The B2B Guide to Social Media

By Jim Beckham (@jimbeckham)  

As the newest member of the team, I had been given the responsibility, and some would say privilege, of choosing the B2B Blog of the Week. However, being relatively new to pretty much everything we do here at TopLine, my initial endeavours at finding a suitable candidate were not very successful to say the least. What I really needed was a tool that compiled the best blogs on the web into categories and then would give me some indication of which ones were successful. Luckily my ever faithful “rule of the internet” came into play here as I soon found that something I had imagined had already been made by someone else. In this case, blogRank by Invesp.com.

Back in 2009, having been publishing their own blog regularly for three years already, Invesp, who apparently focus on “Conversion Rate Optimisation”, decided that they wanted to measure its success. However, they found that existing tools were not comprehensive enough in their ranking systems to satisfy their needs, as their website explains:

“we decided to examine different factors to measure each of these elements, such as how many people read a blog, how many people subscribe to the RSS feed, how many other blogs link to your blog and more. Our aim is to help readers find the best blogs possible in the area of their interest.”

Users can select from nine different categories, each with a number of subcategories contained within them, to bring up the top 100 relevant blogs. A rating is given to each blog, along with a direct link for ease of access. For example, we recently used this system to compare the top 100 blogs relating to small businesses. Ranking is updated daily, so if a new post suddenly draws a particular blog hundreds of followers, this will very quickly be reflected in the ranking system.

blogRank’s main competitor, Technorati, certainly has the edge over it in some aspects – specifically a more stylish interface, with a short synopsis and preview pictures for each blog on the ranking page – and as such is likely to be leading in this field for the foreseeable future. Yet I can’t help but feel a pang of affection for this little underdog tool which, if the difficulty I had in finding a link to it from the Invesp homepage is anything to go by, seems to have been left by the wayside to some extent, even perhaps by its creators.

But beneath its straightforward, no nonsense look lies a very powerful and complex tool that took over eight months to develop. The comprehensive system collects data on thousands of blogs, and categorises them based on over 20 different factors. Upon launch it had already looked at 20,000 blogs and sorted them into 50 different topics.

It is clear from blogRank’s website that it considers itself a superior tool compared to Technorati, for the following reasons:

“1) Technorati’s Authority ranking is not focused on listing the top 100 blogs in specific categories across the blogosphere.
2) Authority ranking relies solely on incoming links to a blog for its ranking. This is only one of the factors we use in ranking.
3) Most other ranking systems use only 8 or 9 factors to measure a blog’s success, while we use over 20.”

What I like most about blogRank is that it does not simply present the viewer with a single ranking table, but instead lets the results be sorted by a number of specific factors as well. This means that if you are looking for blogs that have the most unique monthly visitors, for example, you can rank them according to this regardless of their Alexa ranking or Google indexed pages.

So, despite this being a blog post about finding a blog to post about, I have a strong feeling that blogRank will be used here at TopLine in the future, especially because, despite the technical aspects behind it being quite complex, the front end of the product is so easy to use and straightforward. So, congratulations blogRank on being our B2B Blog of the Week!

In retrospect my earlier comment about blogRank not being highlighted on the main Invesp site doesn’t really matter. The majority of traffic I imagine will come from search engines, and in this respect the people behind the SEO probably couldn’t have been any more effective. Well, unless perhaps if they’d been led by Gordon Ramsey – “want to rank blogs? blogRank. DONE”.

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By Adam Ketterer (@Adam_Ketterer)

Following on from Niamh’s (@minteressant) previous blog post, I thought I would focus my attention on another great source of information for B2Bers looking to improve their online marketing practice. Search Engine Journal (SEJ) is a website dedicated to the sharing of search marketing know-how and news, with a team of dedicated in-house experts and guest writers contributing to the discussion.

More a directory than a single blog stream, the site has posts filed under key social marketing headings and maintains a good balance of tutorial, news and comment, but always with a nod to the lessons-to-be-learned. It’s topical, too, albeit with a slant to its native (small n) American audience; but I did like its take on the Republican Primary Candidates’ Twitter race.

