@SmithSchool Toots its Terrapin Horn over B2BTOTY

 

We like to see B2BTOTY winners proudly proclaim their achievement in winning a B2B Twitterer of the Year Award.

We caught wind of @SmithSchool, this year's winner in the Business School category, letting the the University of Maryland community know about what they did.  While they didn't win the top prize last year, they did this year so everyone in Terrapin land now knows about it.

We hope that all winners are letting their communities, both Twitter, and non-Twitter, know about the B2BTOTY program.  While not everyone uses Twitter, it is our firm belief that it has a place in the "Marketing Mix" and that diverse spectrum of B2B organizations, from the smallest manufacturer to the largest B2B trade association, can find a use for it.

Check out what @SmithSchool said here.

2011 B2BTOTY Winners

Folks,

At this point in time, anyone who doesn't know what Twitter is has been living under a proverbial rock.  B2B companies of all shapes and sizes have been jumping onto Twitter to have conversations with their audience.  

This year marks the fourth year we have had the Program, and the nominees were ver impressive indeed.  Thanks to all who nominated, and to the Steering Committee for their advices.

Special thanks to the Judges who all took the time to participate in the B2BTOTY program and did the most cranial work!  Reviewing tweet content, followers, followees and some metrics takes some time.  

And of course, thanks to Nightingale Sponsors @Vocus and @Eloqua for their underwriting of this great program.

And now a big TWEET and a w00t! to the B2BTOTY Winners and Runner Ups in each category for 2012:

 

(Twumroll please)

 

National/International B2B Manufacturer

 

      

 

Winner:  @ToyotaEquipment

Runner Ups: @BWCNews, @KronesAG

 

National/International B2B Services Company

 

 

 

Winner: @Maersk

Runner Ups: @Manheim_US, @AGSalesworks

 

 

B2B Small/Medium Size Business (SMB)

 

       

 

Winner: @GeniusRocket

Runner Ups: @wendymarx, @InternetViz

 

Business to Government/Government to Business (B2G) Organization

 

 

Winner:@LockheedMartin

Runner Ups: @SEC_News, @CommerceGov

 

Business School

 

 

 

Winner: @SmithSchool

Runner Ups: @IC_Business, @Mason_SOM

 

B2B Trade/Professional Association

 

 

 

Winner: @shopfloornam

Runner Ups:  @SocMfgEng, @GBTC

 

B2B Publications

 

 

 

Winner: @Defense_News

Runner Ups:  @ThomasNet, @CR4_News

 

 

B2B Business Journalists

 

 

 

Winner: @MickiMaynard

Runner Ups: @GusSent, @larmitstead

 

 

B2B "Boss Tweet" Personality

 

 

 

Winner: @markwschaefer

Runner Ups: @johnfoleyjr, @douglaskarr

 

B2B Twitter Application

 

 

Winner: @HootSuite

Runner Ups: @Codeorama @postling

 

w00t!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!

2012 Nominations Now Closed

Folks,

Thanks for doing another great job nominating and voting for your favorite B2B Tweeps this season.  We had entries from all over the world and saw a lot of new nominees.

Now we can all enjoy the holiday season while the judging panel does its thing.

Stay tuned for the announcement in the latter half of January.

In the meantime, keep on tweeting!

Best,

Joe

 

Joe Zuccaro
@joezuc
President, Allinio.com

Founder
B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards
B2BTOTY.com

Recalibrating Education & Businesses with Social Media - Rewards & Awards

Cheryl Burgess (@ckburgess) is a digital and social brand consultant, blogger, and speaker. She is Co-founder, Managing Partner of Blue Focus Marketing, a social branding consultancy.  She has expertise in B2B marketing, social media, business continuity and crisis management.  Cheryl is an expert blogger on social media topics for AT&T Business Solutions. She was named to the Huffington Post “Passionistas” for her “great business expertise and timeless blog posts”. Cheryl was featured in Fast Company. Winner of the 2011 and 2010 Twitter Shorty Award in Marketing. She serves on the Advisory Board of B2Community and B2BTOTY Steering Committee.

