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The B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards

The B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards (@B2BTOTY in Twitter) recognizes and encourages the efforts of distinguished B2B professionals on Twitter. The winner will be selected by a committee of judges with professional experience.

Tangelo‘s founder, Antonio Altamirano will be part of the jury, which makes it even more exciting for us.

You’re encouraged to nominate professionals and companies you think deserve recognition for their outstanding contributions to the B2B community via Twitter. The deadline for nominations is December 18, 2010.

You can nominate and vote for the candidates at the B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards website. This year ten new categories were added to make it more inclusive. For example, “Boss Tweet” and “Business Journalists” which aim to recognize the individual contributions within the B2B arena on twitter. Check out all the categories here.

Unlike the social media “popularity contests,” the goal of B2B Twitterer of the Year Awards is to create a community and shine the spotlight in the movers and shakers in the B2B arena.

Joe Zuccaro, president of Allinio and the force behind B2BTOTY, was also kind enough to tell us a bit more in depth about the event “We created this Award program to recognize the efforts of B2B professionals and organizations since much buzz on Twitter relates to consumer-oriented brands (Zappos, Comcast, Gap, etc.) and personalities. Since Twitter is a relatively new tool and is still being experimented with, we wanted this website and award program to highlight best practices and serve as a place to the community to share experiences and recognize each other,” Joe said.

B2B and Social Media: A Logical Fit (socialmediatoday.com)
B2B Content Marketing in the Age of TMI (customerthink.com)

Seven Reasons Why GeoLocation Is Here To Stay

Geolocation is here to stay. It has been adopted by the major players in the industry and is carving an independent position in the social media market. With products such as foursquare, mytown and gowalla leading the race, we’re sure to see a lot more competition in the space. So far facebook is the only one of the big social networks that is taking geolocation seriously by launching places, a service within facebook that allows people to check in to physical locations and to browse who’s around. This is just the beginning of the geo-location fight that is sure to heat up in the upcoming months.

In the meantime, here are seven reasons why geolocation is here to stay.

Geolocation has become a fashion and cultural trend beyond early adopters.
Companies have the opportunity to advertise their products and services directly and selectively.
Social networks are rushing to adapt its functionality to also provide geolocation services, though some half-heartedly
More and more people have GPS-enabled devices.
The smartphone market is only getting bigger around the world.
People’s social circle is becoming wider and larger.
Social networks are increasingly oriented towards mobile devices.

Let’s start by defining geo-location. Geo-location is the practice of associating a digital resource with a physical location. Digital resources can be photos, videos, texts. Location information is calculated according to latitude and longitude coordinates to mark a specific location anywhere in the world. Geo-location networks and services are fast becoming a necessary tool for all smartphone users, who can not only find the location of a friend, but also physical locations such as pharmacies in their neighbourhood, parks, libraries.

So many services to choose from. Here’s a comparison of the most popular geolocation enabled services:

A comparison of geolocation applications and their features:

Geo-Location Feature Comparison

Why does geolocation work?

Let’s take foursquare. Foursquare is one of the most popular geo-location service so far. Its secret is to combine social networking with geo-location and a competitive game with a good way to advertise effectively. Foursquare’s key to success is that it converts users’ activities in a game. Every time that someone visits a store they get closer to becoming the mayor of that location which in turn can bring them preferential treatment at the location.

How Latin American Presidents Use Twitter for Good and Evil and Why

Written by Leila Ergo and Antonio Altamirano. This is the first of a series of posts analyzing the impact of Social Media in Latin America .

As discussed in a previous post, Twitter is growing fast in Latin America. Just as in other markets, Twitter’s growth has been mainly due to celebrities joining Twitter thus driving their fans to join in order to connect with their favorite celebrities.

But there’s now a huge factor that is unique to South America and that is quickly becoming a massive adoption driver for Twitter. Heads of State are joining Twitter and using it for good, evil or both. Not all presidents use Twitter in the same way or for the same purpose and not all presidents have achieved the same level of response from their people. Probably due to a lack of authenticity and transparency in their delivery style, but we will let you derive your own conclusions.

