Although many people today associate digital "community" with a customer-facing space, B2B communities are also an integral part of social media. After all, businesses are comprised of (you guessed it), people.

Maria Ogneva, the Head of Community at Yammer, has pulled together the following 10 best practices for managing a B2B community. Has your organization followed all of these tips?

    1.  Know When to Create Your Own

Before jumping on the wagon, so to speak, you need to ask yourself what your objectives are. If you want to take a prominent role in certain industry discussions, for example, it might be best to join an existing group rather than start a brand new one.

     2.  Have a Vision

What's your purpose of starting a B2B community? Will it facilitate dialogue between customers, or will it serve as an industry best practices forum? Once you have settled on your objectives, it will be much easier to determine how best to achieve them.

    3.  Guide Them

Again, depending on your objectives (back to #2), you need to set guidelines for membership in your community. You may opt to have an open community, or a closed, invite-only one. 

    4.  Understand Your Members

Again, it cannot be stressed enough that B2B communities are made up of people, each with their own goals, needs and pain points. People don't buy just products, they buy solutions to problems, so if you can appeal to the basic need for success, belonging and gratification, your community will be that much more engaging.

    5.  Designate Roles

With the case of a very large community, it can be very productive to empower certain contributors to take on the role of moderators. Not only will it add to the sense of collectivity, it will also make your role less complicated!

    6.  Publish the "Rules of the Road"

Make it very clear from the get-go what the purpose of the community is, and further, what behaviours are encouraged and discouraged. 

    7.  How to Measure Success? Decide.

Here we go, back to #2. Depending on your goals, there can be different metrics for tracking the success of your community. Growth and the amount of active users are two metrics, but there are more. The better aligned the metrics are to your business, the better. For example, if your business offers a software solution, and the purpose of your community is to better educate your customers via best practices, you would ideally see fewer support tickets and higher renewal rates as a result of the community.  

    8.  Assign a Community Manager

Although you want to be transparent in the "rules of the road", and encourage people to participate, it's always good to have a community manager, even just for the purposes of accountability.

    9.  Build Internal Process to Support the Community

A thriving community can provide some incredible insight to your business, so be sure to establish a process, among the right departments, to harness that dialogue.

    10.  Success - Share It!

One of the easiest ways to overcome a business problem is to see how others in similar situations have achieved success. Think of this as a "case study" mentality - not only do people love sharing their wins, they can be very inspiring for others facing similar problems.

In the following video, Michael Stelzner from SocialMediaExaminer.com interviews C.C Chapman, the co-author of the acclaimed book, Content Rules. In this interview, C.C explains how businesses can use content marketing can help to build trust and relationships with customers.


sme_cc_chapman_v1 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

Highlights:

• Content marketing is actually not new, but marketers have recently discovered how valuable it can be.
• When you're creating content, forget about those that fall outside of your target market, and keep focused on the ones that do.
• Content marketing is all about good storytelling - look to "experts" and customers to act as contributors. 
• With the rise of mobile and interactive, content will become more and more focused on "real time".

On Tuesday, Facebook annnounced that their Timeline profile would now be available to users worldwide. Although it's currently available only for personal profile pages, many have predicted that brand pages will soon follow.

Some have argued that the move will inevitably "revolutionize" brand pages. Christine Campbell, program manager for SEO and Social Media at Resolute Digital explains: "The brand pages as they are now on Facebook are boring, [are] mostly text, and make successful user interaction difficult. Timeline's focus on images and telling a true story will really help most brands get a better page out of the service."

Some businesses and brands might benefit directly from the potential change than others, namely those that offer tangible products that lend themselves to "scrapbooking" or gallery-style visual representation. Those without tangible products won't be left in the dust, though - brands can get more attention by creating apps that users would be able to feature quite prominently on their profile pages. Ultimately, Timeline puts an emphasis on photos and visuals, so those brands that can leverage this would see the most success. Larger, established fashion/lifestyle brands are a prime example, as they would be able to provide a visual narrative of their company history, from its launch all the way to milestone events over the years. These options are more difficult to represent in traditional brand pages.

