Lots of great content for B2B marketers was published in the last couple of weeks — including white papers. I had to make a decision: should I include white papers in my E-Book Central posts or stick with e-books?

Companies posting white papers usually do so to generate leads — and they can post their white papers on syndication sites which are designed to help them get these leads.

An e-book, however, is different. It’s usually registration-free, it’s easier to read, and the company presenting the content is sharing ideas with industry influencers and ultimately purchasers.

Because I have yet to find a resource that lists the viral e-books being published for marketers, I decided to stick with posting new ones each Friday (I’m also going to include guides and industry reports based on research).

After spending a good hour researching various white papers and e-books, I have a few tips for you to aid your readers when they try to download your content:

1. Make a dedicated landing page or write a blog post for the e-book. On this landing page, give a brief abstract of the e-book and how the information in it pertains to your audience. Be sure to ask your readers to pass your content along to others.

2. Make the free content *really* free. A couple of the e-books I considered and ultimately declined posting here wanted me to log into various sites or programs in order to view the content. A simple PDF link to the e-book ensures that people can easily download your e-book and share it with others.

3. Include a “hero shot” of the cover. Most bloggers will include the cover of your e-book when they write about it — if you provide one for them. When I write content for myself and my clients, I have my designer make a small jpg of the report, e-book or white paper cover just for this purpose.

If you’re unclear on the concept of how an e-book differs from a white paper, be sure to read David Meerman Scott’s, “The New Rules of Viral Marketing” e-book where he covers what an e-book is and how to market it.

Herewith, this week’s featured E-book downloads.

1. Increase Sales Productivity: Sales Tools and the path to productivity gains, an e-book by Nancy Nardin, Smart Selling Tools (no registration required).

This 103-page report sets out to answer the most important question of all — “How do you get sales people to sell more?” How do get from where your sales are now to where you want them to be in the future? You can follow many paths — but the real key is to provide reps with tools that will help them meet or exceed demands through the use of productivity tools. This is a great book even if you’re not in sales, as Nancy covers productivity and presentation tools marketers can use, too. It also gives you great insight into the sales job. (To download the e-book, look for the link in the sidebar of Nancy’s blog.)

2. Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, an e-book by Junta42 (no registration required).

This 75-page e-book covers over 100 social media and content marketing predictions for 2010 from the most influential marketers in the world.

3. Design Nurturing Programs to Drive Sales, a guide by Ardath Albee, Marketing Interactions (no registration required).

With longer buying cycles, unprecedented information availability and buyers delaying sales conversations it’s imperative to continuously evolve your lead nurturing programs to parallel their needs. In this guide you’ll learn how lead nurturing differs from lead generation, the 7 Stages of the buying process and how to address them, and the three types of content that influence buying decisions — plus lots more.

4. Gaijin Male Model: A Case Study in Conflict-Driven Business Writing, an e-book by David Meerman Scott (no registration required).

Sadly, very few marketers and business writers introduce conflict in their writing. We all see tons of this stuff instead: “Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product.” In this e-book, David gives an example of conflict-based writing in the hopes of getting you to think about how to introduce conflict into your own writing.

The print ad at the right, which ran in today’s Wall Street Journal, caught my eye due to its use of color and the “Boss Tweed”-like graphic.

And, I love the headline. “Don’t Know What Big ERP’s Complicated Technology Can Do For You? Don’t Worry, Neither Does Big ERP.” Ha!

I also like that the ad comes with a targeted URL that relates to the ad copy: DownWithBigERP.com.

When you click on the URL, you get taken to a landing page filled with “we, we, we” jargon. Love it! The landing page then burns away to Infor’s site — the company offering alternative CRM/ERP software.

Of course, I immediately looked for the Twitter icon so that I could follow them, and there it was, right at the top of the page. (Screen name is @infor. I’m now following the company.)

A brief glance at the corporate site shows that it includes content, such as video, designed to engage people (the way David Meerman Scott talks about in an interview with Steve Woods of Eloqua).

