Press Play: How Marketers Who Invest in B2B Video Earn Greater ROI

How is B2B video marketing continuing its ascendancy and generating greater return-on-investment (ROI) than ever, and where are B2B marketers finding the sweet spot when it comes to video success? With investment in B2B video having climbed, search engines showing more video answers and social media platforms continuing to place video front and center, there’s never been more vibrant and bustling video marketing activity  — or possibility — than now. Let’s take a look at some of the most recent information about B2B video from the latest industry reports and surveys, and hear from some of the top subject matter experts and proponents of B2B video.

1 — Increased Video Investment

When it comes to online video advertising, brands have continued to increase investment, with spending having climbed by 30 percent during the first quarter of 2022 — to the tune of $5.5 billion — compared to the final quarter of 2021, with spending on YouTube video ads alone reaching $482 million, an increase of 57 percent, according to recently-release MediaRadar report data. Additionally, the number of businesses investing in online video in the U.S. alone rose 21 percent to some 15,500 during the first quarter of 2022 compared with the final quarter of 2021. It’s certainly not only paid advertising where video is seeing increased investment and exposure, however, as we’ll examine.

2 — Search Engines Providing More Video Answers

Use of video has not only continued to grow among B2B firms and in both paid and organic marketing efforts, but among search engines and the content they are increasingly showing to searchers looking for answers online. “We see that people love videos and authentic images in search results, so we try to show them more,” John Mueller, senior webmaster trends analyst, recently said during the SEOday 2022 conference. Giving today’s digital-first audiences what they want has naturally surfaced more video, and B2B marketing efforts that don’t include at least some video element will face increasing difficulties as search results reserve more spots for video-only content. [bctt tweet="“We see that people love videos and authentic images in search results, so we try to show them more.” — John Mueller @JohnMu of @Google" username="toprank"]

3 — Video Continues As Prime Social Format

Data from several recent surveys have strengthened the notion that video use and spending have both risen, despite fears by some that a saturation point could arise  — a tipping point that may indeed someday arrive, but as B2B marketers are finding with increased use of video, there is still plenty of room for more relevant digital video content. 47 percent of social media marketers have said that they plan to increase their video activity on LinkedIn over the next year, according to recent survey data. LinkedIn itself has continued refining and expanding its video features, including LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events, with the latter recently adding the ability to engage in conversations before, during and after events, as we covered recently in our weekly TopRank Marketing Friday B2B marketing news. B2B marketers looking to find the ideal social media home for their latest video content have a wealth of options available in 2022, with the old guard of video hosts being joined by a steady stream of newcomers looking to make an impact. B2B video opportunities for cross-platform engagement testing abound for marketers willing to embrace new social platforms. [bctt tweet="“B2B video opportunities for cross-platform engagement testing abound for marketers willing to embrace new social platforms.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

4 — Brands See Video Engagement & Room For Expansion

On LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and elsewhere, B2B brands are working to meet a combination of increased demand for video content and growing digital disengagement. “Our audience is overwhelmed, distracted, and disengaged. But time spent engaging with video is higher than ever,” Heike Young, senior director, brand marketing team at Salesforce, recently observed. “B2B companies have a quickly growing number of content teams, but still relatively few video teams (and small ones), especially when compared to the opportunities that are still out there for video,” Young added. B2B marketers that capitalize on those opportunities when it comes to using video will have a conspicuous advantage in a business environment where more people are viewing video content than ever, and making buying decisions based on what they see — or don’t see. [bctt tweet="“Our audience is overwhelmed, distracted, and disengaged. But time spent engaging with video is higher than ever.” — Heike Young @YoungHeike of @Salesforce" username="toprank"]

5 — B2B Video Makes Buyers More Receptive

The use of video in B2B marketing has always played a part in the sales process, however the shifts seen during the pandemic have made buyers even more receptive to B2B video. “97 percent of B2B buyers said they would be more receptive to sales communications from a business after consuming their video content,” Colin Day, managing director - EMEA at Oktopost noted recently. Day also shared some of the ways that video can be used in today’s B2B marketing efforts, including:

• Webinar clips
• Podcast clips
• Tips and tricks
• Product demonstrations
• Top product features
• How-to videos
• Tutorials
• Customer success stories
• Industry trends
• A day in the life using a product

Those are only a few examples of the many areas where digital video can successfully be used in 2022. Video can prove vital in pushing potential buyers to move ahead, as 95 percent of B2B buyers recently said that video plays an important role in deciding to move forward with a purchase, according to Brightcove and Ascend2 report data. That same report noted that some 93 percent of B2B buyers found video to be important in building trust in a brand — a factor that is more important today than ever in the B2B realm, where trust in marketing has fallen. 58 percent of respondents in the most recent annual Edelman Trust Barometer report said they either buy or advocate for brands based on their values and beliefs, and video has been playing a greater role in helping establish the trust required to build such brand advocates. Our own Joshua Nite recently explored “5 Ways Influencer Marketing Builds Trust for B2B Brands,” and how great content in video or any format can boost brand credibility and awareness. [bctt tweet="“Influencer co-created content shows that you genuinely care about the audience, and are committed to presenting something of value they can’t get anywhere else.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

6 — What’s Hot In B2B Video Content

B2B marketers looking to find out precisely which types of video content B2B buyers are tending to watch can gain insight from recently-released survey data showing that product reviews and demonstration videos topped the list, with tutorials, training and live videos such as webinars also making a strong showing. An additional study showed that some 69 percent of marketers expect their top investment during 2022 to be for video efforts.

6 — Creative Angles & Humor Have A Place In B2B Video

Andrew Davis, keynote speaker and author, who was featured as one of the 50 top B2B content marketing influencers to follow in our list, recently created and shared a video on LinkedIn detailing how humor can play an important role in the success of B2B video content. Davis also sat down with our own Nick Nelson to share some of his insight on video marketing, in “Content Marketing Interview: Andrew Davis on Showing, Not Telling.” Those looking for other creative ideas for new takes on B2B video and other visual content elements will find 14 in the latest Forbes Agency Council Expert Panel piece, “14 Creative Ways Marketers Can Use 360-Degree Images And Other Unique Visuals.” [bctt tweet="“The number of people that make up our brand is more powerful than a logo. Get the face of the CEO, CFO, and CMO into the public eye!” — Andrew Davis @DrewDavisHere" username="toprank"]

Press Play On Your Own B2B Video Success

B2B video usage is only going to grow for the foreseeable future, and those marketers that stay aware of this trend, the increasing prominence of video in search and social, and the continuing power of video to tell memorable stories, will have a significant edge on competitors unable or unwilling to expand their B2B video efforts. We hope you’ve found this brief look at some of the key shifts B2B video is undergoing helpful, and that you’ll be able to put these insights to use in your own video marketing efforts as we push ahead towards 2023 and beyond. We regularly cover how B2B marketers can put video, live-streaming, and podcasting to use, and some of our recent articles on these topics are listed here for further reading:

• 6 Ways Livestreaming Video Can Boost B2B Marketing Results
• Episodic Expansion: How to Optimize B2B Experiences by Expanding Your Podcast to Full-On Video
• 5 Timely Ways B2B Brands Can Conquer Metaverse Marketing
• Visual Focus: The Digital Designs Propelling B2B Brand Success In 2022

Creating award-winning B2B video marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why an increasing number of firms are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

The post Press Play: How Marketers Who Invest in B2B Video Earn Greater ROI appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/press-play-how-marketers-who-invest-in.html

10+ Top Content & Search Marketing Insights from MnSearch Summit 2022

When MnSearch, Minnesota’s premier collection of search marketing luminaries, held its latest big annual summit in St. Paul, we knew TopRank Marketing had to be in the house. I attended Friday’s festivities at the RiverCentre along with our search marketing manager Ryan Leighty. It was my first time attending a marketing conference in almost three years — and also my first time meeting my awesome coworker Ryan in person — which created plenty of good vibes in itself. But there was also a lot of really great content from very bright folks, making this event all the more enriching. Ryan and I divided and conquered the day’s sessions. Naturally, he dove into the more technical search topics — you’ll be shocked to hear Google Analytics 4 (GA4) was a recurring focus! — while I gravitated more toward the content-centric themes. Here I’ll share some of the most notable insights and learnings I took away from the sessions I attended at the MnSearch Summit 2022.

Jenny Halasz on Ecommerce Pitfalls & Solutions

The morning started with an opening keynote from Jenny Halasz, SEO manager at LL Flooring (formerly Lumber Liquidators). She spoke about five key search-related challenges in today’s eCommerce space and how to overcome them. 1 — Site migrations: They never go smoothly and there are a tremendous number of technical variables for which to account. What to do: Hire a seasoned SEO consultant or agency (hey, she said it, not me!) to help you navigate the complexities. And also: never do a migration during a busy season for the business. 2 — Seasonality: It’s not as simple or straightforward as some make it out to be. Some months have different numbers of days, some have holidays, and so on, making apples-to-apples comparisons misleading. What to do: Don’t always take data at face value. Analyze search trends and seek out deeper context. 3 — Speed matters: Page load speed is a key factor in driving traffic and conversions, and it’s especially critical with the continuing growth of mobile commerce. Mobile spending is expected to be three times higher in 2025 than it was in 2019, according to Halasz. What to do: Use tools that can persistently track page load speed and track them vigilantly – and “never turn your back.” Be careful of common slowdown culprits, like background images or JavaScript and cascading style sheets (CSS) loading on every page. 4 — Duplication: It’s not always just straight-up duplicated content. Halasz spoke about “duplication of purpose” affecting one area of the LL Flooring website, where the content on two vinyl flooring pages was different but addressed the same thing so users found it redundant. What to do: Test relentlessly to seek out duplicative instances in your user experience. Halasz mentioned that when her team combined the two pages mentioned above into one, overall performance improved substantially. 5 — Trusting tools: There are plenty of great SEO tools out there, but some specialize in detecting different things, and certain tools will miss certain issues. What to do: Use multiple complementary tools to avoid missing important errors and opportunities. [bctt tweet="“I cannot emphasize enough how good tests are, and the importance of testing your site constantly.” — @JennyHalasz #SEO #MnSearchSummit" username="toprank"]

Niki Mosier on Building a Content Strategy for a Niche Industry

When you’re operating in a niche industry, many pillars of building a traditional content strategy need to be reconsidered. Niki Mosier has experienced this first-hand as director of digital marketing and content at AgentSync, a company operating within a niche vertical in the insurance licensing and compliance space. Mosier laid out a few of these situational challenges:

• Competitive analysis is difficult because there are few other players to help understand what’s working and where the white-space is.
• Your emerging company likely has no authority or reputation in the SERPs.
• Writer expertise is hard to come by because the subject matter is so specialized and often esoteric.

At the same time, there are a ton of opportunities for marketers working in uncrowded verticals. These include a wide range of topics to tackle (it’s all basically white-space!), distinctly defined personas for targeting, and the ability to test and see results more quickly in a SERP. I myself have enjoyed these aspects of working with “category creation” clients, which are among my favorite programs to take on. Mosier walked through the strategy AgentSync put into action, and the fast growth they were able to achieve in brand awareness and organic traffic. The biggest recommendations: lean on your internal subject matter experts to inform and guide content, and create FAQ pages to answer key questions within your niche. Mosier mentioned that AgentSync saw especially strong search performance with this type of query-driven content – probably because they were giving the best answers.

Brian Massey on Getting Started with A/B Testing

As the name of his company Conversion Sciences suggests, Brian Massey loves to geek out about optimizing conversions. When he came on stage to present at the MnSearch Summit, he was even wearing a lab coat. Massey believes that marketers can gain an almost “unfair advantage” through the savvy use of data and science, with A/B testing serving as a perfect example. He invoked a number of human instincts and psychological traits – such as anchoring, loss aversion, and causation vs. correlation ambiguity – that necessitate a more objective approach to analysis. As he put it, “three pounds of seething biases live between our ears.” A/B testing removes this bias from the equation. You can approach the practice in two ways: either a before-and-after analysis — test two variations over different time periods and compare — or split testing — serve different variations to visitors, with a 50/50 split, for live and real-time testing. Whichever route you choose, make sure you’re developing a valid sample size and understanding what the outputs mean. Massey said that you should only be looking for significant changes in conversion rate, i.e. 20% or more. An effective A/B testing approach will produce one of three outcomes for any page it’s applied to:

• Win: Conversions are improved with the variation, and the changes are put into effect.
• Save: Conversions decline, meaning you saved yourself from losing conversions.
• Inconclusive: No significant change, thus you can save yourself the efforts and resources involved with a full implementation that won’t have the desired impact. Massey said this is the most common outcome.

[bctt tweet="“Test before you invest!” — Brian Massey @bmassey #CRO #ABtesting #MnSearchSummit" username="toprank"]

Bob Sparkins on the Anatomy of a High-Converting Landing Page

A fitting follow-up to the previous session from Mr. Massey, this one also focused on using data to maximize landing page conversions, except in this case the data is historical rather than first-hand. As a sales marketing manager for Leadpages, Bob Sparkins has access to a lot of this data. In his presentation he shared common traits of his company’s highest-performing landing page templates. Some best practices that emerged through this review:

• Lead magnet: This refers to the asset or hook you’re using to draw people in. Resource guides, checklists and cheat sheets relating directly to a specific audience pain point tend to drive higher conversions.
• Headlines: Make sure you’re focusing less on what you’re giving away or selling, and more on the results they’ll get out of taking this journey. Aim for the intersection of emotional impact and immediacy.
• Minimalism: Ask for only the information that is essential to your lead generation process. Fewer fields means more conversions. In many cases, first name and an email address are all you really need to collect.
• Two-step opt-in: This basically means that instead of filling out form fields on the landing page itself, the user clicks a button and then the form pops up. When people click through to a landing page and see a form right away, it can put them on guard. Sparkins said that split-testing (remember that?) shows that two-step opt-ins outperform standard form fills most of the time.
• Hero image: You want the user to see themselves in their desired future state. Don’t show a graphic of a frustrated guy with his face in his palms.

Above all, Sparkins stressed the importance of actions taken before someone arrives at the landing page. Building a strong reputation for your brand, and priming the user with the right message in the ad or SERP that’s bringing them to the page, are vital.

Christina Garnett on Harnessing Brand Affinity Through Community

Although her subject matter veered away a bit from the usual SEO-driven lens of this event, I was nonetheless eager to see Christina Garnett of HubSpot speak on the value and impact of brand communities, since it’s something I’ve felt strongly about for some time. Garnett shared a “Hierarchy of Brand Love,” deriving from Abraham Maslow’s classic psychological model of human needs. From the most basic and necessary level of community-building to the most aspirational ideal, it goes like this:

• Survival: Your brand and its solutions meet customer expectations.
• Safety: Customer support is your front-line to deliver better experiences.
• Love/Belonging: You’re proactively increasing brand affinity with swag, acknowledgement of positive word-of-mouth, and facilitating customer connections.
• Esteem: You’re developing brand advocacy with elite care that feels exclusive (i.e. behind-the-scenes access, VIP opportunities, betas and focus groups).
• Self Actualization: You’re turning your customers into product experts, giving them opportunities to shine, and providing resources to improve knowledge.

When you reach that highest level of brand love, your customer community becomes a powerful, semi-autonomous force in your marketing and growth. So it’s easy to see the benefit. How can you climb this hierarchy? Garnett offered many suggestions, but it mostly comes down to this: show the people in your community you see them and care about them (“There’s no easier way to make someone feel special than to treat them like they’re special,”) and make advocacy easy and flexible. She also pointed session attendees to a free open-source template for building your own “Minimum Viable Community.” [bctt tweet="“Brand love is created when it’s clear that you care about what your customer cares about.” — @ThatChristinaG #BrandCommunities #BrandLove #MnSearchSummit" username="toprank"]

Alina Benny on Winning with Content Operations

The final session I attended at the MnSearch Summit was of particular interest to me personally, given my role as a senior content marketing manager on a growing team. While creatives like myself might enjoy dedicating most of our energy toward devising and creating content, there’s no question that defining and refining the team’s structure and processes is essential to scalably doing that well. This was the subject of Alina Benny’s talk, drawing from her experiences as head of content SEO for Nextiva and as a growth SEO advisor at Figma. She described content ops as “the next wave of doing content marketing better.” Effective content operations, according to Benny, leads to higher-quality content, faster production cycles, improved ROI, and more. In her presentation, she shared specific examples of organization charts and workflows. Clearly there are many ways to go about it, and the specifics will vary based on the team, but her core message was this: documentation is everything. And it’s surprisingly rare to see it done comprehensively. While Benny admitted that this is a specialized skill of hers, she encouraged everyone watching to focus on strengthening their commitment. Create time for documentation and make it a priority. Shared, dependable knowledge bases are a cornerstone of smooth and sustainable content operations. That’s definitely a message that hit home with me. [bctt tweet="“#ContentOps is a key competitive advantage. Not everyone’s good at documenting repeatable processes.” — @alinacbenny #ContentMarketing #MnSearchSummit" username="toprank"]

TopRank Marketing's Nick Nelson and Ryan Leighy

The post 10+ Top Content & Search Marketing Insights from MnSearch Summit 2022 appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/10-top-content-search-marketing.html

B2B Marketing News: LinkedIn’s New Event Features, B2B Customer Experience Data, Google’s Inclusive Marketing Resource, & Twitter Readies Long-Form Notes

What’s Standing in the Way of B2B Companies Providing A Great Customer Experience? When it comes to providing great customer service, 46 percent of U.S. B2B professionals have said that poor collaboration between teams was the leading challenge, followed by 42 percent who pointed to disparate team goals, and 33 percent who singled out the lack of a unified customer view — some of the statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts TrustRadius' new B2B report - The age of the self-serve buyer is here [Annual Report] Nearly all B2B buyers have said they want all or at least part of their buying journeys to be self-serve — a rate up 13 percent from 2021, while 41 percent of those in the Gen Z and Millennial demographic said that their first step in buying was checking review sites — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers featured in recently-released report data. B2B Marketing LinkedIn Adds New Event Engagement Options, Simplified ‘Repost’ Process Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has launched a new feature that offers the ability to engage in conversations before, during and after events, along with a refined post-sharing experience, LinkedIn (client) recently announced. Social Media Today GfK study identifies how ‘purpose fatigue’ may be causing brand initiatives to fall short 74 percent of traditional video advertisements held viewer attention, while purpose-driven ads came in at 65 percent, with 48 percent noting that transformational ads were clear, compared to 43 percent for purpose-driven ads — some of the findings contained in newly-released purpose fatigue marketing survey data. The Drum TBWA 'Future Of Work' Report Finds Creatives Want Better Work/Life Balance Some 55 percent of creative professionals said they were satisfied with their work-life balance, significantly behind the 64 percent global benchmark, while 80 percent strongly agreed that it is important for their employer to help them achieve a healthy work-life balance, according to recently-released survey results. MediaPost LinkedIn Launches Initial Rollout of its New ‘Funny’ Reaction LinkedIn has rolled out an additional emoji that brings the ability to express the more light-hearted side of the professional social network, with a new laughing emoji, which comes as the platform has set record levels of user engagement, LinkedIn recently announced. Social Media Today Twitter to expand into long-form content with upcoming Twitter Notes feature Twitter is preparing to roll out a new feature that will allow article-length media-rich content — an upcoming shift that is set to change Twitter’s short-form-only modus operandi and offer B2B brands new options for using the platform, Twitter recently announced. TechCrunch Google Adds More Insights to its ‘All In’ Marketing Accessibility Resource Search giant Google has published a collection of new examples and resources aimed at providing marketers with detailed and up-to-date inclusive marketing best practices, broken down into 12 primary categories, Google recently announced. Social Media Today Meta and other tech giants form metaverse standards body, without Apple The Metaverse Standards Forum has launched as a new group intended to work towards setting industry standards when it comes to the metaverse, and includes Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta, Microsoft and other major technology firms, along with standards organizations including the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with a notable exception being Apple, the group recently announced. Reuters Where’s anywhere? Top 20 most popular cities for remote workers Bend, Oregon topped the list of smaller metropolitan cities where workers are applying for remote work, with Cape Coral, Florida topping the larger metro area cities — two of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released survey data from Adobe, which examined the latest hot-spots for remote workers and looked at the future of work. Adobe ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “social marketing hype” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist IT Guy Requests Employees Stop Placing Difficult-To-Remove Stickers On Him — The Onion TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lane R. Ellis — This Week in Marketing: B2B Creative Renaissance in Cannes — LinkedIn (client)
• Harry Mackin — B2B influencers, marketing alignment, and what you need to know about CABs — Cronycle
• TopRank Marketing — How B2B Companies Can Leverage Influencer Marketing in 2022: The Ultimate Guide — Contently

Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news this week? If so, please don't hesitate to let us know in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'll come back next Friday for another array of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: LinkedIn’s New Event Features, B2B Customer Experience Data, Google’s Inclusive Marketing Resource, & Twitter Readies Long-Form Notes appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/b2b-marketing-news-linkedins-new-event.html

Instagram’s Enhanced Creator Tags: Implications for B2B Influencer Marketing

How can B2B marketers make their content stand out and highlight the talented subject matter experts, creators, and influencers they partner with? Earlier this year Instagram rolled out new enhanced tagging features that allow digital marketers to do a much better job of indicating and crediting the various influencers and creators involved in the creation of content shared on the platform. Instagram’s addition of enhanced tagging — which is also available for use in video Reels — offers significant new exposure opportunities for B2B content that has been created by multiple professionals, often precisely the type of content that is either made or co-created by industry influencers. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages provided by Instagram’s enhanced creator tags, and how B2B marketers can best put them to use.

1 — Straightforward Setup Process

The process of using the enhanced tagging features is fairly straightforward, however there are a few caveats to be aware of as you move to incorporate them into your B2B marketing workflow on Instagram, in order to get the full effect of Instagram’s latest tagging elements. While Instagram has moved to make more of its features available to desktop users, the enhanced tagging features were initially only available from the mobile app. Simply having content creators or co-creators tagged goes a long way, and shows a clickable link to learn more about or follow the people involved in the digital assets you find helpful on Instagram. The updated tagging feature can do more, however.

2 — Switch On A Business Or Creator Account

One aspect of the enhanced tagging system takes on even more value, and that's when the people tagged have gone through the simple process of setting up their Instagram profile as either a creator or business account. Tagging people with a creator or business account adds a second line of helpful information below the person’s username, containing a category they’ve selected, such as a few B2B-related examples listed here:

• Video creator
• Digital creator
• Writer
• Author
• Advertising Agency
• Marketing Agency
• Market Research Consultant
• Advertising/Marketing
• Internet Marketing Service

To ensure that anytime your brand or the influencers you work with are mentioned using an enhanced tag that also shows category information, it’s easy to switch your Instagram account from personal to professional — there is no waiting period or fee involved — simply access your account settings and select the option to switch to a professional account. From there you can choose between a creator or business account, described by Instagram as:

• Creator accounts are best for public figures, content producers, artists and influencers
• Business accounts are best for retailers, local businesses, brands, organizations and service providers

After choosing your account type, you’re given the option to select a category that best fits how you use Instagram, and this will be the category that shows below your username when others include you using enhanced tagging — however keep in mind that  you must also tick the “show category on profile box” option. Instagram uses a search box for finding the most relevant category for creator and business accounts, such as those we listed above, and it can be worthwhile to experiment with the available categories, as new ones may be added over time that better describe your own B2B marketing niche.

3 — Ripe For Implementation By B2B Brands

In the B2B arena, the new Instagram enhanced tagging is ripe for implementation by brands and marketers looking to distinguish their content from the competition, and to highlight the subject matter experts and influencers they partner with. It’s still early days for implementation of the enhanced tagging, and those brands and B2B marketers willing to put them to use will be among the first to stand out as multiple contributors are highlighted in co-created content. [bctt tweet="“The new Instagram enhanced tagging is ripe for implementation by B2B brands and marketers looking to distinguish their content from the competition, and to highlight the influencers they partner with.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

4 — From One Influencer To Many Others

When Instagram’s enhanced tagging becomes more regularly utilized, it will represent a powerful way not only for influencers to have the digital work they’ve helped create gain greater exposure, but it will also be a helpful way to find new industry experts who are tagged alongside an influencer you may already be aware of. These days top performing digital content can involve a slew of talented creative professionals, from marketers and writers to video, audio, and social media specialists, and Instagram’s new enhanced tags make it easy to shine a light on everyone who had a hand in building a successful digital asset.

4 — Tagging Gives Voice To Underrepresented Talent

While not unique to Instagram, the new enhanced tagging features can play a helpful role in giving a greater voice to traditionally underrepresented talent. Instagram’s augmented tagging features were brought to life through the help of three women in technology, who were each profiled in the Snobette interview, “Meet The Women In Tech Behind The Instagram-Enhanced Tagging Feature.” “In a world where online visibility directly leads to brand sponsorships and other types of monetary opportunities, crediting is more important than ever,” Alexandra Zaoui, music data analyst at Instagram-parent firm Meta, observed. [bctt tweet="“In a world where online visibility directly leads to brand sponsorships and other types of monetary opportunities, crediting is more important than ever.” — Alexandra Zaoui @ZaouiAlexandra" username="toprank"] “One of the biggest challenges about being a woman and particularly a Black woman in tech is not seeing nor working with others like you,” Cameryn Boyd, software engineer at Meta, noted. “I’m passionate about bringing other Black women and underrepresented people into tech because that is how and when some of the best and most equitable innovation happens,” Boyd added. Just as in the B2C marketing world, B2B influencer marketing can help amplify underrepresented voices, and features such as Instagram’s new enhanced tagging help expand such efforts. Our CEO Lee Odden featured efforts that give voice to talent as one of the top methods for elevating B2B marketing in 2022, in "Three of the Biggest Opportunities to Elevate B2B Marketing in 2022." [bctt tweet="“B2B marketers are in a unique position to make choices about how they represent their customers in content, who they partner with in content collaborations and the influencers they engage.” — Lee Odden @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

Instagram Enhanced Tagging For B2B Marketing Success

By fully embracing Instagram’s new enhanced tagging capabilities, savvy B2B marketers can lead the way and set a good example for the influencers, digital creators, and industry experts they work with, in a process that’s beneficial for both brands and influencers alike — not to mention both existing and potential customers. Instagram is just one of the digital menagerie of social media platforms that top B2B brands use to engage audiences, however as an increasing number of B2B firms find success on platforms including TikTok and others, having a solid cross-platform tagging strategy in place will give you an edge over those who don’t. Creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why an increasing number of firms are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.

