This week I was asked by someone if I thought the management of social media should fall under the Marketing group or the Sales group.  The debate being that most companies use social media to build their brand online (marketing) with the goal of connecting with prospects that then contact said social media accounts wanting to learn more about the product or service (sales). There were concerns that while the majority of what they wanted to do via social media fell under the standard marketing umbrella; they wanted a sales person involved when a prospect reached out.

Long story short, the answer is your social media presence is a combination of both.

For small businesses, this really never seems to be much of an issue because there are few people wearing many hats and usually all sitting right next to each other.

For larger businesses, a strong relationship between Marketing and Sales with a lead generation plan in place is just as important online as it is offline.  Social media doesn’t really change that.  However it does make it publicly and blatantly obvious when the teams are siloed and disjointed.  Mismanaging a customer or prospect on Twitter can lead to a huge public black eye that thousands of people can share and talk about whereas not contacting a lead that filled out your Contact Us form is a much more private mistake.  That’s why having a social media strategy in place is crucial for companies regardless of what group it falls under.

Figure out what your goals are for using social media and how you will measure your success first.  Then plan the tactics that will allow you to reach those goals.  The last and easiest part will be determining who handles it.

Contests are a great way to promote your B2B brand. If you are willing to look around, contests of all genres and sizes are on the web, with typically little to no annoying requirements for entry. Entering contests is a great business venture. It gives you the opportunity to try your company out against competitors. You can see who your competition is and what they are doing. You’ll learn how to improve your product against competitors, and you will get pain free company promotion.

Winning a contest, or placing in one, make great bragging rights. Every customer wants to hear that their company of choice is the best, and these simple web entry contests can help you get that. Sometimes these contests will also give you the opportunity to include you customers by asking them to vote for you. It’s marketing, PR, branding and customer relationship building all rolled into one.  If nothing else, look for contest that provide financial incentive for the purpose of helping your company grow.

We recommend keeping track of contests, even if your company isn’t ready to enter them. Start a spreadsheet and spend a little time each week researching what contests are going on. Keep track of the information and sign up for emails, maybe next year your company will be ready for it.

Only enter contests that are relevant to your business, and be careful not to overdo it. Analyze the contests before entering them. You don’t need to be in every single one. Of course, as Mom and Dad always told you, if you don’t win its not the end of the world. Take losing as a business learning experience. Make improvements based on the companies you saw rank in the top, then come back and try again.

(Photo fly (relay race anchormen part 3) by Shenghung Lin)

Hubspot just did a blog post on the importance of blogging for companies.  When analyzing their clients, they found that companies who blogged had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages, compared to those who don’t.

In makes sense, doesn’t it?  Instead of a company providing static content, companies can consistently post and share new information relevant to their company and industry.  Here’s a few key tips to blogging:

1. Consistency is key.  Figure out how much time to allocate to blogging and post consistently every week.  Will you be able to provide valuable posts 2-3 times a week? Or would you rather write one knock out blog per week.  This gives readers something to look forward to and shows reliability.  At FYIndOut we do two posts a week, but if we attend a cool event like Tech Cocktail, we’ll do a Friday post too.

2. Transparency, who’s behind the blog? A good way to personalize the blog is to have the company individuals leave their Twitter account, a picture, or contact information.  Twitter is a great platform for customer engagement, so if your clients or colleagues contact you, write back!

3. Value Value Value:  Since 2002, Technorati (Blog Directory) indexed 133,000,000 blogs.  You’ve got competition, so what will set your company apart?  Why would a potential client want to take time to read your blog when they have 133,000,000 others to choose from? You can post new releases, industry trends, topics, ideas, videos etc…the list goes on.

4. You can’t be something to everyone, the web is big so choose a niche community and provide extremely high valued content to that niche.

(Photos and statistics from @Hubspot)

You are hearing the buzz around the office about Twitter, and how it’s beneficial for business.  This post focuses on how small-mid size companies can leverage Twitter’s unique social platform to creating meaningful relationships with clients and colleagues.

1. Establish a relationship: Try and get to know your fellow Twitters’, make it a goal to go out to coffee at least once a week with someone new.  Interacting in person and not just RT will establish a real relationship. So ask yourself, do you really know thy Tweeters? What are you doing to create relationships… REAL relationships with your followers. This method will mean much more than having 1000’s of followers you barely know.

2.Understand that it won’t happen over night, social media takes consistency and time.

3. I, me, my, to YOU YOU YOU.  Make it about them! If you really want someone to like you, figure out how to alleviate their problems and issues.

4.RT( Re-Tweet)  If someone posts great content, RT it! This does two very good things: You are giving them credit for finding the information, boosts their credibility and chances are, they’ll RT your next post. Or at least keep an eye out for ya!

5. Settle into your community: Most major and many small cities now have Tweetups, where Twitter’s unite.

6. Link it: Tweet’s with links have a better chance of being read and clicked.

We didn’t cover everything, what’s your best advice?

(Thanks to @Kevindonlin for I, me, my theory)