Was it something I said?

Although I was initially alarmed to find I had lost more than a hundred of my loyal and dedicated (?) following on Twitter last Friday, I was reassured to hear that this was just Twitter clearing out some of the spammier accounts.

They should be applauded for doing this, although I wonder how they identify spam accounts. I'm sure they have some very sophisticated algorithms for identifying unacceptable behaviour but, without these facts to hand, I thought I would offer my 5 suggestions to help you spot the spammers in your Twitter stream:

Is your marketing outside-in? Or inside-out? Which is better and why should B2B marketers care?
 
I was wondering this as I took my seat yesterday at an event yesterday entitled "Outside-in v inside-out: the great debate" hosted by Experian and ABBA (the Association of Business-to-Business Agencies, not the Swedish power-pop combo).

The answer is that we should definitely care - and we should understand the merits of the different approaches. The speakers for and against the motion put forward some excellent arguments, which I have tried to summarise below (whilst adding a little editorial opinion while I'm at it, of course). Read the following descriptions and work out for yourself whether inside-out or outside-in works for you.

'You can't write a poem about B2B marketing'.

Not just one, anyway. More like seven.

It all started just over a year ago with an invitation: our original pink poem in B2B Marketing magazine. Following up in the Beyond blog, we asked all of you involved in B2B to 'debate how and why (if?) marketing is changing...share influences...move it along' - in other words, to help shape the B2B mindshift.

But what good is a poem about B2B marketing?

Poems don't give us conventionally useful answers. They take us deeper into the questions and passions that fuel our collective imagination. Ideally, they help us understand ways of thinking and being and doing that will help us to go...further. Deeper. And in this case, beyond business as usual.

To order your free limited edition of 'Beyond: The Poems' just email us at b2beat@baseonegroup.co.uk.

When you receive your poems, read them aloud. Really. It's the only way to feel the full impact.

PS: For my opening line to this post and the collection, I'm indebted to Ronald Wallace and his great proof that you can indeed write a poem about McDonald's.

I received a letter from the DMA today.

Well actually, I didn’t. The envelope asked the question “Does digital spell the end for the letter?” I opened the envelope to find there was no letter inside, just an invitation to join the debate on Twitter. I’ve no idea if digital spells the end for the letter. I have some views, but the point this makes is that the “good idea” remains one of the most powerful factors in marketing. We can discuss the merits of the medium, but the thought behind it is what usually matters. The “no letter” trick was perhaps pretty obvious, but it worked and that’s good marketing for me.

A short post, but it’s best to keep things simple, isn’t it?

Apparently, 90% of Twitter traffic is created by just 10% of users.

This fact, according to the widely quoted recent report by Harvard Business School, "implies that Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network". The sub-text here is clear: Twitter is mainly spam.

But that's a fairly one-dimensional view and, as B2B marketers, we shouldn't leap to conclusions. We're in danger of ignoring the fact that Twitter can be many things to many people, and can therefore fill a number of different roles for your brand. If you are thinking of using Twitter - or social media in general - in your marketing, you need to know how it can serve you.

There are many things in life that can ruin the mood. Caterpillars in the salad. Wasps in the bedroom. Spotify ads in the middle of my Sounds of Nature playlist.
But nothing dampens my enthusiasm while I’m browsing the web quite as drastically as the dreaded data capture form. It just changes the mood completely.

I refer to the kind of situation where you find a link to an interesting-sounding article, but you are not allowed to see it until you have told them your age, sex and inside leg measurement. It says to me: we were having so much fun, sharing information in a nice friendly way, and then suddenly you had to drop this on me. It’s like a bucket of cold water. So why do so many B2B marketers do it? Here are some of the reasons why they do - and why they shouldn’t.

Right now, B2B media owners have got it tough. No point pretending otherwise.  Ad revenue is down, publications are suffering, and many ad sales people are fearing for their jobs.

Luckily for you, you are probably not a media owner. But as a B2B marketer, you have your own problems and getting the most out of your (shrinking) budgets isn't easy. There are opportunities for media buyers - you just have to look closely...