A survey released last month of 230 B-to-B companies shows that 24% are using Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and others for marketing, and another 36% plan to try them in the coming year. “It’s certainly something that has taken off in the last six months,” says Michael Greene, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., which conducted the study. In general, he says B-to-Bs tend to be slower to adopt new marketing technologies than business-to-consumer companies. But now that they’re catching up, it appears that many are having a tough time gaining followers. “B-2-B isn’t sexy,” says Mr. Greene. “It doesn’t have that same immediate attraction that consumer brands do.” – WSJ Online

Social Media is an incredible new tool for business – it allows for immediate conversations, quicker reactions and an open communication strategy. But for businesses who sell only to other businesses, social media can be difficult, confusing and frustrating. Most people who are on social media are looking to build connections and relationships before they talk with someone about what they do or how they could potentially work together. Business is actually secondary to conversations in most areas of social media – which can be very difficult for traditional businesses to understand. This is even more difficult when you sell only to other companies. But – that doesn’t mean it can’t work for you!

How, you ask? By remembering that although you sell to businesses, there are people behind those businesses, and those people are using social media. Still unsure if it can work for you? Here are a few ways to determine if your company can use and is ready to use social media:

1. Can you have a normal conversation with someone and see that in the future, it might lead to business?
2. Do you read stories that you think are worth sharing with the general audience and your niche group?
3. Is your company looking to add more clients and grow its income?
4. Do you enjoy having conversations about things you enjoy outside of business too?
5. Would bringing more light to your company help you to grow your client base?
6. Can you dedicate an hour a day (spread out in small increments throughout the day) for social media?
7. Do you use other marketing tools that social media can help to make stronger?

If you answered yes to more than 5 of these questions, it is likely that social media can work for your B2B business – if you take the time to put together a solid strategy and put in a real effort when you start!

Are you a B2B company? Are you using social media? Do you know a B2B company who is using social media well?

Image from the Adage story (click image for link)

Just 7 years ago, a “social media mob” didn’t exist, a tweet was a noise that a bird made, and liking something meant more than just clicking a button…

With the expansion of social media tools like twitter, facebook, yourtube and foursqaure, businesses have an amazing opportunity to great killer offers and really grow their following. But with that new ‘power’ comes some serious pitfalls.

Most businesses are going to type something wrong and send it out through twitter. Or misstep on Facebook and have their audience see it. Most businesses will have to deal with an error in judgment. And for some, like the ones to the left, that error could cost them millions.

But, what I find interesting, and what I think we need to focus on is the fact that although these companies did have a huge failure in front of the entire world, they are still alive and kicking (for the most part) and there are only 37! Think about how many big brands are really on twitter and facebook – a solid majority of the Fortune 1000 – and yet only 37 brands have committed a failure so great they would be put into this list? In addition – almost all of these 37 brands are still alive and kicking, despite their failure in social media. And some, like Dell, have turned their social failure into social success and have become a representative of how to use social media properly.

This tells me one very important thing: Social Media can be problematic, but the good outweighs the bad by a long shot. The number of success stories that social media provides for brands all over the world is incredible. Just ask any one of your followers and they can probably tell you a handful of brands that are seriously succeeding with it.

Just because you fail once in social media doesn’t mean you can’t save your brand.

Want to see the complete explanation of the screwups by company? Check out the slide show from SMI:

If you haven’t gotten the new twitter yet, be patient. From the twitter site, they are adding people daily so it shouldn’t be long. But, if you just can’t wait, here are a few screen shots (and a few thoughts on the changes) of the new twitter:

1. When you login, you see your main screen. This is where all the conversations are going on. Across the black bar is now where all your settings, messages and changes are for your profile. In the main area, from the left side, you can get to your mentions, retweets, searches and lists. On the right, you see your following, followers and the trending topics.

Click picture to enlarge

2. If you were to click on someones twitter name in your twitter stream, instead of taking you to their profile on a separate page, the right side is replaced:

Click picture to enlarge

3. If you click on profile in the black bar, it takes you to your own profile with your tweets. You can also see your favorites, following/followers, lists and edit your profile. This is very similar to the original twitter but it is just laid out differently.

Click picture to enlarge

4. Direct Messages are now extremely organized. Rather than just a list of messages, they are organized by to whom they were sent. Then, if you click on someones name, the entire thread of messages shows on the right (sorry, I blocked the text, it is a DM after all!)

Click picture to enlarge

Finally, one thing you may notice is that my profile background is significantly smaller on the left, and because the right is a little see through, I have been able to add some branding there as well. It is important to remember that even if you don’t have the new twitter yet, others do, and your twitter profile needs to work. Need help? Send me a message!

We’ve all seen the lovely fail whale a few too many times…or like yesterday, watched the Facebook server crash. So, what do you do if one of your beloved social sites goes down?

Here at Motor Creative, we have put together just a few ideas:

1. Complain about it going down on any site that is still up.
2. Start commenting on every post that is talking about the outage.
3. Continually hit refresh until you have carpal tunnel.
4. Start a conspiracy theory that Myspace is taking out all other social sites.
5. Stock up on water and food, because obviously, this is the first sign of the apocalypse.
6. Actually call your clients.
7. Decorate your office with sticky notes and paperclip art.
8. Do real work – any real work.
9. Play minesweep.
10. Write a list of the 10 things to do when your social media sites go down.

What other ways can you come up with to spend your time when twitter and facebook go down?