The post Instagram’s Enhanced Creator Tags: Implications for B2B Influencer Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/instagrams-enhanced-creator-tags.html

5 Ways Influencer Marketing Builds Trust for B2B Brands

Ever notice that the people who say, “trust me,” are the least trustworthy people around? Something about those two little words immediately puts people on guard. If you were really trustworthy, we think, you wouldn’t have to ask. Right now, we have a serious trust gap in our cultural institutions. The Edelman Trust Barometer for this year shows a continued downward spiral. Nearly half of respondents view the government and the media as divisive forces in society, rather than sources of reliable information.  “Trust me,” says the senator. “Trust ME,” says the pundit. And most of us say, “no, thank you.” This trust gap may seem like the perfect opportunity for business to step in. After all, B2B brands want to be trusted advisors to potential clients. The only problem is, even if consumers trust us more than the government or media… they still don’t trust us all that much. Thankfully, this is one of the many B2B marketing challenges that co-creating content with influential industry experts and thought leaders can fix. Here are five ways that B2B influencer marketing can build trust.

#1: Boosting Visibility

This is influencer marketing at the simplest level. If a trusted influencer in your industry has a million followers, and your brand accounts have a couple thousand, the influencer’s participation widens your audience. Of course, influence isn’t solely about numbers. The right influencer should have a sizable audience that is immediately relevant to your brand. And they should be actively engaging with that audience, not just broadcasting.  With a truly relevant, actually influential person aligned with the brand, you can boost visibility in a meaningful, useful way.

#2: Boosting Credibility

In addition to amplifying your message, the right influencers can make your message—and the intent behind it—more credible. For example, our client Prophix could have written an eBook by themselves called “The Ultimate Finance Software Purchase Guide.” However, since Prophix is a Finance platform, one would suspect highly biased advice from them. Instead, Prophix co-created three smaller assets on specific aspects of digital transformation in Finance. Each one features three respected thought leaders in the field. Now Prophix is saying, “This is the way the industry is headed, according to these experts,” rather than, “We think you should buy our solution.” Influencer co-created content shows that you genuinely care about the audience, and are committed to presenting something of value they can’t get anywhere else.

#3: Aligning with Purpose

Purpose is becoming a major differentiator for both B2B and B2C. Consumers and B2B buyers alike want to spend money with people who have the same values. That means brands need to: 

• Define their values
• Live those values
• Broadcast their values in a meaningful way.

Influencers can help with the last item on the list. Partnering with influencers who are passionate about a purpose can help your brand demonstrate its commitment to the cause. For its Champions of Science podcast series, client 3M worked with purpose-driven influencers each episode. These folks were chosen to illustrate 3M’s commitment to advancing scientific causes, increasing accessibility to science education, and beyond. By giving a platform to these passionate people, 3M was able to express their brand’s values without having to say a word.

#4: Amplifying Voices

We covered how influencers can help amplify your content. But what can your brand do for up-and-coming influencers? Especially those in marginalized or historically oppressed communities?  Every brand should have diversity and inclusion as part of their expressed and lived values. One way to get closer to that goal is to lend your platform to promote diverse voices. When you’re looking at co-creating content with influencers, keep an eye out for up and coming folks that you can help get heard. Most importantly, don’t look for a person of color only when it’s Juneteenth or Black History Month. Don’t seek out a transgender person solely to talk about Pride Month or trans issues. Make diversity a habit for all your content. It’s an easy way to show your audience that you’re sincerely committed to inclusion.

#5: Building Community

Let’s talk about building community. What do I mean by that? Well, when you have a group of influencers that you work with regularly, you can help them get to know each other. You can make mutually beneficial introductions. You can put them in conversation with each other, let them bounce ideas off one another, brainstorm and innovate and create cool stuff. When your influencers are truly a community, you’re constantly providing value three different ways:

1. Helping influencers meet and network
2. Helping influencers come up with cool new stuff
3. Generating great content for your audience

Ultimately, you can put a community of trusted influencers directly in contact with your audience, through a brand-owned channel. For example, you could have a webinar series with live Q&A. Then continue the conversation in a brand channel— on a showplace Page or Group on LinkedIn, or a brand-hosted forum on your own site. Their interactions will help build trust within the community, with the brand, and with your audience.

It’s Always Been a Matter of Trust

In the immortal words of the Bard himself, Billy Joel, “You can’t go the distance with too much resistance… it’s always been a matter of trust.” The Piano Man saw it way back in the 80s, and it’s far past time for B2B Marketers to catch on. The way to reduce resistance with B2B buyers is to build trust. The way to build trust is to align the brand with trusted, authoritative, influential people, and work with them to bring useful content to your audience and prove your commitment to the brand’s values. Are you ready to kickstart an influencer marketing program for your B2B brand? We can help.  

The post 5 Ways Influencer Marketing Builds Trust for B2B Brands appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/5-ways-influencer-marketing-builds.html

B2B Marketing News: B2B CMOs Prove Value, Free Adobe Photoshop, B2B in Cannes, Metaverse On Track to 5 Trillion

