As regular readers will know, I’m currently writing my second book. It’s been a significant challenge (they say the second child is easier, but I’m not so sure…), but it’s come on leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. So much so that I wanted to share what I consider to be the three main principles for marketers in business-to-business industries looking to harness social media.

Small communities matter – just because an online community is small doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. In fact, smaller communities are arguably more important than their larger counterparts, as influential voices are fewer and therefore carry a disproportionate weight. For example, a single recommendation for a shipping company when someone is looking to tender a £3m contract is much more valuable than ten, even 100, recommendations for the latest movie.

Virtual and physical relationships augment each other – relationships are what distinguish social media communities from other online communities and are, in my opinion, the single most important factor when it comes to using social media for business-to-business marketing. By connecting virtually with people who have attended a trade stand or event, and finding opportunities to meet with people who have connected virtually, brands can build online and offline relationships, engage advocates and detractors, and ultimately improve sales.

‘Social’ is not the same as ‘personal’ - if the social aspect of social media is about relationships – regardless of whether they are personal (friends) or professional (business contacts) – then the important thing for the marketer to understand is how people can switch between personal and work roles throughout the day. It’s a big factor in what GyroHSR’s chief executive Rick Segal calls the ‘at work’ state of mind. People can be physically at work yet at times mentally at leisure – and vice versa – but regardless of this, when they are using social media they are still social. It’s this understanding and appreciation of an audience that means that social media is used as much for business relationships as it is for personal ones.

I’m not saying that these tenets don’t also apply outside the B2B marketing space, just that they should matter more.

What do you think? Are there other things specific to B2B social media marketing?

It’s apparent from some of the feedback on an earlier post that there is a growing number of freelance social strategists – individuals working for themselves who are helping small and large clients alike get to grips with social business. Whilst I’m in list mode, I wanted to give them a voice too.

So if you’re a sole trader getting paid by companies for providing social media or social business leadership, roadmap definition and governance support; and directly influencing their spending on social technologies, I want to add you to this list.

To be included:

• Leave a comment below with a link to your public LinkedIn profile page (and your Twitter handle if you want that including);
• The profile must indicate that social media is part of your expertise and experience;
• You must work as a sole trader or freelancer;
• Please be patient after leaving your comment whilst I verify it and add you to the list.

Inspired by my last post which is attempting to catalogue social media strategists working at the larger creative agencies, here’s another list designed to document the new and growing category of social media marketing agencies.

By social media marketing agency, I mean companies that derive all or the majority of their revenues by providing social media marketing services to their clients. These services could include education and training, advice and consultancy or implementation support. I’m not looking (at this stage) for technology service vendors (e.g. social media monitoring or management systems).

To get on the list:

• Leave a comment below with a link to your website and the location of your head office;
• Your website must show that social media marketing is the sole or main service you provide;
• Please be patient after leaving your comment whilst I verify it and add you to the list.

List of Social Media Marketing Agencies (by head office location)

Canada

• Agent Wildfire
• Hooplah Inc.
• Social Media Group

India

• Blogworks
• Iffort
• Media Redefined

Japan

• Media Rockets, Inc.

New Zealand

• #sy

Singapore

• Vocanic

United Kingdom

• 1000heads
• 33 Digital
• 90:10 Group
• agency:2
• Forever Beta
• FreshNetworks
• Headshift (Part of the Dachis Group)
• Imperial Leisure
• Made By Many
• MediaCom Beyond Advertising
• mycleveragency
• NixonMcInnes
• Nudge Social Media
• Qube Media
• Rabbit
• Shiny Red
• Sociagility (disclosure: my own company)
• Tempero
• We Are Social
• Wolfstar Consultancy
• Yomego

United States

• 7Summits
• Affinitive
• Campfire
• Converseon
• crayon (part of the Dachis Group)
• Digital Influence Group
• Drillteam Marketing (part of the Dachis Group)
• GasPedal
• Ignite Social Media
• Impact Interactions
• Likeable Media
• MegaPlayer
• New Media Strategies
• Pandemic Labs
• tcg:the communication group

Spurred on by a discussion with Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang, I’m starting a list of social strategists on the vendor side.

