B2B Internet Marketing - Social Media and SEO

December 1st, 2009 by Amanda

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Siblings I think B2B businesses are often a bit jealous of their ‘cooler’ sibling B2C. They seem to get all the cool toys, all the praise and all the attention. I think much like a real sibling relationship, B2Bs may not realize that their cool hip relative is actually jealous of them too.

In real life, the young, cool brother travels around picking up seasonal jobs and gets to be so free and unconfined and the older brother owns his own home, is settled down and has a steady decent paycheck. Yet to both the grass seems to be greener on the other side.

Social Media and B2B Marketing

Social Media has been cast aside by many B2Bs as something only hip B2C companies can pull off. In many cases that is not true.

We work with quite a few B2B businesses that are seeing more traffic to their websites and more sales leads that they channeled from Social Media. Websites like Social Media B2B do a great job taking social media news and bringing it to the B2B level. They also keep the site current with case studies and real life examples.

Our friend David Meerman Scott had a recent post poking at stuffy B2Bs. He reminds us in his post that marketing is still just trying to reach people and people like doing business with other people, not stuffy companies we know nothing about. David does a good job on his blog giving some B2B examples as well, I highly recommend checking out his blog. He is also really into video lately (as am I), so I like him even more now.

SEO for B2B companies

My world is deeply involved in social media but optimizing your website for search engines may be one of the most important things you can do for a B2B website. Decisions made for businesses are usually bigger buying decisions and a lot of research goes into making those decisions.

Most of that research starts right here:

Research starts right here

Making sure you know the right keywords to incorporate and how to do so is imperative to being found online when people are looking.

I feel that SEO and Social Media types should try to remain very close because their worlds get closer and closer as each day goes by. As search engines and social media sites mature, we will for sure see how the two work hand in hand. Keep your eye out next year for ‘Social Media Optimization’ – the thought that you should optimize every tweet, blog, status update etc. I appreciate the thought but please take warning that you should optimize your content for people #1 and search engines #2.

As people research more and more online, I think B2Bs especially need to take stock of what they have going on with their SEO and what social media sites may be valuable for them to spend time on. Please don’t hesitate on your B2B internet marketing just because you are a business to business site.

Just set up your goals and strategy and think logically on how you can use your online presence to get you to those goals. Don’t let B2Cs have all the fun!

Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Network Marketing

http://www.seobridges.com Erick Pettersen

At the beginning of this year I read bloggers arguing back and forth about whether SEO or social networking would be the wave of the Internet future. I saw them as complementing each other, which is why I chose the name seobridges for my website, and the slogan “Building bridges one word at a time.” I believe with the coming of Web 3.0 people, as well as the various criminal activities by certain corporate giants throughout this last year, people will begin to expect businesses to become more transparent. The more and more consumers expect that the more and more SEO and social networking will go hand in hand.

Erick
http://hallme.com Amanda

Great point Erick. I think we as consumers will come to expect more transparency from businesses big and small. We will use the information we gain to make purchasing decisions.
http://www.seospecialties.com Jeff Loquist

I think that a lot of time B2Bs forget that they are still dealing with people and that means real people will still be searching and interacting with your website and business.
http://hallme.com Amanda

Jeff, I agree with you. It is still about building relationships. B2Bs have been taking clients to dinner and golfing for years… no one seemed to demand the ROI at those relationship building activities.
http://www.nimlok.com/ Ricky

As you would expect, social media is being blended into these campaigns. In many cases, our “lowly AEs” and other younger professionals are leading the SM charge because it’s intuitive to them. I’m sold on Twitter and the associated benefits but I can’t say it feels exactly intuitive.
http://hallme.com Amanda

Ricky, It does seem easier for younger co-workers to pick this up as second nature but it is only going to get ‘worse’ as newer generations that are raised using these technologies join the work force. Easier to try now versus trying to catch up even later in the game!
http://www.branditsolutions.com managed hosting solutions

SEO helps add potential customers and the number of quality leads to your website as well. In fact, most organizations can adopt Internet marketing and advertising strategies to generate better business.

Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions