Figuring out how to best implement and harness the power of social media as a part of B2B marketing can be a difficult target to hit. It’s simply not enough to be active on social media. The ability to create a social presence for your brand and executive effective social media campaigns that utilize engaging, innovative content – and ultimately drives sales – is the real goal.

The impact social media is having on B2B marketing is real and significant. It’s not going away. A recent study by Marketing Pilgrim found that over 90 percent of B2B decision makers utilize social media in their buying process.

Knowing where to put the resources of your social media marketing mix to reach those decision makers can be tricky, as can the inherent difficulties in measuring the effectiveness of your efforts. Looking a bit beyond the basics, here are a few B2B social media tips to separate yourself from the crowd and get results.

Unwritten rules of engagement
There are some unwritten rules of social media marketing. While it’s cool to be “yourself” and “informal,” don’t forget to be professional at the same time. Limit the shameless self-promotion by knowing what your audience really wants from your firm. Let your reputation and expertise drive your growth and know that less is more – focus on contributing value and not on noise, which will only cause followers to drop you.

High impact social media tools

As social media becomes a cornerstone of your B2B marketing and you increasingly use it in a number of ways, know that there are tools to help optimize your content and strategy. These tools generally fall into five categories: listening and monitoring, social analytics, social influence, social management and content creation. Listening and monitoring tools (such as Conversocial, Mention or InboxQ) are valuable as a way to know who is talking about your brand and where. Social analytics tools (like Twitsprout, AgoraPulse, TweetReach, Crowdbooster and Social Bro) help measure the all-important ROI by seeing how well you engage with and influence your community. Social influence tools (try Inkybee or Followerwonk) help measure, build, and manage influence for a brand as well as identify key industry influencers.

Managing social media content
Content is instrumental for B2B social media marketing, and getting the most out of that content across your media channels is critical. Luckily there are countless tools out there that offer ways to manage, analyze, measure and report your social media efforts. One list of 50 top tools was put together by SocialMediaToday.com, while TopRankBlog.com suggests 22 social media marketing management tools to help your efforts.

It sounds simple enough that your business website should play a larger role within your online marketing strategy. After all, your website is a store that never closes, a first touch point for potential customers and an online brand ambassador.

But if you don’t know what role that is, it’s time to re-evaluate how your website is utilized.

Your website can be uniquely positioned to be a sales machine. By implementing lead generation techniques, your website can constantly bring new sales leads into the sales funnel and make all the difference between missing or hitting your revenue goals.

Calls to action.
Ultimately, you want users to act a certain way when they visit your site. Use calls to action to tell the visitor exactly where you want them to click, creating a clearly defined pathway of action. Depending on your goals, feature items like free trials, forms, quote or service requests, webinars or case studies to encourage action.

Down the sales funnel.
It is estimated that only 5 percent of traffic is ready to buy when they visit a website. That means everyone else is either an unaware or interested buyers, but has yet to make a decision. Create something of value to offer (great content is a start), engage your customers, give them reasons to come back and interact with them to establish relationships. Soon, visitors will be back as customers.

Traffic conversions.
It’s one thing getting traffic to your site. But what then? Getting a conversion – like a phone number, email or form submission – is the name of the game. There are many ways your website can be designed with this in mind, but it should be designed with conversion as the end game.

Capturing the leads.
Having easy access to actual lead generation is critical to increase the number of conversions. Make your phone number prominent. Feature a privacy policy. Include simple forms – the less required information the better – to submit without leaving the page. If your site has high traffic, include live chat features to capture customer information.

Optimize for mobile.
If you haven’t already invested in a mobile-optimized website, do it now. Studies suggest mobile web traffic is up 78 percent since last year, as 24 percent of overall web traffic comes from mobile devices. It’s not longer an option to ignore mobile users  who are looking for information on your business – from product and service information to a click-to-call number or integrated map.

Search engine authority.
None of the features or elements of your website will matter much without traffic. How your website appears in search engines and where it ranks will drive consistent traffic. For long-term results, utilize search engine optimization (SEO) for a high-performing website.

Creating a sustainable competitive advantage is the Holy Grail for every company. Even then, some argue whether competitive advantages are truly sustainable in the first place.

By definition, competitive advantages are advantages that a company has over its competitors, allowing it to generate greater sales or margins and/or retain more customers than its rivals. The more sustainable the competitive advantage, the more difficult it is for competitors to neutralize that advantage.

The main methods of competitive advantage boil down to comparative (cost) advantage, differential advantage, defensive strategies and alliances.

Comparative advantage – The ability to produce the same quality of good or service at a lower cost than competitors.

Differential advantage - When a firm's products or services differ from its competitors and are viewed as superior by customers.

Defensive strategies – Allows business to further distance itself from competition by maintaining the competitive advantage it has created.

Alliances – Competitive advantages can be gained through strategic alliances with other businesses at the expense of other competitors.

