The B2B design world is always moving so fast in order to keep up with our clients. I’m always looking for new tools to help me be more organized and efficient. I am also an iPhone lover, so when new tools to help me be more organized and efficient meet the iPhone, I get really excited.

I came across this really helpful application called “What The Font.” No matter what you’re looking at—magazine ad, poster or website—”What The Font” app can identify the font just by using the camera on your smart phone. This can be extremely useful when doing research on a project or when a client has a font in mind but doesn’t know the name of it off hand.

As mobile and digital tools evolve, what tools do you use when it comes to honing your craft in the B2B world?

Are you new to the twitosphere – aka a newetter - and looking to optimize your Twitter time?  You are not alone.  Thankfully there are a plethora of tools available to help, and my goal is to save you the time and effort in evaluating which are the best for your business-to-business marketing efforts.

And as a bonus, I get to showcase my ever-expanding vocabulary of twerminology and Twitterspeak

Not surprisingly, tweeple need different tools at each of the 5 stages of Twitter acceptance first popularized by Rohit Bhargava. Hopefully you (and I) are reaching stage 4 or 5 where twitter below can be most valuable to our business.

1.       Following members of your professional network and twitterati:

The majority of business people have a LinkedIn profile and a Twitter account. Check out the LinkedIn Tweets application from the ‘More’ tab of your profile.  Here you can quickly view tweets of people you’re following on your LinkedIn home page. LinkedIn allows you to see the tweets of all your connections or filtered lists of those you follow and those you do not follow.

2.       Categorizing your tweets and leveraging existing Twitter hashtag strategy:

Hashtags can be a means to categorize your twitterness when you tweet on multiple topics and or markets. Rather than starting from scratch, reference Wefollow to identify existing hashtag topical groupings for your industry. Developing categories for your posts can increase your visibility in the marketplace and minimize potential follower attrition (due to posts seemingly off topic).

3.        Keeping up with your twaffic by DM and vetting followers:

As you are assembling a twittercal mass you hopefully are engaging in social media best practices of direct messaging followers.  Beyond being gracious, capitalize on their interest with another engaging offer. Consider inviting your tweeps to subscribe to your blog, or download a complementary white paper related to your business and brand.  Social Oomph boosts your social media productivity by allowing you to automate DMs and either vet or reciprocate new followers.

4.       Measure & Predict:

Demonstrating ROI requires measurement and twitter is no exception.  TwitterCounter allows you to report and graph your statistics of followers and tweets.  Identifying trends and predictive modeling allows you set goals and document your progress. The ability to compare results with similar or competitive organizations often impacts strategic marketing investments.

5.        Social Media Efficiency

Nothing beats hands-on, real-time data in managing your business.  I use HootSuite as a comprehensive communications platform capable of aggregating numerous social media profiles.  You can track interactions across Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, facebook and Foursquare from a single dashboard. (Quora has to be coming soon!)

HootSuite also allows you to be social on the go with mobile apps.  Although the mobile aspect may cross the line and classify you (me) as a twitterholic prone to twittcrastination.

Having peeked in my Twitter toolbox, what tools or tips would your add for a Twitter newbie adopting social media for business value?

Having an on-line presence is critical to the success of your branding, visibility, product/services and business overall. The important thing to keep in mind when developing or updating your website is that you need to know exactly what your business goals are.

Once you’ve got these figured out, then you can create a website to helps you to reach those goals. Below is a checklist of things you should always keep in mind when enhancing/developing your on-line presence:

• A well-developed sitemap of how visitors will navigate through the website to ensure organization and flow.
• Website page content optimized for the web, includes elements of copy, design and keywords.
• Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is a key success element to increase your traffic online. At the bare minimum include title tags, description tags and meta keywords in to your HTML code.  Stay atop the latest news and tips on SEO from trusted SEO marketing experts.
• Convert your clicks to leads via web forms – capture contact information and build your prospect database.
• Think content rich! Include downloadable assets such as brochures, sell sheets, press releases, etc. All this information ultimately helps prospects to find you more quickly.
• Include a call-to-action to ensure visitors will engage more deeply to find out more about your business and offerings.
• Incorporate social media handles and sharing tools on your website (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) This is another touch-point between you and your prospect/customer to market your business and build relationships. Start with the (or a portion of the) top 101 social media sites if you need help figuring out where to begin.
• Build inbound links to increase traffic- links pointing to your business site from other organizations in the same industry.
• Update/refresh your content monthly for improved search engine visibility. An easy way to do this is by incorporating a blog.

At Canyon Communications we live, breathe and eat website strategy, SEO, development and programming for our clients. If you want help developing the digital strategy for your business, let’s connect today! Happy webbing!

Getting your executives on board with social media is one thing, but getting them to actively participate is entirely another. But take heart – it can be done (it’s easier than it sounds), and it doesn’t even require a slide deck! 

I can’t even remember how long this LinkedIn feature has existed.  Does anyone else find it hard to remember pre-Twitter days? Regardless, the secret of CXO social media adoption is introducing the LinkedIn status update Twitter integration.

For psychographic fiends, it may be helpful to appeal to the inherent narcissism of C-level executives by approaching the effort as “gaining recognition for the impressive volume of industry-specific, relevant content they voraciously consume in running your successful business and/or serving your clients”.

From the default LinkedIn Overview screen visible upon sign-in, the steps are simple.

1. Enter brief comments – or perhaps even better – a provoking question related to the content.
2. Utilize the “Attach a link” text link to display the field in which to paste the business article link and “Attach”
3. Share

A more advanced method would take the LinkedIn Social Share process above and add simple enhancements such as: 

• Optimize your introductory comments in the 140 characters – which are all that will display in the Twitter feed
• Include any Twitter hash tag references (or @references) as valuable in optimizing search value of post
• Use a trackable URL shortener such as bit.ly
• Select the image you feel most engaging from the options auto-pulled when linking asset.  In my example there were 8 choices!

• Choose where the update is displayed by selecting from “Visible to” options of anyone, connections or specific groups. This makes great sense for professionals who engage in numerous vertical markets and seek to maximize value to their connections by preserving relevance of posts.

Demonstrating success is where the fun begins.  First, literally show them proof that their post populated their Twitter feed (which you – or your digital friend in the agency probably established on their behalf). 

Ta-da!  It worked…even capturing my capitalization error as proof of automation (I couldn’t miss that 2xs – really).

Next, show them real proof.  I know you are using metrics to track your social media engagements, so use this as an opportunity to show the lifecycle of their own LinkedIn Status Update and tie it to dollars and cents wherever feasible.

At a minimum:

• Track Comments and Likes on the CXO’s LinkedIn Profile
• Track RTs of pass through tweet
• Track Replies to tweet  and/or DMs
• Review link analytics from URL shortener used

Do your company executives participate in Social Media?  LinkedIn membership among Fortune 500 is 100% so Twitter can’t be far behind now, right?