the twitter-linkedin connection and the wrong way to use it can be seen in the screenshot below. The top post is the wrong way to use the linkedin-Twitter connection. The person has responded to someone on twitter, but that post has also been sent to Linkedin. In fact, every time this person posts a tweet, it will show up in Linkedin. The result is that we’ll see a message, which isn’t relevant on Linkedin, because even if it’s a professional message, it’s a reply to someone else on Twitter, as opposed to Linkedin. And of course we could also get more mundane and non-appropriate posts, such as the post about a sports team. It’s not remotely relevant to Linkedin, because it’s not a professional update. It’s actually rather unprofessional and is a good example of how to use a social network inappropriately.

The post from the person in the middle is appropriate to Linkedin, at least in terms of describing something professional. He’s also chosen the option where the post from Twitter will only appear if he uses #in. That hashtag indicates that the message should get posted on both Twitter and Linkedin. Without that hashtag, his post will only go to Twitter (and other services he’s connected to Twitter).

What’s happened with the Twitter and Linkedin connection is that most people have simply connected Twitter to Linkedin without using the #in tag. The result is that a lot of non-professional tweets and responses to people in twitter are showing up on Linkedin, but the material isn’t really relevant to Linkedin as a social networking site. This diminishes the usefulness of Linkedin, in terms of status updates, because many of the status updates aren’t relevant to the purpose for using Linkedin.

To set-up your Linkedin and twitter connection, click on the blue Twitter icon. A new window will appear, asking you to authorize the connection. You’ll need to enter your twitter handle and password, in order to authorize the connection.

After you’ve authorized the connection, the window will display the settings for the Twitter-Linkedin connection. Make the Twitter account visible to everyone, unless you don’t want people to see it on your profile. On your profile page, people will see a link to your twitter account, which will allow them to connect with you on Twitter if they choose.

Under share your Tweets in your LinkedIn status DO NOT select all tweets. If you do people, will see all your tweets, including ones which aren’t relevant to Linkedin. Instead select “Only tweets that contain #in.” This way the only time your Linkedin status will update to your twitter account is if you’ve actually included the hashtag in your message. Yes, this means you will need to include the hastag, but this will also help you determine if the update you’re about to post is really relevant to your audience on Linkedin.

If you need to change your twitter settings at any time, simply click the blue twitter icon again and select Twitter Settings. You’ll then be able to change any settings you’ve made to your Twitter-Linkedin connection.

Remember that as tempting as it might be to send all your tweets to Linkedin, it defeats the purpose of the status update feature in Linkedin, if any of those tweets aren’t relevant to your professional activities. Also, when it’s a response to someone on Twitter, it won’t really make sense because the context of the conversation is missing. Restrict your tweets to Linkedin by using the hashtag #in and you’ll not only be using the connection properly for professional activities, but you’ll be showing a sophisticated awareness of how to use social media properly. Remember Linkedin is not Twitter and should not be treated as such!

Taylor Ellwood
Business, Writing, & Social Media Coach

How to use the new Twitter Linkedin connection properly is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

LinkedIn not only a Bully but Incompetent too!

Over a week ago I spent nearly 2 hours leaving 86 LinkedIn groups after they sent me an email stating that they were limiting the groups I could be a member of to 50. See my blog post LinkedIn Just the Neighborhood Bully.

A couple of days ago I went in to manage the groups I had created and much to my chagrin all 86 groups that I had painstakingly chosen to leave were back. I was back to the 136 LinkedIn groups that I had spent my time choosing to join. These 136 groups included the 86 I had been forced to leave and spent nearly 2 hours of my time doing so.

In the email I sent to linkedIn and shared with you via my earlier post LinkedIn Just the Neighborhood Bully I had asked for check boxes to be able to select multiple groups to leave. Did they deliver such a tool? No way they gave me a “Leave Group” link.

This fancy “Leave Group” link sped up my leaving time by maybe 10%, WOW! At least this time I had a pretty good idea which groups I was going to leave. So I blew over an hour of my time once again to leave the same 86 LinkedIn groups I had already left a few days earlier.

I have spent over 3 hours of my time to appease the LinkedIn gods. That isn’t even the end of LinkedIn’s incompetency. Two days after I had left the 86 groups the second time they sent me the following email.

Dear Gary,

This is a follow-up to the email we sent on 8/4/08 regarding upcoming changes to LinkedIn Groups. Please note that your action is required by 9/12/08.

We regret to inform you that you have exceeded the limit of the number of groups you are allowed to be a member of. The limit, which applies to all users, is fifty (50) groups per user. We apologize that these limits were not in place earlier, but with upcoming enhancements to Groups, we are forced to put in these limits without exception. We’re confident that these improvements to Groups, intended to spur communication and collaboration, will make the product more useful to you on a day-to-day basis.

We need to ask you to please get below the limit of 50 by leaving some of your groups. We have added a quick “Leave Group” link to the My Groups page for each of your groups ( http://www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=&trk=grplimit2 ). If you need assistance because you are significantly above 50 groups, customer support may be able to help streamline the process. Please email groups@linkedin.com for more information. Since this is a timely issue, we will prioritize any email with “Help Removing Groups” in the title until the deadline of 9/12/08.

If you do not take the required action by the deadline, we will automatically limit your membership to the first 50 groups you joined. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you, but unfortunately we are unable able to maintain the current level of groups.

