Search Advisory

I had the privilege of moderating a panel of fellow search engine marketing experts at The Power of eMarketing conference.  Panelists included:

• Arnie Kuenn, Founder & President, Vertical Measures (LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Larry Chrzan, Principal, Blue Horseradish (LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Kevin Lee, CEO, Didit (LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Grant Eckert, SEM Specialist, Harte-Hanks

Arnie, Larry, Kevin & Grant model the latest in fashions for the Search Marketing Man - navy sportcoat, blue shirt, no tie.

The discussion was wide-ranging, and memorable points included: Read more…

An excellent panel of social media experts (Jay Baer, Ben Hanna, Chris Baggott, Caitlin McCabe, Lee Odden and Michael Senger) were tasked with answering a slew of questions using 140 or fewer characters.  Yes, their responses were madly tweeted (here’s my live Twitter feed).  Highlights:

• “What’s the biggest myth about social media?” Don’t wait to start until you’re ready (because you’ll never be ready).  Social media isn’t measurable and doesn’t generate revenue.  Since executives don’t use social media, their target audiences must not either.  One piece of social media content can’t do much (just ask Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines about that).
• “What are the biggest mistakes made with social media?” Build it and they will come.  Overcommitment to too many sites – limit them or you’ll never keep up.  Giving social media a month or two to perform and deciding it doesn’t work (this is about building relationships!).  Overvaluing followers – it’s so easy to become a fan that it may mean less than you think (“With friends like this, who needs friends?”).  Outsourcing customer engagement – an agency will never know your customers like you do.  Falling in love with a particular social media channel – let your audience dictate which ones are important.
• “What’s most overrated?” Whatever platform your customers aren’t using.  Facebook ads, since 25% of Facebook users access it from their mobile devices, which don’t display ads.  Twitter in terms of too much focus on the number of followers you have.  A company-sponsored online community – it’s a very slow build.
• “What’s the difference between social media for B2B versus B2C companies?” There’s “more romance” with B2B since it’s a longer sales cycle.  B2C is more immediate and mass market.  Don’t assume Facebook=B2C and LinkedIn=B2B because that’s not necessarily true; the platform may not change between consumers and business buyers, but your message, tactic and offer should.  For B2B, you must be a helpful, relevant resource.  With B2C you can often afford to simply entertain.  With B2B, you usually know who your customers are since they’re in a database, so you can track social media results more closely.  With B2C, that’s much harder (Pringles doesn’t know who their customers are).
• “What about social media and SEO?” They’re yin and yang – social promotes optimized content and provides links.  Use the same keywords and links on social media that you do on your site.  Social media is simply more content to search engines.  Keywords are a good thing – if you want to engage me, speak my language!
• “How should someone new to social media get started?” Listen first, find out what customers want from you and make it easy for them to get it.  Determine your resources and be honest about what you can accomplish.  Blog first – everything else will work off of that “hub” of social activity.  The smartest people in your company are the people you give the phone to – they are used to talking to customers and prospects and should be blogging.

I’ve come across yet another great article recently published by my colleagues at Enquiro.  This one, by Jody Nimetz, discusses the differences and similarities in doing search engine optimization for a business-to-business company versus a business-to-consumer company.

Most of our clients are B2B, so this is something we’re very familiar with.  In a nutshell, the biggest difference has to do with search term research.  Most B2B purchases have a much longer sales cycle than to most B2C purchases.  Therefore, more search terms — that are likely to be relevant to different buyers/searchers at different stages in the buying cycle — need to be targeted.

The other major area of differentiation in terms of SEO for the two types of sites has to do with content.  Most B2B sites exist for lead generation purposes — not a quick ecommerce sale — so richer content, white papers, etc., need to be offered.

For more details, catch Jody’s entire article: B2B SEO vs. B2C SEO: How Different Is It?