Seven people get five minutes each to talk social media predictions. This was Salesforce’s latest Mic-up session.
Social Media
LinkedIn for B2B Marketers 4: (finally) Some tips for Marketers
Written by Jessie Tracy |
Many people tell marketers what to do with their social media engagements. Now we are going to do it too.
LinkedIn for B2B Marketers 3: Is LinkedIn the best B2B platform?
Written by Jessie Tracy |
Is LinkedIn the best social network for B2B opportunities? We pull together a review of what else is out there.
LinkedIn for B2B Marketers 2 – Anatomy of a Company Page
Written by Jessie Tracy |
A brief anatomy of a LinkedIn Company Page to establish what components make up a page
Stan Woods on B2B content marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
A short, sharp interview with Velocity MD Stan Woods on the power of B2B content marketing and the value of story.
LinkedIn for B2B Marketers 1 – How do company page changes affect you?
Written by Jessie Tracy |
LinkedIn are changing their Company Pages but for better or worse? We look at the changes and what it means for you
Social breaks into Meatspace: the first Social Success #Mic Up
Written by Doug Kessler |
Social media is great but sometimes you have to get out from behind the iPad and actually meet people.
The editorial calendar for content marketing: a round-up
Written by Doug Kessler |
As B2B marketers get serious about content marketing, they’re starting to bring together the people, processes and technologies needed to run a continuous content-generating machine. An editorial calendar is central to this new discipline and the core of a marketing plan. To call it best practice is like calling breathing a best practice technique for [...]
B2B Marketing Masters: B2B social media for better or worse
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Listen in to some surprising thoughts on services like Klout and LinkedIn, in this social media segment of the B2B
Salesforce Social Success case study
Written by Doug Kessler |
Kieran Flanagan has written an excellent summary on SEOmoz of the Salesforce Social Success content microsite. He tells this B2B content marketing case story so well, I won’t try to re-tell it here. Just wanted to share my favourite graphic from it: Says it all — the sweet spot for all B2B marketing is where [...]
Pinterest for B2B marketing: Velocity dives in
Written by Doug Kessler |
At Velocity, we never let a bandwagon rattle past without at least making a token effort towards hopping on board. So when Pinterest started to pick up steam, we registered without a moment’s hesitation. Our excuse? We need to learn about this stuff even if it’s not exactly suited to our business. As soon as [...]
Social Success: a new content site for Salesforce.com
Written by Doug Kessler |
We’re inordinately proud to announce the launch of a new microsite by Salesforce UK that Velocity helped with. The site is called Social Success and it’s all about helping businesses harness the power of social media. Our job was to find the considerable pockets of expertise within Salesforce (the place is crawling with very, very [...]
The Unbearable Anxiety of Business Blogging
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Blogging is an anxiety-inducing business. Business blogging even more so.
The Unbearable Anxiety of Business Blogging
Written by Ryan Skinner |
Blogging is an anxiety-inducing business. Business blogging even more so.
Internet Marketing Strategy: a meaty new briefing for all marketers
Written by Doug Kessler |
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the change taking place in digital marketing – and all the blogs, eBooks, videos and research reports that try to explain it all – take an info-break and read this one report from the Gods of Digital Marketing: Econsultancy. It’s the new Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing and, unlike the [...]
Project Open Kimono 11: Do Twitter Auto DMs work?
Written by Doug Kessler |
One of the experiments we’ve run as part of Project Open Kimono was to set up an automated Direct Message to everyo
LinkedIn Maps: your network visualised
Written by Doug Kessler |
We’re big infographics fans so when LinkedIn launched their new LinkedIn Maps tool, we were first in the virtual queue to have a play. The tool generates a colourful, dynamic map showing all your connections and how they’re related to each other. It colour codes the clusters it identifies and lets you assign your own [...]
A nice bit of visual B2B personalisation
Written by Doug Kessler |
LinkedIn just sent me a nice piece of highly personalized B2B email. I’ve never seen ‘visual persoanlization’ in an out-bound email before but it’s pretty compelling to see the faces of so many friends and contacts looking back at me. I also like the little scribbled comments like ‘See Simon’s new job’. The only question [...]
B2B Marketing Agency campaign in a scribble
Written by Doug Kessler |
We were mapping out the B2B Marketing Manifesto campaign on a sheet of A4 lined paper and this is what was left behind on the meeting table. Pretty much all there.
B2B Case Study Live – Project Open Kimono – part 2
Written by Doug Kessler |
B2B Case Study live: Project Open Kimono Part 2, in which Velocity, the B2B Marketing Agency shares it’s experience
Why government and SEO don’t mix
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
You can practically hear the moral outrage screaming between the lines:
“Four government departments spent almost £6m ensuring their websites appeared on search engine results pages in the last two financial years, according to newly released figures.” (BBC)
Bite me, Michael O’Leary
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
Photo credit: Le Scribbler I’ve never flown Ryanair before. And now I never will again. If I’d wanted to raise my blood pressure, I could have done that for free by reading the comments section of the Daily Mail website. To anyone contemplating a journey with Ryanair, I suggest you shut yourself inside a biscuit [...]
7 Incredibly Rare Mistakes in Social Media Marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
There are literally thousands of blog posts, eBooks and articles called, “The 24 Most Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing”. But no one ever covers the really rare mistakes in social media marketing — the ones almost nobody ever seems to make.
Marketo’s new Definitive Guide gets some Velocity
Written by Lucy Longhurst |
We’ve been working with Marketo, the biggest cheese in B2B marketing automation, to design and sub-edit their new eBook ‘The Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media’. It’s the latest in the series of Definitive Guides (you can read the first one on Lead Nurturing here).
New B2B buying influences
Written by Doug Kessler |
Just came across an excellent post by Matt West of Connected Marketer called A Glimpse Inside the Mind of the New B2B Buyer. It’s based on a study done together with DemandGen Report into the new buying influences in B2B.
EPiServer uses market momentum to go public
Written by Stan Woods |
We just learned that our client EPiserver is preparing to go public on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The company offers the best Micorosft .Net CMS on the planet and has delivered some really impressive numbers over the last few years.
2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions
Written by Doug Kessler |
Drumroll please… Introducing The 2010 Content Marketing Trends and Predictions eBook from ClickPredictions — a crowdsourced effort by “39 of the world’s top B2B marketers, e-mail marketers and social media gurus” (including, erm, me). Ambal Balakrishnan, the tireless ClickDocuments founder, asked each of us a straightforward question, “What are key marketing trends and predictions for 2010?”
B2B marketing predictions for 2010
Written by Doug Kessler |
We were recently asked where we thought B2B marketing would go in 2010. Made us think. So here are some predictions for the next year:, including kind-of-obvious ones, less obvious ones and a few we’d wish would come true…
Lethal Generosity: a key principle of social media marketing?
Written by Stan Woods |
According to the Harvard Business Review, 90% of tweets are generated by just 10% of Twitter users, reflecting the fact that these people are subject-matter experts, passionates, mavens, and thought leaders. B2B brands that can create places where this type of exchange can happen are engaging in something called ‘lethal generosity’, a key principle of social media marketing.
You can’t have a conversation when you use a megaphone
Written by Stan Woods |
Most B2B marketing organisations are set up for interruption-based, broadcast style communications and this traditional approach to marketing consumes 80-90% of the budget. This is strange in a world where there’s been a dramatic shift from megaphone marketing to listening and engaging in conversations. There’s need for a new type of marketing professional called a content strategist. Do you agree?
Quick Case: when content goes social
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s been about four months since we published the B2B Content Marketing Workbook and we thought we’d report back on how the campaign has worked so far. It was the first time we’ve used social media as a vector for our content marketing and so makes a nice case study.
B2B blogging for beginners
Written by Doug Kessler |
Let’s face it: these days, if you don’t have a blog on your website you’re admitting that you have nothing to say about your market, your customers, their problems and your ideas for solving them. Is that really a message you want to transmit? We try to get every client blogging. But sometimes we fail. [...]
Chalkbot sprays the Tour
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s not B2B but we just had to share this one. The Nike-sponsored Livestrong Chalkbot is driving the Tour de France about 8 hours in front of the riders, spraying messages on the road in emulsified chalk. Road messages are a Tour tradition but these are different…
The Content Marketing Workbook
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s here. The book of the webinar of the movie: The Velocity B2B Content Marketing Workbook. Over 45 breezy pages of good, solid advice about thought leadership and content marketing for B2B marketers like you. Come and get it!
The Content Marketing Workbook
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s here. The book of the webinar of the movie: The Velocity B2B Content Marketing Workbook. Over 45 breezy pages of good, solid advice about thought leadership and content marketing for B2B marketers like you. Come and get it!
Watch the Velocity web seminar on Content Marketing
Written by Doug Kessler |
Stan just presented our web seminar with B2B Marketing magazine, called “Content Marketing: Thought Leadership in a Web 2.0 World”. Seemed to go really well. Over 130 people attended and the feedback was excellent. The seminar is based on our imminent Content Marketing Workbook, which you’ll be able to download from this site very, very soon…
New media frenzy: the medium is just the medium
Written by Doug Kessler |
It’s an exciting time to be in the communications business. It’s not just that there are so many new ways to reach people. It’s also that we get to watch as each of these new media gropes for its place in the communications ecosystem. But all this new media is still powered by the same thing…
Twitter in B2B – a Velocity Slideshare
Written by Doug Kessler |
In the last few months, Twitter has shot from being a cult web app to a full-blown global fad. Celebrities are doing it (Stephen Fry has 361,225 followers as of today); businesses are doing it (not just techie ones either); bloggers are doing it; and, yes, lonely people are doing it. ShouldB2B marketers be doing it?
