of B2B technology buyers say social media has influenced their purchase decisions or interactions with vendors. So should B2B organizations shutter their social media efforts or reduce their investments? Stepping back from the details, the research from IDC reaffirms two key guidelines for B2B social media. Social Is Not About Selling If you are using social media to sell, you are not connecting with your audience. Opportunity: Inform and deliver value in your B2B social media program. Don’t be that guy. MORE >>

For the past three years I have been teaching college or graduate level classes in social media marketing. Executives are clamoring for the next level of education in this area and so I’ve been wondering … what would an Advanced Social Media Class look like? What new skills and ideas would go into the next level of social media education? Let me prime the pump … here are some ideas I might include in an advanced social media class: The politics of social media.  How do you organize to optimize? MORE >>

Social media can really benefit your personal brand. But how do you keep its most powerful value — the “one-to-one-ness” of social connection — intact when that reach explodes? The irony is, the more popular you become on the social web, the less effective you might be! was really liking this social media thing. Explosive growth + one-to-one social media = KABOOM. Social media enabled me to scale—but I couldn’t make scaling work while keeping one-to-one connections intact as my reach grew. So far, so good. MORE >>

Back in the early days of the social web, the leading “gurus” were actively anti-business. They made fun of measurement, strategy, objectives and any hint of trying to monetize a social media effort. The mantra was “Social media is not about your stupid company. Today, social media is being mainlined into the traditional marketing, PR and advertising initiatives, for better or for worse. do believe it is possible to create strategic advantage by delivering great content and executing a social media initiative well. MORE >>

It’s a ubiquitous mantra of the social web to the point where sometimes I think it takes over as the ultimate goal. So how did we get hung up on the social media “conversation” as a goal of its own?  What What is the future of the social media “conversation?”  Buyers and sellers looked each other in the eye, met, and spoke directly to each other without the filter of media, the positioning of marketing, the arrogance of advertising, or the shading of public relations. So the idea that social media conversation is revolutionary is untrue.  The MORE >>