B2B Marketers Seek Advanced Metrics to Prove Their Worth. CMOs are feeling pressure to prove their value to others in the C-suite, and that desire to show marketing’s impact on pipeline and revenue is a leading reason why B2B marketers are increasing their focus on – or need for – deeper metrics, according to a study from Demand Gen Report, in association with Align BI. MarketingCharts Why Cannes 2022 is a shining moment for B2B’s creative journey. Called The Creative B2B Lions, an official jury will award 11 winners for marketing disciplines such as cross-channel storytelling, brand experience, innovative content, and other areas between June 20 and June 24.  The Drum Adobe plans to make Photoshop on the web free to everyone. Adobe has started testing a free-to-use version of Photoshop on the web and plans to open the service up to everyone as a way to introduce more users to the app.  The Verge Facebook is Changing its Algorithm to Take on TikTok Leaked Memo Reveals. Rather than prioritize posts from accounts people follow, Facebook’s main feed will, like TikTok, start heavily recommending posts regardless of where they come from. The Verge YouTube Shorts Has More Than 1.5 Billion Monthly Video Viewers, Google Claims. YouTube Shorts now has more than 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users. That amounts to around three-fourths of YouTube’s total global base of upwards of 2 billion logged-in monthly users. Variety What’s Standing in the Way of B2B Companies Providing A Great Customer Experience? The top two responses across each function were lack of communication between teams and misaligned efforts and goals between teams. MarketingCharts Metaverse Spending to Total $5 Trillion in 2030, McKinsey Predicts. 79% of survey respondents said they have already made a purchase in the metaverse. Wall Street Journal Semrush Introduces Tools To Help Build Content, Expands Support For List Management - The Content Outline Builder helps to create detailed content briefs in seconds. Users type in the domain and the topic or keyword, and the tool returns a list of content opportunities to choose from. Users can then click on the ones they want to gain access to. MediaPost Twitter Shares New Research into the Effectiveness of its Offensive Reply Warnings. Twitter’s warning prompts use automated detection to pick up any likely offensive terms within tweet replies, which then triggers this alert to add a moment of hesitation in the process. In February 30% of cases where users were shown these prompts, they did in fact end up changing or deleting their replies. Social Media Today Pinterest Debuts Idea Ads, Paid Partnership Tool. Pinterest introduced two new ad options in the run-up to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity: idea ads and a paid partnership tool. AdWeek ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: Has your business built a moat?  Thoughts and cartoon from Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist If you've come across B2B marketing news stories we should know about, please don't hesitate to share in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news. We hope you'll return again next Friday for another collection of the most relevant research and newsworthy information about the B2B and digital marketing industry. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily B2B marketing updates.    

The post B2B Marketing News: B2B CMOs Prove Value, Free Adobe Photoshop, B2B in Cannes, Metaverse On Track to 5 Trillion appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/b2b-marketing-news-b2b-cmos-prove-value.html

8 Tips for B2B Marketers with ADHD to Elevate the Writing Process

The post 8 Tips for B2B Marketers with ADHD to Elevate the Writing Process appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/8-tips-for-b2b-marketers-with-adhd-to.html

Four Ways B2B Influencer Content Builds Better Marketing Reach & ROI

Nearly every marketer is familiar with B2C influencer marketing, such as it is. Celebrities promoting iPhones, various alcohols and even “probiotic” yogurt. You like the celebrity, so you’re supposed to like the product. But does associating a brand or product with a popular individual really work for B2B marketing? …really? Well, in a sense, yes, as TopRank Marketing has been proving for quite awhile now with companies like LinkedIn, Dell, SAP, and many more. B2B influencer marketing represents a huge opportunity for companies of all sizes to expand their reach and generate better ROI from their content. However, activating influencers to advance B2B marketing and business goals doesn’t work exactly the same as with B2C. Instead, effective B2B marketing that includes working with influencers is all about connecting your brand with subject matter experts who have built a devoted following by really knowing their stuff. B2B influence is less about popularity and more about relevance - but both are still important. Working with industry experts raises a B2B brand's profile and makes the most of an online presence in multiple ways. Here are a few of the ways B2B brands are benefitting from B2B influencer marketing and how you can too:

Finding and sharing highly-qualified audiences

All influencers bring followers with them - that’s a big part of why they’re valuable in the first place. It’s also why B2B influencers can be particularly valuable, especially if you team up with the right one for your business. B2B influencer followers can represent highly-qualified and, often, highly-motivated prospective customers. These potential buyers follow the influencer because they have an active, ongoing interest in the subject matter that the influencer covers. They want to stay up to date and involved in the conversation. By co-creating content with the right influencer, you can make your organization a part of the ongoing industry conversation their followers are so interested in. Not only will you reach new audience segments who may not have known about you before, but those audience members will be perfectly suited to understanding the unique value proposition of your organization relative to your industry. And you’ll have impressed them by demonstrating you’re in the know, just like they are. Which brings us to another huge benefit to B2B influencer content:

Demonstrating social proof

The proliferation of information broadly available on the internet has changed the way B2B marketing works forever. Simply put: about 75% of B2B deals are made… before the company’s sales team ever gets involved. How is that possible? Because of content. These days, B2B buyers devote a lot of time to researching a company before you even reach out. They’re scrutinizing every element of your website, buyer reviews, and LinkedIn profiles. They’re reading your case studies, researching your former clients and competition, and looking up your employees. All this before they even respond to your email one way or another! And, while some particularly meticulous researchers may be loath to admit it, a great deal of this research is socially-based. To borrow the old adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” B2B buyers want social proof that you are who you say you are - and they want to get it from someone other than your own marketers or salespeople. Influencers are one of the best ways to give that proof to them. When an influencer works with you, they’re staking their reputation on you. Working with a highly-respected and renowned influencer shows that, at least according to them, you’re the real deal. And if your buyers follow and respect the influencer, that means they’ll respect you, too.

Becoming newsworthy

Nothing stays still for long in the B2B world. Everyone’s making moves - acquiring other businesses, developing new products and services, coming up with new innovations - and everyone’s always looking for what’s next. To take advantage of this dynamic environment, it's essential that your marketing taps into what’s next. B2B Influencers do this almost inherently. After all, they didn’t pick up their following by repeating the same old spiel over and over again. They’re tuned into what’s happening in the areas of their interest and constantly finding a way to stay at the forefront of it, offering interesting insights and takes on the latest goings ons. Their audience follows them because they’re hungry for the insider scoop on whatever’s about to happen. If your B2B brand can provide that scoop with the help of one of the influencers your industry knows and respects, you won’t just have a highly-relevant and effective piece of content on your hands; you’ll be more relevant than the competition. No matter what industry you’re in, make no mistake: connecting with today's buyers is about moving fast, and there’s always news to be found. With the help of the right influencer, you can be that news.

Fostering lasting relationships

Achieving marketing ROI takes place on a longer timeline in B2B than when selling consumer products. In most cases, B2B buyers aren’t one-time-only… at least, hopefully. Instead, they’re long-term clients you may enjoy a working relationship with for years. You want these clients to look to you as a trusted service provider and subject matter expert. Influencer content can help facilitate those long term customer relationships. By partnering with the movers-and-shakers of your industry to cover the hot topics of today, you’re not just extending your reach or enticing highly-qualified new prospects. You’re also showing existing (and former) clients that you’re relevant and leading the competition. Each new piece of influencer content can put your B2B brand back at the forefront of your industry’s combination. The long term, ongoing content collaboration relationships B2B brands develop with relevant and popular influencers can in turn, help create long term relationships with customers. New and old clients alike often see influencer content as proof that you’re still looking out for them. You’re still hungry, still engaged, and still actively working on finding new innovations and delivering better client experiences. At TopRank Marketing we've seen this situation happen time and time again: a B2B brand loses a customer. Months pass, or maybe years. But the lost customer still follows the B2B brand on LinkedIn while the brand's sales team considers the opportunity dead in the water. Then, the B2B brand collaborates with an industry influencer to publish new content: a video, an interview, a podcast. Someone from the lost customer company reacts to the influencer content and InMails their former contact at the B2B brand. The relationship rekindles, and the B2B brand is back in. This is the magic of Always-On influencer marketing. If you are interested in more in-depth insights, case studies, best practices and predictions for the future of B2B influencer marketing, sign up for early access to the 2022 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report. Or if you want to put our 10 years of B2B influencer marketing experience to work for your B2B brand, let's talk.

