Like many of you I’m enamored with Pinterest, but I can’t help but ask, “Can Pinterest benefit B2B Marketers?”

Pinterest is a social media site that allows members to create boards for images that they like. You can name the boards whatever you like, and assign them to a category from a list of pre-determined by Pinterest. Over time as you find images that you like, you pin the images to the appropriate board. Popular board categories are used for recipes, fashion, books, wedding planning and home decor.

I’m excited about the possibilities of Pinterest on a personal level. I have folders at home that I organize my ideas into, including books to read, places to go, recipes to try (that’s a large recipe box), home improvements, gardening, and things to buy (including fashions I like). The folders happened because I would tear out images of things and places I liked. Over time these accumulated and I wanted a place to put them.

The popular uses for Pinterest mentioned above are all consumer categories. So what uses might those of us who work in B2B Marketing have for Pinterest?

1. Use Pinterest for Collaborative Branding Exercises

hen we work with clients at New Incite, we sometimes go through a branding exercise to identify what images and concepts work for their industry, their customers, their employees. The client clips relevant images and pastes them on a board. Colors, concepts and styles bubble up from these boards – why not do them on Pinterest? When you create a board you have the option to invite other individuals to contribute to it; this is a great way to get virtual teams involved.

2. Market Research on Pinterest

Crowdsourcing is on the minds of marketing research experts. Pinterest would seem to lend itself to market research, especially since the adoption rate of Pinterest has been pretty fast. Pinterest was founded in December 2010 and was named as a top ten social media site by October 2011 with over ten million visits per week.

3. Pin Favorite Designs or Campaigns

Marketing experts could use Pinterest to display favorite campaigns and designs. These could illustrate your or your firm’s style, which could help a prospective client choose the right marketing partner. But, to comply with Pinterest’s etiquette criteria of not being self-promotional, you should not create boards that only display your designs. That might be tough for marketers, who are by nature self-promotional.

4. Event Image Collages on Pinterest

I like what Karlie Justus suggests in the Social Media B2B blog post 4 Reasons For B2B Marketers To Explore Pinterest – that you could use Pinterest for trade shows. Karlie recommended a board for best tips for trade shows. But what about taking it a step further and creating a board for each show or conference you’re involved in and making that collaborative? You could invite people to pin photos and “best images” to represent their memories of the show. This could be a great way to engage people you meet at a conference or trade show after the event and at the same time “crowdsource” the look and feel of the event for future marketing.

These are just a few ideas about how B2B Marketers can use and benefit from Pinterest. Feel free to comment below with more ideas!

It’s critical that qualified prospects find your business on the Internet. If you’re not getting found, you’re losing leads and potential revenues.

1. Your website uses outdated programming code.
2. Your website doesn’t have relevant content.
3. You use flash in your website.
4. You have too many big images in the wrong places.
5. Your images are not properly tagged.
6. You don’t have SEO metatags.
7. You don’t properly use headlines.
8. No one links to your website.
9. You are not connected to others on social media.
10. Your page URLs aren’t keyword rich.

If you own any of the ten reasons people don’t find you on the Internet, it might be time to update your website. At New Incite, we create cost-effective websites that include organic, white-hat search engine optimization (the kind that doesn’t get you de-listed by Google!) and great relevant content and images, that also allow you to maintain the content if you wish to moving forward. Contact us today to get a quote for updating your existing or creating a new website that will get your business found online!

When it comes to your B2B online marketing, make no mistake. Headlines make a big difference. Here’s what CEOs and CMOs need to know.

On every website page or blog entry you have an opportunity to include headlines. Search engines like headlines, and the more keyword rich the better. Headlines are designated in HTML code as H1, H2, H3, up through H6.

Bad Online Headline Examples

All too often, headlines on webpages are omitted altogether or written poorly. For example, a home page may have no headlines at all. The About Us page may have a headline “About Our Services,” when it could say “About Our Printing Services” or “About Our Printing Services for Realtors.” Instead of “Why Hire Us?” a headline could say “Why Choose ABC Printing?”

Blog Post Headlines that Work

When it comes to blog posts that you share with your connections on social media, the post headline is even more important. It should contain some keywords and at the same time be interesting enough for people to click on the link and read the post. The post can include some interesting subheaders to break up the post text that include keywords as well. These subheaders make a post easier to read and more keyword rich for the search engines.

Headlines that include numbered lists seem to get the most click throughs and popularity. Looking at a list of  popular blog posts by Hubspot (a well-known marketing software company), 15 of 24 of Hubspot’s most popular recent blog posts have headlines that include numbered lists, such as:

• 5 Awesome Landing Page Lessons From Real Life Examples
• 5 Tools to Battle Social Media Content Overload
• 25 Eye-Popping Internet Marketing Statistics for 2012

Headlines that include in-the-news celebrity or politician’s names also get attention and are definitely examples of “gaming the system.” Again, Popshared.com’s list of popular Hubspot headlines shared this week on social media include:

• How a 9-Year Old Successfully Newsjacked the GOP Primary
• How You (and Rick Santorum) Can Fix a Damaged Search Reputation

For an additional resource on writing effective headlines, check out Copyblogger’s page How to Write Magnetic Headlines.

