SEO, SEM, Social Media and Web-based Marketing

INSIGHT: The fuss about SOCIAL MEDIA? It's not fuss. It's real, here to stay, utilized by YOUR customers & prospects. Get your head out of the sand.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the new reality in today's b-to-b marketing arsenal. It indeed works, but it has to be handled by experts.

If you want to be found...
Go to the Internet and enter a phrase relevant to your products - do you end up on page one? Do your competitors? We're talking SEO, or search engine optimization: websites that are optimized correctly are found "organically" by search engines.

Is SEO just the latest gimmick?
Not by any means. Fact: marketers who pay attention to the technical and marketing aspects of optimization (see more details below) have more successful websites.

How do I "optimizing" my website?
Unless you have SEO experts on staff, don't try it yourself. The initial step is a web-based "keyword analysis". Then, work on technical matters (and that's not just meta tags!) - there are many structural, navigational and technical (code) enhancements that normally need to be done. Finally, ensure that your content is relevant, substantial, and that it's tied to the keyword phrases you need to optimize.

B2B Inc. - your search engine partner
We'll take you back to "Marketing 101" (a concise marketing message, compelling offer and your call to action) as we handle all of the technical matters involved in SEO.

PPC, or pay-per-click advertising vs. "organic" results
Paid ads can drive sales leads to your site and build your brand - this may be a good step for you as we help you with "organic" (non-paid) search results.

Our SEO practices are always expert and up-to-date
B2B Inc's search engine practices are top-drawer. With more than a dozen SEO experts on staff, we're always aware of changing SEO technology. Plus, we are marketing, advertising and sales strategists.

Shopping cart that is SEO-based - a BIG difference in your SEO!
Most shopping carts are fine at commerce, but their content can't be "found" by search engines. B2B Inc. offers a professional, highly functional shopping cart that is SEO-based. This means that your product names, descriptions and features enhance your website's optimization.

SEO is cost effective
Considering your marketing spending options, search engine optimization and search engine marketing are very cost effective tactics for marketers and advertisers. B2B Inc. will ensure sure that your website works as hard as you do.

SEO and SEM working together: Search engine marketing (SEM) involves paid and non-paid advertising on the web. This is where you can leverage your site's power.

SEM vs. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves primarily technical matters, plus dealing with the latest search engine practices. A related phrase, SEM (search engine marketing) relates to how you leverage your optimization with your online marketing efforts. SEM also relates to how you integrate your offline marketing with your web-based efforts. B2B Inc. will show you how SEO and SEM can work together to drive sales leads, build your brand, nurture relationships and develop an better overall business to business marketing strategy.

PPC, or pay-per-click advertising vs. "organic" results
PPC is a viable way to direct traffic to your site, elicit sales leads and build awareness while you work on your "organic" (non-paid) results. B2B Inc. will develop effective PPC ad campaigns for you, complete with analytics.

Contextual advertising
One variety of PPC is contextual advertising, where you place ads on websites where your prospects and customers are likely to visit. Contextual advertising is becoming more sophisticated and can be an effective, measurable media buy.

Non-paid "advertising" on the web
There are many search engine marketing tactics you can employ that do not involve paid advertising: integrating press efforts and e-news campaigns; "experts say" articles; blogs; forums; social media; and professional, credible link building.

Analytics give you fast feedback
Web-based advertising (paid or non-paid) as well as many SEO tactics, can be analyzed quickly. B2B Inc. will provide custom reporting so you can see ROI, choose the best tactics and media, and shift strategies and tactics on the go.

B2B Inc. can handle all of your web-based marketing needs, from media analysis and design to analytics and ROI reporting.

Social Media

People are talking to each other. Listening to each other. Watching each other. People who don't even know each other. More than ever. Online. Business sites. Social networking sites. LinkedIn. Facebook. Twitter. These are the virtual "water coolers" of today's social and business climate.

The buzz about your products, services
People are talking about your products and services - and those conversations are going on without you. Wouldn't you rather be there to listen, participate, and promote and protect your brand?

