Whether you believe in karma or not, using social media successfully for your small business often has a lot to do with a series of seemingly disconnected events.  Every comment you post online, every person you contact and every piece of content you upload adds to the sum total of your efforts in the blogosphere.  Building relationships is important in any industry, but social media karma is the idea that what you do and how you behave will ultimately have an effect on you directly or indirectly. 

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Lately, when we talk to prospective B2B clients, I see increasingly divergent views on B2B blogging. On the one hand, there are those who lust after success stories involving other social media (e.g., Twitter) used to drive high amounts of immediate, short-term traffic to a business blog. Many times, these people are so eager to jump into the promise and immediacy of Twitter, LinkedIn groups, and Facebook to drive traffic to a blog, that they give little consideration to developing the meaningful, valuable content required to attract interest in the first place.

On the other hand, there are those that tend to lump B2B blogging in with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, social-bookmarking sites, and the like. Many of these people are in niche B2B industries where the pace of adoption of social media vehicles is slow and the potential “crowd” is thin. When they consider blogging as a part of their marketing strategy, they see little promise. Sure, they say, maybe we’ll get 20 subscribers to our blog, but what good is that? We’re not going to get large amounts of followers on Twitter. We’re not going to get large amounts of subscribers to our blog. Social media just isn’t a good fit, whatever form it comes in.

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Today the buzzwords in the social media space are community. Everyone is interested in creating community and for good reason. Community is at the heart of human social interaction whether it is online or in the place you live. People do not thrive alone in most cases. There is a need to be connected to someone or something that is more basic than most of us ever admit. It’s an emotional thing which also makes it an elusive thing.

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In 2010, Social Media will rapidly escalate from novelty or perceived necessity to an integrated and strategic business communications, service, and information community and ecosystem. Our experiences and education will foster growth and propel us through each stage of the Social Media Marketing evolution.

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We all know the old saying “If you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail”. And we know it’s true, right? My own experience has proved that the

best way to MAKE things happen—versus just hoping they will—is to know where you are now and where you want to go, then make a plan to get there.

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eMarketer is one of the most cited resources for internet marketing trends, so when I received some tasty predictions for 2010, I thought they were too useful to keep to myself. These insights include future monetization models, the effect of transparency on advertising, social and search, mobile, social commerce, public relations, social advertising, Twitter, video and mom/pop internet usage. Enjoy!

Hybrid Plans that Combine Subscription Fees with Advertising
More marketers will increasingly embrace online video advertising, supported by the twin boom of video streams and video ad networks.

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Data is great if you’re a marketer.  More data is better.  That is until you’re drowning in it.  Are you drowning yet?  A lot of us are. According to Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist of Amazon.com, “In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008.”  

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There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there. Some paid, some free, some good and some not so good. There is one tool that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, yes, search engine optimisation, and that’s AdWords. While most people see AdWords as simply a paid traffic generation tool, many fail to realize the organic SEO benefits a tool like AdWords can provide. I’ve touched on this subject briefly before but below, I have outlined a few more detailed ways that AdWords can (and should) be used for SEO. Please note that screenshots have been slightly modified to protect some sensitive data.

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Here is a recap of the top 10 ideas recommended by Morris Sim, CEO of Circos Brand Karma for brands in the travel industry (but really apply to any Business to Consumer enterprise) who want to venture into social media, 10 Ideas to Tame the Social Media Beast:

1.    Understand your true differentiators. Sometimes what you’ve identified as differentiators don’t mirror what customers think.  It’s important to monitor what is being said about you and reconcile your customers’ opinions with your story so that the brand message is consistent and credible.

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In one of my recent blog posts, I touched on the idea of social review tools and how much I believe in the idea of customer reviews. It sparked a fair amount of conversation about the power of reviews, especially negative reviews. I sort of touched on a similar topic when I wrote this blog post on how to deal with negative blog comments, however, negative reviews are a different kind of animal.

In order to illustrate a few best practices for negative reviews, I’ll use a personal example. My parents own a restaurant, which is, of course, subject to the reviews of customers online on sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Recently, my mother pointed out a post that had been left by a somewhat disgruntled customer who was upset about their policy of a mandatory 20% tip on meals paid for with a gift certificate. She wondered what the impact of this review might be, since potential customers were reading it.

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