By social strategist, I mean people who work for social media, advertising, public relations, digital, direct marketing, design, research or other creative agencies, and provide social media leadership, roadmap definition and governance for their firms’ clients; and directly influence their agency’s or clients’ spending on social technology vendors or services.

To get on the list:

• Leave a comment below with a link to your public LinkedIn profile page (and your Twitter handle if you want that including);
• The profile must indicate that social media is part of your full time role at the corporation;
• You must work at an agency with more than 200 employees worldwide (will be verified via LinkedIn company profile);
• Please be patient after leaving your comment whilst I verify it and add you to the list.

Sorry about the 200 employee limit, but I need to keep it manageable to begin with. I may end up lowering the limit, so check back regularly.

List of Social Strategists (Vendor Side)

Advertising Agencies

• Julius Chen – Regional Interaction Strategist at Bates 141 (@juliustruffles)
• Frederique Covington – Managing Parter at Bates 141 (@freddie_covi)
• Ed Lee – Director, Social Media at DDB Canada (@edlee)
• Billy Sanez – Director of Social Media at JWT (@billysanez)

Direct Marketing Agencies

• Ulf Schmidt – Creative Strategist Social Web at OgilvyOne

PR Agencies

• Angelica Colantuoni – VP, Social Media/Consumer Brands at Edelman (@angelica7641)
• Brendan Hodgson – Senior Vice President, Digital Communications at Hill & Knowlton (@brendanhodgson)
• Natasha Ighodaro – Online PR and Social Media Strategist at Edelman (@tashaighodaro)
• Dean Russell – Director, Digital Practice at Fleishmann-Hillard (@dean_r)
• George F. Snell III – SVP, Digital & Social Media at Weber Shandwick (@hightalk)

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a new kid on the social software (I’m loathed to call it ‘media’) block. Quora is, in essence, a social network based upon questions and answers. It’s amassing a huge following and the Twitterati in particular simply cannot pass off another opportunity to show the world how clever they are by taking part.

I resisted the lure until yesterday when I finally signed up, and I have to say that it is strangely addictive. By the time you’ve answered a question, followed a topic or two and automatically followed everyone that you’re already following on Twitter, you may as well write off the rest of your day and spend some time understanding how it works.

If you don’t have a day to spare, then here’s a quick guide to what I think Quora means to marketers:

1. Thought leadership - what better way to demonstrate your firm’s expertise than by answering questions on the topics you want to be associated with? Search for and follow the topics that match your thought leadership strategy and start answering some questions.
2. Market research - if you care what the digerati think, then Quora could be a great way to find out. I haven’t done a scientific experiment (yet), but I’m pretty confident that you’ll get more, better quality answers than if you asked your Twitter followers. Ask a question and see what answers you get.
3. Influencer marketing - Quora could be the answer to the elusive influence question. Each topic has ‘Top Answerers’ and the algorithm for calculating these doesn’t seem to be based just on the number of answers. Track the top answerers for topics relevant to your brand and follow them.
4. Reputation management – As with other platforms, chances are that people may be asking or answering questions about your brand or products. Chances also are that they may be spreading misinformation by answering incorrectly. Quora allows you to suggest edits to others’ answers as well as answer yourself. Search for questions and answers mentioning your brand and contribute where you can. If your brand is well known enough to have its own topic, then follow it then update your preferences to get notified by email when a new question or answer is created.

If you are going to engage with Quora, then remember the basic rules of community management:

1. Be honest about who you are Quora allows you to add short bios to demonstrate your interest in a topic/question – keep them short and to the point
2. It’s about marketing, not sales By asking and answering questions intelligently you will gain credibility that might turn into sales. Trying to flog your products or services in response to a relevant question will get voted down.
3. Respect others’ opinions Contribute and extend the range of response rather than pick fights with others who have answered in good faith.

