B2B Memes

JULY 15, 2011

Yesterday, B2B editor and blogger Maureen Alley wrote a provocative post declaring that early adopters are annoying. Alley herself, after all, stands out among young B2B journalists for being well ahead of her peers in adopting the tools and ethos of social media. I’m not sure she means it.

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B2B Memes

MAY 2, 2012

For most B2B publishers, electronically delivered news content is becoming an increasingly important part of their output. In theory, any B2B e-news package consistently delivering relevant, high-enterprise, fast-paced, exclusive content should dominate its competitive space. a consulting firm serving B2B publishers.

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B2B Memes

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

While these B2B publishers have a highly evolved understanding of their markets, their inability to sacrifice the “ cash cow in the coal mine ” keeps them mired in the past. Logically, then, the most exciting and successful advances in B2B media should come from those with an understanding of B2B markets but without the old-media burdens.

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B2B Memes

OCTOBER 22, 2010

But of greatest interest to B2B Memes is the addition of a sentence to section 9 of the guidelines, “Editorial Participation in Advertising.&# This stricture can refer to the fairly traditional practice among many publishers of covering their own conferences and trade shows.

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B2B Memes

JANUARY 10, 2011

As Paul Conley has argued , the result is an “excellence craze”: “In B2B, where I make my living, it seems like every company in every tiny niche of every industry has become a content creator. There are a thousand voices competing for very small audiences. The only way I can ensure that my voice is heard is if my content is fantastic.”.

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B2B Memes

JUNE 13, 2011

As any editor who’s somehow crept into the upper echelons of B2B publication management will know, the language of accounting and spreadsheets rules most boardroom discussions. Is it any accident that as traditional trade publishing declines, content marketing is on the rise? Sales is a profit center , editorial is a cost center.

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B2B Memes

MARCH 12, 2010

Editors of trade publications are confirmed believers in the preeminence of high-quality content. B2B magazines probably have a higher percentage of commodity content than other types of publications. That’s partly due to the prevalence of service journalism in B2B. But it has more to do with the influence of advertisers.

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B2B Memes

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

A couple of years ago when I started B2B Memes it was my plan to focus exclusively on trade publishing. But as I looked around the blogosphere/Twitterverse, it didn’t take long to realize that the most enthusiastic and informed discussions about B2B communications involved not publishing, but marketing.

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B2B Memes

OCTOBER 19, 2011

That prompted a response from a practicing trade journalist and former colleague, who asked “I can see why knowing things like HTML and CSS can be helpful but do most journos need more than that?”. What B2B Can Learn from Jeff Jarvis. What B2B Can Learn from Jeff Jarvis, Part 3. “This is impossible. I’ll never get this.”

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B2B Memes

OCTOBER 6, 2011

This is especially true in the world of trade journalism, where much of the work entry-level journalists are asked to do could be handled just as well by an algorithm. The fact that trade publisher Hanley Wood is one of the companies working with Narrative Science is, to me at least, encouraging.

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B2B Memes

MARCH 2, 2011

Though there has been plenty of lip service by the sales, marketing, and circulation types that largely dominate trade publishing, their real interest and belief in content has all too often been minimal. As a career editor I’m biased, but Franks’s analysis rings true.

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B2B Memes

JULY 6, 2010

Witness the debate Nicholas Carr set off when, weary of those “little textual gnats buzzing around your head,” he modestly proposed trading inline links for footnoted ones.). Without devices like logos, in-line links, and navigational aids, the Web isn’t the Web.

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B2B Memes

JULY 6, 2011

In the trade magazine world, for instance, publishers give board members perks like VIP passes to conferences they sponsor and free copies of special publications. I don’t recommend honoraria or other payment for services—it complicates and limits your relationship with your board members. But there are benefits you can and should offer.

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B2B Memes

DECEMBER 3, 2010

Yesterday I attended BtoB magazine’s Digital Edge virtual trade show , primarily to watch a leadoff keynote by Chris Brogan and a concluding one by Gary Vaynerchuk. Until yesterday, however, the most radically effective solution of all had never occurred to me: Don’t use slides at all.

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B2B Memes

MAY 2, 2011

Pacific time the next day, as we woke up, the second of two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center. To give the specialists more time to work that evening, the office was closed a hour or so early. A little after 6 a.m. At about 7:30 our phone rang.

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B2B Memes

OCTOBER 19, 2012

Though B2B publishers will not simply want to copy those strategies, they should pay them close attention. First, B2B publications today still rely far too heavily on articles. That’s not what the readers of the trade press are looking for. But it’s still what too many B2B editors and journalists want to give them.

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B2B Memes

AUGUST 12, 2011

As with other business-to-business content creators these days, there are few trade press editors who don’t have—and at least occasionally use—a Twitter account. The obvious promotional benefits of this social media tool have led most trade publishers to insist, rightly, that their editors use it. Editors Need to Think Like Marketers.

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B2B Memes

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

MUD day 4: If you’re a B2B journalist or a journalistically inclined content marketer, you should be faithfully following Steve Buttry’s blog. Although he’s a died-in-the-wool newspaper guy, he deals frequently and insightfully with issues that also plague trade editors and reporters. They should do better.

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B2B Memes

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

By way of disclosure, I should say here that while I’ve been practicing trade journalism for 25 years, I didn’t go to journalism school, or even take a journalism course. Likewise, the differences between trade and consumer magazines, or between trade journalism and newspaper journalism, have steadily dwindled.

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B2B Memes

DECEMBER 8, 2011

If I were asked to name one active blogger that every B2B journalist should follow, I would probably suggest Adam Tinworth. For more than eight years, the British trade press editor has blogged about journalism, social media, and much more on One Man and His Blog. Adam Tinworth.

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B2B Memes

OCTOBER 21, 2011

In his article he reflects on the departures of Richard Beckman and Michael Wolff from trade publisher Prometheus Global Media. Was the problem that you can’t mix consumer and B2B models, or the probability that both approaches are doomed? Are the differences between B2B and consumer media even relevant any longer?

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B2B Memes

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

As the old advertising model that powered trade magazines for so many decades withers away, it’s getting harder and harder to sell independent, reader-oriented content. ” B2B communications, of course, is one of those systems, and legacy editorial and ad-sales jobs are among those imperiled. Where does that leave us?

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