What I like best about SEJ, though, is that while at its core it’s a popular and powerful information channel for its users it doesn’t fall into the trap of swallowing  its own hype whole. Well, not all of it, at least. In posts like this one on the value of comments for B2B blogs, there’s a refreshing level of self-awareness. Nick Stamoulis (@NickStamoulis) writes about his own experiences:

“While hearing how brilliant my post was is nice, I know it’s a load of BS. I am a big fan of blog commenting for link building, but I make sure that any comments I leave for my company or my clients are at least 2-3 sentences long and add some sort of value to the blog post.”

These guys practice what they preach and in reading this post you get the sense that they value search engine etiquette as well as SEO. It’s about networking as much as cold link building, after all, and building relationships will not only increase your online presence, it’ll do wonders for your e-rep, too.

You should read the post I mentioned above (and loads more on SEJ) and make up your own mind on the importance of comments for B2B blogs – hey, why not leave a comment below with your thoughts….see what I did there? If that suave segue wasn’t enough to convince you to comment, then how about the chance to WIN-a-PRIZE?!

From now on, once a week, we at the B2Bsocialmediaguide will award a £20 Amazon voucher for the best comment left on any of our blog posts. So there you go. Tell your friends. Go forth and comment. Or don’t (I wouldn’t want to choke on that hype either).

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By Niamh Kinsella (@minteressant), the latest contributor to The B2B Guide to Social Media and SAE newbie at what seems so far to be The Best Education and B2B PR Consultancy… Ever.

As we at the aforementioned PR consultancy are undergoing extensive SEO training, I thought I would stick to that theme and see what the experts have been blogging about to help businesses draw greater traffic to their websites from search engine results.

In my search I stumbled upon The Daily SEO Blog  by SEOmoz, a SEO and social media management company from across the pond in Seattle in the US of A

SEOMoz's Daily SEO Blog

As implied by the title it is updated daily by the SEOmoz team and guest contributors with posts that cover a variety of SEO topics and advice for businesses and SEO professionals.

For someone who only knows a teeny tiny bit about SEO and how to use it, the posts are well-written, to the point, and full of infographics and pictures. The meatier developer tech-speak surrounding SEO is broken down into manageable bites and explained, such as a post dedicated to a Web Developer’s SEO and Open Graph Cheatsheet which is extremely useful for developers that may not use SEO on a daily basis, and What Not To Do for Bloggers looking to improve their SEO.

My favourite post so far is The Brand of SEO and the Trend of Inbound Marketing, not just because I find the shift towards inbound marketing interesting, but because the contributor quoted relevant Twitter posts in a way I will most likely be shamelessly copying in future.

Pictured Twitter quotes are a nice break in text

I’d definitely recommend checking the blog out if you have any interest in SEO, as the posts cater for both professionals in the SEO industry and tips, tricks, and advice for businesses.

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At TopLine we aim to tell you about our favourite B2B blog each week. Now you may say, “Wow! How on earth do they choose from all the amazing blogs out there?”. Well normally we trawl through the web, view other people’s recommendations or search on topics in which we are interested.

Today I was tasked with writing our B2B blog of the week, but after 20 minutes of fruitless searching I gave up. Maybe it’s the mid-week state of mind, but I really can’t be bothered to hand over this incredible accolade to any of the rotten blogs I’ve read today.

Now I’m expecting – maybe even hoping – for some backlash against this comment. So, before reacting in a violent fashion.. “What you talking about Willis? Our blog is amazing!” … consider my reasoning.

When you have a fresh brain and a definite purpose, finding a blog on the topic you’re seeking should be easy as pie. It certainly shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. However, when it’s a Tuesday morning and you are browsing pages for something of interest, there is nothing more boring than words.

Yes words are important, unless you’re talking about a vlog or a picture blog – plog if you will – but they don’t have to look so boring. I mean seriously, the templates most people use are enough to make your eyes burn.