What is social media?
It's the fastest-growing segment of communications today. Social media is a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialog (many to many). Social media represents a shift in how people research, discover, read and share news and information and content.

We (you) can't stop it
Social media is exploding because it affords people new ways to connect in the online world to form relationships in both their personal and their business lives. It's Web 2.0 at its finest: user-generated content, growing exponentially, without a lot of push from companies selling product.

Today's social media landscape
Consumer brands are figuring it out: using Twitter, for example, to have customers and prospects "follow" them - and preparing to communicate socially on a mass basis in case of a PR emergency.

Business to business brands are watching more than acting right now, trying to understand the payoff.

Both consumer brands and b-to-b marketers are seeking to develop a "social media strategy" - defining and maneuvering around the landscape. Since social media is here to stay, almost all marketers are at least paying attention to social media and social marketing.

Making it work: the B2B Inc. social media process
Here's a basic process flow as to how B2B Inc. goes about developing and implementing your social media strategy

Assess: the social landscape as it pertains to sites and social networks which talk about your product category, your brand, your competitors

Monitor: a "watch strategy" to view and document the buzz

Mine: uncover the actual sentiment of your brand that is held in the minds of social visitors

Vernacular: study the language people are using; adapt your language to theirs

Presence: where are the "water coolers"; where do you need to be in order to be part of the conversation

Oligarchy: People follow experts; you need to find the "elders" who are talking about your industry, your brand - and connect with them

Don't preach: be human; talk and socialize; don't sell as much as you converse, help, connect, have some fun

Team: create a social media team within your organization; each person has a roll in terms of their social media participation (the outbound effort); determine also who handles what inbound topics and issues as they arise - so, roles must be established for your team . customer service, legal, sales, executives, etc.

Online videos: yes, YouTube! (See stats below!) Don't dismiss the power of online videos - they have tremendous reach and SEO (search engine optimization) potential, and they're often at the epicenter of today's social networking - you can "sell" without selling, by informing and entertaining your audience

Measure: what does a spike in conversations about your brand mean in terms of web visits, downloads, sales? Social media measurement is developing, and at its basic level, you can chart conversations about you and plot them against metrics such as site visits, downloads, refer-a-friend, YouTube views, contact-us activity, etc.

Create the "water cooler": If there is not a water cooler for discussion about your brand, create one!

The analogy of social media to digital marketing / SEO / SEM
Remember when digital marketing / online marketing / online media exploded onto the scene? Web optimization and analytics? (actually, some marketers are still figuring that out!) B2B Inc. sees an analogy between social media, and digital marketing / search engine optimization / search engine marketing. It's this: when users respond to Web 2.0 tools, it's the users who drive the demand, more so than the marketers . and therefore users (social participants; people who love the "virtual events" no matter how trivial or ad-hoc they may be) help develop content and media vehicles and conversations . and this is what is happening (and will happen) within the social media scene. Then, analytics will be developed (starting to happen now, actually) that will allow marketers to develop measurement / ROI tools, just as they're readily available for SEO and online advertising.

Interesting statistics!

• 68% of best-in-class companies have a process in place for monitoring social media.
• 21% of best-of-class companies plan to boost their social media marketing budgets by more than 25% in 2009.
• Those companies that are investing in social media as part of their marketing strategy say they are getting good preliminary results.
• There are over 9 million blogs on the internet. 40,000 new blogs pop up everyday
• 1 in 20 Americans are on Twitter

YouTube stats!

• You think people (even b-to-b people) don't view online videos? According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube had more than six billion videos viewed in January 2009. It is estimated that 15 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. In March 2008, YouTube's bandwidth costs were estimated at approximately US$1 million a day. Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Yahoo! and Google. Source: Wikipedia

• B2B Inc. can find your online "water coolers" .
• Collect and document brand sentiment
• Monitor and mine
• Develop a social media strategy
• Create and maintain content
• Produce (in house at B2B Inc.) online videos
• Provide analytics
• Train your company in how to engage in online conversations and respond to issues