Recent acquisitions (Eloqua acquired by Oracle, Pardot by ExactTarget, and others) are also signs of a market headed in the right direction. Particularly I realized, more often than not, I was thinking about automation the wrong way. Right now the marketing automation industry couldn''t be hotter. They plan to use lead scoring, as well.

To do so, we pulled together a list of the most commonly installed apps from the Eloqua AppCloud and what we found was quite interesting. Fueling the highest increase in adoption of apps from the Eloqua AppCloud, marketers are engaging their buyers and extending their reach through social networks by adding apps to their landing pages. 

Nothing at all like Marketo, Eloqua or Act-On Software) It was quickly clear that major challenges were facing me. We love comments and those who share on social media. '“You can’t help someone who does not want to change.” ” – Adele Revella, the Buyer Persona Institute. Pitch A, Pitch B, Pitch C.

All marketers know just how prominent digital and social media channels are, particularly when referring to the buyer journey. B2B in association with Eloqua. The freebies…. The Digital Marketing Evolution in B2B Marketing. Research conducted by the Marketing Leadership Council in partnership with Google. SiriusDecisions Inc.

It won’t help you rank high on Google, convert leads, or gain a bigger share of voice on social media. Eloqua reports that mid-sized companies should expect to spend around $150 per piece of content from freelancers. by Eloqua’s estimates. 'Normal. false. false. false. Content marketing is serious business. hourly.

They have not purchased marketing automation like Marketo or Eloqua. We love comments and those who share on social media. 'With so many businesses struggling to create enough qualified sales leads, who’s the hero of our story? Answer: Beleaguered sales people. You don’t deserve to suffer. We feel your pain. You are!

Eloqua has offices in New York, Austin, Boston, San Francisco, Toronto, and Virginia (and that only covers our North American footprint) , so it was critical for us to think about how to cover appropriate geographical grounds. As with any other social network, it’s important to map out a plan for frequency. Join Eloqua on Instagram!

It’s time to think big picture about the role of new media. Marketing needs to own, not rent media coverage. Develop a list of your community’s social influencers, find authors that write about relevant topics, and build relationships that enable you to create and share the right content to attract and retain customers.

If you’re unimpressed, think about this: it’s considerably less social than other networks. The most-common tags on the network are business, market, trends, research, social media, and statistics.  Here are some more ways Slideshare SEO and visibility can boost your content and social media strategy: 1.

So whether you’re grooving to tunes while writing, creating campaigns in Eloqua, or relaxing after driving pipeline for the sales team, there is a song for that! CHART] is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. I’ve certainly added a ton of new songs/artists to my rotation as a result!

We must examine how they have interacted with a sales team, with social media, with video, with webinars, and on and on. Social media, of course, should reflect an amazing experience. Marketing Efficiency customer experience CX offline online Oracle Eloqua Steve Woods The article ran Apr. 16 in CMS Wire, .

The system scans public databases, company Web pages, and selected social networks to find significant events such as title changes, product launches, job openings, new locations, and investments. Users can export lists to Excel and Marketo, with connectors for Eloqua and other marketing automation systems on the way.

Modern Marketers are equipped with an arsenal of prospect information garnered through web forms, third-party lists, social media, conference registrations, and a variety of other channels. Check out Eloqua’s ‘Must-See’ Chart below:  . Align your email verbiage with your social language to keep your communications consistent.

The report also does a “deep dive” into organic search, paid search, and social media metrics. BtoB Research, in coordination with Eloqua, surveyed hundreds of online marketing professionals to uncover the core competencies of Modern Marketers. Social Media Use in the Industrial Sector.

Last week we talked about how titles like Content Curator, Social Media Expert and Data Scientist are emerging in the Modern Marketing landscape. 4 ‘Mad Men’ Personalities You Want On Your Modern Marketing Team is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing.

Last week we talked about how titles like Content Curator, Social Media Expert and Data Scientist are emerging in the Modern Marketing landscape. 5 ‘Mad Men’ Personalities You Want On Your Modern Marketing Team is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing.

'by Amanda Batista | Tweet this Social media has dramatically changed the sales cycle, but it has done so for the better. Enter social selling : The practice of leveraging social networks and the associated tools in the overall sales function from lead generation, to closed deal to account management.