You often hear that social media isn’t for B2B or that traditional marketing methods no longer work. Infor is a great example of how to drive leads to a microsite through an engaging print ad, and then keep them on your site with engaging content. And, if you’re not quite ready to work with Infor, you can follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Five stars!

RainToday, one of the top online sites that help companies sell their professional services, complied a list of the best online marketing and sales resources of the decade.

I’m excited to say that this blog made their Best of 2000 – 2009 list of blogs they follow and find helpful.

Whether you sell only services or products and services, check out their great list of sales and marketing Websites and blogs.

In addition to being listed as one of the best resources by RainToday, this blog also made the Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs for the first time (#37).

The Junta42 list, which is compiled by Joe Pulizzi, author of Get Content, Get Customers (next on my to-read list), highlights the best bloggers on the Web discussing content marketing.

Thank you RainToday and Joe for the honors. I am thrilled!

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Brigantine Advisors analyst Colin Gillis is quoted as saying, “LinkedIn is not really a community as much as a collection of names. [LinkedIn is] definitely in danger of losing the business-networking market.”

The article goes on to say that people spend more time on other social networking / social media sites than they do on LinkedIn — and that LinkedIn wants users to participate on its site more often.

Dear Adam Nash and the Powers that Be at LinkedIn, here are some tips for you to help you meet that objective.

1. Don’t become a Facebook wannabe.

Despite its astounding growth, Facebook isn’t for everyone. I listen to many people who admit they don’t have a Facebook account or that they have one but use it only for personal reasons — versus using it for business.

LinkedIn serves a real purpose — it’s a business networking site. Don’t lose sight of that objective. You do fill a real need in the marketplace.

2. Build more unlocked gates in your wall.

In the same way that you allow people to post public profiles with “vanity” URLs, also allow Group leaders to develop vanity URLs for their Groups. This way they can then promote their Groups on Twitter, blogs, e-newsletters, etc.

I have had many situations where I want to get people to my Group for a terrific discussion, but have to post a URL that is open to Group members only. Non-Group members should be able to read discussions and if they want to post, they then must become members.

3. Promote Groups based on high-value activity, not number of members.

Based on the feedback I hear from my own Group members, many Group owners don’t take an active role in moderating discussions or removing spam posts. Many Groups have thousands of members but little in the way of real high-value discussion activity.

Instead of promoting Groups based on sheer numbers of members (which really means nothing), promote those Groups whose owners and members actively participate. Perhaps you could feature ten well-moderated Groups every week — and those Groups who have been featured could receive a special badge.

4. Give Group Owners a special badge.

You let LinkedIn members promote their various Group affiliations on their profile pages, but you don’t give any method for Group Owners to display that they’re in charge of a Group. Help Group Owners better promote their Groups with a special badge that they can add to their LinkedIn profile page, Twitter page, and blog / Website.

And while I’m on the subject of Groups, add an Events tab to the Group function. That way people can feature the events relevant to their specific Group.

5. Use video to show LinkedIn newbies how to better use LinkedIn.

When I recommend to my clients who don’t use LinkedIn that they use the platform for business purposes (outside of job hunting), they usually ask why. Unfortunately, LinkedIn has a reputation of being that place where you “post your resume.” Of course, nothing is further from the truth.

One way you can get around this is by posting video of real LinkedIn members who are using the platform to network and conduct business. You could also post video of how to set up an effective profile — again, using real members.

6. Ask people how they’re using LinkedIn, make it easier for them to do more of it — and then promote the hell out of it.

At the last presentation I gave, I learned that many people use LinkedIn’s TripIt feature to let their network know when and where they’re traveling. Apparently, TripIt makes it easier to book appointments with people in their network. I did not know this and found it fascinating.

And, while mucking about in LinkedIn just this week, I realized that people can follow the book list I’m building. Amazing.

LinkedIn, you definitely need to better communicate the features you’re offering people. For example, I just read on your blog that the iPhone App 3.0 was just released.

However, the link to your blog is located at the footer of your Website. If you’re going to announce news this way, perhaps your blog should be more prominent?

