Use and abuse at your leisure… where possible we’ve tried to accurately cite the source and provide a link to the site where we came across the research. B2B companies are ahead of their B2C rivals when it comes to social media adoption. 81% of B2B companies maintain company-related accounts or profiles on social media sites versus 67% of B2C. 75% of B2Bers participate in microblogging (eg. Twitter) versus 49% of B2Cers. Source: Business.com – 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study ( [link] ). And the FTSE 100 are just plain running scared of Twitter. Source: DemandGen Report. Versus. MORE >>

Building online communities can be a richly rewarding experience for the organizations that create them and for the members who participate in them. But a common question is how to start! This need not be a daunting process and below are some of the key steps to getting your online community off the ground and thriving. Building a successful social media online community begins with the end in mind. Your organization’s overarching business goals and strategy for the community will define what you want it to achieve -- the value it delivers both to its members and to your organization. MORE >>

We often discuss in this blog how B2B marketing is becoming more complex, and how to manage this complexity. Marketing is getting involved in many more areas that touch the customer along the buying process, multiplied by a dizzying variety of new tactics, online communications and engagement platforms. have always liked frameworks to make sense of this complexity, and add some structure to identify focus areas and value drivers, dependencies and hierarchies - all to make complexity a bit easier to manage. But that's content for another blog post. Let me know your thoughts about this framework. MORE >>

Around this time last year I wrote about the 10 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2010 and while I would say 7 out of 10 have already materialized and the others are on their way. So that begs the question – what’s on the horizon specifically for B2B Marketers next year? Here are 11 concrete ways I think the environment in which B2B Marketers operate will evolve in 2011. Enjoy! Facebook Advertising – will continue to improve and unfortunately get more expensive. So people are looking for an alternative and that’s Facebook Advertising. Basically.2% Email this to a friend? Tweet This! MORE >>

A major frustration for people trying out Twitter for the first time is figuring out how to get anyone to respond. They set up their Twitter account, tweet a few times and wonder why no one responds. While tweets are public unless you protect them, they probably won’t be seen by anyone unless they’re following you, they do a search for something you mention or you’re on a list. While it’s ok to post your blog posts to Twitter, etc., people are only going to listen if you provide valuable content. Then, it’s ok to throw in a promo or your own stuff occasionally. MORE >>