B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Debbie Friez

B2B Influencer Marketing Advice from 9 Top B2B Influencers

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Jul 23rd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Human Figures Showing Influence Image

Top marketers understand the value of integrating influencer marketing into their marketing strategy. In fact, 55% of marketers believe they get better customers from influencer marketing according to an Influencer Marketing Hub survey. For B2B brands, influencer marketing is a way to partner with industry experts who can add value to the brand’s content.

As a brand, how can you provide mutual value and a great experience for the thought leaders you engage?

I went straight to some of my top sources to ask their thoughts on the best way for B2B brands to collaborate with them. What stood out to me, was the way their key points aligned with how a brand might develop a marketing strategy.


B2B Influencer Marketing Advice from 9 Top B2B Influencers

Active Social Media Listening: Tips for a New Era of COVID-19

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Apr 7th, 2020
Social Media, Social Media Smarts

Active social media listening

If you want to have a good business meeting, you want all the participants to actively listen. This requires participants go beyond hearing, and engage and analyze to form an actionable plan. It’s the same with social media listening. It requires marketers to move beyond monitoring to analyzing the full situation, which can often be a moving target.

Social media listening is an important first step when starting a new campaign or addressing a situation. When the current situation is heightened with a national emergency, marketers need to key in on their audience at a new level.

COVID-19 has changed the lives of folks around the world, including their social media habits. Facebook reports messaging increased more than 50% in March. According to Twitter, COVID-19 related Tweets are being shared every 45 milliseconds and #coronavirus is now the second most used hashtag of 2020.


Active Social Media Listening: Tips for a New Era of COVID-19

Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019
Digital Summit, Facebook, Influencer Marketing, Video

The Mayo Clinic, one of our nation’s most renowned hospitals, believes in being social. More than 100 years ago, the Mayo brothers got the social ball rolling by inviting other surgeons to come to its facility in Rochester, MN to talk and learn from one another.

Today, that sharing and learning principle continues through social media, particularly Facebook Live.

With the hopes of helping patients learn more about their health care options, Mayo Clinic knew that research showed that word-of-mouth and expert insight could make an impact. With that in mind, it began its foray into live video on social media with Periscope and eventually moved to Facebook Live.

The hook of the broadcast? Leveraging the expert insights of experienced physicians.


Margaret Shepard Shares How Mayo Clinic Built its Facebook Live Broadcast Strategy #DSMPLS

TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Aug 19th, 2019
Digital Summit, Influencer Marketing

Ashley Zeckman Speaking at Digital Summit

In a world of consumer distrust, especially when it comes to marketing messages, it can sometimes feel like you’re living in the “Upside Down.” Everything that you thought was true about marketing and how you engage with customers and buyers is now different. In fact, sometimes nothing seems to make sense anymore.

In fact, Edelman found that less than 50% of U.S. consumers trust brands. In her Stranger Things-themed presentation at Digital Summit Minneapolis, TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman addressed the current state of marketing affairs and offered insight into ways that brands can improve trust and connect with their buying audience.

What’s her advice on changing the narrative and winning back the hearts and minds of customers? Partner with influencers to create credible content that can change the day and save the world. Stranger Things have happened, right?


TopRank Marketing’s Ashley Zeckman Shares How to Build Consumer Trust with Influencers #DSMPLS

Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Jun 17th, 2019
Social Media, Video

Social Media Video

Native social media video is a marketing darling, with emerging new formats and increasing availability across platforms. Mainstays like Facebook prioritize native video posts over other content types. But how can marketers showcase the impact of native video tactics to clients? With variable analytics available for the different platforms, setting a benchmark for reporting in advance is smart but complicated.

Today we’re giving you the ultimate native video guide to set you up for success. Let’s look at the primary social media channels, outline the specs for your video, and list the available metrics for measurement.


Spotlighting Organic Social Media Video Success: Your Guide to Metrics and Specs

A Taste of Social and Influencer Marketing: What B2B Can Learn from B2C #SMBMSP

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on Dec 3rd, 2018
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Social Media

B2B Influencer Marketing Takeways from B2C Influencers

B2C brands pioneered the use of influential voices to boost their brand appeal, sales, and campaigns. And as more and more B2B brands and marketers dive into the world of influencer marketing, the question is: How can we leverage the knowledge, insights and tips B2C marketers have to share for our marketing efforts?

Last week, a panel of foodie influencers and bloggers provided some insights that can help answer that question. My TopRank Marketing colleague Jack Fitzpatrick and I attended Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis St. Paul’s (SMBMSP) panel moderated by Michele Phillips, a food blogger, writer, photographer and content creator, which included food personality Lindsay Greene, tweeting BBQ enthusiast The Product Poet, and Eat.Drink.Dish MPLS founder Golnaz Yamoutpour.