The projected change hasn't received a uniform welcome, though, and drawbacks to timeline for brands have also been identified. On a basic level, users who have become accustomed to traditional brand pages may not take as warmly to the transition to Timeline. In addition, analyst Alison Kimszal from DefinedLogic sees the interference that Timeline might have with current Facebook apps as problematic.

If Timeline is eventually opened up to businesses, it will become necessary to evaluate whether or not the new layout will provide real value to your customers. Relevant content will still reign, so the opportunity lies in deciding how best to present that content in meaningful, engaging ways, working with (not against) the channel's evolution.

For journalists, bloggers and techies 
alike, this week has passed in a
whirlwind of headlines covering
the controversy surrounding SOPA, the
proposed anti-piracy legislation in the U.S. Some of the powerful language used to characterize the dispute? Protest, blackout, fear and censorship, to name but a few. Some of the bill's opponents, namely Mashable's editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff, have declared that the passing of SOPA, if it were to occur, would be a regression into the "Dark Ages".

A bold statement indeed, but his sentiment is shared by many who see this bill, along with PIPA, (Protect Intellectual Property Act) as an attempt to drastically alter the internet, reverting back to the days of one-way content distribution (remember that good 'ol Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM?). Others have taken a less apocalyptic stance, but most agree that if passed, this legislation would radically change the face of the internet and content sharing.

What is SOPA?

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is designed to target and penalize online copyright infringement. The part of the legislation that is deemed to be most threatening is not just the penalty against individual offenders, but the shutting down of those sites that provide "tools" for copyright infringement to take place, as well as the removal of such sites in search engine results.

What does that mean? If the bill is passed, any website "directed" towards U.S users that is seen to violate copyright laws will be targeted and shut down. What's more, any site that relies heavily on user-generated content will be at some form of risk, which includes Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter... the list goes on.

Protests

Wednesday's blackout protest intended to raise awareness of the issue beyond the technology community, and tens of thousands of websites took part, including Wikipedia, Twitter, Cheezburger and WordPress. Check out some of the other participating websites here.

Although Facebook and Google couldn't risk full-scale blackouts, they found their own ways to announce their opposition. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook to comment, "We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet." Google took action by changing its homepage in the U.S, encouraging visitors to sign a petition against SOPA and PIPA, and they have already received 7 million signatures.

Meanwhile, a backlash campaign has also been launched in the U.S by Creative America, an organization representing leading entertainment unions and media companies in support of the bills. The campaign included a banner ad in New York's Time Square that offered suggestions on what to do during an internet blackout, including reading, listening to music or watching a movie.

What's Next?

It's difficult to know what will happen leading up to the Senate vote on PIPA on January 24th. However, a wave of further blackouts has been predicted and Wikipedia, for one, has announced that "We're not done yet."

What are your thoughts on SOPA? Is this really a death to content sharing as we know it in the U.S? If you're curious to get a sense of some of the other perspectives on the matter, check out this "Viewpoints" piece from BBC News and let us know what you think!

Some have lauded it as the
hottest" new social network, and
although it hasn't yet received widespread popularity as Facebook, Twitter or Google+, Pinterest has seen an immense amount of growth  in followers over the past year, and was found to be one of the top 10 social networks by Mashable.

For those who may not know too much about it: Pinterest is a place to share images of interest. Once you upload an image, it becomes known as a Pin, which you can then place on themed boards of your creation. From polka-dot balloons to breakfast pancakes to bridal dresses, the sky's the limit when it comes to board topics, and you can follow others based on similar interests. One thing to note about Pinterest is that you have to be invited to the network.

It's more than just a repository for "cool" images, though. As Mashable research has found, some businesses have discovered intriguing ways to engage with their customers via Pinterest. Check out some of them below:

1. Contests

For B2C companies, something as simple as a photo contest can really boost engagement with your customers. One idea: for a clothing store, the contest can consist of submitting photos of your best outfits from a particular retailer.