 

Our lives are being transformed with the worldwide explosion of rapidly advancing social technologies.   Today, many businesses are rapidly evolving and increasingly becoming social businesses.   What we are discovering, though not surprising, is that social technologies are empowering consumers. Yet, there is a talent gap growing between the skills of new marketing and advertising jobs required and the people able to fill them.

This gap is driven by the “enormous amount of user data that ad tech companies a.re collecting for agencies and marketers”, according to the Tanzina Vega, author of the New York Times, “Advertising Companies Fret Over a Digital Talent Gap”.   Vega said, “...those who have the skills are in high demand, often fetching salaries that can reach $100,000.”   The demand for talent is far surpassing the supply.  On average it takes two to three months to find the right person with the right skills. 

“Colleges and universities are not teaching the skills they need to survive in this environment,” said Dough Weaver, the founder and chief executive of the Upstream Group.”  Many colleges and universities offer traditional marketing and advertising courses, but for companies to be successful in today’s environment, they need to hire graduates with a combination of both traditional and digital skills.

A recent article by Greg Jarboe, (@gregjarboe ) President & co-founder of SEO-PR, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day, highlights Weaver’s article and states that Rutgers Center for Management Development (CMD) is committed to bridging this gap by offering a Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing Program.

Rutgers is not only addressing this urgent need, but they are doing it first class and with state-of-the-art technology.  Each participant in the Mini-MBA:  Digital Marketing Program (began in 2010) is provided with an Apple iPad, pre-configured with all the required reading material, cases, articles, chapters and videos.  In a video interview entitled, “New Digital Marketing Course at Rutgers University, “Goodbye Chalkboard and Hello iPad”, Eric Greenberg, Director - Marketing Programs for Rutgers CDM, explained that participants were provided an iPad because if they’re going to be professionals in digital marketing it is important to understand the latest technologies and “how people consume information”. 

In February, 2011 Rutgers CMB expanded their Mini-MBA to an Online Mini-MBA: Social Media Marketing Program.

US Tablet Growth - eMarketer             

According to eMarketer, the number of “US tablet users will reach 89.5 million in 2014, up from 33.7 million in 2011.  Tablet users will make up 35.6% of Internet users in 2014, up from 14.5% this year.”  

The paradigm shift in marketing and advertising has recalibrated businesses. There are positive results for educational institutions that embrace these challenges and deliver superior education for students ready to embark in a highly competitive, complex world. 

Awards for Business Schools –Twitter Excellence

To encourage excellence in business education B2B Twitterer of the Year (B2BTOTY) Award, now in its fourth year, recognizes business schools, individuals and organizations for outstanding contributions in practicing, promoting, and/or enhancing business using Twitter. 

With this commitment in excellence for superior performance in Twitter the B2BTOTY awards has a special category for “Business Schools”. 

The Oscar of B2BTOTY Awards - Needs your vote today.  The deadline for submissions is Friday, December 16, 2011 at midnight ET.

The winners will be selected by a committee of judges with professional experience.

12 Tips to Avoid Being a Dork on Twitter

Tom Pick (@TomPick) is an online marketing executive with KC Associates, a marketing and PR firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, focused on B2B technology clients. He's also the award-winning writer of the Webbiquity blog, which focuses on B2B lead generation and Web presence optimization -- the fusion of SEO, search marketing, social media, content marketing and interactive PR.  Tom was on the Judging Panel of the 2009 B2BTOTY Awards and now sits as a member of the2010 B2BTOTY Awards Steering Committee. 

 

By virtue of the fact that you are reading this post here on the B2BTOTY blog, you’re likely already a Twitter pro. This will be all be review for you. But, you also almost certainly come across new followers and others who haven’t attained your level of expertise. You know the type. You may want to pass this along as needed.

1. Complete your Twitter bio. You’ve got 160 characters to tell the world who you are, what you do, who you do it for, what you’re passionate about. Plus a link. Use it. Seems like a no-brainer, but it’s amazing how many people leave their profiles blank. Whether trying to be mysterious, or just lazy, it looks bad.