I find your platform to be quite robust but sometimes have no clue why you offer certain things — i.e. how does the whole “following” thing work? I still have not figured that one out.

7. Allow business owners to edit their Company profiles.

Like many companies, I have a Company profile but I have no way of correcting erroneous information. Because you rely on bots to fill out Corporate profiles, mine shows that I have six employees — five more than who actually work at my one-person company.

Perhaps you could offer a “validation” notice the way Twitter does for high-profile Twitter users.

LinkedIn, I am one of your more dedicated users. Due to being a Group leader, I spend about 10 – 15 minutes on the site almost every day. I post status updates, the books I’m reading, and I check out what others in my network are doing. I moderate my Group and work to keep discussions going.

I’m also forever promoting your platform in my blog, to my clients, and in articles I write for other blogs. Quite frankly, I love LinkedIn, but I do think you could do things better to help people like me use your platform more effectively.

I really have no interest in LinkedIn becoming a Facebook wannabe, and if you polled your members, you would most likely find that many people agree with me. If someone wants the Facebook experience, they’ll join Facebook.

You have an awesome platform, so I hope you’ll take these suggestions — and others you’ve received — and continue to offer features that benefit your users.

Happy New Year.

B2B sales lead expert Mac McIntosh recently interviewed me for his Sales Lead Insights blog. He asked lots of great questions, a few of which were cut due to the length. One of these questions was:

“You mentioned more companies are asking you about social media marketing. Is it something B2B marketers need to pay attention to? Why? And what should B2B marketers be doing about it right now?”

This is a question I’m frequently asked by B2B marketers and small business owners. Many people mistakenly believe social media is for consumer companies — or for their teenage kids!

I know it can be hard to wrap your head around social media, so I give the following simple strategies for B2B marketers and business owners who want to want to get their feet wet.

1. Claim your company name on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

By this I mean, even if you don’t use Twitter, open a profile under your company name so that someone doesn’t hijack it.

If you’re a one-person business or the CEO of a small business, claim your name on the main social media platforms (i.e. LinkedIn and Facebook) and claim your Google profile as well.

2. Join a LinkedIn Group and participate regularly.

Since starting my own B2B Social Media LinkedIn Group, I have come to really appreciate the Group within LinkedIn. I’ve met people ranging from Ben Hanna (@B2BOnlineMktg) at Business.com and Steve Woods (@stevewoods) at Eloqua to all kinds of consultants and corporate marketers.

It’s been a wonderful experience and a very easy way to keep my ear on the ground of social media marketing as it relates to B2B.

I recommend that B2B marketers or business owners join one or two Groups where your customers hang out (this is key) and then answer and/or post discussion questions. It helps if you find a Group that is well moderated (for example, I do not tolerate spam posts on my Group and I try to keep the conversations moving).

3. Read blogs and leave comments.

Business owners frequently ask me if they need a blog. Actually, you don’t need a blog to take advantage of the blogosphere. Instead of starting a blog, read other people’s blogs and leave insightful comments that add to the discussion – and when you do, be sure your comment includes your real name and website URL.

When your comment goes “live,” your name is now a clickable link – which people do click on. How do I know this? When people subscribe to my newsletter, I ask how they found me. Fifty percent of my new subscribers find me via comments I leave on other people’s blogs.

(You can also read a blog post I wrote in July, “Search, Articles and Blogs Drive Traffic and E-Newsletter Subscriptions.”)

In fact, I got a speaking gig from an association manager who found me via a comment I left on a blog. She followed it back to my blog, then my Website and then started following me on Twitter. A few months down the road, she hired me. That’s how social media works.

Be sure to read my interview on Mac’s blog as well as the interviews he’s done with a number of B2B marketers. I especially like the one with B2B Marketing By Phone Expert Michael Brown.

After reading Hubspot’s post about their top inbound marketing posts for 2009, I took a look at my own blog stats for 2009.

My top ten posts include social media, which I expected, since it’s a hot topic (post anything about social media on Twitter and it’s bound to get retweeted multiple times). But I was more interested to see that one of the top five posts wasn’t a post at all, but a category: Free B2B E-books.