The post Four Ways B2B Influencer Content Builds Better Marketing Reach & ROI appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/four-ways-b2b-influencer-content-builds.html

B2B Marketing News: 28th CMO Survey, Growing B2B Creative Confidence, Google Core Update Completed, New Linked Platform

The CMO Survey: The latest results. The 28th edition of The CMO Survey examines the issues top of mind for marketers including the latest focus for marketing activities, spending, jobs, and performance. Deloitte Majority of B2B leaders globally say “creative confidence” is growing: LinkedIn research from B2B Institute. 81% of senior B2B marketers believe B2B brands are increasingly producing creative campaigns that rival consumer brands. What's New in Publishing Google is combining Meet and Duo into a single app for voice and video calls. The new unified calling app offering rolls Duo’s functionality into Google Meet - The Verge Chasing TikTok, Meta rolls out new Reels features and expands Instagram Reels to 90 seconds. A new Sound Sync feature will be available on Facebook Reels along with support for longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds, instead of 60 seconds, previously TechCrunch The B2B Marketing-Sales Divide: More Leads vs. Better Leads. B2B marketers say their biggest marketing concern is how to generate more leads, whereas B2B salespeople say their biggest marketing concern is how to improve lead quality, according to recent research from SharpSpring and Ascend2. MarketingProfs Digital revenues skyrocket for B2B businesses - B2B firms saw their revenue from digital channels skyrocket in the past two years. These companies say 40% of their revenue now comes from digital channels compared to 28% two years ago, according to Salesforce’s State of Commerce report. MarTech  2022 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey: Marketers Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity; Increasing Aggression Around Growth Initiatives. Demand Get Report

"In B2B, people don't buy for pleasure. They buy to alleviate pain. Alleviating pain brings them pleasure." Tamara McLeary, CEO at Thulium

LinkedIn Launches New ‘Business Manager’ Platform and a New B2B-Aligned Marketing Consultancy. B2B Edge will provide dedicated marketing and brand building advice based on academic research and first-party data. Social Media Today Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out - This update took 15 days to roll out and is now done, you should now dig in and see how your site was impacted and what actions to take next. Search Engine Land Fortune 500 Marketers Say Shift Against Cookies to Lead to Increased Spend on Social, Search. Organic search and social media marketing are the most commonly used channels by Fortune 500 marketers, according to a study [pdf] from the Loyalty Research Center. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: the innovation funnel - "If we’re not careful, the innovation funnel leads to survival of the safest ideas."— Marketoonist TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden —  The Unsung Hero: 5 Underrated Benefits of B2B Content Marketing - LinkedIn Marketing Blog

If you've come across B2B marketing news stories we should know about, please don't hesitate to share in the comments below. Thank you for taking the time to join us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news. We hope you'll return again next Friday for another collection of the most relevant research and newsworthy information about the B2B and digital marketing industry. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily B2B marketing updates.

The post B2B Marketing News: 28th CMO Survey, Growing B2B Creative Confidence, Google Core Update Completed, New Linked Platform appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/b2b-marketing-news-28th-cmo-survey.html

Creative Tips For Better Virtual Brainstorming in B2B Marketing

For the most part, we’ve all adapted to remote work pretty well. As we got used to working separately, we tended to find ways to transition, transform, or replace most of our old work routines to make sure everything keeps getting done. But most — as every remote work naysayer is quick to point out — is not all. If there’s one big element of the in-person work process still missing from your new reality, it’s the big, impromptu “throw-it-all-at-the-wall” brainstorming session. Sessions like those probably led to some of your team’s biggest and brightest ideas… and they’re also the kind of thing you may think simply can’t happen remotely. Well, as you’ve probably surmised from the title of this blog post, that’s what we’re here to prove wrong. The truth is, not only can you still conduct the kind of brainstorming sessions you threw together in person remotely, but there’s evidence they could be even more effective. That is, if you do it right. Here’s why remote brainstorming is still well worth making the time for, along with how (and how NOT) to do it right:

1 — Remote brainstorming helps prevent “The Dominators”

You know the ones we’re talking about. They’re the kids in class whose hands always shot up first when the teacher asked a question… but all grown up. During traditional, in-person brainstorming sessions, you’ve probably noticed that a few people tend to dominate the conversation. They present their idea, and then before you know it, the rest of the session is spent discussing this idea… rather than necessarily hearing anyone else’s. This is not just a function of a couple of outspoken people on your team. In fact, it happens in almost all in-person brainstorming thanks to a phenomenon called production blocking. The more extroverted, forward members (our “Dominators”) tend to lead, and everyone else follows. The larger the group the worse this issue tends to get, which makes it a particular problem for in-person office brainstorming. This is one area where virtual brainstorming actually has a serious advantage over in-person. Production blocking doesn’t happen nearly as frequently in virtual meetings. In fact, there’s even a positive relationship between group size and performance that continues to scale, even to large sizes. Taking it further: Use muting etiquette and the “raised hand” feature provided by most teleconferencing applications to further moderate and democratize the brainstorming process, ensuring everyone can speak in turn and whenever they have something to add. Avoid: Designating “leaders” of the brainstorming session or devoting the entirety of a session to discussing the particularities of a single idea. Instead, find ways to encourage everyone to speak up, such as assigning each individual or small groups particular topics to focus on. [bctt tweet="“Find ways to encourage everyone to speak up, such as assigning each individual or small groups particular topics to focus on.” — Harry Mackin @Shiitakeharry" username="toprank"]

2 — It helps everybody else speak up

Virtual brainstorming doesn’t just help dampen the blocking effect of the dominators, either; it also actually helps everybody else speak up, too. According to the research, virtual brainstorming helps impart a sense of anonymity in participants — even if they can see each other. As the Harvard Business Review notes, when brainstorming participants feel more anonymous, they suffer from less “evaluation apprehension,” which is the anxiety that they or their ideas will be judged because of who they are rather than for their idea (we are all, no doubt, aware of this phenomenon). The less evaluation apprehension your participants feel, the more likely they are to speak up when they have an idea, even if they might not in an in-person brainstorming environment. Taking it further: During brainstorming, encourage all of your participants to turn off their webcams. This will increase the feeling of anonymity and give participants a chance to voice ideas without feeling like they’re caught in the spotlight. Avoid: Disengagement by a few or even most of the participants. Try to keep brainstorming sessions relatively short, and focus on a particular objective. Then, encourage everyone to speak up and facilitate back-and-forth conversation whenever possible.

