Complaints about Facebook’s privacy controls have never been lacking, and even seeded Facebook alternatives such as Diaspora and AnyBeat. Google+’s successful launch and it’s intuitive approach to privacy on a post-by-post basis just exasperated the situation for Facebook.

As well as these privacy changes, Facebook is discontinuing it’s location-based service Places. In it’s place will be a much deeper location integration that moves away from the Foursquare ‘Check In’ in favour of including location in status updates and photos with location tags. Rather than only in a standalone service, location is now a core part of every Facebook action (although it can still be turned off).

The move is clever as it will expand Facebook’s potential to provide more relevant, location-based advertising across the site. The site’s location-based deals offering will also become more integrated with the changes. If someone checks into a location offering a check-in deal, the offer will show just below the newsfeed story.

All these changes just show how deeply ingrained social media is becoming in our daily lives. This is a unique opportunity for brands to engage in the online social media community and utilise the targeted nature of location-aware marketing.

It’s important to remember that a B2B social media strategy is remarkably different to a B2C one. Unlike the B2C environment, B2B sales often occur over a longer timeframe. Looking in the vicinity of months as oppose to hours, B2B social media strategies shouldn’t fuel the immediate purchase hype of a B2C campaign. Rather they should be focused on fostering new partnerships. An effective B2B social media campaign becomes a public front on which to set the scaffold for forming new long term business relationships, and then maintaining those relationships through the sales cycle. Our B2B internet marketing services are a great way to start this process.

Reach Further Online

The key advantage of online networking over its offline counterpart is simply in its reach. The internet has allowed many businesses to extend out of their home ground, playing in markets interstate and overseas. By providing business with a public platform to demonstrate their expertise, B2B social media campaigns have the potential to tap into new markets and forge new customer relationships.

Social networks recognise this, and have acted accordingly. Only last year LinkedIn launched its business pages, a free way for business to establish their presence on the network. Location-aware network Foursquare has now followed suit, announcing their new business pages on their blog on August 2. These business pages open up the new possibility of starting B2B relationships on a location-basis, and can then extend those relationships onto other networks.

Google+ = Potential+

Google+ is also making waves on the B2B social media scene, recognising the need for business pages from the outset (they have asked business to hold off creating personal profiles as pages are on the way). We expect Google+ business pages to build on the success of Facebook Pages and LinkedIn business profiles allowing for a powerful marriage between search and social media.

There’s huge potential for B2B marketing within social media, and an effective strategy can unlock some stellar new business partnerships. We can help you reach a larger client base with our B2B social media strategies. You can contact us for more information and a free consultation.

Image credit: tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For two weeks, the Green Peace online army has been driving negative sentiment towards the brand, encouraging users to “boycott Nestle” due to the company’s involvement in purchasing palm oil from an Indonesian company that has been accused by Green Peace of the mass destruction of rainforests in the pacific that are home to endangered Orangutan populations. The anger against Nestle ignited when a Green Peace report was released depicting a parody of the infamous ‘Kit-Kat’ brand logo, which has been doctored to read ‘Killer’. This logo has been brandished all over the web in the past two weeks, in conjunction with a graphic YouTube parody that entails a morbid display of a man “Having a break” with his Kit-Kat… When he proceeds to open it, he pulls out what appears to be an Orangutan finger and starts to chew on it. It’s pretty horrible stuff… (for the curious types, simply search for it on YouTube). Nestle has since made formal complaints to YouTube about the defamatory nature of the Green Peace video, but the copies continue to surface on YouTube and elsewhere on the web.

It’s getting pretty nasty for Nestle, and as the vilification of their brand continues, it is abundantly clear that their public relations efforts via their social media platforms are only rubbing salt in the wound. The biggest mistake the company made was to attempt to go authoritarian in the governance of their Facebook page by threatening users with fan page deletion if they were seen with any branded logos in their profile pictures… The undermining tone of the admin appointed to the fan page only exacerbated the situation even further. See for yourself:

It seems that Nestle’s PR disaster contingency plan has since been put in place… But I think it took them a while to get something in effect (does it suggest that they never had one in the first place?).  If you look at it now, the company’s Facebook fan page is now littered with various links to articles aggrandizing green initiatives, public statements relating to the company’s decision to abandon the supplier of the palm oil and their intentions to address an alternative source to palm oil however the damage has already been done. Big brands are the most volatile when it comes to negative sentiment online. The company failed in its duty to properly educate staff about public relations online and the ‘ripple’ effects of the social web. As the company goes into damage control and tries desperately to salvage any positive reputation it will be interesting to see how long it will take Nestle to recover from such a debacle.