When it comes to social media, B2B marketers are always suspicious as to how to define success. Therefore, it is imperative that end to end analytics be used to measure the impact of your social media strategy from traffic to leads to closure. To put it plainly, success=sales. Success+checkout thank you message.

While titles like Content Curator, Social Media Expert and Data Scientist are popping up, college curriculum hasn’t necessarily caught up with these emerging business needs. CMO Insight: Tips For Managing A Shifting Role is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing.

Marketers can align their content sharing efforts with the social channels most likely to drive higher traffic and engagement, maximizing the impact of each campaign and boosting marketing ROI. 10 Tips to Help You Become a ‘Superhero’ Marketer is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing.

As no business has one typical customer with one static channel preference, buying behavior or media consumption pattern, cross-channel marketing automation tools have taken a high flight. In the end, we’re often mainly talking about email marketing – and a bit of social and mobile but relatively limited – in practice. Zemanta.

Eloqua recently sponsored a study trying to answer the question: who is the ideal marketer in the modern environment? Finding 2 - The ideal modern marketer knows how to integrate social media into what they're doing. Social media marketing is infiltratring every aspect of marketing. This is no longer enough.

by Sylvia Jensen | Tweet this Similar to “social CRM” or “lifecycle marketing,” “Marketing Automation” is a key phrase among marketers today. Crack the Social Media Mystery. By this I refer to the lack of measurement that often goes with social media campaigns. Already raking in $3.2 billion in 2015. Great.

Companies who want better results from software like Marketo, Silverpop or Eloqua. We love comments and those who share on social media. 'Buffer On February 13, 2009, the sales lead generation company Find New Customers was born. We are now four years old, which means we outlived a lot of other businesses. What do you think?

I’m a 40-year old, married mother of four… social networking addict. consume information online and am constantly sharing it with my social networks. In all this social networking, TRANSFORMATION is happening that affects the sales process. LinkedIn and Other Social Networks Help Me Do What I Call Social Selling. 

Sure, I get it that they want to focus on the ‘old’ broadcast systems to contrast with the ‘new’ marketing tools (email, social media, marketing automation), but by leaving them out makes the “Evolution of Marketing Automation” topic a bit of a mismatch with the content. Maybe I am being too picky.

The well thought out social media campaign raises interest and support for manned space exploration, and from a marketing perspective, has surpassed other efforts of NASA, and cost the agency practically nothing. Successful Modern Marketing takes an integrated approach to social media.

The mobile app lets users create and share short looping videos (only six seconds) that are automatically posted to a Vine social profile. The tool is aimed at gauging network engagement on Vine in comparison to other social platforms. Social Media engagement online branding Twitter video app video for marketing video strategies Vine

Technology cloud – software to manage these processes, such as Marketo/Eloqua/Salesforce.com. We love to read your comments and appreciate those who share on social media. 'Buffer “Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.” Digital Marketing). ?  Peter F. Drucker. The late Peter Drucker is right.

This week’s chart analyzes where new subscribers to the Eloqua channel come from. You can also direct contacts to your YouTube videos by embedding a cloud connector on your Eloqua Landing Pages! CHART] is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. by Andrew Stanbridge | Tweet this.

With a complex sale, many personal touch points in customer relationship management are present – such as directly answering a question posted on social media or an online forum. Heidi Melin, CMO, Eloqua , obviously has a certain amount of vested interest as a MA software vendor, and she pointed out the value of MA for marketers.

Segment your social media community based on interactions, qualitative engagement, and perhaps most importantly, negative interactions or comments. Social and mobile are now sub-channels of online, and buyers are constantly finding new ways to discovery and engage — without your help. Grande Guide to Social Sellin g.

And while social media has changed the way people connect and engage online, email is still the core communication channel and a primary sharing tool. Infographics, videos, and data points are great assets to help excite recipients and share on the social media channels, as well as forward to friends. Not likely.