Black writing and if you’re lucky a heading in green or dark blue. Usually there are some adverts down the side and a picture of the author, but there’s nothing to draw the eye. Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are not the only fonts in the world bloggers!! Your topics aren’t dry, but if visually your page is as dry as sandpaper, I am unlikely to award you anything! Ok, that’s a lot of exclamation marks for one paragraph. Apologies.

It’s not hard to spice up your content, and it won’t detract from its meaning. Plenty of commercial blogs manage this with great success, why should B2B be any different? In the end, we are all consumers.

Use tools such as Wordle to create attractive word clouds linking to your commonly discussed topics. Try adding infographics from Visual.ly as a way of presenting quality, in-depth data or, if all this sounds techy and complication, add more colour.

Ok, so instead of recommending a B2B blog to you today. What I am going to do is recommend for you, dear B2B blogger, is a commercial design site. Line25 are web designers. I can’t recommend their services, having never used them, but I can recommend one of their recent blog posts: Tips for Designing Unique and Attractive Blog Posts . First off, they recommend bloggers take interest from print design, after all you wouldn’t read a magazine without any visual impact, so why shouldn’t the same apply to blogs?  To prove the point they use…yes, you’ve guessed it, a visual! In fact, the whole feature is full of lovely pictures showing you exactly where you’re going wrong.

So now you know. Fix it. Then, maybe next week you’ll win the coveted B2B Blog of the Week.

By Charlotte Ward (@Charloot)

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Imagine a world where you could draw on anything.  A world where you could scrawl all over your bedroom and your parents wouldn’t get narky.  A world where you could graffiti on your school walls and not wind up with an ASBO.  A world where you could doodle and scribble to your little heart’s content. ON A WALL. What an amazing world that would be.

Enter IdeaPaint.  These marvellous people have invented a paint that you can write all over and simply wipe away when you’re done, a bit like a giant white-board.  Not only does it satisfy everyone’s dormant childhood impulses to draw all over things they shouldn’t, but it’s also pretty useful for businesses too.  It can be used for anything from menus in restaurants to staff rotas to mind mapping, ‘’giving you the space you need to collaborate, interact and fully explore your creativity’’.  Who needs paper when you can write stuff on walls?

Not content with having a pretty cool product, the company’s blog is great too. It’s crammed with video case studies, company announcements, competitions and ideas from customers.  I like it because it shows genuine customer engagement – not only does it entice new customers in with videos of just how gosh darn happy and fulfilled IdeaPaint’s customers are, but it provides ideas and tips for how existing customers can make the most out of the product.

By Hannah Stacey (@hanstacey)

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The B2B Blog of the Week has to go to the simply hilarious, and yet informative, Marctv.

As Marc Gordon, the owner of the blog says, Marctv is more than just a blog.  It’s a video blog acting as a forum, handing out business information, exemplifying social marketing and entertaining its audience. On a serious note, the blog has been created and ordered in a way which provides advice on how to succeed in business.

Splitting the blog into ‘episodes’, Marc categorises his vlogs by ‘Customer Service episodes’, ‘Marketing Episodes’, ‘Advice episodes’ and ‘Social Media episodes’. In addition you can access a video diary of quick tips and a traditional written blog, ‘The Fourth Word’.

Why it’s a success:

• It has a personable nature. While discussing many of the serious topics commonly raised in the B2B blogosphere, it manages to inject a sense of humour and presents each subject in a digestible format.
• The diversity of the content and its ease of navigation. Marc can be found gushing about almost every topic of interest to SMEs, and it won’t take you an hour to scroll down the entry you want.
• Did we already say it’s funny? This guy is a good writer (see The Fourth Word), and for the reader this is often as important as the topic being discussed.
• Some of the tips given are extremely basic, so basic in fact that they risk looking patronising when written down, for example ‘how to answer the phone’. In video format Marc is able to give this advice without appearing condescending.