1. Social Media Strategy – It’s number one priority to ensure success. In any form of marketing, research is required for success. The same concept applies to social media. Research what’s available to you, isolate what’s relevant to your business niche, provide a scope and target accordingly.
2. Ensure Linkability – Don’t create static websites that function primarily as a store-front for content. Aggregate content from wherever you can, and present links to such content to be as enticing as possible. Images are great for this, as they attribute to the overall presentation and can be linked back to other destinations. Nothing can add value to your site’s linkability like a blog, where absolutely anything can be linked in-text. For drastically increasing linkability of your site, a blog is imperative – so create one!
3. Ergonomic bookmarking – So you’ve enriched your social media campaign with a blog, now make it easy for your readers to bookmark posts. The resolution? Simple. Install a social media bookmarking plug-in. If you’re using WordPress, we highly recommend a plug-in called ‘Sociable’, as well as a re-tweet button for Twitter users.
4. Shareable content – This is a common sense principle. If you want your content to go viral, with the aims of promoting your goods or services, make your content easy to copy and circulate. Add pdf files, videos, image feeds and display destination URLs if possible. If not, create links back to the social profiles where this content can be found.
   

   If applicable (given the nature of your social media campaign), allow mashups – let the users do whatever they want with your content. People are going to reuse your content if it is valuable, and rather than fight this inevitable outcome, embrace it. You will receive the credibility in the end.

5. Make your content useful – If your content gives value to the people consuming it, then the higher the chance of it going viral. It’s this notion of the user that matters. Users bookmark sites that they find helpful and would like to refer back to, and the higher the user-index of your content, you will receive a subsequent increase in your search engine visibility.
6. Rewards = Retention – Try to reward helpful users if you can, and always offer incentives. A London web design firm known as moon fruit embraced this concept and as a result, it paid tremendous dividends. Moonfruit drove a laptop giveaway promotion over Twitter, and the end result? Thousands of Twitter followers, being indexed on the Twitter main page as a trending topic, and sending the Google Page Rank of their landing page through the roof – a very well calculated ROI strategy. Obviously, if you’re starting smaller, a simple and direct ‘thank you’ message can go a long way in formulating a relationship with users.
7. Participate – In any form of marketing, interacting with the consumer is a key selling point. Keep the communication flowing in your social media campaign, and ensure regular interaction, this will help keep your users engaged and prolong the benefits of your social media activity. Participation forms the crux of any social media campaign.
8. Target demographics – This should be outlined first in your social media plan, but putting it into practice is a different story. You will find that in your social media campaign, your strategy will constantly evolve to suit new discoveries and trends on the internet. Constant research into your target market is essential, as you need to make your ideas as compelling to a niche as possible – play the part of a user when doing your research and construct a marketing idea from your experiences.
9. Fresh content is vital – If you want to stay alive and kicking, you need to entirely devote yourself to the creation of new content on a regular basis. New articles, new images, new video media. Do whatever you can to enhance the user experience and keep the buzz about your site or blog. As for the content itself, ensure that it comes directly from the source – you. Be genuine and objective. Being too forceful or abrasive can easily cause damage to your reputation, making it extremely difficult to re-build your online credibility. If you are pro-active in providing fresh content, you will reap the benefits.
10. Be wise about your actions – Consider the cause and effect of ANY activity online. Failure to acknowledge the implications of certain actions will entail a reckless and virtually pointless, social media campaign. Don’t undo all of your hard work, keep things simple and genuine.

In amongst the re-shaping of the world of Web 2.0, we are in fact witnessing the evolution of a new kind of relationship between businesses and consumers. Large corporations are exploring these new avenues as a means of enhancing their customer experience and generating customer loyalty by offering a genuine response to meet their needs, and this puts the power in the consumer’s hands. But what are the real benefits of social media?

Social Media, when integrated effectively, can pay some serious dividends.

Within the marketing realm, brand name is everything, and what better way to promote your brand than to advertise through online social networks used by millions of people globally? But we do ask you, when considering a social media campaign, there are a few things you should ask yourself:

• Will it entice your target market online? – Not every company is born to have visually stunning and engaging content to work with. So you need to consider whether or not the mainstream avenues of social media, with younger demographics, are applicable to the goods or services relevant to your business. We call this ‘common sense marketing’ – after all, you’re hardly going to promote retirement funds and superannuation plans to a social site comprised primarily of users under the age of 25!
• What will it do for your brand name? – When embracing social media, it is of utmost importance that you are always thinking about the effect of your actions online that can either positively or negatively impact upon your brand name. You need to be aware of the cause and effect of certain actions when interacting with users in the online world. Creating a positive image for your brand name online can create some valuable leads, and will increase rapport amongst your online customers.
• Can you meet the demands of your campaign? – A lot of work goes into building up a social following, and the larger and more successful your social media campaign becomes, the higher the demand required of you. Scope out the time and resources required based on the scale of the social media campaign you want to launch, and always over-estimate the scale of the campaign to ensure future viability.