If you’re looking to find content on the web for any particular subject for a specific purpose, some of the best ways of doing this are performing searches on Google and more recently Twitter and Facebook.  Social media provides a wealth of opportunities of finding targeted information, but one often has to first find and then trust the source of that information.  For instance, you could join a relevant LinkedIn Group and look at what news is being posted on a given subject, but each group on the same subject will give you different results.  RSS Feeds of bloggers provide another great source of content, but you have to first know what blogger to subscribe to.

One great way of finding great content has been to use social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and StumbleUpon.  StumbleUpon provides you a way to “stumble” and discover new content, but if you’re in a hurry and looking for something targeted, it may not be the most ideal solution.  Sure, you can search for content by keyword, but there is no way to sort through dates to understand if the content is new or old.

Delicious, in that aspect, is better in that not only does it allow you to search through everyone’s “tags” or keywords associated with information on blog posts and bookmarked websites, we can now do a search on bookmarks that were posted in the last day, 12 hours, 4 hours, 1 hour, 15 minutes…all the way down to 5 minutes!  The problem with Delicious, though, is also the reason why it’s great: all tags are user-generated.  This means that there are separate tags, and thus separate searches that must be made, for a simple term like “social media” (hint: “socialmedia” will yield you far better results).

Now comes Business Exchange, which you should already know is one of my favorite 6 social media sites for B2B social media marketing.  The beauty of Business Exchange, from a content-searching perspective, is that information is not only up-to-date but in that it is rationally categorized.  Remember, Business Exchange is run by the folks at Bloomberg, so they understand the need to organize the information into rational categories for easy consumption, just like we are reading the newspaper or the latest edition of Business Week.

I focus on targeted social media content for this blog post, so let’s look at the different categories that Business Exchange provides us for finding social media content: (I have included the term “Social” to show you additional content)

As you can see, if you had a particular interest in finding information on not just “social media” but more targeted information such as the latest news on “social media analytics,” the category already exists and relevant content is there for you to find as well as share.  The above list is by no means comprehensive in that there are additional categories for the different social media channels (Facebook and Twitter actually have multiple categories), but you already see how fundamentally different the content is structured when compared to all of the other social media sites.

The other important factor is in finding new content, and once again Business Exchange delivers.  Every category has information divided up by the following tabs:

In most cases, just looking at the most active listings that are being viewed and reacted to by other professionals will provide you new and targeted content.  Choosing the other tabs such as News, Blogs, and Reference will display additional news and information.

If there was any room for improvement on Business Exchange, it would not be in the platform itself, but in the number of users and thus volume of submitted news and blog posts that is available.  Every user generated content derived website has the same challenge in that its value is only as big as we join and actually contribute to the site.  There are no official numbers out, but my hunch is that Business Exchange, being newer, may not have as many users as Delicious and StumbleUpon.  That is one of the purposes for this blog post, to get you to hopefully join and contribute to make _our_ Business Exchange an even better site!

If you’re already a member or plan on joining, please make sure to follow me on Business Exchange!

What have your experiences been with using Business Exchange?  Any other websites that you recommend for finding new and targeted news and information on social media?

While everyone knows that Facebook is the default choice for any business-to-consumer (B2C) social media marketing, what social media channels are important for businesses hoping to engage with other businesses (B2B)?  How can these types of businesses use social media to engage with their potential clients, gain mindshare and be perceived as a thought leader in their industry, and increase potential clients visiting their website?  Here are the six that I would recommend to most businesses.  Note that, in order to create a sound social media strategy, you should not limit yourself to these 6 B2B social media channels and should also make sure that each site is appropriate for your particular industry.  Creating a social media strategy is about strategic relevance and focus, not comprehensiveness.

1) Your Website & Blog

What most people forget is that social media does not exist in a corporate vacuum and it is only an extension of your marketing, not a replacement.  You will still be doing email marketing as well as other types of traditional marketing, although I do know some start-ups who are putting their marketing budgets solely into social media.  Regardless, you need to lead people somewhere from the conversations in social media to acquaint them with your business and start engaging in a conversation that will hopefully lead to a conversion in the future.  This is why your website is even more important with the advent of social media, and you need to make sure that your website is “social media optimized” to lead others to your social media profiles as well as to help others share your information throughout their social media channels.  Finally, another important part of social media is sharing content, and creating a blog is the best way to achieve this.  Make sure your blog is active and website optimized before engaging in social media.  So before you get active on the other sites listed below, get your own house in order.

2) LinkedIn – Your Hub for B2B Social Media Marketing

If there is one site where decision makers at your potential customers are it is LinkedIn.  Need I say more?  And if you signed up for LinkedIn and nothing happened, make sure you check out the book I wrote to help all professionals maximize your LinkedIn presence.  You can also read my previous blog post on how to get more leads from your LinkedIn presence by avoiding the mistakes that a lot of small businesses make.  Don’t wait for LinkedIn to happen…make it happen!