2. New Product Approval

Since Pinterest's popularity is still rising, it's an ideal platform to gather customer intelligence around new products (think of it as an incredibly cost-effective, and highly social, focus group).

3.  Showcase Brand Identity

For those organizations that may not have products, Pinterest can allow you to weave your brand story through images. A brilliant example: a mayoral candidate can illustrate their philanthropic, socially-responsible initiatives through a specific Pinterest Board.

To read more, check out the full article. Are there any other Pinterest tips and tricks that you've found useful? Post them here!

Knowing the psychological motivations behind purchase decisions can bring B2B and B2C marketers one step closer to reaching their target audience, and psychologists have identified six traits that are becoming more prominent in social commerce.

The following infographic from Digital Buzz Blog captures the enormous power of social influence in purchase decisions. Some highlights? When making purchase decisions, buyers rely on:

1. Social Proof
          •  Refers to the advice offered by friends and family members on social media. 81% of buyers rely on this.

2.  Authority
        • 77% consult reviews.

3. Scarcity
          •  Exclusive offers garner more interest and appeal from 77% of potential buyers.



Have a great weekend!

Many of us can make some pretty solid hypotheses about which areas of a web page attract instant attention from your visitors. However, when you throw something like eye-tracking into the mix and look specifically at social media profile pages, as EyeTrackShop has in a recent study with Mashable, you can end up with some really interesting conclusions.

For companies with pages on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, the results of studies like this one can help to reinforce what you already knew about social media profile pages, and may help to also uncover some new, useful tips. Read on!

1. Be Strategic in Your Profile Picture Selection

This one's especially important with Facebook, Klout and StumbleUpon. Ask yourself: is my company's profile picture representative of my brand? Is it eye-catching, unique and memorable? You can add to this by gathering feedback from your customers and/or asking your business contacts. What's their first impression?
   


2. Who You Know Matters

The study shows that people do look at those thumbnails of connections on your profile - make sure your company is making the right impression! This is especially the case with Facebook, Twitter and Google +.


3. Keep Your Content at the Top of the Page

This one you may have guessed: the top portion of your page is prime real-estate. The further down you go, the less likely people are to engage with the content, although the study found this effect to be less pronounced on Twitter and YouTube. 

Check out the full EyeTrackShop/Mashable study results here.

Since its rising popularity,
Facebook has often been the
target of concerns around online privacy. In the spirit of transparency, and undoubtedly in hopes of placating its critics, Facebook engineering director Arturo Bejar has recently shared what personal information the company retains with its tracking cookies, as reported by USA Today.
 
When logged in:
Facebook will keep a time-stamped list of the URLs visited and pair it with the user's name, e-mail address, list of friends, user preferences, IP address, screen resolution, operating system, and browser.
 
When logged out:
Everything except a user's name, list of friends, and preferences. Instead, it uses a unique alphanumeric number to track users like a cookie. Even though Facebook isn't tracking users' entire browsing history, there are a lot of sites out there with "Like" and "Share" buttons. Bejar mentioned that Facebook has the ability to link users' names to their logged-out browsing data, but they make a specific point not to do this.
 
Naturally, these facts stirred up some concern and debate, but Facebook has revealed its strategic rationale for tracking data. Security is one, as tracking logs helps Facebook pinpoint fake accounts. Enhanced user experience is another, along with increasingly targeted ads. Facebook revealed that it does not use tracking logs, but instead uses the profile information and "likes", as voluntarily disclosed by Facebook users, to display targeted ads.

Although this information sparked controversy for some, others see Bejar's revelation as a necessary move towards increased transparency around Facebook's data tracking practices. Even more broadly, it alludes to the conflicting pressures that Facebook continues to face as it navigates its way through the need for profitability amid industry controversy around online privacy.

If you're a B2B company, LinkedIn’s network is the ideal platform to connect your business to over 120 million professionals. Here are five ways you can improve your company’s presence and begin increasing your lead flow.

