Persuasive Picks for the week of 08/15/11

TomatoesA Tomato Lover’s Guide To B2B Social Media
Renegade CEO Drew Neisser creates a great metaphor between B2B Social Media and growing tomatoes in this entertaining read on Media Post‘s Marketing Daily blog.

Is Your Social Media Strategy Stalling Because You’re Not Doing This One Thing?
HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella shares some interesting stats and advice on boosting engagement of your content through clear and concise calls to action, in this guest post on CopyBlogger.com.

Can Social Media Improve Your Workers’ Productivity?
Contrary to the opinions of many corporate execs, social media can be leveraged to make employee time more productive and less of a time waster. Find out how via this Business Insider post from Ramon Ray & the Smallbiztechnology.com Team.

Take the Grunt Work Out of Monitoring Social Media with mBlast
Take a peek at Diana Huff‘s review of a pretty cool looking tool for taking care of your social media monitoring tasks. I’m definitely looking forward to kicking the tires on this one.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Personal Branding Expert Dan Schawbel interviews author David Meerman Scott about the release of the third edition of his best selling book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 08/08/11

LinkedInGetting the Most Out of LinkedIn for B2B (and Beyond!)
MarketingProfs Managing Editor Matthew Grant recaps some great LinkedIn tips for B2B organizations that were part of a “MarketingProfs How2″ segment that was originally part of a This Week in Digital Media episode featured on the PJA Radio website. A link to the audio segment is also availble in the post.

How We Approached Social Media As A Brand New Business
Ex chartered accountant turned small business entreprenuer, Tahzeen Basunia shares his story of getting started with social media while starting a brand new business selling natural, vegetarian sweet boxes at the same time.

13 Hot Facebook Marketing Tips From the Top Pros
The crew over at SocialMediaExaminer.com continue to pump out incredibly useful content like this tip packed post from on Facebook Marketing.

How Your Business Should Be Preparing for Google+
David Polykoff provides some food for thought as to why business need to start preparing for the launch of Google+ Business pages and the SEO potential they’ll bring to your brand.

Twitter, Facebook And LinkedIn: Social Media And American Identity [INFOGRAPHIC]
Shea Bennett from Mediabistro‘s AllTwitter blog shares this stats packed infographic from Hasai that goes into great detail about how Americans use social networking sites. Is it just me or do these stats not paint a very positive picture of the average American?

Photo courtesy of Nan Palmero

Persuasive Picks for the week of 06/27/11

Google+Google Launches Google+ To Battle Facebook
Google’s announcement of their new Google+ service has been getting mixed reviews around the blogosphere from those who have been able to get an invite thus far. Get caught up with what the service entails, with this overview from Mashable‘s Ben Parr.

Does Social Media Have a Return on Investment?
This Fox Business post on Fast Company takes a look at the topic of ROI from several different perspectives, including Audi’s social success in garnering consumer engagement (but not sales), Joe Fernadez‘s Klout, WildfireApp CEO, Victoria Ransom and online customer social support platform, Lithium.

B2B social media: Treat it as you would any relationship
Sure, B2C brands tend to steal the spotlight when it comes to showing success with social media-based campaigns, but B2B companies can be just as successful if they use the right approach. This interesting post on MediaUpdate draws a parallel between engaging in the social space and the many phases of human relationships - from flirting all the way through marriage.

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Hit New Audience Highs
Get a quick overview of the latest comScore Media Metrix stats around the growth explosion being experienced by the big 3 social platforms we all know and love (well, uh… “like”), via this post on MarketingProfs.

The Secret to Making Social Media Work: Get It on a Calendar
Help get your extra busy schedule in check with keeping tabs on all your social monitoring and updating duties with these three practical steps found on Business Insider.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/30/11

JetBlueHow JetBlue’s Social Media Strategy Took Flight
Mashable‘s Todd Wasserman shares an interesting Q&A with JetBlue Marketing SVP Marty St. George that provides some insight into the company’s tremendous success with their social efforts.

5 top social media security threats
There’s plenty of information out there about the benefits of integrating social media into your overall marketing strategy and how to dip your toes in the water. But how much thought have you given to the risks? This Network World post from Chris Nerney covers five of the biggest social media security threats that enterprises could encounter.

SEO + Social Media + Blogging: When Will Big Business Catch Up?
Crispin Sheridan, Senior Director of Search Marketing at SAP in New York, shares highlights from Hubspot‘s recent “2011 State of Inbound Marketing Report” via this post on Clickz.com.

Behold the Awesome Power of Social Media
Bnet‘s Steve Tobak recaps the recent viral social media storm surrounding artist Stevie Koerner and retailer Urban Outfitters. The article shows how social media has the power to emotionally charge a situation and negatively impact a brand regardless if the company is legally in the right.

B2B Marketers and Social Media - The Catch 22 Situation
Sometimes it might feel like the success of our social content and SEO optimization efforts are tied to the whims of Google and their continual tweaking of their search algorithms. To some degree it may be, but this Technorati post from Amit Saxena provides some helpful direction to B2B marketers on how to cope with the fluctuations.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 02/28/11

Social Media Cycle

Understanding the Social Media ROI Cycle
The 60 Second Marketer‘s Jamie Turner shares some excellent insight into Social Media ROI and the various phases of a social campaign via this guest post on Mashable.

Lessons From a Corporate Insider: Dream Big, but Think Small
Leading the charge to convince corporate communications of the benefits of moving into the the social space can be a tremendous challenge. This post from Mark Ivey on MPDailyFix.com provides some good tips, along with a personal experience story direct from Mark. As an added bonus, additional advice from the community continues on in the comments section.

Proof of Life: 4 Reasons Why B2B Marketing Lives On
MPDailyFix turned up this other great pick by way of this Pro-B2B post from Carlos Hidalgo who shares “our reasons why B2B marketing is still alive and kicking.

Expand Your Social Media Mix: Twitter Alone is Not Enough
This excellent post from Jeremiah Owyang hits the nail on the head by urging readers to add a little more “steak” (more substantial content) to their social media mix. Several social tool alternatives are shared to help get you away from focusing on Twitter as your primary content sharing vehicle.

Why the digital agency will never die
In this iMediaConnection.com post. JetSet Studios CEO, Russell Scott shares his take on why digital agencies are here to stay and how the “story” is at the center of it all.