Flowtown, a company that helps find the stats on your customers through social media, but together an awesome infographic about the changing users of social media – and the fact that yes, your Mom is probably on facebook.

Next time your boss tells you that twitter and facebook are just for kids and you don’t need them…show them this. I have a feeling that social media might just be the next thing you do…

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Are you surprised by the numbers at all?

Time – that illusive thing we all wish we had more of. Unfortunately, we can’t make more time, but what we can do is make better use of the time that we do have. So, next time you have 10 minutes to dedicate to something that can help you to build your business, try one of these:

• Send a personal thank you note to a recent client
• Write some notes on a new blog post
• Check on the conversations on twitter
• Ask a question on your business facebook page
• Review the copy on your site, make sure it’s up to date
• Organize your office so you can find things easier
• Share a link to an interesting article with your followers
• Make sure all important emails have been responded to

What else can you do in 10 minutes to change the flow of your day and improve your business?

I love twitter with a passion – it is a great tool that a business can use to listen, share, converse and build a stronger brand. It is also a lot of fun and it allows you to meet tons of interesting people. But, twitter has its share of jerks, and if you don’t want to be considered one of them, I’d recommend following these 10 simple rules:

1. Don’t argue on twitter. It’s okay to share your opinions, but if the tweets start getting out of hand – stop. Move to email, phone or dm. The world doesn’t need to see the battle.
2. Don’t send auto dm’s. They are obnoxious and pointless. Send a personal dm if you want to say hello privately.
3. Don’t just spit out link after link. It’s boring, and obnoxious.
4. Don’t use every other tweet to sell me stuff. No one cares about your business as much as you do. Have conversations!
5. Stop sharing other peoples quotes. One or two a month are fine, but when every other tweet is something someone else said it looks like you have no original ideas.
6. Don’t send the same tweet to 50 different people. We can see your stream, it isn’t conversation if you’re just sending the same tweet.
7. Don’t forget to personalize your bio, page and picture. We want to know who you are, not what the stock twitter bird looks like.
8. Don’t complain about twitter on twitter. Sometimes it goes down, get over it. It’s a free service. Stop complaining.
9. Don’t tweet your every waking thought. There is such thing as too much tweeting, and too personal to share.
10. Don’t think you know everything. There is always time to learn something new about twitter!

What other tips can you share to help people avoid being a twitter jerk?

A blog is not a magical cure all. Neither is twitter, facebook or youtube. Social media tools were created in order to make conversation easier and more effective with a larger network of people – not to sell stuff. While they can be used to help your business grow, understanding the right way to use these tools is the only way to make that happen. Just like traditional marketing, it takes time and a lot of touches before you will turn someone from a watcher to a listener and then into a buyer. You can’t push someone too quickly or they will just push back. Social media allows messages to send faster, but that doesn’t mean we need to be faster with our pitches. Let’s take the magic and mystery out of the equation, and start thinking about them as tools. To use social media properly you must:

1. Share content – not sales pitches.
2. Be involved in the conversation.
3. Create quality not quantity.
4. Offer help and advice without expecting it in return.
5. Look for the right people to follow based on your industry.
6. Do not send spam messages.
7. Ask for help in sharing, but don’t be overbearing.
8. Give people credit – never steal someones ideas.
9. Be consistent in your message.
10. Write and share often, but don’t be a blowhard.
11. Use your instincts – branding is the same everywhere.
12. Don’t say something you’ll regret.
13. Learn to respond with your brand in mind.
14. Ask questions, it encourages conversation.
15. Take time every week to re-evaluate what works and what doesn’t
16. Not give up. It takes time for people to listen
17. Be honest. People can tell when you are just slinging fluff.
18. Create a consistent profile. Being the same brand throughout all media makes you easier to understand.

What other tips can you share that take the mystery and magic out of social media?

Create 3 lists.

List #1: Your local list, the people who live within 30-40 miles of you, those whom you can meet in person. This is a great list for local business owners to have, but also for those who want to attend networking events and get to know people offline.

List #2: Your top tweeters. These are the people that you enjoy hearing from, reading about and never want to miss their tweets. I recommend keeping this list to under 150 so that you can easily manage it and follow the conversations.

List #3: A conversationalist list. This list is created through conversationlist.com. It is a dynamically created list each day of the people whom you talk to and whom talk about you. This is a great list to help you determine who is important in your day. This is a great place to find new people to add to your top tweeters list.

What other lists do you have on twitter?

Last week, we ran a poll to see which social media tool would be the hardest to give up. And I was actually surprised by the results! I assumed that most people would say their blogs and then twitter, with facebook coming up third. And then we had the one “other” entry for their mouth (from @TopBrokerOC). Which happens to be a really brilliant response, and am surprised that I didn’t think of it (I know, modest right?). Check out the full results:

I know for me, giving up my blog would be impossible. It gives me space to share as much or as little as I want, is completely customizable and provides an outlet for my thoughts. The benefit of social media tools is not the fact that you can talk to a lot of people – it is that you can share good content with a lot of people. A blog is the basis for the content. Without a blog (or other peoples blogs) I wouldn’t have much content to share on twitter or facebook. In fact, without blogs, life would be pretty dull! Think about all the blogs you read on a daily basis…what if they all just disappeared? I am pretty sure sites like twitter and facebook would cease to have the same appeal because then all people would have to share is what they are actually doing, as opposed to sharing articles and insights.
If you voted (or even if you didn’t), I want to know which tool you chose and why?