1. Use Your Company Profile More Effectively

   LinkedIn recently added company status updates which work similarly to Facebook’s Wall feature. It’s now possible to post videos, news articles, industry articles, promotions and many other different kinds of content. These status updates are sent out over your company’s followers' networks, resulting in a vast reach.

2. Recruit Staff via LinkedIn

   Posting jobs and taking applications through LinkedIn helps to raise your company’s profile on the network and allows your company to stay connected with potential employees. For recruiters and talent scouts, the ability to view a candidate’s referrals, recommendations, experience and network is also extremely valuable.

3. Go Team!

   Encourage your company’s employees to complete their LinkedIn profiles as much as possible, follow your company page, and help them list their current position with the correct company name, so that their profile will be listed on your page. You can also power up your blog’s reach by encouraging your employees to connect your company’s blog to their profile through the TypePad BlogLink application.

4. Start an Invite-Only Group

   Joining professionals with common interests related to your company’s field and fostering discussion can help to build relationships and network with a well-targeted audience. Building active groups can also help to develop your organization’s strategy and market knowledge.

5. Use Ads and Capture Leads

   Even though LinkedIn company pages are a great headquarters for your business on LinkedIn, they’re not yet customizable enough to function as effective landing pages.  If your company’s goal is to capture a lead from a LinkedIn ad, it’s best to send the visitor to a form that allows them to provide their contact information.

If you have any other tips or tactics for using LinkedIn for lead generation, post them here!

You may have heard some buzz around the notion of gamification. The term has been
characterized by some as the next frontier in web and mobile, one predicted to
become as central to marketing as social media has become.

So what is it? Gamification refers to the use of game mechanics and tactics in non-gaming environments, and it relies on rewards, incentives and challenges to stimulate action and motivate behaviour. The explosion of social gaming in recent years (Foursquare are Zynga are two prime examples) has brought with it a wave of game mechanics increasingly woven into the fabric of our daily lives. A recent Gartner report predicts that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage "innovation processes" will gamify those processes.

Marketers have recently tapped into the power of game mechanics, applying similar principles to their website design and functionality, under the premise that successful websites encourage participation via many of the tactics more traditionally reserved for the gaming space. 

Check out some of our quick tips and resources below on "gamifying" your website. Does your organization currently use any of these tactics?

User- Generated Content
The aim here is to provide incentives for visitors to generate their own content on your site. Not only will it increase engagement, it will make your site richer and more SEO-friendly. UGC can be encouraged through feedback mechanisms such as ratings, reviews and comments. How can you reward people for this type of user-generated content? One way is to consider providing “badges” to those users who comment or participate frequently.

Feedback Tools
You’ve heard of the Facebook “like” button and Google’s “+1”. Both of these are tools for people to share content while also providing their feedback on it. One way to encourage this is to reward users for “liking” or taking some kind of action on your site. Often this is done through an activity feed, which shows popular articles or pages on your site, along with top users' activities (i.e those with “badges”).

Social Login
Keeping with the social nature of today's web consumer, it follows that many visitors will participate in game-like scenarios if the benefits of doing so extend beyond the game itself (i.e users are more likely to become involved in activities that those in their social circle are engaged in).

These tactics really are just the tip of the iceberg - check out these resources for more in-depth info on gamification and examples of successful gamification-in-action.

You have likely heard about the business benefits of a strong Twitter presence: competitive intelligence, increased brand awareness and customer engagement, to name just a few. However, if the Twitterverse is still foreign to you and your colleagues, check out these tips for starting and maintaining a meaningful dialogue:

• Have a clear goal/focus of your tweet(s).  What are you hoping to achieve and how will you measure your success? Will it be based on the number of people participating/retweeting, or on the nature of responses (i.e negative, positive or indifferent)? Remember, your social strategy should always align with larger business objectives.