E-books are becoming more popular — which is one reason I started my new E-Book Central where I’ll be posting the new B2B marketing e-books and reports released each week.

Of the 70 posts I wrote in 2009, here are the top posts covering B2B Marketing and Social Media.

1. 25 Very Smart Business Women on Twitter — The original list now includes 10 new smart women, and my “smart women” Twitter list includes another 27 smart women for a total of 62 women (so far).

2. What Should be Included In a MarCom Manager’s Job Description? — I’ve noticed for a while now that this has been one of my top posts. In it I discuss why companies need to revamp their marcom job descriptions, which typically call for people who know how to juggle projects and write well — versus being held accountable for a whole lot more, including working with sales.

3. Category: Free B2B E-Books — Here you’ll find B2B marketing e-books written by myself and other marketers.

4. Leads from Website Best B2B Lead Gen Tactic — A review of Mac McIntosh’s 2009 Lead Generation Benchmark report.

5. Social Media: It’s About Engagement, Not Page Views — In this post I discuss why measuring the number of followers or page views isn’t the right way to measure social media effectiveness.

6. Big SEO Mistake #1: Using a “Plug and Play” Website Template — Why small businesses are getting hosed by companies who sell them Website templates.

7. Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now — A free ebook written by me. (Glad to see it’s in the top 10! )

8. What You Can Learn from Cisco’s B2B Viral Video Campaign — This is one of my favorite posts because 1) I got to meet Brian Ellefritz; and 2) I used this case study in the first presentation I gave on social media — which was just last year!

(Hint: When an organization asks if you can address a certain topic, say “Yes.” That’s how I fell into social media.)

9. Why Facebook is Like Attending a BBQ at Your Boss’ House — I had been using the BBQ analogy for months while giving presentations and finally wrote a blog post. This is my favorite blog post of the year because I love the comments people left.

10. Building Your Online Brand: Five Basic Strategies — Five tips for building your online brand. Nothing earth shaking but stuff most people neglect to do.

Thanks for reading this blog and inspiring me to continually post content that gets read.

When Seth Godin released his viral e-book last week, “What Matters Now,” he invited people to spread the word about the e-book and post their own inspirational riffs.

The e-book download (3 MB file) is registration-free. Read it, get inspired by it, and pass it on.

Herewith, my riff.

Time

Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side. ~The Talmud

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the phrase that has run through my head for years. A destructive thought pattern, it’s kept me from starting projects, finishing projects, writing a book, taking big leaps of faith, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, taking really long walks with the dogs, stopping work when I’m exhausted, and just about anything else you can imagine.

It’s easy to blame technology for our lack of time. Smart phones keep us connected all day and all night. TVs blare their incessant noise in airports, restaurants, and the gym — clamoring for our attention. Computers, which were supposed to save us time, require even more time to get work done.

We sit in traffic fuming yet life rushes by at a hundred miles an hour. Just yesterday it was January 1, now it’s December 25. Where did the time go? What did you accomplish this year? No time to think about it — it’s time to plan out 2010.

We plan our time, organize our time, and try to manipulate time . . . but no matter what we do or how far we advance technologically, we still have a finite amount of time.

60 seconds in a minute.
60 minutes in an hour.
24 hours in a day.
168 hours in a week.
8760 hours in a year.
86+ years in a lifetime (if we’re fortunate).

When God made time, He made enough of it. ~ Celtic Saying

For me, how I allocate my time has come down to learning how to say “no” — no to projects I don’t want, no to time vampires who want to suck the life out of me, no to old rules, and no to other people’s agendas.

Saying “no” means I can say “yes” to what is important:

Being the kind of mom who cooks dinner every night, makes French toast every Sunday morning, and has time to listen to my son when he talks.

Reading, reading, reading.

Working out at the gym five days a week.

Getting eight hours of sleep every night.

Breaking the ingrained rule that says that to be successful, you must work more hours.

Having deep relationships with my clients.