Your website and blog post headlines matter!

They make a difference in whether or not you are found online. For more information about great headlines or for help with your online marketing, please contact us at New Incite today.

Santorum photo from Flickr, Some rights reserved by Gage Skidmore.

Lady Gag photo from Flickr, Some rights reserved by TJ Sengel

If your logo is not square, it should be! Why? Because more and more online and electronic  logos display best in a square format. For example, a logo that is horizontal must be reduced to a small size to fit in your email signature line (and to avoid having a large graphic in your email). As a result, the company name in the logo may not be legible.

Many social media profiles feature  thumbnail graphics, and if you want to display your brand to its best advantage, a horizontal or vertical logo doesn’t show as well as a square logo. Below I use the example of my own logo designed eleven years ago (I don’t embarrass or pick on any one company or designer).

The Problem with Online Logos

If your logo has a landscape or horizontal format, when you try to apply it to your Facebook company page, it doesn’t display very well. Here’s how my company logo and a couple service logos display on my Facebook company page:

LinkedIn also displays logos in a thumbnail on its company pages, so the problem crosses over many online uses, especially in social profiles.

What’s the Solution?

Do you really need to scrap your horizontal or vertical logo and create a new one, incurring extra cost and taking the chance of losing brand recognition? It is OK to create a small version of your logo to use online in addition to your existing logo – see some examples below. This works especially well if you are a known brand.

But, if you are just now creating a logo for a new company or new product, my suggestion is to “go square” now, when you can!

For a quote on creating logos for your company, products or services, or with any questions about how to create the best online marketing presence, call New Incite today at 818-347-4248 or contact us via email.

People’s eyes view print marketing pieces in a Z format and on-screen marketing content in an F. Why should you care? Because if your most important information – e.g. your call to action – isn’t strategically located on your page or screen, you will get less than optimal results from your marketing.

Years ago an ad agency guy told me about the “Z” scanning format for print pieces. We were implementing a marketing program for a software company that included print ads and a print newsletter. He explained that people first scan across the headline of an ad (“Is this relevant to me?”), scan diagonally through the middle (“Give me more info!”), and then scan the bottom of the ad (“Who sent it and are they important to me?”) This logic also explains how people read business letters and why the postscript is so important. He told me to always put my call to action in the lower right-hand corner of a marketing piece. The Z tip made it clear why a grabber headline is so important as well as scan-able (bulleted or bold, etc.) information in the middle of a piece such as an ad or one sheet.

Communications expert Jan Palmer (Jan is President of the Communication Excellence Institute) first told me that people look at web pages in an “F” format. I researched this further online and found Jakob Nielsen’s (Nielsen – Norman Group) helpful blog post, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. The post references Nielsen’s eye-tracking study and shows some webpage heatmaps that show how visitors look at online content. Nielsen says people scan the top of the page and across the middle, and then they scan  down the left side. He reinforces the importance of putting your most important information at the top and making your content very scan-able.

Another interesting post that I found is by Steven Bradley of Van SEO Design – 3 Design Layouts: Gutenberg Diagram, Z-Pattern, And F-Pattern.  Bradley reviews the Z and F viewing patterns, referencing Nielsen as well, and explains the Gutenberg Diagram, which shows how readers view text-heavy pages such as newspapers or book pages.

Here are some questions for readers of this blog post – feel free to comment below.

Do you think that the F web page scanning format is a result of legacy websites first having menus on the left, then on the top?

What does the F scanning format mean for new, minimalist websites that are highly graphical?

Now more than ever, online content is the key to attracting and engaging qualified prospects online. According to a study done in August of 1092 B2B marketers, 60% plan to increase content spend in 2012 (compared to 51% in 2011) and 62% plan to outsource content creation (it was 55% in 2011).

But, the biggest challenge B2B Marketers have with content is figuring out what kind engages prospects.

There are new forms of content emerging constantly, and many B2B marketers are new to online content creation. Here are some ideas for how to identify what content you should create.

1. Use a website analytics to track downloads and visits. This give you clues as to what media visitors to your site prefer and what topics are most popular.
2. Leverage the most popular page topics on your site. If an article you wrote gets tons of visitors, build on that – create a video or a more in-depth eBook on the same or similar topic.
3. Re-purpose great content into multiple media formats and track the results. Sometimes you just have to resort to trial and error. Put a bunch of content formats on your site about the same topic and see which is most popular. Learn from the results and build on your successes.
4. Better yet, survey or interview your customers. What media do they like the most? Do they want a smart phone app from you because they’re so mobile? Video, because it’s engaging? Audio, because they’re so busy they want to listen while they drive or exercise?
5. Research your customers. Find published studies that detail the demographics and psychographics of your customers – online publications will track this information for advertisers. Combined with some interviews this information will help you develop marketing personas about them (see my previous post on marketing personas – Why B2B Marketing Personas Rule) that include their content media preference.
6. Ask your sales and customer service people to track common questions and issues. Then, answer the questions or address the issues in your online content.
7. Watch and listen on social media. What are your prospects and customers engaging in with others? How can it be applied to what you offer?