• Be relevant. The word gets tossed around constantly in the digital marketing world, but what does real relevancy look like?  It involves understanding your followers and target markets. Use surveys, polls, Q&A to learn more about them. Follow topics of interest, trends and news that relate to them as well as your brand. When tweeting, avoid being overtly promotional – it’s a conversation, not ad copy!

• Listen and participate – don’t just lead. Make sure your efforts to initiate are matched by your efforts at joining existing conversations.  Engage with other businesses in your industry. Think of it this way: would you attend a networking event, give your presentation and then cower in the corner during breaktime? Be fearless.

• Build a schedule and stick to it.  Set reasonable, manageable goals and stick to them week over week. For example, instead of tweeting 10 times in one day and then staying silent for a week, try starting a conversation once or twice a week consistently,  leaving you enough time to let the chat grow before moving onto another topic.

• Don’t forget the experts!  If that consultant gave an earth-shattering presentation on the merits of Widget X, ask them to tweet about it. Conversations are nothing without people, and you want to associate your brand with industry thought leaders.

• Passion. Don’t leave home without it! There’s some truth to the age-old adage: if you love what you do, you will be good at it. Others will want to do it too.

Oh, I almost forgot: in the spirit of conversation, let me know if you have thoughts or any other tips to share!

Google's new +1 button, released on July 1st (try it yourself above this post!) is Google's foray into social or "curated" search. Google's description of the +1 button is as a "stamp of approval" for web content. In many ways it's similar to Facebook's "Like" button except that it will have a real effect on search. When the system is sufficiently rolled out, highly recommended web content will be displayed more prominently in Google's organic results.

The launch of this feature will have a deep impact on SEO at least on Google in the next few years - and as I mentioned in my recent webinar, you can expect that Facebook will be hot on the trail with a new social search product soon. To be able to view +1s displayed on Google search results, you need to be logged into your Google account when using the search engine. Here's Google's product demo video.

When it comes to social media content, it’s important that you can catch your key audience’s attention immediately. There is so much content available to social media users that not being able to instantly engage their interest means that they won’t choose to interact with your content. When it comes to quickly catching attention, one of the most important things you can do is write a compelling headline for your social media content.

Writing headlines for social media is different than writing titles for content that you’re posting on your blog or your website in general. For one thing, many social media sites require concise titles (think Twitter – 140 characters max) so you need to be able to pack a punch with your headline. How can you do that?

1. Stick to the classics. One of the most interesting and effective types of social media headlines are the ones that are a play on classic phrases or ideas. For instance: “The Seven Deadly Sins of…” I’ve seen this title numerous times, and while we’re not suggesting you use that exact example, using ones like it can help you to catch your readers’ attention by creating a new twist on a well-recognized concept.
2. Don’t forget the shock factor. By including something controversial, emotional, surprising or downright shocking, you have a better chance of engaging social media users. Make them curious by using words and phrases that inspire strong feelings. 
3. Be urgent. Creating a sense of immediacy in your social media headlines encourages users not to pass your content by. If social media visitors feel like ignoring your content will be negative for them (ex. They’re going to miss out on something important that is only around for a short period of time) then they are more likely to take the time to click on your links or visit your content pages. 
4. Remember SEO.  Just because you want to focus on headlines that are catchy doesn’t meant that you can afford to ignore SEO. While you may not always want to include your keywords (they may take away from the overall effect of your headline) the fact is that many people use social media to find information now, and if your content isn’t found, it doesn’t matter how compelling your title is. 
5. Use powerful words. Readers often respond to content that resonates with them. By using meaningful words like money, love, death, etc you can catch readers’ attention by using phrases that have an emotional connect or tie.
6. Make strange comparisons.Comparing two things that seem completely unrelated is a good trick for capturing readers' interest. For instance using a headline like, "10 Reasons Why Your Blog is Like a Rodeo," will engage visitors just because it is an odd comparison, it will encourage them to think, "Why is my blog like a rodeo?"
7. Understand your audience.  You should know what types of content your audience is looking for and what words, phrases and ideas will have the biggest effect on them. Using that information to create headlines will help your content feel more relatable to your target customers.

