Mute Represents Everything Wrong with Twitter Today

LALALALA!
Finally, you can mute on Twitter. Everything that’s wrong with Twitter has been fixed confirmed.

If you don’t want to see what someone Tweets, unfollow them. If they are spamming with mentions, favorites or retweets, block them. If that isn’t enough, report them for spam.

But mute? The only reason Twitter needs a mute button is the platform’s addiction to reciprocity. [Read more…]

A Simple Trick To Improve Your LinkedIn Campaign Performance

Missing
If you are a B2B marketer, you are paying attention to LinkedIn. You almost can’t ignore it today.

LinkedIn has become a powerhouse media company for B2B marketers, from opportunities for direct engagement (it does still have a few social media trappings) to publishing, content promotion and advertising. Not to mention the targeting data (but we’ll come back to that). [Read more…]

LinkedIn Has Opened the Content Marketing Floodgates

Linkedin Centipedes at 2010 Bay to BreakersLinkedIn has gone Tumblr on us and B2B content marketers are drooling. Finally, you can publish directly on LinkedIn, along with people like Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

It seems like the perfect opportunity, but it is brand new territory. What should you expect going in? How should you approach it?

Although it has only been available for two weeks, and only to a handful of people, here are my initial expectations. [Read more…]

Invisible Brand Marketing Is Not Just a Facebook Problem!

Invisible Brand MarketingStop grumbling about Facebook’s latest blow to marketers.

You’ve increased your likes 100-fold in the last two years, and many of your competitors have too. Others have finally jumped on the social media bandwagon, adding their own voice to the marketing cacophony of Facebook.

Of course your posts aren’t reaching as many people on Facebook! [Read more…]

Google Analytics Is Underreporting Results from Twitter

Question MarkB2B marketers are undervaluing Twitter’s contribution to their business.

That’s hard to believe at a time when many B2B marketers are glomming on to Twitter like it’s the last shiny object opportunity they will ever have (even turning to spamming), but it’s true. It is happening because web analytics packages are dramatically underreporting traffic from Twitter.

How many leads came from Twitter? How many website visits? How many purchases? When your web analytics package doesn’t recognize that traffic is coming from Twitter, Twitter doesn’t get the credit it deserves. [Read more…]

12 Surprising B2B Marketing Spammers on Twitter

Twitter Favorite SpamCollecting followers is so last decade. It is easy to make arguments against simply trying to build up your following count and the tactics that are often used:

  • Purchased followers aren’t real. Fake follower sites can reportedly tell if you followers are real or fakes and fakes are a sign that you have been buying followers.
  • Mass following is frowned on by Twitter and if carefully managed, your follower ratio eventually makes you look like a spammer.
  • A smaller group of followers genuinely interested in you and paying attention to what you share is far powerful.

But what if there was a way to get more followers without paying to promote your account through Twitter, hurting your follower ratio or filling your stream with an excessive number of tweets?

Apparently, then its different. [Read more…]

29 Signs You Need a Break From Marketing

You Need a BreakOver time, your role in marketing begins to permeate every part of your life.

You adopt behavior, language or perspective that is completely natural to you, but doesn’t make sense to anyone around you.

Just maybe, that means it is time to take a break. If more than a handful of these describe you, it is time to get to know, again, what the world beyond your marketing bubble is like. [Read more…]

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates: The Best B2B Social Advertising Option Yet?

LinkedIn LogoHave you felt like social advertising just wasn’t right for your B2B marketing?

If so, LinkedIn’s new Sponsored Updates may just change your mind. This looks like the most compelling social advertising offering yet for B2B marketers.

Up until now, advertising on LinkedIn was just advertising. With great targeting options, LinkedIn was compelling, but advertising opportunities didn’t fit the increasingly social framework of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates change that, giving marketers the ability to promote updates in the LinkedIn content stream beyond their own followers or connections. [Read more…]

What Really Happens When Influence Increases?

Crowd of InfluencersJoe Fernandez of Klout recently said Klout’s goal is to help every person maximize their individual influence.

It is no secret, as a marketer you want to influence purchases. You use advertising, content marketing, PR, and the influencer programs Klout wants to sell, to change perceptions and purchasing behavior.

But what would happen if Klout achieved this goal and every person became more influential? How would it impact you as an individual and as a B2B marketer? [Read more…]