3) Twitter – The Potential Viral Spread of Tweets Cannot Be Ignored

There are enough business leaders and decision makers from virtually any industry on Twitter to warrant its attention.  Twitter membership is now 50% greater than LinkedIn.  Add in the facts that a Twitter Profile is now almost becoming a default part of a LinkedIn Profile as well as understanding the viral way in which tweets on Twitter get spread and you soon start to see the potential of utilizing Twitter as part of a B2B social media marketing strategy.  I am currently working on my 2nd book which will help you and your business maximize your Twitter presence, but until that’s published, check out my Twitter case study of how NOT to use Twitter.  Stay tuned for more good Twitter blog posts for business in the near future!  And remember, Twitter is not just about tweeting…it’s about engaging, striking up and joining conversations, and respecting others.  But if you engage wisely, Twitter may lead your next customer your way.

4) StumbleUpon – Traffic Generating Community

Part of utilizing social media is to help your company and website to get found.  If you are a consumer brand this is easier to do, but niche B2B businesses can be challenged just to drive any traffic to their website.  StumbleUpon is actually a lesser known social bookmarking site, but because of its algorithm and 10+ million users who like to “stumble” or navigate through several sites at at time, some studies have shown that StumbleUpon actually attracts more traffic to your website than any other social media site outside of Facebook.  My personal experience with StumbleUpon has been the same, even surpassing Facebook.  It is important to note, however, that StumbleUpon should not be used just for SEO and it is a social networking platform in its own.  In addition, because you will need to be sharing content as part of your social media strategy, think of StumbleUpon as your company’s content recommendation engine.  You may not find your Fortune 500 customers on StumbleUpon yet, but I do see an increase in small businesses joining the platform…and there are other compelling reasons listed above that should convince you of SU’s value.  Once you get set up on StumbleUpon, make sure to subscribe to my stumbles for recommend reads on social media strategy.

5) SlideShare – Present Your Business to the World

My newest fave is SlideShare, which in essence is a site of professionals and businesses uploading their PowerPoint presentations.  SlideShare in itself is one of the top 1,000 most visited sites on the Internet according to Compete.com, and it’s traffic is equivalent to more famous sites such as the social bookmarking site Delicious.com.  SlideShare is significant for businesses because this is where other businesses are putting up their presentations, so just as you Google the Internet for information, many businesses and decision makers are coming straight to SlideShare to look for relevant information to help them solve their business problems.  Business usage of SlideShare is increasing to the point where SlideShare rolled out advertising services to allow businesses to get more views of their presentations as well as generate actual lead data from views.  Start with your corporate presentation and then upload your marketing presentations and see what happens.  You may be in for a pleasant surprise!

6) Business Exchange – Network with Industry Leaders and Become the Thought Leader

Business Exchange is literally the Business Week of Social Networking.  What I like about it is that it is similar to LinkedIn in terms of demographic but it gives you the ability to network with and share/learn information with/from other professionals in pre-defined categories and industries.  For instance, for the topic of social media alone there are actually categories covering analytics, branding, business failures and successes, design, social media in the workplace, social media innovation, job hunting, marketing, operations, privacy, training, and social media vs. old media.  Find your industry’s category(s), start sharing information that would interest decision makers in your industry, and build out relationships as you would on LinkedIn.  And, once again, after you sign up please follow me on Business Exchange for the latest in social media strategy.

B2B social media marketing is like anything else social media-related: new tools, old rules.  Business has always been social.  You just need to find where your audience is and get used to a new paradigm where you professionally network with others and try to gain mindshare in a virtual, online world.  That is, in a nutshell, B2B social media marketing.

Any other sites that you would recommend to add to this list?  Please chime in!

And if you’re confused with all of the choices out there and unsure as to how to go about strategizing for your company’s specific B2B social media marketing needs, contact Windmills Marketing for a free initial consultation.

First of all, I know what you’re saying: between LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and reading blogs, I am exhausted!  Yes, social media can be overwhelming, and this is why you need to create social media boundaries.  But as we become more active users of social media, some new niche social networking sites such as Brazen Careerist, Amplify, and Business Exchange have appeared that have compelling value propositions when compared to more “general” social media sites.  What targeted demographic does Business Exchange appeal to?  The LinkedIn user.

LinkedIn, as you already know, is the site for every professional to find and be found.  I always mention that the trend of social media is about the growing convergence of where we go for communication and information.  LinkedIn excels on the communication side, but it may not be the first place to look for the latest information when compared to Twitter (albeit LinkedIn is trying to change this with their recent introduction of new sharing features).

This is where Business Exchange shines: it is THE place to find out the latest news on anything business-related, vetted by its professional users and categorized to make it easy for you, the user, to find relevant information quickly.  That’s Business Exchange in a nutshell; here are the 6 compelling reasons to become a Business Exchange user if you are not already sold on the idea:

1.) Easily Import Your LinkedIn Profile

If you are already on LinkedIn, rest assured that you are not reinventing the wheel when you use Business Exchange: you can seamlessly and easily connect with your LinkedIn profile and import all of your profile information into Business Exchange.  This makes it very easy for the LinkedIn user to get set up with a rich profile on Business Exchange in a matter of minutes.  It also means that your professional branding is 100% portable.  Ease of getting started is one reason to at least establish a presence on Business Exchange.