Image by nhussein on Flickr.

I’m sure that you’ve all heard the term “brand ambassador” at some point in time. A brand ambassador is someone who helps drive demand for a product, service or company by directly interacting with your target audience. In the past, brand ambassadors have been employees that are hired to go out and promote a product often at tradeshows and events, but, now that social media exists and is seen as a mainstream marketing tactic, your employees can directly interact with your potential customers using those platforms, allowing every person you employ to act as a brand ambassador, if you let them.

There’s a lot of fear among organizations that giving their employees free reign to promote their brand is a risky initiative. I mean, your brand is your most valuable commodity and, if you let them just go and say what they want, then there’s the chance they’ll actually say whatever they want, and what if it’s not what you want them to say, right? I’m not here to tell you that there isn’t the risk for some of your employees to go and say things that you don’t want them saying about your brand, but, in my opinion, the benefits strongly outweigh the potential negatives and the risks can certainly be mitigated through proper communication and support within your organization.

Why should you let your employees become brand ambassadors?

1. It puts a personal and real face on your brand. People like to hear about a brand from other people. They don’t want a faceless corporate social media manager telling them what to think, they want to hear from real people!
2. It creates buzz and helps expand your reach. The more people you have talking about your brand, the more people that will hear about it. 
3. They represent your brand anyways.  Your employees are out there representing your brand every day, with your consent or without it.

So now you know why you should, but that doesn’t mean I’ve convinced you. You’re still concerned about the possible implications of just letting your employees go out on their own and promote your brand. So—how can you mitigate the risks? Well for one thing, you can ensure that you’re communicating your company’s brand message to your employees all the time. You want your employees to live your brand, to believe in it and to understand exactly  what your brand is and what that means. This is something that every organization should be doing anyways, but, if you’re doing it successfully, you’re helping to significantly reduce the likelihood that one of your employees will go out and completely misrepresent your brand’s message. You want your employees to understand your corporate brand and you can help them to become brand ambassadors through this process by doing several things including: leading by example to show them how you talk about your brand and give them a model to work towards and supporting their use of social media. The fact is that people are going to talk about their jobs through social media whether you endorse it or not, and by supporting their actions you can help to ensure that the things that they’re saying about their jobs helps to spread and support your brand’s identity.

So—what’s the bottom line?

Don’t be afraid of what people will say. Help your employees become brand ambassadors and you may be surprised by the great benefits! 

Image by Uncleweed on Flickr.

This is a guest blog post by Marqui's newest Marketing Consultant, Dan Biggs.

Facebook recently patented “Curated Search”  , which is expected to use algorithmic search results similar to Google or Bing, then weight those results by what users in or near your Facebook network have shown interest in. Your network’s level of interest would be tracked by the frequency of clicks associated with the search result. Considering Facebook’s bigger plans, Curated Search may provide the foundation to build a more powerful search tool, using even more of the information they collect about users to help deliver relevant search results.

Facebook’s plans for taking on Google in the search arena has been quite public and centred primarily around Facebook’s  not-so-secret weapon – “the social graph” - a mapped network of all their registered users and the relationships between them. Among the many dimensions that connect people is their interests, reflected by the types of content they share, groups they join or interests that they list in their profiles.  With the Curated Search platform, Facebook could be ready to move into this space and roll out their ambitious plan to challenge one of Google’s biggest selling points – the ability to deliver more relevant search results than their competitors. If Facebook intends to develop a platform where they can deliver search results that are weighted on the rich amount of data that they have on users, the relevancy of their results could increase with every activity that users  take on the site. For example, uploading a photo of your holiday in Italy might add “Italy” and “holiday” as topics you’re interested in, and when you use Facebook’s to search for “Italy” the results may have more of a focus on holidays in Italy rather than facts about the country itself.

In addition to Facebook gearing up to take them on at their own game, Google has been battling decreasing relevancy as a result of the proliferation of “content farms” flooding their search results, and increasingly sophisticated and aggressive SEO.