Let’s start by looking at Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. The Presidents of these countries have a verified Twitter account and are actively using it.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

Hugo is now @chavezcandanga

In April 2010, Chavez joined Twitter with the nick @chavezcandanga. In some countries in Central America and the Caribbean, “Candanga” means devil, but in Venezuela it is applied to a person able to mobilize the masses. Hugo Chavez demonstrated his ability to mobilize the masses by getting 64,000 followers within the first 24 hours after opening his account. As of today Chávez has 798,981 followers and counting. His follower growth has been light-speed fast.

Twitter grew 4.8% in Venezuela after Chavez’s decision to join. So it is conceivable that the president’s entry is driving Twitter’s growth. Even ComScore experts agree with this hypothesis, in their latest report.

Chavez decided to join Twitter to respond to those who began to criticize him from online platforms (blogs, social networks, etc.). Those who criticize him are the same people who were somewhat muted by the measures used by the Venezuelan government to censor and close several traditional media in the country.

However, Chavez strategy might have backfired. Carlos Jimenez, Director of the online polling firm Tendencias Digitales, notes that nearly 90% of the two hundred most-followed Venezuelans on Twitter are opponents of Chavez. Chavez joining Twitter might have indadvertedly lent more credibility to his opponents.

Sebastián Piñera, Chile:

The Earthquake, The Miners and Twitter

In 2008, President Barack Obama used Twitter for his own Presidential campaign. Since 2008, Obama has scored more than 5 million followers. As part of this strategy, Obama became not only the first president to use this platform but also the most popular.

Sebastián Piñera, Chile’s President, currently has more than 190,000 followers. Piñera enjoyed, for a fleeting moment, being the most popular Latin American president on Twitter (beaten only by Obama among presidents in the Americas), until he was overtaken by Chavez who currently has over six times the amount of followers that Piñera has.

Three major events in Chile helped Piñera to build a good relationship with his followers. It should be noted that Pinera is a great example of how a Head of State can use Twitter and innate influence to help the people and to drive change. For Piñera, Twitter is more about helping others than advertising himself.

During the earthquake, Twitter’s Chilean community and Piñera’s own Twitter account were probably the best online channels to communicate news and information to the world and to raise money to help victims.

Through his account, Piñera keeps his followers up-to-speed with the rescue efforts for the miners trapped 700 feet deep after a landslide in northern Chile.

Chile’s Bicentennial is approaching and Piñera is using Twitter to organize and inform about the activities planned for the celebration. Check out his tweet below that translated says “Finishing up Bicentenario’s Tour. En route is a great concert of Desierto Florido at Pan de Azucar park in Atacama.”

Sebastian Pinera Twitter Bicentenario

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina:

Joins Twitter Too Late or Too Fast?

Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, quickly highlighted her presence on Twitter on classic media channels, despite the controversy it generated in her country. @CFKArgentina added more than 40,000 followers in just three days.

During these first three days, Cristina did not write a single Tweet. In an interview with the Argentine daily La Nacion, Orlando Adamo, a specialist in political communication, said: “It is not good that she did not write any tweets yet. This may be a strategy to keep expectations high, but if she does not appear on Twitter in a short time, that may damage the credibility of the same space that she decided to occupy”.

The Argentine context is very different compared to that of Venezuela or Chile. For this reason we are unable to know today what the reaction of people in the future will be, or if the participation of Cristina Fernandez will lead to a greater number of Twitter users.

So far, traditional media is spreading the first tweets from Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, which undoubtedly will encourage people to join Twitter, at least out of curiosity.

Here is a quick exchange that happened on Twitter between Cristian Fernandez de Kirchner y Hugo Chavez. Cristina congratulates Hugo for planning to celebrate Yom Kippur and Hugo replies by saying that he is very happy to hear from her and that it will be a great meeting.