These are just some ways to answer the question, “What Kind of Content Should We Create?” How do you answer this?

This blog post answers questions you may be having about social media – Why do it at all? How do I do it efficiently? There are good reasons to invest in social media, and there is a way to create a credible presence on social media without a lot of time and money.

At a recent presentation I gave on social media, one of the attendees commented that he had just cancelled his Twitter account, because he didn’t understand the value of that social media platform account or how to use it. In a LinkedIn discussion group, a participant posted that they had been blogging for six months with no results.

80% of Twitter users have fewer than ten followers says Techcrunch. According to a Technorati study in 2008, the blog abandonment rate is over 90%.

So why do this social media thing?

Why invest the time and money? Because social media – if done right – can generate conversation about you and traffic to your website. Social media platforms are the spokes that feed traffic to the hub – your website and blog. The search engines are paying attention to social media. It’s not enough to have a website optimized for the search engines. You need to have others comment on your content and share links to your website!

How do you have a credible social media presence in a minimum of time?

You need to leverage technology. Post a status update on LinkedIn and Facebook once a day. If you blog, make sure when you hit the Publish button, a link to the blog and its title go to each of your social media platforms automatically. If you don’t blog, share others’ content including articles, videos and blog posts. Use a social media dashboard like Hootsuite to manage it all. Make sure all your content and everything you share is tagged with keywords so you get found and followed.

Social media is very doable. It requires discipline, but it doesn’t have to require a lot of time. You can have a credible presence online and spend about two hours a week if you blog, Tweet, update LinkedIn, Facebook and Google +. If you don’t blog, your time investment is even less. If you need help getting started or if you’re interested in outsourcing your social media messaging and content, contact New Incite today. We have social media set-up and training as well as outsource services designed to help you.

When will you see results from social media and SEO? When is your tweet, blog post, and video content enough?

It takes time. Up to a month for Google to crawl your new site or new blog. Up to three months for social media messaging traction. Up to six months for SEO results – in other words, you start to come up on search results for your keywords.

It’s important to be realistic about your expectations for online marketing.

So plan to:

1. Blog frequently. At least three posts per month.
2. Add video – the more interesting the better.
3. Keep adding content.
4. Register your website and blog with directories.
5. Engage with others and encourage comments and likes of your site.
6. Keep analyzing traffic and keywords with Google Analytics.
7. Post and comment on social media platforms.
8. Send out optimized press releases online.

How long did it take you to get SEO and social media results?

I have a “strong suggestion” for you entrepreneurs, start-ups, spin-offs, R&D folks, developers, CTOs, CEOs, COOs, CMOs, PR and crisis communications peeps – well, everyone involved in getting the word out about some “new thing.”

Connect strategically now. Online, strategically, on LinkedIn, Facebook,  Twitter and more.

NOW!

Now, when the product idea is just a seedling in your brain and soul. Now, when the client tells you about the inkling of a  community initiative that you know may need support in the future. Now, when you know your new corporate strategy is going in a certain direction.

Why?

Because the time to launch your new product, community initiative, or strategy will be upon you before you know it. (Read my previous bog, Why Product Launch Plans Need to Include Social Media.) When that happens – I hope it happens for you – you want to have access to… …1,000? 5,000? 50,000? More? Strategic connections that can tell, sell, buy, refer or simply share with their friends and colleagues. And they can do it through very cost-effective social media, but only if you are connected to and engaged with them.

How?

I.D. your market personas. (Read my previous post about personas.) Schedule time each week to connect (put it on your calendar). Search for the peeps. Follow or invite them. Engage them. Be interesting. Be strategic. Have fun. Do a build-up. Then, you can make an explosive launch or campaign when the time is right.

By the way, Crossing the Chasm refers to the seminal book by Geoffery Moore, about how to market technology. I suggest that what applied to tech companies back in the nineties (the buyers are in control; sell by peer referrals), is true for most industries now because of the disruptive technology of searching and buying online. (See my previous post, New Buying Paradigm Not So New for High Tech Marketing.)

Did you have connections when you most needed them? On social media platforms or other? Or, did you have to scramble?

The principle of  Occam’s Razor is key to getting your marketing done faster, so that you can realize quickly results from your effort.

Occam’s Razor – noun \ˈä-kəmz-\

a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities (Merriam Webster)

In the book Professional Services Marketing, co-authors Mike Schultz and John Doerr write that marketers should take Occam’s Razor into consideration. Their point is that, when it comes to marketing, keep it simple so you can get things done.

Rather than collaborating with ten people, collaborate with three.Rather than a 6-color process, use 4-color. Instead of doing four rounds of design revisions, do two. Shultz and Doerr write that marketers should focus on the prize or the end result of marketing, such as “Will this marketing piece attract visitors to our trade show booth?” not the design details such as, “Do we have the right shade of green?”

Today more than ever, you need to execute your marketing fast. If you get bogged down in design details, it will take too long to get results. I often look for the 80% mark on a project as a sign that the project is done. Having that attitude helps complete websites, print pieces, and other marketing much faster than if I allow the team to get bogged down in details.