If you have other advice for marketers interested in how to use Quora, then follow and respond to my questions on Quora itself:

• What do marketers need to know about Quora?
• What are the basic rules of community management?

According to the latest survey research from the McKinsey Global Institute, it does. Of course, this is fantastic news for all those – including myself – who have spent the last few years evangelising the application of web 2.0 technologies in the workplace. Cue tweets and blog posts regurgitating same.

But before you join their throng, take a closer look at the data and methodology – not to mention the comments, which reveal a number of caveats – and you’ll see that the reality doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

1. All the data is self-reported rather than empirical and therefore subject to over- or under-estimation by respondents, some of whom are no doubt evangelists for these technologies in their own organisations.
2. The correlation coefficients are very low and don’t isolate the impact of web 2.0 technologies to show that they are the cause of any business performance indicator improvements.
3. Only ‘market share gains’ have a moderate correlation and high statistical significance, and this metric is often estimated and may not even be relevant to many organisations.
4. The correlations of variables associated with operating margin are actually very low.

So ultimately, this is a pretty inconclusive study and to claim that ‘Web 2.0 finds its payday’ seems a little misleading. It may further the debate, but it by no means resolves it as many social media proponents are suggesting.

Playing with the new Twitter interface, one thing struck me immediately: the increase in the relative width of the content area means that backgrounds are essentially now redundant. See what I mean below, which shows the difference between the two in a browser set with an active width of 1,268 pixels:

Before: the old Twitter interface

After: the new Twitter interface

Why is this a problem? As @joannejacobs points out, this is already an issue for those with smaller screen resolutions. Well, maybe it won’t be long term but I see two immediate issues that brands in particular will need to address:

1. Because Twitter is rolling out the new interface on a staggered basis (for marketing rather than technical reasons, I suggest) those who have not yet been “issued” with the new interface can’t actually see the problem even though it is affecting those who have right now.
2. Companies who use their backgrounds to impart useful information like who runs their accounts, useful URLs and telephone numbers, etc. will have to find another way to convey this info.

The online ecosystems that have sprung up around Twitter do seem to be getting kicked in the teeth with this new update. Some have already argued that the inclusion of rich media in the web interface now makes third party applications using the Twitter API redundant, and this – albeit very minor – change could well hit the advertising revenues of all the Twitter theme download sites.

Playing with the new Twitter interface, one thing struck me immediately: the increase in the relative width of the content area means that backgrounds are essentially now redundant. See what I mean below, which shows the difference between the two in a browser set with an active width of 1,268 pixels:

Before: the old Twitter interface

After: the new Twitter interface

Why is this a problem? As @joannejacobs points out, this is already an issue for those with smaller screen resolutions. Well, maybe it won’t be long term but I see two immediate issues that brands in particular will need to address:

1. Because Twitter is rolling out the new interface on a staggered basis (for marketing rather than technical reasons, I suggest) those who have not yet been “issued” with the new interface can’t actually see the problem even though it is affecting those who have right now.
2. Companies who use their backgrounds to impart useful information like who runs their accounts, useful URLs and telephone numbers, etc. will have to find another way to convey this info.

The online ecosystems that have sprung up around Twitter do seem to be getting kicked in the teeth with this new update. Some have already argued that the inclusion of rich media in the web interface now makes third party applications using the Twitter API redundant, and this – albeit very minor – change could well hit the advertising revenues of all the Twitter theme download sites.

Scott Adams does it again:

…don’t tell the world you’re going to start blogging again, then disappear off on holiday. The two don’t mix.

In fact, I had a very social media free two weeks and you know what: I didn’t miss it one bit. At no point did I feel the need to contact my “friends” (unlike the vast majority of the teenagers on the campsite I was staying at). The only technology I really couldn’t have done without was my personal email.