Cristina Kirchner writing to Hugo Chavez on Twitter

Hugo Chavez replies to Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on Twitter

Twitter’s Position?

In July 2010 the “Summit of the Future” was conducted in Costa Rica. There, the co-creator of Twitter, Dom Sagolla, said that Venezuela has increased its number of active users since President Hugo Chavez used the platform. Sagolla also cited Venezuela’s case as an atypical one compared even with that of Obama.

With regard to the overall picture in Latin America, Sagolla recognized that this platform has brought a revolution in the communication between presidents and the public.

We are far from fully understanding the impact that Twitter and other social networks will have in the South American political and cultural landscape. Though, we are completely sure that this marks a milestone in the streamlining of communication between Latin American leaders and the people.

How Accenture Dropped Tiger Woods Without Using Social Media. Pros, Cons and Opportunities.

Truthfully speaking, when I worked for Accenture, I loved seeing the Accenture ads with Tiger Woods at the airports with the witty one liners and the simple approach to it all. Also, to be quite honest, I always have questioned claims that Tiger Woods ads actually have any tangible and measurable ROI. That was before the Tiger Woods issue. Beyond the personal issues, Tiger is a great athlete with unmatchable achievements.

But in this time of real-time communication, new media, social networks, twitter and facebook how does a company like Accenture make use of the channels at hand? Here is a run down of what Accenture has been doing and what they are missing.

Pros:

Accenture dropps Tiger Woods quickly and quietly.

This was a good move in their parts albeit a day or two late thus allowing the media to speculate on what Accenture was going to do.

Accenture Publishes Short and sweet press release.

A short message was published in Accenture’s newsroom. Very good strategy if you want to “control the message” as press releases are closed and inward facing by nature. However, the shortness of the message stopped the speculation and helped the media understand that Accenture takes its brand image very seriously. After all, a consulting company is all about the image as they need to portrait an air of exclusivity and talent that can attract larger customers and higher revenues.

Here is the press release published by Accenture

NEW YORK; Dec. 13, 2009 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) today announced that it will not continue its sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods.

For the past six years, Accenture and Tiger Woods have had a very successful sponsorship arrangement and his achievements on the golf course have been a powerful metaphor for business success in Accenture’s advertising. However, given the circumstances of the last two weeks, after careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising. Accenture said that it wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.

Accenture will continue to leverage its “High Performance Business” strategy and “High Performance Delivered” positioning in the marketplace. The company will immediately transition to a new advertising campaign, with a major effort scheduled to launch later in 2010.

Accenture changes Twitter background ahead of official announcement.

Accenture changes Twitter background from a Tiger Woods image to a more abstract and picture that portraits “high-performance”, the tag line for the company. This change is probably the easiest to make as the Twitter account is managed directly from within the company so it makes sense they can react quicker on Twitter than their website and physical banners across the US.

Accenture removes Tiger Woods images and copy from the home page

That was the second quickest move. The website represents the brand and the web is where people will go first to understand in real-time where the company stands. The web is the quickest, cheapest and most measurable medium to tell your story to the public and Accenture should have made better use of it in the midsts of being tied to a one-man brand as the New York Times says.

Accenture replaces Tiger Woods with Beautiful Pictures of birds and blurry people

This one is just for fun, but it seems the available stock had a disproportionated amount of pictures of birds and blurry athletes. I get what they are trying to convey but if you look at several pages in the website, the images are a little bird-heavy. See screenshots below.

Cons (Opportunities):

Accenture does not respond on Twitter or Facebook

Huge missed opportunity to put their two-cents in the conversation. There seems to be a deep misunderstanding of what is the meaning of embracing social media. Twitter and facebook are not broadcasting channels that brands can use to “target an audience” and to “control the message” in their feeds.

If a brand does not engage fully in social media, it might be better off being one hundred percent committed to being absent because then there would be no questions about how social media is being used by the brand and why. The latest tweet by Accenture was this one 19 hours ago:

No mention of Tiger Woods and no link to the press release either in any of their tweets. At the very least Accenture should have acknowledged the existence of the press release by providing a link to the posting.