2) Where the Professional Demographic Truly is

Some think that LinkedIn has become flooded with the job seeker and recruiter.  A client I was talking to today reminded me that most people see activity on LinkedIn equivalent to searching for a job.  While any social media site will have its share of any particular demographic, just by looking at the featured users and popular contributors will make it clear that Business Exchange has a demographic that is executive and professional-centric.  For instance, let’s look at the most active users in a topic that I also contribute to: Social Media Marketing.  As I write this, the most active contributors are four thought leaders in social media, including John Jantsch of the famous Duct Tape Marketing, as well as a Senior Vice President of Public Relations & Communications.  In fact, here are the titles of users I randomly selected who’s names begin with “Neal”: Business VOIP Specialist, Principal, Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Chief Investment Officer, Managing Director, CEO, Owner, Business Systems Analyst, Account Executive, IT Manager, and another Principal.  If you are an Executive or would like to be part of a social networking site that has a very professional demographic, this is the social networking site for you.

3) Completely Free of Spam

The potential problem with every social networking site is the potential to be spammed.  This is where Business Exchange shines: it concentrates only on information and no communication.  You can follow the news updates of anyone you want, and you can “react” to their news posting which may send them a notification in their email box.  But you cannot directly access any Business Exchange user.  Instead, when you navigate to their profile, you have the option of finding their LinkedIn profile, following them on Twitter, or navigating to one of their customizable links.  In other words, you can rest assured that you will not be receiving any spam by being a member of this site!  Furthermore, you can rest assured that your news stream will also not be spammed because all postings must have links…and every posting can be easily reported as spam if it indeed is so.

4) Sharing Information on LinkedIn and Twitter is Easy

With the help of first Twitter and now LinkedIn’s new sharing features we are becoming a “sharing society.”  There are compelling reasons why we should be sharing, which will be content for future blog posts, but you don’t want to have to find something on Business Exchange and then have to copy and paste and navigate over to multiple sites if you want to share it elsewhere.  Business Exchange allows you to easily and seamlessly post your article or reactions and comments straight to LinkedIn and/or Twitter just like you can do with your LinkedIn Status Update.

5) Easily and Quickly Find the Latest News on Professional Subjects

This is the most important value that Business Exchange provides the user.  How do you filter through all of the noise that is out there in social media to find information that is relevant to you?  Everyone who posts information here must post it to a certain category.  For instance, I may want to share an article concerning social media.  If I enter “Social Media” into the category list, I get the following options: Social Media Analytics, Social Media Branding, Social Media Business Failures, Social Media Business Success, Social Media Design, Social Media in the Workplace, Social Media Innovation, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Operations, Social Media Privacy, Social Media Training, Social Media vs Old Media, Conversational Media, Micro-Blogging, Relationship Economy, Social Networking, and Web 2.0 Marketing.  In other words, I can’t just post something to “Social Media” and need to be more specific in the category that I choose.  Because of this, I am forced to correctly classify the article that I am sharing.  You can now see how Business Exchange can help you easily and quickly find the latest news because the information has been properly classified by its professional user base.  In fact, I just counted, and there are 1,699 different categories for which you can share news on Business Exchange!  True, some of these categories are actually Company Names, but from the example above you should be able to ascertain that there are probably specific categories that exist that you have a professional interest in.

6) An Excellent Destination to Strengthen Your Personal Branding

So in addition to being able to potentially network with other professionals and find and share news information, why spend the time to be on Business Exchange?  Sharing relevant information to a targeted demographic is a great way for you to strengthen your personal brand and potentially win a little more mindshare in the world.  Similar to Twitter with its information-centric approach, what articles you point people to will determine how they perceive of you and thus will become part of your personal brand.  The beautiful thing about Business Exchange is, because of the choice of Categories, you can in essence compartmentalize the way people view your personal brand by which categories you post to.  It really is that simple to strengthen your personal brand in a particular category to a particular demographic should you wish to invest the time to do so.

On a final note, some of you may be worried that you are potentially investing your time in a social networking site that may not be around tomorrow.  Business Exchange is run by Business Week which is run by Bloomberg.  Furthermore, it is just one tab away from every reader who navigates to Business Week.  Business Week gets 5 million visitors a month to its site.  Hopefully you can see both why I believe that Business Exchange is here to stay and its potential to become a true source of relevant information for the professional demographic.

Have you ever heard of Business Exchange?  Have you started using it?  Please do share your experiences and advice below!  Thanks!  And please feel free to follow me on Business Exchange!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bloomberg Redesigns Website As It Tries To Kill The Journal (businessinsider.com)
• LinkedIn Launches Tons of New Link Sharing Features [PICS] (mashable.com)
• The Caring, Sharing LinkedIn (onemanandhisblog.com)
• How Businesses Can “Share” and Become “Social” in Social Media (windmillnetworking.com)