3 — It creates a wider variety of ideas

You’ve probably already derived this benefit out of the first two, but it’s worth focusing on anyway. When you: A: Get more people talking and sharing new ideas equally B: Encourage people who may not normally speak up to join the conversation You end up with a much greater variety of ideas. Even more importantly, the ideas your team puts together will be fresher and, in all likelihood, quite a bit different from the type of ideas you would find yourself normally generating in person. This happens precisely because they are coming from people who often go unheard. Taking it further: Studies have shown that individual brainstorming often encourages participants to offer a wider variety of ideas when those ideas are shared with a group. Virtual brainstorming provides a natural way to facilitate this. Schedule breaks into your virtual brainstorming sessions for having each member individually focus on a topic that comes up during the session. Have them write out their own notes on that topic for a pre-set period of time, and then when you come back together, have everyone share their thoughts. You could also break the brainstorming session into a few small groups of people during these pre-set breaks. These people could collaborate on their note-writing, and then present their ideas together when they return to the main session. We do this kind of collaborative brainstorming at TopRank Marketing all the time, and it always proves more heads are better than one. Avoid: Letting your brainstorming sessions become a series of presentations. It may sound counterintuitive, but you should avoid getting your participants too much “homework” to bring into the brainstorming session. You want the ideas to be generated during the session itself, not prepared beforehand and then recited to a tuned-out audience. It’s OK to let the participants know what you want to brainstorm about beforehand, of course, but try to encourage positive collaboration instead of over-preparation. TopRank Marketing’s team have been working remotely for quite a while now, but we’ve never stopped believing in the power of brainstorming — and our virtual brainstorming sessions have really paid off. If your team has been hitting a wall or feeling uninspired lately, try virtual brainstorming. You might be surprised what you think up. And, of course, if you’d ever like to brainstorm about how you can make your B2B marketing more relevant, authentic, and impactful than ever, we’d be thrilled to join you. Get in touch with the team at TopRank today to brainstorm about how we can help take your brand to the next level.

The post Creative Tips For Better Virtual Brainstorming in B2B Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/creative-tips-for-better-virtual.html

6 Ways Livestreaming Video Can Boost B2B Marketing Results

The post 6 Ways Livestreaming Video Can Boost B2B Marketing Results appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/6-ways-livestreaming-video-can-boost.html

B2B Marketing News: Collaboration’s Rising Importance In Marketing, LinkedIn’s New Remote Work Data, & TikTok Expands Social Publishing Tools

LinkedIn Shares New Insights into the Rise of Remote Job Postings [Infographic] Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has released new remote job posting data showing that the technology, information, and media industry tops the list of sectors with the largest share of remote jobs, emcompassing a 41.2 percent share of all remote jobs, according to recently-released workforce report findings. Social Media Today Report: Diverse Ads Can Contribute More To Market Share Growth For Brands Advertisements that featured a diverse array of people combined with memorable storytelling elements performed better than the average ad in the U.S., and helped brands achieve stronger bottom line results — two of several findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released diversity in advertising survey data. MediaPost [bctt tweet="“Life’s so much richer when we welcome diversity and build strong, inclusive communities where we all can connect and belong — and are free to be you and me.” — Anne Chow @TheAnneChow" username="toprank"] Twitter Adds New Option to Pin Tweets Within Communities Twitter has rolled out a new option that will allow marketers using the Twitter Community feature to pin a tweet to a community's timeline — a change aimed at bringing more enduring engagement opportunities on the platform, Twitter recently announced. Social Media Today Facebook is set to lose users in US for the first time By 2023 fewer than 15 percent of Meta-owner Facebook's users will be among the under-25 age group demographic, and the overall number of users on the social platform is forecast to drop by 1.4 million in 2022, representing a 0.8 percent decrease, according to newly-released forecast data. eMarketer Meta Announces the Next Step in its Metaverse Transition Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta will retire its NASDAQ stock exchange ticker symbol "FB" and begin using "META," as the organization continues its rebranding transition and puts more of its weight behind the forthcoming metaverse elements it has planned, Meta recently announced. Social Media Today The State of Marketing Operations Talent: 2022 [Report] There has been a 228 percent rise in the number of companies utilizing marketing automation software since 2016, accompanied by a 66 percent increase in the size of the average marketing operations team since 2020 — two of numerous statistics of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-released marketing operations talent report data. Demandbase Social Media Managers Can Now Post to TikTok from Their Favorite Social Media Management Tools Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Sprinklr and six additional popular social media publishing tools have been giving the ability to work alongside TikTok for publishing social posts, in a shift that brings TikTok within easier reach of B2B organizations that make use the social publishing tools, TikTok recently announced. Social Media Today Podcast Listeners Plan Major Purchases 44 percent of podcast listeners have said that they plan to purchase new office or home technology within the next 12 months, with some 17 percent noting that they expect to buy at least one financial product during the next year — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in newly-released porcast analysis data from Nielsen. MarketingCharts Snapchat Adds 'Shared Stories' to Fuel Collaborative Content Snapchat has launched a new feature that allows users to more easily co-create content on the social platform, with the rollout of a collaborative Shared Story option, offering marketers and influencers alike potential increased exposure opportunities, Snapchat recently announced. Social Media Today Alignment is Key to Agile Marketing Strategies A leading 63 percent of marketers have said that collaboration and alignment was a key piece of an agile marketing strategy within their organization, with some 54 percent having pointed to project management and communication tools, and 50 percent noting data as a key agile marketing component, according to newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “how to do strategic planning” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist 1.1 quintillion operations per second: US has world’s fastest supercomputer — Ars Technica TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Semrush’s Top 100 Influencers in Content Marketing [2022] — Semrush
• Lane R. Ellis — Deadlines, the Metaverse for marketing, and budget templates — Cronycle

Have you come across your own top B2B marketing news for the week? If so, please don't hesitate to let us know in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and please tune in again next Friday for another array of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: Collaboration’s Rising Importance In Marketing, LinkedIn’s New Remote Work Data, & TikTok Expands Social Publishing Tools appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2022/06/b2b-marketing-news-collaborations.html