Accenture provides a press release and nothing else

In the age of real-time communication with Twitter and facebook as simple and easy tools to communicate massively and interactively, Accenture has yet to respond in any shape or form to the questions that many people are posing. I am imagining that a lot of employees want to see this happening and that @Accenture turns into an interactive resource that can help the community understand the thinking beyond the decision and how Accenture is facing this challenge.

it is not only the company that is suffering a PR nightmare by having Tiger associated with the brand. It is a burden carried by all the employees as they are faced with questions about Tiger and Accenture. Wouldn’t it be great of your employees can tell their customers to go look at the Accenture Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute information on the issue? That would help client facing teams avoid the conversation over and over and actually start a more fruitful conversation about how to manage crisis in in the age of Twitter and Facebook.

John Mayer finds out about Accenture just because they dropped Tiger

John Mayer tweets twice about Accenture and tells the world. He doesn’t know what “the hell they do”.

What’s next for large companies with Social Media? Less broadcast more engagement.

The trend in 2009 for large corporations in the B2B space has been to learn how to listen via social media. Also, they’ve started opening a one-way channel by largely using social media as a broadcasting mechanism.

2009 was the year when big companies…

Paid attention to social media albeit not in depth
Started getting their act together and claiming properties (IDs) across social netwoks like Twitter and Facebook
Got stuck in their old ways of “controlling the message” thus using social media as a one way broadcasting channel. There are some outliers such as Mckinsey and Intel
Started thinking about social media as a real part of their marketing mix
Started listening to their customers via social media

2010 should be the year when B2B companies…

Understand that “controlling the message” is a labor intensive and alienating exercise where ROI is low. Just look at the Tiger Woods example. As much as brands like Nike and Accenture would love to control the message, it is completely out of their hands.
B2B companies understand and apply the power of engaging customers and prospects online
Customers demand a higher level of engagement from their vendors in real-time
B2B companies use Twitter as a broadcast and engagement channel
Social Media spend (labor and media buying costs) grow at the expense of search engine marketing programs
SEO takes backstage to Social media in marketing programs as the real-time web grows and SEO becomes too complicated to control

Outliers

Besides some outliers such as Mckinsey Quarterly, corporations across the board have kept to themselves by only transmitting branded messages and staying away from a more in depth interactions. That’s where big corporations are missing the boat in 2009.

What is social media strategy for B2B?

Strategy in social media is less about thinking through the perfect tweet structure and more about the level of engagement and support you can provide.

A company needs to show that they truly care about their clients not only by sharing important highly branded links but by giving service and support customers can count on. This, in a sense, is very old school common sense business practices that somehow don’t resonate.

A Little Outrage Can Take You a Long Way

This is part of the series “Creating Something From Nothing“. A highlight of the challenges and benefits of doing a start up and views on how to tap into undervalued and under served markets.

I found this essay by Cecilia Munoz to be inspiring. She touches upon something thatÂ could be dangerous if only the negative part of it is played: Outrage.

But many times outrage can be the inspiration you need to get something done. Michael Arrington was outraged at the level of coverage and criticism that start ups were getting so he started TechCrunch.Â Another great example is Aaron Patzer and Mint.com. He saw an under served and underdeveloped market that needed a big dose of practical innovation and hard work.

Here is an excerpt that summarizes the good use of outrage and how she fills the hollow it leaves within.

I am deeply familiar with that hollow place that outrage carves in your soul. I’ve fed off of it to sustain my work for many years. But it hasn’t eaten me away completely, maybe because the hollow place gets filled with other, more powerful things like compassion, faith, family, music, the goodness of people around me. These things fill me up and temper my outrage with a deep sense of gratitude that I have the privilege of doing my small part to make things better.

To read the full article please view A little outrage can take you a long way for the full transcript and the audio recording of Cecilia reading her essay.

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