2. Use your real picture. Find one that reflects you in your best light. If tweeting for a company, using a logo is okay, but accounts with a real person behind them tend to get more followers. Again, seems like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many people use photos that look like Nick Nolte’s mug shot, or worse – the default Twitter egg.

3. Avoid stop words in your bio. Most people know that “MLM,” “network marketer” and “Internet marketer” are synonyms for “spammer.” Don’t be that person.

4. Avoid obnoxious words in your bio. Unless you are actually a Hindu mystic, have recorded an album that’s gone platinum, or are extremely skilled in the martial arts, avoid the terms “guru,” “rock star” or “ninja” in your bio. They are over-used and just kind of silly.

5. Watch your following/follower ratio. The numbers will never will never be identical, but you don’t want to let them get too far out of whack. The worst case is when someone is following 2,001 people but has only like 300 followers and is on four lists. That smacks of desperation. Or someone who’s ignored tips #3 and #4 above.

6. Neber twet when yur drunk. It wont com out good an u will end up regrething it.

7. Never tweet when you’re angry. If you’re tempted to do so, go get drunk. Then see tip #6.

8. Retweet others! It shows you’re paying attention, helps build your network, and will make others more likely to follow you and share your content.

9. Say “please” and “thank you.” It is common courtesy, something people learn from grandma, but not always common on Twitter. Again, thanking someone for a retweet or an answer to a question makes it more likely they’ll do for you again in the future, and it shows followers you have manners.

10. Know when to DM. A little bit of banter back-and-forth with another Tweeter shows you are social. Too much makes your Tweet stream look worthless. If the interaction goes beyond three tweets, it’s probably time to take it offline and use direct messages.

11. Be careful with repetition. If you’ve come across something, or written something yourself, that is truly brilliant and deserves to be shared far and wide, it’s okay to tweet it more than once. Just be sure to 1) space your tweets at least an hour apart (preferably longer), and 2) tweet other content in between. Nothing turns off current and potential followers like a Tweet stream with the same message repeated over and over and over and...

12. Don’t use automated welcome DMs. One would think that Twitterers would understand by now that automated DMs are pointless and annoying—but like some of the more regrettable music from the 1970s, they refuse to go away.

Following these tips will make you look classy and sophisticated to others on Twitter. Or at least not like a dork. As noted above, feel free to pass this along to anyone who demonstrates the need for it. In the meantime, got any tips you’d like to add? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

It's B2BTOTY Time Again!

TWEET!  It's B2BTOTY time again!

The B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards are in their 4th year and going strong.  Last year we instituted new categories a Steering Committee, and a better way to engage B2B Twitterers throughout the course of the program.

Many of the same faces are on Steering Committee with a few new ones.  Additionally, we're recruiting more folks for the Judging Panel and encourage you to get in contact with us if you're interested.

I'd like to thank the following people for helping get things started for this year:

Elizabeth Baker (@b2bbaker) of MLT Creative

Matt Heinz (@heinzmarketing) of Heinz Marketing, who chairs the Judging Committee.

Martine Hunter (@martinehunter) of MLT Creative

Billy Mitchell (@billymitchell1) of MLT Creative

Kelly Pires (@kellypiresmlt) of MLT Creative 

Brian Sheppard (@b2bsheppard) of MLT Creative 

Jeremy Victor (@jeremyvictor) of Make Good Media

If you're not following these great B2B Tweeps, you should be!

Last year we had a record number of nominations, and there's plenty of time to beat that record! 

We're going to be tweeting more about the contest and hope that you will nominate yourself or someone you think does a great job in the Twittersphere when it comes to B2B things.   

So go head and nominate someone today, and get the buzz going.

Don't forget, we have old friends like NetProspex and new ones like Vocus sponsoring us and I urge you to visit them to learn about their service offerings B2B professionals like yourself. 