A B2B Social Media Checklist
Written by Doug Kessler |
You’ve just published a great piece of content. Don’t just stick it on your website. Use social media to drive people to it (and vice versa). Here’s a one-page checklist to help you socialize your content, driving traffic and downloads…
Cross-fertilisation in social media:
tweet my post and I’ll post your tweet
Written by Doug Kessler |
Social media is a whirling tornado of content and comment. Throw a new white paper into it and, if you’re lucky, it gets tossed around in the vortex, throwing bits off into Twitter tweets, blog posts, comments and backlinks. This cross-fertilisation can feel distressingly self-referential but that’s really the source of social media’s power…
Atomizing your content: your B2B social life
Written by Doug Kessler |
Web marketing used to be all about driving traffic to your website. Now, it’s also about driving your content out into the wider web to see who trips over it, links to it, re-tweets it, rates it, comments on it, shares it and (of course) follows the backlinks back to your site. This social media is becoming increasingly important in digital marketing. At Velocity, we have content all over the place, including…
Digital Velocity in eight tweets: accelerate your online engagement
Written by Doug Kessler |
B2B marketing has become almost synonymous with digital marketing. If you’re not getting your story out on the web, you’re probably not getting your story out at all. Now, as social media beds down and Twitter takes off, we thought it would be a good time to summarise all the things we do to help our clients engage with their audiences online.
Going social in B2B: seven automatic actions for every piece of content
Written by Doug Kessler |
Time was, you generated a piece of thought leadership content, stuck it on your website and eNewsletter, then sat back counting the hits. Today, whenever we produce a new piece of content for a client — whether it’s a video, an eBook, white paper, blog post or podcast — we immediately start engaging with the [...]
Good Reasons to do Social Networking in a B2B Environment
Written by Roger Warner |
How can Social Networking work in a B2B environment? Well, you can start thinking about creating more ‘social’ content as PR tools that can be used by people for facilitating dialogue, spreading your messages and enabling you to manage relationships in new ways.
New Velocity B2B Marketing Newsletter Available!
Written by Roger Warner |
The latest edition of our semi-regular newsletter update is now available. It’s packed with goodness inside, including our star new white pager, Marketing, Meet Sales, which offers eleven ways to make your marketing activity really drive new sales…
Your First (Free) Baby Steps in B2B Web Marketing
Written by Roger Warner |
Your web site is not your field of dreams. Build it and most likely they will not come. Nope, once it’s built your goal is to make it work as a sales sweat house – and this takes real effort and a bunch of web marketing smarts…
Pico-Branding: New Rules for Marketing
Written by Roger Warner |
How does Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blogging, and every other web 2.0 BlaBla service change what we need to be doing in marketing, and what are the concepts that matter? If you really want to know then read on…
B2B web marketing trends for 2008
Written by Roger Warner |
Here’s our first broad brush, crystal ball prediction of the year: 2008 is the year of web engagement for B2B technology firms…
Why Blog in B2B? The Final Word…
Written by Roger Warner |
The ‘why blog?’ question still rages in B2B – and nowhere more so than here at Velocity. Our conclusion: the biggest and best reason to blog in the B2B space is because – if it’s done properly – it’s a relationship winner…
LinkedIn: Facebook for ugly people?
Written by Stan Woods |
Recently we’ve been talking a lot at Velocity about the importance of social media to our client heartland, B2B tech. In tandem, as we build our new company, I’ve been re-visiting old contacts and trying to create new ones as part of the process of finding Velocity-shaped holes…
Sites we like: Flickr Tag Browser
Written by Roger Warner |
Normally the idea of an unconventional navigation scheme makes my skin crawl, but this is outstanding because it’s so slick and central to the tool…
Your 2008 marketing plan: the B2B Svenn Diagram dilemma
Written by Roger Warner |
Aside from tinsel and cheap booze offers, it’s that planning time of year again. A special place where you need to create futurama fireworks out of Powerpoint…
Widgety Goodness: Widgets and Social Media – WTF?!
Written by Roger Warner |
Today’s ‘Widgety Goodness’ conference in Brighton brought together some in-the-know folks and some much-needed clarity to the hoopla that is social media and widgets…