Developing the courage and discipline to follow through on the “big” ideas that come to me in the quiet nothingness of time.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. ~ Will Rogers

How will you spend your time this year? What’s important to you? How will you make your time count — not in the big important save-the-world sense, but in the little minutes of time where grace happens?

Will you be so full of yourself that you can’t hear your own voice?

My challenge for you: turn off the phone, the TV, the laptop. Don’t worry about being “behind.” Create spaces of quiet nothingness where you can hear your heart.

What is your heart saying — and how will you honor it?

I hear this phrase frequently: “Our Website is our brochure.” As a B2B marketer who helps companies get new business through an effective Web presence, it drives me insane.

Why? A Website and a brochure are two completely different animals.

–> A brochure is static — Once it’s printed or saved as a PDF, it doesn’t change.

–> A brochure presents information in a linear fashion — You read it left to right, top to bottom and page to page.

–> A brochure’s content usually is limited — Typically brochures contain information about products, services and the company itself.

–> A brochure’s shelf-life is limited — Often, a brochure is out of date the moment the ink has dried.

A Website, on the other hand is dynamic, allowing you to update information as needed.

A Website allows you to incorporate all kinds of elements — text, images, video and sound — to help you better communicate your message AND make offers designed to generate leads, subscriptions to e-newsletters, requests for demos and attendance at webinars and in-person events.

PLUS a Website provides the kind of information usually found in a brochure — that is, information about your products or services and company.

Most important, Website content isn’t linear — a key difference between Websites and brochures and one many small business owners and/or marketers just do not “get.”

Due to search engines and links found on other Websites, site visitors start their perusal of a Website where a searched term or phrase was found, or where an inbound link led to — rather than the home page. (Read that sentence again.)

And, Website visitors follow navigation, text links or buttons on a page to get where they want to go, rather than following a page left to right, top to bottom and page to page like a brochure.

In short, prospects and customers interact with a Website in ways they cannot with a brochure.

So what can you do to ensure your Website isn’t a static online brochure that does nothing for you?

1. Optimize it for search.

I got a call one day from a small business owner. In the last two years he had gone from being a thriving business to barely making enough to buy groceries.

He lacked a Website but argued he didn’t need one as all of his business came via word of mouth. I told him to type his key search phrase into Google and tell me what came up.

Silence.

“You still there?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m looking at a page that lists all of my competitors. I guess that’s where all my business went.”

To remain in business, you must, must, must optimize your site for search engines so that your prospects can find it when searching. Period.

2. Develop content on a regular basis.

The “online brochure” mindset carries over to how small business owners view the site — basically, they develop the site, get it online, and then forget about it.

To get traffic to your site — and to better sell your services / expertise / products — you must create new content on a regular basis.

Most people groan when I say this. The expense! The time! But we sell widgets!

Here is a simple plan for developing fresh content on a regular basis:

–> Publish a monthly e-newsletter and archive each issue on your site (do not archive it on the site of your email service provider — this defeats the purpose).

Two people that I know do this well — Jill Whalen, who publishes the High Rankings Advisor newsletter, and Michael Katz, who publishes the E-Newsletter on E-Newsletters newsletter.

Twelve e-newsletter issues a year equals twelve new pages of content each year — content you can also optimize for search.

–> Develop three white papers, reports, or e-books (or combo thereof) – Consider a “top mistakes” e-book. Survey your newsletter readership and generate some kind of industry report. Analyze the different options available to those in your industry regarding software, hardware, etc., and present an unbiased report.

Once you have your content ready, develop dedicated optimized landing pages for each piece so that people can easily find the content and download it.

–> Write three case studies — Case studies deliver a double marketing punch: they let you show prospective customers how your company can solve their challenges PLUS you get to add three new pages of optimized *high value* content to your site. (For other reasons why case studies work well, read this interview Forbes did of me about B2B case studies.)

Follow this plan and at the end of the year, you’ll have 18 pages of new Web content. You’ll also see a corresponding increase in traffic as people begin linking to your content, writing about it, and downloading it. Your pipeline will begin to fill as those searching online for your products and services find your content, click over to your site and then call and email you.