Well done Marctv, we’ve certainly enjoyed exploring a B2B site which makes learning fun.

By Charlotte Ward (@Charloot)

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Today’s B2B Blog of the Week goes to the COLOURLovers business blog. Produced by the team behind Twitter profile customisation programme, Themeleon, the blog focuses on colour trends, new products and inspirational ideas for business.

The best part of this blog is that it promotes exactly what you would expect – colour.  It explains how simple common-or-garden tools, such as business cards, can be jazzed up, making them stand out from the crowd and ensuring that you stick in the minds of potential clients. Remember, first impressions matter.

A recent post from COLOURLovers on the topic of the QR code was particularly interesting. Most people now know what a QR code is, but for those who don’t, QR codes are a form of 2D barcode initially created to track information and store large amounts of data.

In the last year the QR code has evolved. Marketers have begun adding them to their promotional material and encouraging people to use them as live links to various websites and campaigns. Despite their seeming potential, QR codes seem to be at an impasse as consumers aren’t catching on to the technology as quickly as expected. The COLOURLovers blog suggests that, if the QR code is to survive, flourish, and achieve the world-domination that was once predicted for it, then businesses need to get creative.  The blog depicts plenty of vibrant examples and links readers through to a number of suggested articles, explaining and discussing the technology further.

While the number of channels on the COLOURLovers main site can be a bit confusing (they have overlapping blog streams including ‘wedding’, ‘home, ‘fashion’, ‘web’, ‘print’, ‘craft’ and ‘business’), the topics are engaging, and an active community contributing frequent comments, elevates the content beyond simple commentary.

Guest post by Charlotte Ward

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The B2B Blog of the Week has today been awarded to our friends up north at the Scottish Business Blog. This is the only resource dedicated entirely to SMEs in Scotland and covers everything from local business news to listings for networking events, podcasts and columns.

We like the local flavour of this blog and the comprehensive information it provides. As well as offering helpful tips on resources for start-ups and in-depth book reviews, the blog also acts as a forum for Scottish businesses to network online and to showcase some of their best work in action.

And it’s attracted a healthy following on the likes of Twitter, Facebook and even Youtube, where the blog’s editors encourage lively debate and facilitate interaction.

Contributions from local business leaders add flavour to the blog by ensuring that factual posts are nicely complemented by useful and interesting opinion.

While more comments would make the blog more engaging (maybe they have the same problem with spam comments as we do!), we think it is a smashing example of great business blogging in action. Congrats to SBB.

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While trawling the web for B2B social media masterpieces, I came across the blog of People Per Hour, the online freelance marketplace, and I was impressed. So it seemed natural to me to give the B2B Blog of the Week crown to the people at People Per Hour.

About the blog

People Per Hour is a match making service for freelancers and businesses (quite a good one actually – I have used them myself). The company uses its blog to cover issues that are likely to be of interest to freelancers and businesses interested in hiring freelancers. These include freelancer profiles, responses to legislation, such as the Agency Workers’ Directive, a serialisation of a book about starting your own business, and comment on many of the jobs that are posted on the site.

We like it for…

• Its visual appeal – big pictures, easy-to-follow layout, great design.
• Its high-frequency-posting.
• Its commitment to quality despite encouraging multiple authors (they have a great advantage in that many of the people in their network are journalists or copy writers so standards remain high).
• Its flexibility on content – the editors of this blog are really open to ideas and users seem to  come up with some pretty good ones. This is a truly interactive blog!

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This week’s B2B Blog of the Week crown goes to the folks over at Yola.com. Based in California, Yola gives small businesses, non-profits and everyday users the power to build professional websites with no technical skills required, and the company blog firmly supports these ambitions. We like the blog because it is:

• Useful – provides practical advice and guidance on how to create and improve your company website.
• Quirky – with features such as Widget Wednesday and Website of the Week.
• Visual – loads of pics and screenshots make it easy to read.
• Easily navigable – posts are categorised and simple to follow

You Go Yola!

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