And as I said last year, we’re all volunteers and we love fresh faces.  If you'd like to help out is some capacity just DM me. ;)

Best,

 

Joe Zuccaro
@joezuc
President, Allinio.com

Founder
B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards
B2BTOTY.com

Living The Tweet Life - How Innovative Businesses Are Harnessing Twitter For A Competitive Edge

Dr. Amy Vanderbilt (@DrAmyVanderbilt) served as a Judge for the 2010 B2BTOTY Program and is Founder and Chief Strategist at TrendPOV.com, GPS for the business strategies of more than half a million executives worldwide.

 

The B2BTOTY awards are all about businesses doing better business via smart use of Twitter. I thought it was only fitting to dive into just exactly how smart some businesses are at harnessing this microblogging platform to its full potential.

Businesses use Twitter for either external use, internal use or both. Far too many businesses use it for neither and that is you, here is your invitation.

Businesses are using Twitter externally for marketing and customer service, which you are probably familiar with. Follow your favorite brands and tweet your issues at them and you have (I hope) often received a response. More innovative external uses for Twitter have emerged including not just interacting with your customers but using Twitter to deeply understand your market. What is important to your customers, who they are, demographics, social graphs, influence and more can all be harvested from Twitter.

Hiring a new employee? Businesses often tweet it out, but more innovative businesses take it further by using Twitter to search for candidates, and using tweets as part of the application process. Real time demos, and customer training now include twitter Q&A in forward thinking businesses. For the shy or proprietary-conscious businesses, private broadcast and tweet channels fit the bill.

For those businesses hardened enough to handle it, there is significant potential in using Twitter for competitive intelligence. Your competitors' employees and customers are spilling a virtual river of useful information your CI department of enjoy. In fact, while you are out there, make yourself aware of what your own employees and customers are giving away.

On the internal side of the house, private team-based tweet streams are helping all manner of businesses organize fast responses, coordinate and share updates. It's not just operations that benefits from Twitter inside a company. Microtraining (which has higher retention rates) via Twitter is a simple and effective way to fit in regulatory based training and even management and leadership training among many topics.

And now for an innovative use of Twitter that I would love to see in action but have not yet seen any company try... A private company-wide stream for innovation wherein employees tweet their ideas as an entry mechanism into your corporate innovation processes. A tweet versus a lengthy explanation could be a great way to trim down your time to process new ideas. Let's face it. If you can't express your idea in 140 characters, you need to go back and think on it further.

Get creative! Real advantage comes from doing what others have not. Dream up new ways to use Twitter in your business. Real time, short, to the point, private or public - Twitter may be a perfect, free, and analyzable way to go.

Pics of Winners as the B2BTOTY Buzz Still Goes On

It's been two months since we announced the B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards for 2010,  At first, word spread virally and the congratulatory tweets were pinging throughout the Twittersphere.

What is surprising is that two months later, winners are still getting congratulated from other Twitter users.  Maybe it's because there are new comers to Twitter, but also maybe it's because in the complex B2B world, it still takes time for word to travel.

The good news is that with Twitter reaching the five year mark, there will be more case studies of B2B organizations to note regarding the successful use of Twitter. If you're new to Twitter, welcome!  I encourage you to continue growing and communicating with your community.

Some of the winners and runner-ups who have done just that have shared pictures of themselves with their trophy;  Thanks to them for letting us show their pride!

 

 

@PositivelyMN

 

@Microsoft_Gov

 

@SocMfgEng

 

@BrennerMichael

Michael recently posted a great blog: 10 Tips For Twitter Success From A B2B Twitterer Of The Year

@StephanieTilton

 

@Joani_BNI

The Top 5 Do’s & Don’ts of Tweeting for B2B Marketers:

Natascha Thomson (@nathomson), a Judge for the 2010 B2BTOTY Program, is on the SAP Social Media Audience Marketing (SMAM) team.  She is responsible for identifying best practices that enable SAP marketers to create solution awareness and demand through social media.  Disclaimer: This a personal blogpost and only contains her personal views, thoughts and opinions. It is not endorsed by SAP nor does it constitute any official communication of SAP.”