Modern Marketers’ roles are constantly changing, as buyer behavioral trends and digital channels, such as social and mobile, are dictating the research, discovery, and buying processes. by Amanda Batista | Tweet this. While the need for engagement is at an all time high, budgets, unfortunately never seem to be. Marketing Efficiency Bit.ly

by Amanda Batista | Tweet this Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Seth Lieberman, CEO of SnapApp , a marketing platform used by companies to easily create interactive content to generate leads and drive revenue across the web, mobile, social and email. Case Studies:  73% form completion, 20% social sharing, 3000 Facebook likes.

That’s one of the findings in the B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey , a recent Software Advice research report conducted in partnership with Eloqua. have here today with me Elle Woulfe, she is the Director of Marketing Programs for Eloqua, a marketing automation vendor. Cost per lead. Check it out. They are higher cost.

In a poll of 155 primarily C-level marketing experts, social media received the largest percentage of votes for demand generation channels that marketers will spend more on in 2013. B2B SEO and social media efforts should at least focus a percentage of efforts toward building the list for that channel. Most Used Channels.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Seth Lieberman, CEO of SnapApp , a marketing platform used by companies to easily create interactive content to generate leads and drive revenue across the web, mobile, social and email. Content Marketing b2b marketing lead generation marketing automation social media marketin

To answer this question, I looked at a variety of factors including twitter followers, profiles that included “B2B marketing,” the focus of their tweets including the hashtag # B2BMarketing , as well as a variety of social scoring tools using the keyword. NoyesJesse – Jesse Noyes – Managing Editor @ Eloqua.

B2B marketing B2B Sales Marketing Automation acquisitions adobe marketing cloud b2b marketers calliduscloud david raab eloqua LeadFormix market2lead marketing automation space marketingpilot microsoft dynamics crm ROI salesforce marketing cloud sap solutions marketing social media

Essential Ingredients of a Tasty Content Marketing Campaign is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. Content Marketing b2b marketing ebooks infographics social media marketing video marketingEach is indispensable for bringing people in and bringing back, again and again. An Editor.

Does everybody need a social media strategy? Mobile Apps Every B2B Marketer Should Try – by @AmandaF_Batista via @eloqua. Happy Friday, everyone! We hope you have had a productive week, just as we have. If you have been head-down and unable to keep up your reading, here are the posts to get you up-to-speed.

Oddly, social media was among the most popular and a top spending priority next year, despite receiving low marks for quality and volume. Follow the link to watch the full discussion on the B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report with Elle Woulfe, the Director of Marketing Programs for Eloqua. EchoQuote™ Takeaway.

Offering a way to streamline how your build and manage social connections, InTooch enables you toexchange details, connect on social networks, and find out common interests with other contacts. Fusing together the best of all social worlds, the app supports Facebook Chat, GoogleTalk, Skype, MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! InTooch.

And that way is Social Sign On. Social Sign-On is the ubiquitous “Sign In with LinkedIn” or “Register with Facebook” buttons. Eloqua enables social sign on to be implemented with a few clicks. They link social profiles to contacts, allowing marketers to understand the buyers social persona.

With more than 3 billion check-ins happening every day on the location-based social network, it’s a goldmine for engagement. Integrate these words into your blog and social media posts, your market proposition plan and anything going out on the web, really. by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Today’s guest post was written by  Amanda F.

So I reached out to my connections across the social landscape and asked who they thought published the best B2B Marketing blogs around. am certain that I missed some great B2B Marketing blogs below, but these are the ones who were recommended by a majority of my readers and social media followers and those that have influenced me as well.

Progressive CMOs are leveraging social, mobile, content and traditional marketing vehicles to empower buyers, cultivate a greater role in the discovering process and enable sales to effectively close deals. The founder of social commerce startup Lockerz, she also held executive posts at American Eagle Oufitters. Social savvy.

Social media distribution is booming. According to the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks and Trends Report , content distribution is increasing on social media channels.  In 2012 87% of marketers used social media to distribute content, as compared to the rate of 74% reported last year.