Discussion:  Facebook Killed the Google Star

One of the most exciting and fun aspects of the web and having inconceivable amounts of data at our fingertips is undoubtedly the occasional surprise discovery of new stuff, whatever it is…  A result of sometimes seemingly random connections, a miscategorized search result or random article on Wikipedia can lead to finding all sorts of interesting things.

What do you think? Is recommendation-driven search going to limit discovery of new things?  Will having search engine results weighted to what people’s friends  are into lead to Chronic Internet Groupthink?

Image from M.I.C. Gadget

In the wake of social media’s influence on the political events in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, social media has now stepped up again to help inform the public about the situation in Japan since the tsunami hit last week.

Social media sites, especially YouTube and Twitter have been buzzing over the last few days with pictures, videos and tweets from the citizens of Japan. Personal videos of homes and businesses being devastated by the quake have been making their rounds for the last few days and hashtags such as #prayforjapan have risen to the top of Twitter’s trending topics index as people rush to spread news about the earthquake and its horrific repercussions for Japan’s citizens.



However, social media isn’t just acting as a platform for the sharing of information at this critical time. It’s also helping those who would like to help, offer aid to the people suffering in Japan. Aid organizations are turning to social media to try and reach a wider audience of potential supporters. A good example of this is the Red Cross who have initiated a texting donation campaign (similar to ones they’ve done in the past). “Text REDCROSS” was also a trending topic on Twitter as people rushed to donate to helping victims of the quake and the ensuing tsunami sufferers.

While many of Japan’s major resources like electricity and nuclear power have been knocked out by the quake, their internet remains relatively untouched and this has significantly helped people stay in touch with loved ones affected by the earthquake. Tools like Google’s people finder are helping victims and their family and friends attempt to locate those that are still missing, or whose whereabouts are unknown.

We’ve spoken before about social media’s ability to help in times of crisis and this is no exception. Social media’s ability to connect people is helping many people stay in contact despite the difficulties facing Japan, and that is invaluable in difficult times like these.

This recent TED talks video, featuring Wadah Khanfar, the Director General of Al Jazeera, entitled, “A Historic Moment in the Arab World,” discusses the ways in which a young tech-empowered generation have inspired a democratic revolution and offers and optimistic view on the way that media, especially social media, has helped this group create a new reality where they can walk out their fronts doors and affect change. The video analyzes the way that events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have been influenced by social media and how these channels connect and globally engage an entire generation.



In the past this type of change often hinged upon foreign interventions which lead to a feel of inferiority among the people who felt that they were unable to affect change on their own. This foreign intervention often lead other leaders in different countries to threaten their people with increased foreign influence, and encouraged them to ask the question, is it better to have your country over-run with foreigners or continue to submit to the current regime?

Now, with the connectivity that social media allows, people who may have felt powerless in the past are more educated and connected to a spirit of global understanding allowing them to create a new reality in which they have the power to affect change from their own doorsteps.

Even after Al Jazeera was banished from these countries, they were able to keep up their broadcasts which informed the world about the events in these countries thanks to the people living there who shared the information on the web. As Khanfar says, this was the first resolution where rather than relying solely on his journalists and reporters they were able to keep the rest of the world up to date on events based on the enormous amount of information supplied by regular people.

I think in this case it's obvious that social media can play a role in helping change, but the real importance that it has is its ability to connect a global generation and inspire them to work towards change themselves. The way that social media spreads information and allows people to interact with each other all over the world in real-time can help to ensure that people are empowered to use technology to help improve their lives and create a brighter future.

According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a community is defined as, “an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location.”

When I read that description I think it is a fairly accurate description of Marqui’s online community that we’ve built on Twitter, but I’ve seen many examples that don’t quite live up to that definition. The key part of the definition that I think should exemplify everything about an organization’s Twitter following is, “an interacting population.” Is your group of followers on Twitter actually interacting with you? Are you interacting with them? If not, then you’re not living up to what a community can or should be.

