Search & Social Influence - eMarketer Reuters posted an article yesterday entitled, "Is SEO DOA as a core marketing strategy?" and trust me, I know better than to respond and fuel attention to a writer who is either naive or trying to stir up the bee's nest with a contrarian title. I suspect there may be a bit of both in this situation. Basically,

Imagine this scenario: Company XYZ has developed a great business creating products and services, developing marketing programs that explain the features and benefits of those offerings and making sales. The mix of SEO, advertising and newsletter is focused on explaining the solutions offered with the intention of educating and persuading prospects to buy. This is the way it's been done in the past and it's what current marketing programs are based on. Pretty common right?

Staying on top of social media and networking trends is essential for B2B marketers. Forrester Research predicts, "B2B companies will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009." via eMarketer . Data and research are key to forecasting and strategy development but not many B2B companies invest the time and effort into such initiatives outside of link-baity Infographics . Luckily,

Content Marketing is a near and dear online marketing tactic and there's been an explosion of attention and advice over the past year. SEOs and PR professionals are "seeing the light" if you will, of the value in creating and curating content that delivers value as part of their online marketing and public relations strategies. In an online marketing model with a defined strategy, goals and understanding of the target audience, what mix of tactics makes the most sense?

During an internal discussion at TopRank Marketing , the topic of defining social media came up and one area of interest was the difference in outcomes when it comes to incorporating both social media and search engine optimization. The social media tactics and expected outcomes when used for a SEO program are very different than social media intended to improve customer engagement outcomes.

It's a persistent question: Is social media and networking appropriate for B2B marketing? There are many ways to answer that question and one of the most engaging is through statistics and information presented as an infographic. My team knows I'm a big fan of using visual assets to persuade and I've been a fan of information graphics since XPLANE's amazing work started appearing in popular business magazines years ago.

After a great opening keynote presentation by Arianna Huffington, I was drawn into the nearby speaker ready room and ran into the always inspiring Brian Solis . Brian's Marketing Masters track at ad:tech San Francisco was on my list for live blogging and as always, he shared a great mix of insights and inspiration about business on the social web. I haven't live blogged in a while, so forgive the rough edges How do we improve the game for social media in business?

Today I'll be speaking at ad:tech San Francisco with one of my favorite people in the Search Marketing industry, Melanie Mitchell , who is a Senior VP of Search Strategy at Digitas. She's tasked a panel including Simon Heseltine , Rob Snell and myself to talk about "Modern Search Engine Optimization". While SEO is a billion dollar industry, many companies focused on advertising are quite new to how SEO might fit within an online marketing strategy.

Oftentimes marketers budget, plan and implement online marketing tactics in silos. When it comes to SEO, Social and Content Marketing - integration is the best practice. Why Social Media and SEO for B2B? The intersection of social media and search engine optimization is a perfect match for B2B Marketer for several reasons: Long B2B buying cycles have always involved engagement through content.

QR Code on Moscone Center San Francisco during SES 2010 QR codes are getting quite a bit of buzz lately and as a self-professed marketing nerd, I find them to be a clever way to connect mobile consumers with online digital content. There have been some pretty creative implementations of QR codes for promotions and mobile marketing too. You can put them anywhere printing is possible and even places it's not.

In testing out the newer Facebook question feature, I thought it would be interesting to step away from corporate marketing and ask our network about personal brand marketing and the tools that have been the most effective. With hundreds of millions of people active on social networks world wide, there have been more than a few "brandividuals" spawned through the social web. Some tools are more appropriate than others based on who you're trying to engage of course,

B2B marketers have joined the social media marketing movement in droves. In fact, Forrester Research predicts that B2B firms will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009 ) eMarketer B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up (. Unfortunately, many of those efforts are entirely tactical, methodical and without a true understanding of the "social" aspect of social media marketing.

View from my vacation house on Sunset Beach, Oahu where I didn't think about marketing at all. I'm blogging on a plane coming back from a week in paradise. That's part of my process for returning to the "real world". As a marketer I cannot help but think what's behind the communications and actions of companies I engage with as a consumer.

The SES New York 2011 conference wrapped up last week on the heels of one of the biggest Google updates in recent years. And although there was enough Panda talk to make a passerby think we might all be zookeepers, there were other themes running through the conference as well including content, paid strategies and tools, tools, tools. Here's a quick recap: Panda: The Aftermath,

Content, Content, Content. After attending search conferences for a few years now, it seems only right that content is getting some time in the spotlight. This week at Search Engine Strategies )SES( New York, I had the great pleasure of presenting on the topic of content marketing. For so long talk has been about how to optimize and then how to promote - but we're circling back around to meat and potatoes of online marketing which is the content. Without it,

Facebook Marketing is on the mind of just about every company with an online presence, small and large, BtoB and BtoC. The fast pace of the social web right along with changes in consumer behaviors and technology can make it a challenge to nail down specific and enduring best practices. Recently I participated in a webinar on social media ROI that took a holistic view of the value created by social engagement, beyond direct customer acquisition.

The intersection of SEO and social media marketing continues to gain traction amongst online marketers everywhere you look in the industry. As an example, the enthusiastic interest in our recent compendium of blog posts, Essentials of Integrating SEO & Social Media . I think most experienced marketers "get" that SEO and Social Media functions are less effective as distinct channels within a marketing program and work better as a coordinated effort.

Concurrent with SXSWi in Austin, Texas this weekend was the TECHmunch event for food bloggers run by Babette Pepaj of Bakespace. Babette rounded up a stellar cast of characters to present on a variety of topics including numerous food journalists from the likes of CNN and the LA Times plus PR pros like Erik Deutch , Sarah Evans and Eric Schwartzman . Of course,

After 7+ years, I've seen it all in blog comments. From genuine people responding, asking and sharing in ways that inspire streams of comment responses and even blog posts elsewhere on the web. I've also seen far too many bots that automatically find blog posts that are of a certain age, written on a certain keyword topic and that have follow vs. nofollow links.

The value of content marketing has been well established here and in many other places on the web. It's nothing new for many marketers, especially those in B2B Content Marketing . As companies seek competitive advantages and to adjust their ability to reach and engage markets, the creation of content as a vehicle for key messages and influence has grown substantially. I hate to say it, but some online marketers are pretty lazy.