The Enterprise Goes Social While the concept of social business predates 2012, this is truly the year that the enterprise doubled down its bets on social. Salesforce.com unveiled its Social Marketing Cloud , combining its purchases of Radian6 and Buddy Media. – graphic. Click for larger image and to download.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this The following article was co-written by Eloqua’s CEO,  Joe Payne , and Chief Technology Officer,  Steve Woods. Oracle plans to include Eloqua’s modern marketing as a key pillar to help drive the ultimate customer experience, and we are excited to join Oracle to help execute this vision.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this It was a busy year here on the Eloqua blog. These 40 charts give quick, actionable insight into key aspects of marketing, from email to social. Our Content to Customer presentation laid out how Eloqua approaches content, and how it aligns to the sales cycle. The Social Business Shift. Enjoy!

Public relations (PR) or media relations has long been treated as its own world, separate from marketing. news release may be designed to get media coverage, but it can also create valuable backlinks for SEO. How can media relations skills be leveraged in social media? So how exactly does PR support SEO efforts?

Got a Social Disease? Not the kind caused by lemon gin and questionable standards; we’re talking about that new-fangled social media. Some of us in B2B climbed reluctantly on the social bandwagon last year and many of us promptly screwed it up. Want to Get a Social Disease? It’s about social. apologize.

At the time, David was working out some ideas for his soon-to-be best-seller Real-Time Marketing & PR   and I was chief marketing officer at Eloqua.  My own real-time vision had been shaped by my years as CMO at Eloqua, helping to build marketing dashboards for CMOs just like me.  By Brian Kardon - CMO, Lattice Engines. Any edge.

New Media Expo (NMX AKA BlogWorld). The NMX Conference and Trade Show bring together Bloggers, Podcasters, Web TV & Video Creators, and Social Business Pros. The Winkelvoss twins, of Facebook fame, will be interviewed by a Forbes journalist in an unrehearsed, no-holds-barred session about their new social networking venture.

Interestingly enough, the data that I analyzed for Eloqua shows, for 2012, that while using YouTube over the course of the year increases, the number of support cases remains relatively stable.  The Impact of Online Video on Customer Support [CHART] is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this What’s a  social business  all about? Is it about private social networks? But what social business is truly about a “shift”, a move from enterprises attempting insulate itself from disruption and instead greeting it warmly. Is it about having your brand on Twitter or Facebook?

You’ll want to track how leads are responding to your emails, carry out searches online for your brand or products, and what social media channels they use to debate the merits of various products and services. by Sylvia Jensen | Tweet this Back in school we thought we learned everything about marketing. Right Product.

the cloud-based solution for creating, sharing and tracking online and mobile video presentations, and an Eloqua partner. Earlier this year, Social Media Examiner reported that video was the number one area where marketers planned to increase their investments for 2012. Want more proof? Click to see and save a larger version.

Social Isn’t Replacing Email. ve said this before, I’ll say it again: Social media is not making email obsolete. An email address actually serves as the key for many social networks. Our analysis over several quarters demonstrated that email drove more traffic to customers’ web properties than social referrals.

); E-Mail Alert Sign-Up. --> Subscribe Now. --> Media Kit. --> About FOLIO. Media Kit. B2B: Business Media. Consumer Media. Media Kit. Media Summit -->. Study: B-to-B Marketers Lagging With Social Media. Data shows about 40 percent of b-to-b brands aren’t using social marketing. folio.

Social media isn’t new. What is new, however, is how high performing sales people are using social media to engage potential or existing customers. Shut out from “traditional” sales engagement techniques, our best reps are turning to social media to get their foot in the door. Will anyone hear your message?

Social Media. Reach millions of potential customers and influencers, hear what people are saying about you and your customers, connect directly with those who have an interest your brand – clearly social media is a boon for marketers. Private Social Networks. Here goes! The Internet. Search Engines. Email.

He’s a Forbes Top 50 Social Media Influencer and an advisor to the TEDxSanJoseCA event. How to Make Your Presentations Wow Like a TED Talk is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. He blogs at  The Steveology Blog. More importantly, I saw how the TEDTalks sausage was made.

Do you think social media enriches the customer experience? People have been gathering socially for professional reasons for years. Social media has enhanced the customer experience because it has broader, more democratic reach than other social interactions. All told, we got 1 meeting. Give them referrals.