Having said that, there are many things you can do to encourage an authentic community to grow up around your company’s online presence. Here are our tips on how to do so:

1. Provide value. Just showing up and tweeting about any-old-garbage to get some tweets up on your profile page on a regular basis isn’t going to encourage interaction (at least not positive interaction). The communities that have the strongest and most relevant interactions are the ones that are built on a company that takes the time to tweet information, resources and thoughts that their followers find valuable, relevant and worth responding to.
2. Take part. One of the biggest benefits that Twitter can have for your organization is that it allows you to have essentially instantaneous two-way conversations with your audience, but, that only works if you’re actively monitoring and checking your Twitter account for updates and comments from your followers. If you’re not interacting with your audience, then you’re not building much of a community are you? 
3. Maintain momentum. One of the biggest mistakes that causes a community to fall apart is when an organization stops tweeting or interacting consistently. It’s crucial that once you create an online presence you maintain it. Make sure that you’re tweeting regularly to keep your audience engaged. 
4. Remember your brand. You’re corporate Twitter account isn’t the same as your personal one, and don’t you ever forget it! Twitter tends to be a more casual form of communication but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to responsibly represent your brand ideals there. Your audience is following your brand because they want to see a more “personal” side to it, but they still want to interact with someone who is a good indicator of brand values.

By taking these tips to heart you can help to establish a solid brand community based on interaction and engagement (and who doesn’t want that?). Let us know if these tips work for you! We’d love to hear about your B2B Twitter successes.

Image by xotoko on Flickr.

The Superbowl is an enormously popular sporting event and it certainly gets its fair share of attention in the social space. Smart marketers are making use of social media to attract and engage with football fans who are using social networks on a daily basis. Recently I read about an interesting (and successful) social media marketing campaign that revolved around the Superbowl (and it was created by a Vancouver agency, way to go!)

The campaign was created by Think! Social Media,  a digital agency based in Vancouver, BC, that specializes in social media marketing and campaigns for the tourism industry. Their Superbowl campaign was run on behalf of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau last week (the Superbowl was held in Dallas) and was meant to engage football fans and get people talking about Dallas as a travel destination. Using the concept that sports teams, especially football teams, have an "extremely passionate community" Think! Social  Media decided to try and connect these factions through a "shared passion."

Essentially, Think! reached out to popular travel/lifestyle bloggers based in Green Bay and Pittsburgh (the teams that played in the Superbowl, in case you're not a football fan, or have been living under a rock) and promoted the fact that a "mystery man" would be located in each of the cities and if a fan approached the "mystery man" and told him the secret phrase, "Have you been to  Dallas lately?" they would instantly win tickets to the Superbowl. Over the course of a week, the bloggers gave their readers more and more specific clues as to the mystery man's whereabouts and encouraged readers to discuss the campaign in detail over multiple social media sites. The results? An extremely popular viral campaign that reached a global audience thanks to the power of social media.

The campaign is a great example of how you can use a community, built around a connecting theme, and encourage them to participate and take part in your campaign. You can read a full description (plus the campaign results) on Think! Social Media's website.

Take a look and let us know what you think about the campaign!

The Harvard Business Review has recently published a report (sponsored by SAS) on social media called, "The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action."The report focuses on common marketing ideas like word of mouth marking (WOMM) and the ways in which, "Conventional marketing wisdom long held that a dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million.” The report has some great information on social media from a business perspective and is definitely worth taking a look at. Some highlights from the report include:

• There has been an exponential increase in the use of social media yet 31% of companies don't measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts
• 75% of companies don't know where their customers are talking about them or what they're saying
• Only 7% of companies that took part in the study incorporate social media with the rest of their marketing
• 69% of the companies surveyed plan to increase their use of social media in the next year
• The most popular way to measure social media is to incorporate their social media monitoring solution with their other marketing solutions

The report gives a good breakdown of the business reasons for using social media in a more strategic way.