 

As a B2B marketer, building your brand is essential.  If you use Twitter, you will be taken more seriously and be more successful if you heed the follow do's and don'ts:

DON’T

1. Don’t constantly thank people who have retweeted (RT) you. Twitter etiquette is important but it is getting out of hand.  Instead, if you feel the need and don’t want to DM, thank a group of people who RTed you in a single Tweet.
2. Don’t excessively chit-chat about nothing. Why does a private conversation between two Tweeters have to be public?  Instead, follow each other and DM.  I’ll help you keep followers and others to cut through the information overload.
3. Don’t leave the profile section in your Twitter account blank. I would never follow anybody who does not state their intention aka “brand”? Let people know what to expect from you and your Tweets. (Also, have a picture of you, to show that you are serious about Twitter, not a symbol).
4. Don’t send automated messages thanking people for following you and asking them to click on URLs.  It’s annoying and against the spirit of B2P = Business to People).
5. Does your business really need its own paper.li, e.g. the “Peter Smith Daily”? There is an abundance of them on Twitter already, so please make sure you have a unique angle, and measure how your followers receive it.

DO:

1. Think about why you are on Twitter (= your brand) and be somewhat consistent in your messages. You owe this to your followers so that they don’t have to pick out relevant content between your notifications that you just checked into “The Steak Pit”. I am not saying, don’t have a personality, but as Twitter is public, it’s good for you, your business, and the rest of us to see a relevant theme.  It will help you build a consistent following and reduce noise.
2. Participate in #FollowFriday or #FF. It’s a nice way to recommend somebody who sends good Tweets, so show them that their Tweets are not going unappreciated/unnoticed.  Ideally, don’t just Tweet an @handle but explain why this person is worth following.
3. Send some original Tweets (not just RTs) to convey opinions on relevant topics or engage with your followers, as opposed to just amplifying.
4. Make it clear which part of a Tweet is your comment when RTing and adding insights, e.g., add a carrot and your initials at the end (^NT).
5. RT relevant pieces of information and URLs to your followers. And if there are enough characters, add your own commentary to show that you are RTing  for a reason. Lately, I’ve heard people complain about too much retweeting. I say, make sure the information is relevant for your followers and that the 140 characters you use to describe the URL are not misleading.

I am sure that I have at one time or the other broken all of the above rules. Follow the rules you like and ignore the rest! I believe that Twitter is a valuable tool to build your brand in B2B marketing, and if used right, Twitter can be a great referral tool to your own site.

Do you have your own list? Please share your own do's and don’ts for B2B and Twitter.

Most Votes Recognition

The initial buzz from announcing the 2010 B2BTOTY winners is subsiding, but we want to take this opportunity to recognize some high energy B2B Twitterers who got the most votes in their respective categories.  

As we've stated, getting the most votes is not the determining factor of who wins; it's meant to be a way to spread the word and show the support of your audience.  But these folks proved themselves to be winners too. We decided to add special “Most Votes” awards for those that successfully campaigned for votes via twitter and officially accepted their nominations via answers to our questionnaire. They did a tremendous job getting the word out about B2BTOTY.

Yes, we realize our system of nominating is not perfect; several people commented that the system could be gamed by someone and their friends using our app every day for the duration of the nomination phase to be in the lead.  

Additionally, while we emphasized the initial importance of nominations  we still looked at those nominees who were not as "popular" to see if any merited semi-final status and each of the leading nominees were scrutinized by our Judging panel of B2B professionals, and we stand behind the Winners and Runner Ups.  

At this point, we are happy to give a w00t! to these B2Bers because their efforts helped virally spread the word about the B2BTOTY Program, and that helps us make this community more inclusive.  It was clear that they had enthusiasm and so did the other Twitterers that kept on nominating them or retweeting them.  Because of folks like them, we can count on the Program being remembered and looked forward to by more B2Bers in the future:

@CR4_News

@sarasocialmedia

@Joani_BNI

@PositivelyMN

 

Thank You!