My top five list is based on delivering over 200 campaigns in eloqua over the last few years with different clients, but I’m going to focus on Eloqua 10 – specifically nurture and trigger based campaigns. Eloqua can be daunting at first. Eloqua is great at ‘connecting’ with other systems, so this shouldn’t be an issue.

Were you aware that when influencers share your content on social it can result in a dramatic increase in traffic and conversions? Wide-ranging in scope, the charts hit the most important topics hitting marketers today – from social media to email. Or that emails sent on a Saturday get the highest number of click-throughs?

(This is the last post in our series on sales organizations’ emerging use of social media as a channel for shaping demand.). 1)      Social Media and Social Selling are here to stay. Social media is not a passing fad and as online networking increases the spillover into B2B sales is somewhat inevitable.

(This is the last post in our series on sales organizations’ emerging use of social media as a channel for shaping demand.). 1)      Social Media and Social Selling are here to stay. Social media is not a passing fad and as online networking increases the spillover into B2B sales is somewhat inevitable.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this If you were at Eloqua Experience last week, you probably heard a lot of stats cited. Data is simply exploding as social, mobile and apps change the way we work, collaborate and deliver marketing campaigns. That’s probably why I heard many requests for access to many of the stats cited at Eloqua Experience.

by Andrew Stivelman | Tweet this In June of 2010, the  nielsenwire published statistics  on how much time people spend using social networks and blogs on a monthly basis.  Of course, as a marketer you could also point your prospects and contacts using an Eloqua campaign by including links to files (whitepapers, FAQs, etc.),

Another Eloqua Experience has passed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get nostalgic, right? So here are 22 photos from Eloqua Experience 2012. paulhart1: Full day of product training at #EE12 @ Eloqua Experience North America. Eloqua #EE12. EE12 #Eloqua. Cc @eloqua @ Eloqua Experience North America.

That’s the feel and color from the annual Eloqua Markie awards. Connecting in the Eloqua AppCloud: Trend Micro. Social Media Innovation:   Infoblox. is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this The red carpet. We won!”

That’s how Joe Payne , Eloqua’s CEO, opened his Eloqua Experience keynote on what modern marketing is, and what modern marketers need. The Internet, mobile, social media, and analytical tools available have flipped the equation. It’s Social and Mobile. Clearly, marketing needs to be more social and mobile.

With the seemingly infinite number of social channels, from the ever popular Facebook and Twitter to younger upstarts like Instagram and Pinterest, it’s important to connect your campaigns. No So for all those joining us this week at Eloqua Experience , we want to help you share your experience.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Three categories have long dominated the way marketers approach media: there’s the ads you buy, the press coverage you earn, and the content you own. As far as buckets go, the paid, owned, earned media model was convenient and worked well enough. The argument is that media are already blending.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Selling, some would argue, has always been social. But few would argue that social media hasn’t changed the game for sales and marketing. Well, you’ll be happy to know that social selling, like traditional selling, is still about trust. Know What Social Selling Is – And What it Isn’t.

The best-selling author, former CMO and keynote speaker at the upcoming Eloqua Experience conference. In fact, we’ve even seen this transferred to some social media channels with DM spam. The rise of the Web and social media has made it easier for customers to control the situation. What are the biggest changes?

by Heidi Melin | Tweet this We talk a lot about community at Eloqua. So often I get asked, “What is the Eloqua Community?”. That’s why we launched the Eloqua AppCloud –a first in our industry – last year. When a fellow CMO asks me, “How did you build the Eloqua Community?”, Is it our premier customers? So thanks.

And if you want more advice on social ads, download our Grande Guide to Social Advertising. How to Get The Most Out of Paid Twitter Ads is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. But success I’ve seen through Twitter changed my mind. Take Advantage of Every Update.

by Rob Bois | Tweet this Social media has been in use as a marketing channel for years now. However, many folks in demand generation roles still face an uphill battle when tasked with bringing Social into their marketing campaigns. But are those social connections ever turning into leads or customers? So what gives?

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this If your organization hasn’t adopted social CRM , don’t feel so bad. Social CRM may seem like the topic du jour, but in reality most of the market isn’t adopting the principles or technology needed to truly make it work. This is the current state of social CRM adoption – at least according to Awareness Inc.,

recently watched a  TED talk by Clay Shirky  on the role of social collaboration tools in business that made the statement:  if your system is designed to give up on 20% of the value, you should redesign the system. Here at Eloqua, we intuitively believe that, and we are using Salesforce.com Chatter as our internal collaboration tool. 