3. Market the hell out of your site.

When I recommended to a small business owner that it wasn’t enough that she build a site, she had to market it, too, she looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?” she asked.

What I mean is that you have to build roads or paths to your Website using a number of different methods, including (but not limited to!):

Posting comments on blogs
Getting involved in social media
Creating content others link to and write about
Developing offers people download
Hosting online events such as Webinars
Developing online profiles at places like LinkedIn or Google
Writing articles for online publications

Furiously taking notes, the small business owner said, “Wow! No one ever told me this before. Thank you!”

Now you can see why I go crazy when small business owners tell me their Website is their “online brochure.” It most definitely is not!

Lots of information packed e-books and reports for B2B marketers this week.

All B2B marketers should read the report from The Lead Dogs, “The Truth Behind Web Inquiry Management.”

According to this report, Web inquiries represent a whopping 43% of the total inbound inquiries surveyed companies receive — and with the growth of social media, this will only go higher.

Web inquiry best practices indicate that the odds of calling and connecting with a Web lead decrease by over 10 times in the first hour — yet the average response time to Web leads is a whopping 31 hours!

Call ‘em or lose ‘em people.

Herewith, this week’s reports and e-books.

1. The Truth Behind Web Inquiry Management, a benchmark report from The Lead Dogs (registration required).

Finding the perfect formula to get leads into, and move leads through the funnel, to improve your bottom line is a challenge that takes discipline and structure, and starts with strategies focused at the top level of the funnel. This benchmark study contains key industry stats and best practices to help companies improve their odds of converting inquiries to qualified leads.

2. Enterprise Video Basics — Ten Preproduction Tips, a report from Qumu (no registration required).

Preproduction is the most important step in the video development process — and could be described as, “solid planning and preparation.” In this report, you’ll find 10 tips for planning your enterprise video, including determining your audience, purpose, and timeline.

3. Facebook Advertising Provides Precise Targeting for Less, a report from Get on the Map (no registration required).

Search engine advertising allows your ads to be displayed when a user performs a search that relates to your predefined keywords — displaying your ad at the exact moment a user is looking for something. The problem, however, is that this approach is completely reactive. With Facebook, you don’t have to wait for a customer to look for you; Facebook finds your customers for you. In this report, you’ll learn how to set up a successful Facebook advertising campaign.

4. 2009 Email Benchmarking Report, a report from returnity (registration required)

July 2008 to June 2009 was a very difficult time for marketers, advertisers, publishers and the marketing services industry. During this period, however, digital marketing seemed to enjoy a second renaissance. returnity, an email service provider, saw a 200% increase in email volumes and while most of the volume increase was associated with consumer marketing, B2B marketers showed the strongest growth rate at 210% year-over-year.

5. Social Media Best Practices, a report from Business.com (registration required).

In this business social media best practices report, Business.com identifies opportunities to grow your business by participating in business question-and-answer (Q&A) forums. You’ll learn the best practices you need to improve your business social media results. Based on insights from over 900 participants in Business.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study.

6. Building Effective Landing Pages, an e-book by Marketo (no registration required).

Ok, people. I’ve had to download about a dozen e-books and reports for this post and last week’s. Some companies don’t include a cover of the e-book or report, which means I have to create one. Other companies have funky registration processes: returnity, I really didn’t want to subscribe to your e-newsletter in order to see your report.

I’m including a link to Marketo’s landing page e-book because one, Marketo puts out some pretty good information and two, we all could use a refresher in developing landing pages that convert.

Remember, if you want people like me to promote your content, make it easy for us to do so.

Even better, if you do require registration, include a “comments” field on the form so that I can tell you not to have your salesperson call me 10 minutes after I download the report.

And while we’re on the topic, check out this blog post about why e-books should be a core component of your content marketing strategy (hat tip to Edin Shaba).

Happy Friday!

When Grasshopper became a Mashable Open Web Awards finalist in the Online Voting Round One for their Chocolate Grasshopper social media campaign (see Marcom Writer posts about the campaign here and here), the team began brainstorming ways to engage people and get them to vote for Grasshopper.

“The Mashable Awards voting is very clever,” says Jonathan Kay (@GrasshopperBuzz), Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshopper, “because you can vote once per 24 hours versus one vote, one person. When you vote, a Tweet is sent out. So the question for us was, ‘How do we engage people and get them to vote?’”

The most obvious step included monitoring Tweets — and ensuring they could personally respond to each person who voted for the Grasshopper campaign.

“We began responding to people on Twitter,” said Jonathan, “and here is the wonderful thing about social media. A family-owned ice-cream store, Shorty’s Ice Cream, in Kingston, MA voted for us. They don’t have a huge following on Twitter (@ShortysIceCream), but the fact that they are on Twitter is awesome.

“I personally responded to the owner, Sheila Libby, via Twitter and thanked her for her vote. I later learned that Sheila is a second cousin to one of our IT people. She was very happy that we responded to her tweet and now she knows who I am — hence, a new relationship.”

According to Jonathan, the company uses social media tools like Twitter to listen and respond to people. (One look at Jonathan’s timeline and you’ll see he carries on conversations with people versus posting product pitches).

Using social media to engage customers

As a former sales guy, Jonathan figured he should track the people he met and talked with on Twitter to see if they signed up for the company’s virtual phone system. His boss, however, disagreed with this tactic.

“David [Hauser, the CEO] said, ‘It doesn’t matter whether they signed up due to Twitter or other social media — because they *are* signing up. What we’re doing is engaging people one-on-one and over the years we’ll build a loyal fan base — which will result in sales.’”

This approach to engaging people — both prospects and customers — is the cornerstone of Grasshopper’s goal of becoming the global brand for entrepreneurship.

“When people think of entrepreneurs,” says Jonathan, “we want them to think of Grasshopper.”

Grasshopper = Entrepreneurial thinking

To meet this goal, the company is committed to helping entrepreneurs. Actions include starting The Grasslands Blog, which according to Jonathan, has been a success.

Instead of being written by one person in marketing (i.e. Jonathan), the blog has multiple authors and includes inspirational posts from the CEO to how-to tips, such as how to dial a vanity number on your BlackBerry.

The blog also includes a fabulous list of the top 10 podcasts for entrepreneurs. Writes Jonathan on the blog:

. . . a trend I’ve recognized lately is that podcasts are slowly becoming the most popular and convenient source of information. Unlike blogs, you can take them anywhere and listen to them anytime. So, being the insanely curious person I am (and going back to my opening statement), can you guess what I did? I Googled “Top Entrepreneur Podcasts.

After finding only one site which reviews podcasts for entrepreneurs, Jonathan put together a list of the top 10 podcasts for entrepreneurs — again cementing the company’s commitment to being a resource for entrepreneurs. The post was retweeted dozens of times and is now one of the top results for the search phrase.

“Tell us your story” campaign

The media find entrepreneurs interesting, says Jonathan, because entrepreneurs are different. To take advantage of this, Grasshopper has started a new “Tell Us Your Story” forum where Grasshopper customers can tell their stories. The company then tries to get press for its customers.

“This campaign is a win-win,” says Jonathan. “Our customers win with increased exposure. We win because we get to know our customers on a very detailed level. We’re learning how our customers develop new products and services, how they think, and the challenges they face as entrepreneurs.”

Grasshopper builds on these relationships by sponsoring dinners whenever team members travel. For example, David, the CEO, recently had dinner with 25 Grasshopper customers in Kansas City.

“How many people can say they had dinner with the CEO of the company they do business with?” asks Jonathan. “Not many. This type of engagement is really important to David — he definitely lives what he preaches.”

Company Facts

Founded: 2003 — Started out as GotVMail Communications after identifying the need for an easy-to-use virtual phone system for entrepreneurs that wouldn’t break the bank.

Brand: Changed name to Grasshopper in May 2009

Number of employees: 45

Physical location: Needham, MA

Product: Virtual phone system designed for entrepreneurs