Everything old is new again - an early casting comparison for the new Star Trek 

**Film spoilers alert**

B2B folk and Trekkers have a few things in common:

We both attend conferences.
We have serious debates about how our respective fields should progress.
And we both tend to resist change.

That last one is particularly sensitive for...um, both of us. And we've both recently had big, whopping changes handed to us, then been told: 'Deal with it, or you don't play here anymore.'

The B2B challenges that have commanded more attention over the last year - getting onboard with Twitter and social media, to blog or not to blog, diving into the Buyersphere, finally addressing your techie, scary, and hugely relevant Search marketing needs, the worth of it all - these and more have been thoroughly investigated by my fellow Beyond bloggers.

I just want to make you feel better.

So if you want some recent facts and advice, check out Which Half of Your Advertising is Working by my Beyond buddy John Stanton. 

If you want to know how a JJ Abrams blockbuster can give you strength in these turbulent B2B times, read on.

OK, picture the scene. You are a male in your mid-20s. You're in a bar packed with beautiful women, and you have one thing on your mind. How do you increase your chances of 'success'? That's right: turn to family brand Pepsi, who have sanctioned an incredible piece of social media marketing, built around an iPhone app.

The application - available now free from an AppStore near you - offers advice on how to 'score' by way of promoting its spin-off beverage, Amp. "Amp up before you score" is the line behind this amazingly insensitive marketing idea.

It's a classic conversation we've all witnessed at some point:

SEO Expert: Here's the list of keywords you need to focus on when writing the copy for the web site.

Copywriter: What do you mean? These don't fit at all with the way the brand communicates.

SEO Expert: Well in that case, people searching for the brand and its products just won't find them!

SO THERE! That told them...

Well, maybe, but there's a reason for the way a brand communicates, and its the result of weeks, months, even years of research and acquired knowledge. An 'upstart' like search can't just come and shoot all of this down with one pesky list of keywords...

Maybe not, but surely the way people search for your products is relevant to the way you should present and sell them? What it you're selling courgettes, but your customers are searching for zucchini? Or maybe they ARE searching for courgettes, but those with the largest potential orders are specifically searching for 'soft-skinned courgettes', when you're busy selling them as 'green and white courgettes' because this was the key message you decided on when you last looked at the way you communicate. In this case, they are less likely to find you, and you are potentially missing an important sales opportunity.

Search may be a relative newcomer in the marketing timeline, but it can provide you with vital information on the way customers perceive brands, as can the shiny new arrival, Social Media.  From a B2B perspective especially, they both represent the voice of the Buyersphere - what people are actually saying and thinking rather than what you believe they are saying and thinking. Whilst they are not the 'be all and end all' as some fans will have you believe, any wise marketer should add them to their toolbox and use them whenever possible.

And as for the branding question? If you have an established brand and a well-tried approach to your communication, of course you shouldn't rip up the rule book to accommodate keywords. To quote a favourite search mantra: build for the users and not for the search engines - in other words, take the keywords into account, but make sure that they fit the copy and not vice versa. If, however, you are at the start of a branding or a re-branding process, Search and Social media are invaluable, powerful and free research tools that can provide you with crucial feedback on how the Buyersphere searches for and talks about your brand, and I would recommend combining them in every case with the more established tools - surveys, round-tables, focus groups, etc.

So, in a way, the keywords do come first, but not in importance, just in order.