Social Media: The Next Big Content Discovery Tool?

• 80% of companies are now using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees. 

• YouTube is now the 2nd largest search engine in the world. It is also fast becoming the World’s largest product review site.

• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 brands are links to user-generated content.

• 78% of consumers trust peer-to-peer recommendations, while only 14% trust advertisements

SEARCH is a significant reason to adopt a formal social media strategy.

In fact in the near future, social media my drive an entire paradigm shift in the way we conduct search. Content may begin to find us through social media networks, rather than the other way around.

For the complete story, check out this enlightening and entertaining Social Media Revolution video on YouTube.

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about Inbound Marketing Best Practices

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

Would You Buy a Ferarri if You Lived on a Dirt Road?

In a blog by Brian Steel posted back in 2008, he asked this same question.

2 years later, this is still a very relevant question to ask. The point being that your “Ferrari” (Marketing Automation tool, CRM tool, BI Tool, etc), once configured will look gorgeous and powerful in your driveway, but if you want to get the most out of it, you’ll have to:

1. Insist the team really learns how to drive it (Training)
2. Pave the dirt road (Develop new processes and infrastructure to support/service it)
3. Have an up-to-date map of where to go (Discover the best destinations that will make the road trips both successful and satisfying)

If you’ve never raced before, take advanced driving classes (training). If you’ve never paved a road, hire a reputable paving company (consulting). If you need a map, hire an experienced guide (consulting).

It’s all part of “Ferrari” ownership.

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about Marketing Operations Best Practices

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

Great Example of B2B Viral Campaign

Getting unknown leads to forward your marketing message to other unknown leads is no easy task, but viral marketing, when done right can generate significant spikes in overall interest in your products/services, often at far less cost than tryng to build the interest yourself.

In a recent post I outlined several key criteria that make up a winning viral campaign. In general, successful viral campaigns (success being measured as how many times a video was viewed, along with sourced visits to your website and ultimately conversions via form submits or contact) contain the following criteria:

Successful viral campaigns are:

• Very funny and/or
• Very entertaining and/or
• Very irreverent and
• Never contain a sales pitch

There are plenty of B2C viral campaigns on YouTube that meet this criteria, but how about B2B? There are far fewer examples.

Let's take data storage solutions for example. There's not much that's funny about that. But one company has created something that is very funny and offers an excellent example of how to generate B2B web traffic without a sales pitch, using viral marketing.

Watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/TrickUniversity

Updated 5-8-12

Visit my brand new website and learn more about Content Marketing Best Practices 

Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant