My colleague from Velocity, Doug Kessler (@dougkessler), asked “the crowd” for social media etiquette tips.

My response was short and sweet: Respond to people when they reach out to you on social media. This tip is especially important for B2B because it’s these one-on-one interactions that have real potential to turn into sales — except not in the way that you think.

In today’s BtoB magazine’s Social Media Marketing column, Small Business Social: Start Small, Stay Focused, for which I was interviewed, Katheleen Peters (who was also interviewed) says that small business owners want to measure everything by sales.

This is exactly what I told Jon VanZile, the BtoB reporter. The mistake small business owners (actually many B2B companies in general) make with social media is to treat it as another lead generation platform — meaning, they see it as a funnel that produces a bunch of leads that then need to be qualified.

Nothing is further from the truth.

Social media is all about one-to-one interaction with people who usually have qualified themselves after hearing about your brand, service or company somewhere else.

Case in point: A few weeks ago I caught up with my good friend Michael Katz (@michaeljkatz) of Blue Penguin Development. I’ve known Michael since 1999, when as a newbie freelancer, I purchased his book on how to create an e-newsletter. We talked and laughed and shared our stories about the various business tools we use and he mentioned InfusionSoft and how he was using it.

Bingo! I knew immediately I needed to check it out, so I went to their site. And, in one of those “coincidental” moments (which are NEVER coincidental), a tweet by Clate Mask, the CEO and co-founder of InfusionSoft, appeared in my feed at the same exact time. So I tweeted to him to let him know I had heard good things about his company.

Much to my delight, he responded to my tweet!

Then Cody Jones, one of the salespeople, asked if we could set up a time to talk (we’re still on Twitter here). I said sure!

Cody, who is fantastic, set up a call. What I loved about this call was that he actually took the time to learn about me and my business before the call. Then he asked me all sorts of questions, listened to my challenges and explained how InfusionSoft might be able to help me. Would I like a demo? Yes, please!

Long story short, after a demo, I was sold.

So here’s the deal, people.

1. Social media is not about traditional lead generation where you send out stuff and people raise their hands for something in return.

2. Social media is about interaction and engagement.

3. This means that when someone RTs you, reaches out to you, responds to your post, leaves a comment, Likes your page, or whatever, you should RESPOND TO THAT PERSON.

Here’s my analogy: If you were at a networking event and someone came up and said “Hello!” would you walk away? I didn’t think so. So don’t ignore people on social media.

4. When someone does reach out, do a little due diligence and see if this person is a member of your target audience . . . and then take the next step. Cody Jones asked if he could call. Nice!

5. Social media is all about relationships. When Cody asked for the next step, I could have said no — but I’m sure that I would then be in his database and he would have made a point to connect with me later.

Social media and small business go together like bread and butter because it is so easy to connect with people. As I told Jon VanZile during my interview, you don’t need thousands and thousands of peeps. A few hundred is A-Ok. Why do I say this?

If you’re a small business owner, would you be happy with ONE sale made from responding to someone on Twitter? Yes, I thought so.

With all of the changes going down on Facebook, it can be tough to keep up. One of the changes that I love — which I found by accident while poking around — is that Pages have news feeds.

I like this feature because it allows me to follow companies on FB without having to clog up my personal profile feed with a lot of gunk.

To see your Page’s news feed, do the following:

1. Log into FB and click on your Page on the left.

2. Click on “Use Facebook as [your Page]” on the right.

3. Click “Home” at the top. Viola! Now you can see the feed of the Pages you’ve Liked. You have to be logged in as your Page in order to Like other Pages and have them show up on your Page. You can see your Page Likes when you’re on your Wall — they’re on the left. Facebook shows five at any given time; you can change this by editing your Page.

To see which Pages have liked your Page, go back to your Wall and click “like this” under the number of fans or Likes you have. This brings up a new window.

In that window, click the drop down menu in the top left corner where it says “People.” Check “Pages” and now you can see which companies / Pages are following you.

Is that cool or what?

What new tricks have you discovered for FB? Feel free to share.

I started reading Getting Past Ok: The Self-Help Book for People Who Don’t Need Help, by Richard Brodie last week. I picked it up not because I need help (in fact, I’ve sworn off self-help books and instead am relying on my own judgment) but because Richard Brodie is a name regularly bandied about in our home. Brodie, in case you don’t know, wrote the first version of MS Word and retired rich.

Family friends of ours are friends with Brodie and due to this connection, my son, who is a total geek, was able to meet the famous Brodie at their house one night when he spent the night. He and Brodie took an instant liking to each other. (My son attracts intelligent adults the way his bedroom floor attracts his dirty clothes — like a magnet. It’s rather amazing.)

I’ve actually had Brodie’s book for a while, but due to the aforementioned ban on self-help books, it was gathering dust on my shelf. Another friend had passed along the URL to Randy Gages’ e-book, Accept Your Abundance, where Gages mentions Brodie in passing. I had no clue Brodie’s tentacles reached so far and wide, so I started reading his book.

In the book, Brodie talks about what makes up our truths and belief systems and how memes — pieces of information that get replicated — become the basis of our belief systems. (If you’re short on time, you can bypass his whole book and just follow his advice in the last sentence of the first chapter: trust yourself. You don’t need a self-help guru to tell you what’s right and wrong.)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a social media hiatus, which started when G+ came out. I remember thinking at the time, “You know what? I’m a little overwhelmed with social media and need a break.” So I took one — without telling anyone even though a social media “truth” is that you’re supposed to tell everyone when you’re taking a break.

This break gave me time to think through the memes that I’ve bought into with regard to social media.

• “Because I’m in marketing, I have to be a social media expert.”
• “I have to produce content on a regular basis.”
• “I have to be ‘on’ 24/7.”
• “I have to be a thought-leader.”
• “My content isn’t that great if it’s not getting retweeted or reposted all the time.”
• “I need to read all the experts out there and keep abreast of all the new trends.”

After thinking about these memes and how they’ve upended my business and personal life, I came up with some new truths:

• “Social media has been fantastic for my business but I don’t need to be connected to it 24/7.”
• “It’s ok to do social media my way versus how I’m being told to do it by the experts.”
• “Less is more: More time, better quality work, more business.”
• “Tuning out the social media hype has allowed me to focus what’s really important to me: building the type of business that reflects who I am and my values.”
• “Social media is based on the old-fashioned value of forming caring, trusting connections and relationships with others.”
• “Forming relationships and connections is not new. I’ve been doing it since before social media and indeed, the Internet, came into existence.”
• “I’ve made some real connections with people that I highly value and these connections have absolutely nothing to do with scores, or numbers of followers or RTs or any of that stuff.”
• “My strongest connections are with those people I’ve connected with offline and with whom I’ve built trusting, solid relationships.”
• “Many of these people have become clients; all of them have become friends.”

Someone I’m following on G+ posted a link to an article about how social media is driving the publication of too much content, much of which isn’t very good. I found myself nodding in agreement.

During my hiatus, I found myself vowing to stop posting so much stuff in order to meet someone’s definition of a social media “truth.” Instead, I’ll post when I have something to say — and that I think you might find interesting. This means I’ll be posting irregularly — versus regularly, which is another one of those memes we’ve all bought into. I’d like to spark more discussion and hopefully, more connection.

What do you think? Are you overwhelmed by social media? Have you taken a break? Do you find yourself doing more of it or less? What are your social media truths and are they yours or someone else’s? Leave your comments below.

In the old days, monitoring the media meant you’d read various print and trade publications (which usually were a finite number) and get to know reporters and editors. You met these people at trade shows or they’d come to your facility if they were in the area.

You had cocktails together and got to know each other. You developed a relationship and then when you had a new product to announce or a story topic, the reporter or editor -– who knew you by name and face –- was inclined to take your call and talk to you.

Those days are long gone.

“With over two billion voices on the Web,” says Gary Lee, CEO of mBLAST, “it’s almost a fulltime job monitoring what’s being said in your industry (or your clients’ industries) across hundreds of blogs, industry sites, online publications and various social networks.”

According to Gary, monitoring alone is no longer enough. To do it right, you have to leave comments on blogs, Tweet out content, and slowly develop relationships with people in your various networks –- people you know only as a face on an avatar or through tweets and blog posts.

If you’re lucky, you may meet a few people at conferences or workshops. I say “lucky,” because let me tell you, you’re not going to reach these people through email. (Want to know how many emails I delete each day from PR “professionals” who send me untargeted press releases?)

The folks at mBLAST understand this pain and have created two terrific tools to address it, My mPACT and mPACT PRO.

My mPACT –- Scores you on your own “thought leadership”

“This free tool,” says Gary, “allows people to look at themselves and what they talk about.” I can look at my profile for example, and see which keywords I’m using in my posts. I can also tell at a glance — via a tag cloud — what I’m talking about. (Note to self: do a better job of staying on topic about B2B Web marketing.)

The cool thing about mBlast is that the company indexes thousands of blogs, articles and social data and then matches this content to keywords. Do a search on “B2B marketing,” for example, and I get a list of the top people writing about this topic.

What I like about this tool is that it allows me to click on people’s names to see their profiles, the publications for which they write, their topic keywords, and links to the last three articles they’ve written. I can also see the top influencers for any given topic.

My only quibble with My mPACT is that it uses your personal Facebook profile versus your Facebook Page. I purposely keep my personal FB profile locked down and super private and thus don’t post business-related stuff to it. So my mPACT profile is seen as being incomplete as it’s not linked to FB.

My mPACT also doesn’t include Google+ since Google hasn’t yet made an API available — which is a pity as I’m finding I’m using a Google+ more than Twitter these days. (I think it’s because I have so few people in my Circles it’s just much easier to follow the really cool people I’ve found in Twitter.)

At any rate, I like this tool and plan on using it much more to help me see what others are writing about –- and keep myself on topic, too.

mPACT PRO — For the hardcore PR or marketing pro

“mPACT PRO is for people who do PR and marketing all day long,” says Gary. “It’s a really powerful tool that allows you, the PR person, to find influential people in a space and view all their posts and tweets. It also allows you see how much ‘authority’ or influence a person has because you can see if the person’s posts and tweets are getting picked up.”

The tool combines the old clipping services of yore (if you’re of a certain age, you remember paper-based clip files) with powerful social media monitoring. Using mPACT PRO, you can track article coverage of your company or CEO, how your brand is being perceived, and what your voice is in the marketplace.

As soon as Gary gave me a demo of this tool, I instantly “got” it. It automates a lot of the grunt work associated with PR and marketing. And, instead of giving you a generic score, the way Klout does, it shows you, via graphs and other information, just how influential people are on given topics.

mPACT PRO starts at $50 a month or $495 a year for a single subscription and goes up from there. I’m really impressed with both tools. Be sure to give My mPACT a whirl. You can also try mPACT PRO for 14 days without charge.

Full disclosure: I was not paid to write this review.

Two weeks ago my Krups coffee grinder bit the dust. I bought it while in college . . . ca. early 1980s. That means I’ve used it, day in and day out, for approximately 28 years.

Once I confirmed that it was truly dead, I immediately made the trek to one of those big box stores to buy a new one, but alas, all they had was a Cuisinart Grind Central(r) Coffee Grinder. Even though I really wanted the Krups, I let myself be sold by one main feature: the Cuisinart can grind enough for 18 cups of coffee!

Except I’ve never had the occasion to make 18 cups of coffee.

But I bought it anyway, because you know, now that I can make all this coffee I can have more friends over to dinner.

It’s an ok coffee grinder, meaning it does its job, but I hate it. It scatters grounds everywhere, it needs constant cleaning and it has too many removable parts. All I really want is a coffee grinder that lets me make my one cup of coffee each day without a lot of trouble and mess.

While cleaning up coffee grounds and mulling over the articles I had just read about social media marketing, I realized that social media hype works the same way. Pick up any publication and you’ll find at least one article on why you and your small business should be using social media.

If you read a lot, you come away feeling anxious because you get the impression that you’re missing out on one giant marketing bonanza: 100 million users on LinkedIn! 500 million on Facebook! 1 billion YouTube views per month!

It’s this anxiety I hear now when prospects call.

Well, here’s the skinny: Just as I don’t need a coffee grinder that makes 18 cups of coffee, if you’re a small business owner or marketer pressed for time (and aren’t we all?), you don’t have to be on every single social media platform nor do you need thousands of “fans” or “followers.” Honest.

If your customers and prospects use Facebook and you yourself love Facebook, then stick with Facebook. If, on the other hand, the bulk of your prospects use LinkedIn but not Twitter and you feel more comfortable on LinkedIn, then make LinkedIn your focus.

Then, work to make connections while creating some solid content on a regular basis. It’s better to go deeper with fewer connections and a couple of white papers or an e-book than it is to constantly post superficial crap to thousands of people who just ignore it.

As for my coffee grinder, I broke down and ordered a new Krups because I miss its simplicity and elegance. The Cuisinart is getting returned.

What’s the ROI of social media? People in B2B ask this question all the time — and rightly so. Spending time on Twitter or Facebook posting things to hundreds or thousands of people you don’t really know does seem like a huge waste of time.

When I need a business product or service recommendation, however, my Twitter network is the first place I turn to — which is what I did last week when I learned that my HP laser printer needed to be replaced.

Within minutes of posting my request for a recommendation, Nathan Dube, aka @DubiousMonk, a salesperson for Expert Laser Services responded.

Nathan and I have been following each other for over a year now (I think we met through @BillyMitchell1). We’ve also connected on LinkedIn. When he initially responded to my request, he had already built social trust with me. In addition, he genuinely wanted to help me versus sell me something. This genuineness came through in the questions he asked to help me determine which printer I needed to buy.

Long story short, Nathan and I connected via email and in short order, he sold me a refurbished printer — one that suits my needs and my budget.

Here is what Nathan did right:

He asked me questions — Rather than “hard sell” me, he asked what I needed and why did I need it.

He gave me alternatives — Sure, he could have sold me a fancy new printer, but I don’t need one. The bulk of my printing is black and white printouts of all the stuff I write (I write a TON of stuff) so that I can proofread it. I don’t need anything fancy. I just need something that works.

He offered to meet me! — Since Nathan’s company is in southern MA and I’m in NH, he offered to ship the printer, but after checking with his manager, said he could meet me half way. Since I had a meeting in MA on Monday, this worked.

Too often companies go for the quick sale. Companies send out bulk emails that sell, sell, sell. Clueless people on Twitter push out impersonal direct messages or respond to requests with a hard-sell, one-size-fits-all approach.

The thing that these people / companies don’t “get” with social media is that when you follow someone (or a brand), you get to know that person over time through tweets, re-tweets, the content they publish and how they interact with others. You may not interact on a daily basis with everyone, but you do get to “know” people. You know who the “good” people are and who you can ignore.

Because Nathan gets it, he made his first direct sale via Twitter. Thanks, Nathan! It was a pleasure meeting you and learning more about you. Loved lunch, too!

A prospect called me last week to inquire about my social media services after following me on Twitter for over a year now.

While talking, he asked me a question no one has asked me before: “Who do you have in mind when you tweet?” He also wanted to know my process on deciding what to tweet. These are great questions! To answer them, I had to stop and think for a bit. What does go through my head when I tweet something?

I’m *always* aware that Twitter is a public platform
Twitter can give you the illusion that only the people who regularly respond to you are reading your tweets. The fact is, anyone can read them, whether or not they’re following you, something I’m always reminded of when I’m on a client call and the client will comment on something I’ve tweeted about.

And, posts don’t just live on the Twitter platform. They get indexed by Google and appear in one’s Google Buzz feed and Google Profile (if you’ve activated Google Buzz) and can appear in people’s blog posts.

Hence, I subscribe to the “measure twice, cut once” theory — only I say it this way, “Is this tweet something I *really* want associated with my brand?” If my answer is not a resounding yes, I don’t post it, which is why you won’t find a lot of personal stuff in my feed or content related to politics, to name a couple of things.

I also don’t use location services. Letting people know where I am is just too creepy from a single mom perspective and all. Plus, I don’t think the people who follow me really care that I’ve just checked into the gym.

I look for content that my followers might find interesting
Twitter has become quite noisy and crowded — and unfortunately, it’s become rife with spam, including spam followers, spam DMs, spam Messages and spam links. Then, you have lots of stuff that gets RT’d by hundreds of people.

I know getting RTs is the holy grail, and RTing other people’s stuff is a good thing to do, but really, if half your network RTs the latest Mashable article, do you need to do so too?

So I stick with a few people / bloggers who continually post excellent content that my followers might find interesting — even if it’s not marketing related or a little off the beaten track. And, instead of reading just the first paragraph of a post and then RTing the title, I’ll read the entire article and then develop my own take on it for a tweet. (By the reading the full article, I’m more inclined to leave a comment, too.)

To cut down on my own contribution to spam, I don’t bulk broadcast my tweets, nor do I repeat them, nor do I post motivational quotes.

I work hard to have conversations
Because Twitter is like being at a cocktail party, I make it a point to respond personally to people’s tweets — and am always disappointed when people don’t respond back. The whole point of Twitter is to have *conversation,* not use it as a medium to bulk broadcast your boring sales messages.

Thanks to Twitter, I’ve developed relationships that have resulted in paying business — relationships that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago. I’ve also made a whole heck of a lot of friends, which is the best part of being on Twitter, IMHO.

What’s your strategy when considering content for Twitter? Are you a stream of consciousness type? Or are you more strategic? Do you like it when people post personal stuff (i.e that they’re at the gym, the doctor’s or a restaurant)? Post your comments below.

If you’re like me, you’re overwhelmed with the amount of marketing information being presented on an hourly basis. On top of that, keeping up with new technologies and terminologies is mind-boggling.

Quite frankly, my eyes have begun to permanently glaze over. So I was happy to hear that the marketing folks at Eloqua agree with me.

“You are correct,” says Joe Chernov, Director of Content for Eloqua, which provides marketing automation products and services. “People tune out when confronted with too much information. And, companies often use confusing concepts and jargon to explain what they do, especially when it comes to marketing automation. We wanted to turn our focus outward and get people’s attention through entertainment as well as substance.”

The result is Eloqua’s wonderful new Grande Guides campaign, complete with spokesperson Juan Eloqua, a “cheeky yet romantic” businessman who specializes in growing coffee — and revenue.

“Our CMO, Brian Kardon, came up with the idea for Juan Eloqua — it was one of those ‘lightning strikes’ type of ideas. Another idea was to film coffee barristas answering people’s questions, but we quickly realized that would be an execution nightmare.”

Campaign goal is more than just buzz

Casting, filming and editing the videos took eight weeks using a professional camera crew and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) actor. Brian wrote the script; Joe was responsible for developing the Grande Guides.

“We had to go back and reshoot the videos because we wanted Juan to introduce the various Guides,” says Joe. “So that added to the execution time.”

The campaign launched August 24, 2010. “We put it out on various social media platforms and set it free,” says Joe. “However, we want more than buzz. We’re sending out over 100,000 emails asking people to subscribe to the content.

“And, because we’re always looking to add information to profiles in our database, we’ve put up forms to collect this information, which we’ll then use for our own lead scoring. We’re also hoping to reactivate inactive prospects.”

Grande Guides present one concept at a time

What I like best about this campaign is that Eloqua is seeking to educate people — the foundation of successful B2B marketing — while having some fun in the process. As such, the Grande Guides have been designed to look like a beloved moleskin notebook with valuable content . . . the kind you don’t want to throw away.

“The point with the Guides,” says Joe, “is to boil down complex concepts into a document someone can read in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.”

The first in the series, The Grande Guide to Lead Scoring, for example, gives you a detailed overview of the topic, why it’s important, and how to do it. Information is presented in an easy-to-read format with lots of subheads, call outs, graphs — and coffee stains.

Be sure to check out the Guide. You can also follow Eloqua and the campaign via Twitter, Slideshare, and Facebook.

