I’m in charge of coming up with B2B social media marketing strategies for our clients, then helping get the content that makes them work through the process of development and implementation. That means I do a lot of research and exploration to find out what lies in that lovely matrix of customer interest and market opportunity. What I do is all about possibility. It’s about sorting out the puzzle pieces and making something cohesive from them (which I love doing).

My research takes me outside of the things that are my immediate domain because I need to have an understanding of what the client does already and how it’s working, what they’re not doing, and where the opportunities are. There tends to be a pile of “other stuff” that isn’t what we’re contracted to do. If there’s something that really needs attention, we’ll point it out and can help you get it taken care of or refer you to someone who can.

Sometimes, I wish that it was my job to help deal with this pile of “other stuff” that could be done as part of the web marketing strategy. It can be hard to curtail scope creep when you’re really excited about finding a huge, untapped opportunity for a client. You might be wondering how people missed these big opportunities in their own business. They’re often not the most obvious or trendy ways to solve the problem. Or maybe they solve the problem in an unexpected way. What they almost always are is the second right answer.

A Facebook page or Twitter stream might not yield big results for your company. You might not have the time or strategy to market it, maintain interest, and fill it with useful content. That doesn’t mean you’re exempt from needing to have some social media in place. Would answering common troubleshooting questions regarding your product or software on tech forums make users less frustrated and inspire brand loyalty? Is checking your reviews on Google, Yahoo!, and Yelp part of your routine? What about responding to customers that had a less than ideal experience?

If you’re intimidated or unable to build and maintain some of the bigger efforts that would boost your company’s web marketing strategy, I challenge you to sit down and think of a dozen things you could do that are second right ideas. Just because they weren’t the first right idea doesn’t make them any less right!

…says the Wall Street Journal. I agree. The book is “Citizen Marketers – When People Are the Message” by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (favorite bloggers of ours at Church of the Customer).

This insightful book is a quick read and helps explain how social media has come about and how one person can truly make a difference. The book is a social media primer. It’s an historical reference more than a how-to-do-social-media guide, but some of the history happened without my noticing and it’s nice to have a short and sweet explanation of things that now “defineâ€Â� social media.

If you’re not clear what all the hype is about, it’s worth a few hours to read this book. The authors deliver their message via informative, real-life stories. You’ll read about the effect an individual can have on a brand, and how that single person can influence what LOTS of people buy. Get ideas on how companies can benefit — and profit — from engaging Citizen Marketers. Social media is a “trendâ€Â� that’s real and is becoming a new standard for good marketing and communications.

Now I *almost* understand why people spend so much time blogging, posting videos, creating podcasts and composing advertisements. It’s powerful stuff.

Okay, let’s talk about some down and dirty marketing. I have a bee in my bonnet about something, and a survey says a bunch of other people do too. I haven’t come up with a catchy title or neat phrase for it, but it will be a series of posts tagged around the main topics concerned: customers, brands, and loyalty. Surely I can come up with something better… (or maybe you can).

Forgive me, but I’m going to use a little industry lingo because hey, I’m not a philosopher and we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re all used to looking around at marketing and advertising stuff–the articles, the blogs, the case studies, the campaigns–and we can get really inspired by them. I mean fired up about the kinds of things that are possible. They’re not easy to do, as evidenced by the multitude of failed ad campaigns. They take a team of people working really hard to pull off, and even then they might not be successful. That’s not the intimidating part for me. No, the intimidating part is that they’re B2C, for companies that have a loyal, energetic tribe of followers.

People out there have logos of computer companies tattooed on their bodies. They start blogs to track and detail new products and interact with other fans. How on earth can we inspire that kind of loyalty–even a portion of it–for brands and products that aren’t part of our daily lives? (more…)