Regards,
The LinkedIn Team

Have you checked out Konnects? This site is looking better and better to me all the time.
If you haven’t checked Konnects out yet I would suggest you do.

late,
Gary Pool

LinkedIn | Does LinkedIn Even Care? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I received an email from LinkedIn and it made me mad.

I wrote them back and here is my open letter. The original is at the bottom.

If you want us to leave groups on a mass scale why don’t you make it easy to do so?

I have carefully selected the groups I have joined and spent plenty of time doing so.

Now you want me to spend even more time to choose the ones I can’t stay in.

Give me a check box that will allow me to choose multiple groups to leave at one time.

I really used to be an evangelist for LinkedIn and still am, but there are other sites (Konnects) out there with the same services out there and some have services you don’t have.

You send me an email with no information on how many groups I am a member of just that I belong to more than 50.

What ever happened to customer service?

Are you just treating us like you did your first two domain hosts?

I feel a blog post coming on.

Dear Gary

As an active member of LinkedIn Groups, we wanted to let you know about some changes we’re putting in place in the coming weeks.

We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the experience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable directory. We are also working with our development teams to bring new tools and widgets to this collaborative space throughout the rest of 2008.

We are also at this time making some changes to the user-created groups we host. These changes include adding a limit to the number of user-created groups any LinkedIn member may be part of at one time. Currently we are setting that limit at membership in 50 (fifty) user-created groups.

You are currently a member of more than 50 groups. Please take the time before this limit goes into place on August 14, 2008, to choose which groups you would like to maintain. To remove yourself from a group, go to the My Groups page: (www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=?trk=grouplmt ( http://www.linkedin.com/home?myGroups=?trk=grouplmt )) and click the word “Settings” next to the group you wish to leave. At the bottom of the settings page click the text “Leave this group.”

We would appreciate it if you would please take this action within the next 10 days. If you would prefer, after 30 days we will automatically keep the first 50 groups that you joined and remove the rest.

If you would like assistance removing yourself from groups, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at linkedin.custhelp.com (http://linkedin.custhelp.com/ ) or groups@linkedin.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you, but we hope you will continue to find value in LinkedIn and especially enjoy the new functionality of LinkedIn Groups that is coming soon.

Regards,
The LinkedIn Team

late,
Gary Pool

LinkedIn | Just the Neighborhood Bully is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Are You LinkedIn?
I am LinkedIn and I really enjoy using it.

Just in case you haven’t heard of LinkedIn yet, it is like MySpace only for business professionals. You can read my original post from May ’07 when I had only 22,400 in my entire network. Today I am pushing hard on 10 million.

According to LinkedIn:

Over 24 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. And with it you can:

• Stay informed about your contacts and industry
• Find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals
• Control your professional identity online

My Network of Trusted Professionals

When people see how many connections I have the always ask.

• How can you manage so many connections?
• What good has LinkedIn done for you?
• Has LinkedIn brought you any business?

Well I have to tell you it is working. I have made critical contacts around the world and am in the process of working on a few projects. I have made some connections that have turned out to be perfect partnerships. I have even received proposal requests and contracts from across the nation. The connections, they just seem to manage themselves.

Yes LinkedIn works. LinkedIn continues to not only brings me business but it also helps to increase my value as a SEO/SEM expert.

At this time I would like to thank David Black for inviting me to join LinkedIn.

late,
gary pool

LinkedIn | Of-course You Know About LinkedIn is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Putting Pandora Back into the Box.

In this week’s Whiteboard Friday – Link Wars, Rand Fishkin discusses the “war” that happens in the spam game. He takes a look at how Google interprets link manipulation, how spammers combat this, and how webmasters should consider a link either Black Hat or White Hat.

Rand focuses on two major topics:

1. Linkbait & Badges & Viral Content are, by Nature, White Hat
2. The Goal of the Video is to Help Get a Perspective on How to Think About Links from the SE’s Perspective

In summation if you are creating Black Hat links none of this matters but if you are looking to create White Hat links:

• Would you create the link even if the search engines didn’t exist?
• Is your link wort while to the search engines?

Chalk up another one for Rand!

late,
gary pool

White Hat vs. Black Hat | Link Wars is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

David Black came up with an outstanding idea: LinkedIn members in Portland getting together in person for a networking party.

WOW! It was great.

I partied on the patio with Silverhawk (the band) and all the networkers came to me.

Silverhawk is classified as Psychedelic / Americana / Rock
Silverhawk’s MySpace Site

• Sam Densmore: Vocals, Guitar, Baritone Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keyboards
• John Densmore: Vocals, Bass, Guitar
• Rob Allison: Drums, Vocals
• Anthony Cotham: Keys, Vocals

The house was one of the Street of Dreams Homes supplied by the builder John Fazzolari.

The LinkedIn event was complete with door prizes, a roaming magician Dale Dvorac, a massage therapist Teresa Lundy, great food it was a pot luck, and wine compliments of David Barringer and the Naked Winery.

Join in at the next PDX Linked in networking party. You can add me as your connection: http://www.linkedin.com/in/garypool , or send me an email and I will send you an invitation my email is: garypool dot seo at gmail dot com.

late,
Gary

LinkedIn Portland Soiree/Par-tay is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician