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B2B search engine marketing is all encompassing. It includes everything from pay per click (PPC) to search engine optimization (SEO). One of the fastest growing niches of B2B search marketing is social media. Sites like Twitter and Facebook sign up tens of thousands of new users per day and drive massive amounts of traffic to online businesses.

Hence, it’s essential to not only have a presence on a few of these sites, but to also pay attention to how your business is perceived via them.

Following is some insight into how to use social media sites – the right way – to brand your business.

B2B Search Marketing & Social Media: Don’t Sell, Inform
Have you ever known someone who talked about themselves incessantly? They never ask others, but are always divulging what they want, what they need, what they’re doing, who they met, etc.

Annoying, isn’t it?

People do the same thing in social media. For example, they always tweet their latest blog post or product/service offering, but never bother to retweet content from others.

While it’s perfectly fine to use social media to market your products and services, remember that most people look for information before purchasing. So share relevant information – pertinent to your niche — with them. This builds a relationship, which leads to sales.

Once you set up a social media account – whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. – stay active on a regular basis. Otherwise, you run the risk of making your business appear “flaky,” which is never a good thing in business.

Social media is an ideal B2B search marketing strategy to build a relationship with prospects. And when they’re ready to buy, your firm will be front and center.

To learn more valuable strategies on B2B search marketing and social media, join top B2B Marketers June 23 in San Francisco at the B2B Search Strategy Summit and “Discover the Top 7 Ways to Increase Your B2B Search Marketing Profits.” We look forward to see you there!

If you offer only one way to access information on your site, you could be losing customers. B2B marketing in a multi-media world means paying attention to how your prospects like to receive information – not how you like to offer it.

B2B Marketing: Something to Think About When It Comes to Multimedia

Have you ever visited a site and wanted to access some content, but it wasn’t in the right format for you? For example, let’s say a site offers a free report you’d really like to have, but it’s a video. What you want is a pdf file because you want to print it out and read it while you’re taking the train on your evening commute home.

B2B Search Marketing Tip: Diversify to Capture More

While multimedia formats have been around for years, many businesses are not up to speed when it comes to integrating these choices into their website offerings. This could be because many businesses still grapple with what it really means to do business online.

Many have just gotten around to grasping the basics of B2B search marketing. So thinking ahead of the curve is not a consideration at this point.

In order to effectively compete online though, it’s critical to stay in tune with what your customers want – even if it forces you to play catchup.

One easy way to increase your site’s traffic is to offer info in a variety of multimedia formats. By giving your site’s visitors options, you put them in control of how they receive and process information.

And that’s what B2B search marketing is all about – giving customers what they want – how they want it.

One of the easiest ways to stay front and center with your prospects is to blog.

Blogging is free, it’s easy to start and you can personalize your brand via this medium. For these reasons, it’s one of the most effective B2B search engine marketing weapons in your online advertising arsenal. But, it can be time consuming.

And if you’re a small business without a dedicated blogger on staff, it can eat up a lot of your time. However, it doesn’t have to. Following is one way to make sure you use this B2B search marketing weapon frequently and effectively, but also time consciously.

B2B Search Marketing: Contact Prospects Daily without Being a Nuisance

Have you ever belonged to any kind of mailing list where you got daily tips? This could be anything from a link to a useful industry website, to a link to a relevant news article, to a daily joke about your niche.

In today’s world, we’re all programmed to consume in small bites, ie: 15-second news bites, 30-second promo videos, 140-character Twitter tweets, etc.

Hence the groundwork for a blog that dispenses compact daily tips, tricks, ideas and/or jokes has already been laid. A blog like this is quick and easy to update, and it keeps your brand in front of customers.

And, this is really what B2B search engine marketing is all about – staying top of mind so that when customers need what you have to offer, you’re the first one they think of.

All B2B marketers know the importance of keywords to their online marketing initiatives. But, many make a common mistake when it comes to keyword usage. Following is what it is and how to fix it.

Are You Using Keywords That Are Important to You or Your Customers

There’s an idiomatic expression in marketing that goes, “What’s in it for me?” Marketers are supposed to answer this with their customer in mind. In other words, they should be using keywords that reflect what’s important to their customer, NOT what’s important to them – which is exactly what many do.

While many offline marketers have embraced this line of thinking, many online marketers haven’t. One reason may be that for many B2B marketers, they use applications, processes and marketing procedures that their customers don’t know anything about.

All a customer may know is that they land on a site, it has what they want – at the right price – so they purchase.

But what if your customer is not landing on your site, but your competitor’s site? Are you using the right keyword phrases – keyword phrases that likely prospects would use to find your site?

In B2B search marketing, one of the most difficult things to do is divorce yourself from high-tech processes and procedures and think like your customer. When your customer sits down to conduct a web search, what will they type in? It may be very different than the terminology reflected in your marketing that you “think” they’ll type in.

While B2B marketing reflects a 21st world, the foundation of what works is as old as marketing itself, ie, “What’s in it for me?” And, in this case “me” is your customer.

Did you know – The b2b Search Strategy Summit will bring 150 B2B senior level marketers together to hone their seach marketing skills and increase their campaign results on June 23, 2010 in San Francisco. Will you be there? Check it out at http://www.b2bSearchStrategy.com