A Taste of Social and Influencer Marketing: What B2B Can Learn from B2C #SMBMSP

Building Better Influencer Relationships: 7 Cues Marketers Can Take from Sales

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez on May 23rd, 2018
Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is booming with B2B and B2C brands big and small dipping their toes in the water. And it’s certainly not hard to see why. From declining consumer trust to content overload to near-dead organic reach on social channels, working with influencers enables brands to build credibility, authority with existing and new audiences, as well as connect with thoughtful industry experts.

And, of course, partnering with influencers can help drive marketing results. In fact, according to a Linqia survey, 94% of marketers who use influencer marketing find it an effective practice that can generate up to 11-times the ROI of traditional advertising.


Building Better Influencer Relationships: 7 Cues Marketers Can Take from Sales

Break All the Social Rules: Advice from Spredfast VP of Strategy Spike Jones

Debbie Friez
Debbie Friez
MIMA Seminars, Social Media

In this era of social media, brands need to look at their social outreach in a different light. Which means that sometimes, you have to break the social media rules. Spike Jones, Vice President Strategy at Spredfast outlined a new type of social success at the September Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) event.

As Spike shared in his presentation:

“When it comes to social media, sometimes you need to follow the breadcrumbs.”

Why? Because you never know who you might find. Below are some of the top insights and takeaways from Spike’s presentation.

It’s not about the brand.

As marketers, we are often taught to include our brand’s logo, messaging tagline and any other branding we might have on everything we produce and influence.


Break All the Social Rules: Advice from Spredfast VP of Strategy Spike Jones

Principles and Books for Looking into the Digital Future from Lee Aase

When asked to share digital trends and predictions to kick-off the inaugural Minnesota PRSA Digital Skills Workshop, Lee Aase, Director, Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, took an alternative approach.

I’ll share the trends that I’ve observed, and the books that I have read or heard at least two times, but generally more. And link you to the Audible store, while the future I cannot foretell these principles will serve you well.

Digital media is changing fast, so Aase, a leader in utilizing social media, shared insights for getting your mind moving in new directions. Along the way, he shared some of his favorite audio books, and  joked if you subscribe to the one book per month plan on Audible, you will be set for the next year. (Note – one book is free.)


Principles and Books for Looking into the Digital Future from Lee Aase

How to Tame the Wild Wild West of Social Media Reputation

In the Wild, Wild West of Social Media Digital Reputation, employees create social accounts without governance. But, are they on brand?

At the Digital Summit Minneapolis, #DSMPLS, Casey Hall,Thomson Reuters, shared a process for taming the horses and adding governance to the stable.

The Audit

Start by searching your company name and all variations of it, says Hall. You can use a simple spreadsheet or a database to keep track of the channel name, followers, last activity, link and log if there were any brand issues.

Once you have found all the rogue channels, you need to determine if it is a relevant channel or if it needs to move to the takedown.


How to Tame the Wild Wild West of Social Media Reputation

3 Examples of Brands Using Podcasts to Increase Sales, Offer Value & Build Audiences

MIMA Event Podcasting

[Note From Ashley: TopRank Marketing team members Debbie Friez and Joel Carlson recently attended a Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) event in Minneapolis and collaborated to bring you the insights below from the event.]

Long gone are the leisurely evenings and weekends where people disconnected from the outside world and made time to relax. Today’s consumers are ALWAYS connected and constantly consuming information from a variety of sources.

The question for marketers is: how can you capture the attention of your audience while they’re on the go and multi-tasking constantly? One of the solutions that has surfaced in recent years is incorporating podcasts into your digital marketing mix.

Below we’ll dive in to three case studies MIMA social broadcasting event that uncover how different brands are working podcasts into their marketing strategy.


3 Examples of Brands Using Podcasts to Increase Sales, Offer Value & Build Audiences

3 Ways to Measure the Value of Your Social Media Marketing Program

social-media-measurement

Inherently knowing that there is value in social media marketing and being equipped to show value are two different things.

Social media provides a unique and often-challenging opportunity to connect one-on-one with customers, prospects and fans of your business. However, only 42% of marketers feel that they are able to accurately measure the value of their social media efforts.

“Social media enables relationships to be built regardless of traditional barriers like distance or language. For brands, this provides a forum to listen and learn – and if you’re smart, take action based off of what you learn,” says Alison Herzog, Marketing Director, Global Social Business & Digital Strategy at Dell, (a TopRank Marketing client).


3 Ways to Measure the Value of Your Social Media Marketing Program

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