Given the standard and widely-recognized methods of competitive advantage in the marketplace, there are still many different ways in which companies can get a leg up on the competition. Here’s a look at some of the keys to a competitive advantage for modern businesses:

Information resources.
Extend your competitive advantage by predicting future trends, adapting to your industry, utilizing technology, driving product innovation and new ways to outperform rivals.

Learn from competition and customers.
Use your competition as a resource and learning tool to assess their business model and strategies. Gain and measure in-depth customer knowledge and insight via social media tools and other information resources.

Create a dynamic product line.
If your product or service is a single item with no planned follow up or extension, you have created a weak position.

Look for a dramatic cost improvement.
A breakthrough in technology, manufacturing or a new revenue model can create dramatic advantages.

Proven leadership with inside relationships.
Great people are always a competitive advantage, which is especially true if your leadership has proven industry connections and insider information. Build a team that is difficult for competitors to duplicate.

Create market authority.
If what your business does is difficult to achieve, it’s a true advantage. Build industry authority by being great at what you do over a long period of time.

Always be active with existing customers.
It’s one thing to say your listen to your customers and strive for retention. But if your company actively learns from customers and never stops developing, creating and adapting along with them, you would be ahead of most other companies in the world.

Brand identity and the ‘right’ endorsement.
Even if you have comparable products or services as a competitor, your brand identity in the marketplace and the right celebrity or expert endorsement creates an advantage that can’t be duplicated.

An online video marketing campaign is an attractive option for many businesses, and for many reasons.

Once deemed as a marketing tool only reachable for companies with big budgets, there are now very few reasons not to optimize a video marketing campaign to promote and enhance your brand. With the relative usability and affordability of video equipment and software – not to mention the immense gains in online video traffic – the gates are wide open to integrate a video marketing campaign into your overall marketing strategies.

Online video isn’t just gaining in popularity, it is racing. According to a Cisco forecast report, online video service users will double (to close to 2 billion) by 2017, meaning that 81 percent of the world’s Internet users will use online video, which will account for 69 percent of all consumer traffic.

By now you know you should be integrating video marketing into your overall strategy. But many marketers and businesses are stuck when it comes to what type of video they should make and how to launch a campaign. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you get started:

Pick a genre.
Establish what type of video campaign you want and what customers you want to connect with. The most common types are testimonials, instructional, product demonstration, virtual tours and entertainment.

Find a topic.
What are people talking about? What do people care about? Get a feel for what is happening with your customers on social media and how you can relate it to your business and brand. In other words, be relevant.

Keep it short.
Everyone has a short attention span, and your target customers are no exception. Your message has to be delivered quickly. According to magnetvideo.com, video analytics reporting shows video viewership drops off consistently and dramatically after 60 seconds.

Be appealing and engaging.
Your content should be entertaining, educational or attention-grabbing. Ask your viewers for their opinions and comments, and use a call to action.

Measure the effectiveness.
The analytics from online video marketing can help you understand whether it is effectively reaching the target audience and what content is most effective given the campaign objectives.

Leverage your marketing assets.
Utilize your existing marketing assets – direct mail, website and email marketing – to integrate your video campaign into your overall strategy. Promote your video across platforms and create variations (like teases) to fuse campaigns together in video emails, blogs, newsletters, mobile apps and more.

Think bigger.
Think beyond stand-alone videos and provide value and a worthwhile return for your customers with a video series and regularly updated, consistent content. Expand your video marketing to content that is sought out within the industry and is established and respected as an expert brand.

Word of mouth – or rather, computer -- is more influential than ever.

It’s no secret that buyers place their trust in other buyers. And thanks to the entrenchment of social media it is now easier and faster for those buyers to share opinions and information.

That transformation in today’s marketplace has led Nielson to call word of mouth the “world’s most powerful sales tool.”In a 2012 survey, Nielson found that 92 percent of consumers said they trust “earned media” – such as word of mouth and recommendations from friends and family – above all other forms of advertising. That’s good for an 18-percent increase since 2007.

If all the hype is true, how should your business harness the power of customers on social media? How do you turn customers into brand advocates, and leverage them as your online sales force?

Brand advocates – or brand ambassadors – are highly satisfied consumers who genuinely love your company, products or services, and who actively promote your brand to their spheres of influence.  Here are five tips to find value in your brand advocates, turning them into a cost-effective online sales and marketing force by leveraging word of mouth on social media.

Make your content shareable.
Leverage the value of your brand advocates by making it easy to share your content across all social media channels. They sustain your online presence and humanize your brand.

Identify your potential advocates.
Not every company has rabid loyalists, so roll out a fun social campaign across all platforms to draw out your most engaged customers. Keep an eye out for special consumer stories and testimonials.

Encourage your best advocates.
Transform the normal online activity of your ideal advocates by focusing your energy on them. Acknowledge them, build relationships, and make them feel appreciated and want to share their brand experiences with their networks.

Respond and engage.
It’s not enough to post compelling, original content that compels customers to share.  Listen, respond and engage them via social media and provide tools to post testimonials, reviews and feedback.

Widen your audience.
It is important utilize all social media channels and run multi-platform campaigns to widen your reach and your audience. Repost recommendations and remarks across all platforms.