Are your B2B social media efforts failing? Is no one reading your blog, responding to your Facebook posts, or tweeting your stuff? We know the biggest reasons B2B social media efforts fail and what to do about it. Remember, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are tools, not a social media strategy. Don’t write off Facebook because you don’t think it’s relevant to B2B. The fact is, 41% of B2B marketers are acquiring customers through Facebook. Do Social Media B2B the Right Way. Need some B2B social media inspiration? Don’t give up. MORE >>

In my work with B2B organizations, the question of how to use Facebook is invariably front and center. This Is despite the fact that numerous surveys have shown that Facebook is one of the least effective social networks for B2B marketing. In a survey of marketers conducted by BtoB magazine last year , Facebook was ranked last in usefulness among the top five social networks, trailing blogs, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter, in that order. Storage maker EMC makes particularly good use of Facebook’s “Welcome&# page. SAP plays inline videos. MORE >>

Here are the first 1,100 words of the chapter on B2B social communities from my forthcoming book, co-authored with Eric Schwartzman, entitled Social Marketing to the Business Customer. Is it appropriate to a B2B setting? Spiceworks does a very good job of managing B2B communities. Essential Utility Spiceworks represents the best of what B2B communities can accomplish. Those early outposts looked little like the Facebooks and LinkedIns of today, though. B2B Value Discussion was the first “killer app” of B2B communities. MORE >>

I am always amused when people talk about the value of Facebook in B2B and that it can’t generate leads. Facebook’s site says they have one billion monthly active users as of October 2012. Besides just sending all of these papers out through traditional channels and relying on Twitter (which yields too) we built a plan around generating leads on Facebook by creating links to the content directly from our fan page. We know it works because all of the content links are associated to a Facebook campaign that we can track in our CRM. cost per lead. MORE >>

Despite its uncertainty in the stock market, Facebook continues to be an excellent way to connect with your client base and potential customers. This struggle is even more difficult for business-to-business (B2B) marketers, who feel so lost trying effectively target business professionals on Facebook that they only put in half the effort or abandon the platform completely. But like any other marketing strategy, growing your B2B Facebook community simply requires an investment of time and genuine engagement. Build an Active Facebook Wall. Go Viral. MORE >>