Social media gurus tell you to have a strategy. “Not having a strategy” was the #1 marketing mistake people listed on the survey Mac McIntosh and I did (the upcoming e-book will list the other nine).

I’ve parroted this advice from the gurus. “You must have a strategy before you begin social media,” I say at my talks.

But here’s the deal. I’ve been wrong. Yep. Dead wrong.

Strategy, when it comes to social media, is overrated. Strategy makes it sound like the water is deep. Jump into the lake from the diving platform and you’ll need to figure out how to reach the shore. You need to know how to swim.

The social media lake is pretty shallow. Step in and you’ll get your ankles wet. Maybe. The water might only reach your pedicured toes.

In shallow water you can easily walk to the shore using what you already know – how to put one foot in front of the other.

Social media isn’t anything radical. It’s simply this: talking to other people. Some of them you know already. Some of them you don’t. That’s what makes it fun. It’s like being at a really cool cocktail party without the bother of dressing up and driving.

Social media strategy keeps you from being authentic. “We’ll cover all things relating to [insert topic here],” you think.

Strategy is important. It’s the first step in developing a new Website or a direct mail campaign or something of that nature. I’ve seen lots of marketing failures due to lack of a well-thought out strategy.

But sticking to a social media strategy is stifling. What if you have a terrific insight about something that has nothing to do with [insert your topic here]? Do you post it – or ignore it?

Ignore it and you lose authenticity.

You hear a lot about being “authentic.” Posting your location at some restaurant none of us have heard of isn’t authentic. Posting what you’re eating for dinner or that you have a headache isn’t really authentic either.

What is authenticity? It’s posting who you really are. It’s all the parts that make up who you are: your family, your interests, your pets, your likes, your dislikes.

Most of all it’s your unique insights.

Only you have your own perspective on what’s going on around you. Sure, you can read someone’s blog post and Tweet your “unique” take on it or post your Foursquare location – along with dozens of other people.

I won’t remember where you ate dinner or which blog post you read – last night, last week, last year.

Or, you can pull into your work parking lot and take a minute to enjoy the fact that a wild turkey is standing on one leg in your parking space — and tell your followers about it.

Personally, I’d rather hear about the turkey. I’ll remember the turkey and that you stopped to enjoy a gift from the universe because let’s face it – how often do you run into a wild turkey standing on one leg in your corporate parking lot?

It happened to me once. I’ve never forgotten it and always look for him now when I pull in. He hasn’t graced the parking lot since.

Being “social” on social media doesn’t require too much “strategy” or knowledge. You already know what to do.

Be nice to people.

Answer their questions.

Respond to what they have to say.

Post your own take on what is going on around you.

We’re all stuck in front of our computers pecking away all day – peck, peck, peck. It’s refreshing when one of us breaks loose.

People recognize authenticity and like moths, want to hover near the source. Maybe you won’t have 20,000 Twitter followers or be known as a “guru.”

But you’ll be true to yourself and your followers. And as Shakespeare said, you then can’t be false to anyone.

I deleted my Facebook profile months ago because I don’t trust the company or how it handles people’s personal data. My entire business life is online and it made me uncomfortable to add my personal life to the mix.

And too, I’m not egotistical enough to think you all care when I’m at the gym or what kind of Jane Austen heroine I’d be based on some personality test (for the record, I love Elizabeth Bennett, but then again, who doesn’t?).

HOWEVER! So many companies ask me about Facebook and how to use it for business, that I realized I had to bite the bullet and get back into it. So I made a compromise: I’m not accepting any Friend requests and am instead focusing on building a Fan page.

So here is the deal: I’d love to to use my own Fan page as a mini lab on how to build effective Fan pages for B2B.

If you have a great example of a B2B Fan page, post it in the comments below and/or add it to my DH Communications Fan Page Wall.

If you have ideas on how B2B companies should or should not use Fan pages, let me know that, too.

Let’s get a dialogue going from which all of us can benefit.

HubSpot’s Fan page is terrific. I especially like its Discussion tab where people can post questions and someone from HubSpot answers them. This type of direct engagement is exactly why a company should be practicing social media.