Perhaps you want to nail down a social demand generation strategy. Some of the things I look at are the performance of channels; what is the impact of a third-party vendor versus social media? Demand Generation b2b marketing campaign performance Content Marketing Eloqua marketing automation social demand generation

Social Sharing. Just sticking social sharing buttons in your emails won’t get you results. Take a look at what messages you post on social sites that enjoy the most love. As with all new social media tools, and marketing as a whole, it’s a long-term cycle of watching, learning and adapting until you get the optimum results.

CHART] is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. Digital Marketing community management customer community gamification online communities social media marketing toplinersby Heather Foeh | Tweet this Gamification is a hot topic these days. Or  my personal favorite.

Social media allows you to scale what you’ve always done at face-to-face events and over the phone. Behaviors of Successful Modern Marketers is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. Digital Marketing b2b marketing Eloqua marketing automation modern marketing storytelling

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Today’s post is adapted from the Grande Guide to Social CRM , written by the well-known social CRM thinker, Paul Greenberg. There’s a lot of talk about social CRM these days, but precious little action. Here are a few to help wrap your head around social CRM. So how to get started?

The amazing and progressive Eloqua company sponsored me to create The Grande Guide to B2B Blogging and it really turned out to be a sensational piece of work. B2B and social media Blogging best practices eBooks b2b blogging b2b social media blogging best practices blogging infographic eloqua

He’s a director of social media at Provo Craft , and a contributor to the Grande Guide to Community Management. How to Convince Executives to Pay for Community Management is from Eloqua’s It’s All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing. Maintaining a happy community takes time, effort and investment.

The Association of Business Information & Media Companies, which tracks B2B media spending, provided the chart below in it’s latest report. In other words, events continue to represent the lionshare of spending among B2B media, beating out print, data selling and digital handily. Of nearly $12.5 billion, more than $5.7

Now, we’re undergoing a social revolution, where buyers can easily access your product, get comparisons, find reviews, but also find answers from peers and people they respect. This has birthed a new concept: social selling. Luckily, social selling savant, Jill Rowley , was around to give a demo. Do you use social to sell?

Analysts and other industry watchers have suspected a marketing cloud was coming as salesforce snapped up social marketing businesses like Radian6 and Buddy Media over the past couple of years. The concept is not that there’s a dileneation between marketing and social marketing, but that all marketing is becoming social marketing.

The media industry is no exception. Yesterday, I caught a panel led by media prognosticator, Jeff Jarvis , and featuring heavy hitters from Salesforce.com, Newsweek , comScore, and Questus. The discussion largely turned to the forces altering the media landscape (social, search, etc.), Measure What Matters. Register now.

Tech companies woke up and saw the growing role of technology in the marketing department – web analytics, marketing automation, social media, digital advertising and digital creation. Eloqua:  Goes public in August 2012 at the top of their pricing range. How Tech Companies Are Setting Sights On The Swelling Marketing Budget.

They’re socially empowered to gather and share information from numerous sources. Meanwhile, social media networks underlying this change have made personal and professional relationships richer, broader, and more easily accessible. That’s where social selling comes in. Social selling isn’t just a sales phenomenon.

Last year, my colleague Tom Pick ( @TomPick ) and I introduced the #Nifty50 awards , which honored 50 men and 50 women who were leading the way in social media through their active engagement on Twitter. This year, we also decided that honoring the tech sector’s greatest social media advocates on our respective blogs isn’t enough.

There was a time when just being in social media was a risk for companies. What you'll find in this post are the social media ideas that many brands wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole; except, of course, for some special few who said, "Meh, screw it." 10 Risky Social Media Moves Real Brands Aren't Afraid to Make.

Like it or not, social media is here to stay. Nowadays, if you want to learn something, you turn on your iPad, grab your smart phone, or turn on your computer, and ask your social network or search for relevant blog posts or discussion groups. If Learning in a social world is about people learning from people. Where