Credit: Intersection Consulting.

A new study from Connected Marketer and DemandGen Inside the Mind of the New BtoB Buyer reveals some very interesting shifts in the behavior of BtoB buyers. 

Push vs Pull

Traditionally information and material about a product or service originated from the company, was evaluated by analysts and distributed by the sales reps.  Now buyers have access to reviews and comparisons online.  They are finding their informaion is many places. They are talking to their peers.

“The buyer is armed with even more information and leverage. Sales and marketing professionals need to recognize and embrace this in order to succeed in today’s market.”

The New Influences in the Buying Process

BtoB buyers are actively using social media in many steps along the path of the purchase-making decision...

Why does personal branding accelerate your growth both personally and professionally? It is because when you create an influential and credible personal brand you are playing the game and giving yourself the opportunity to gate jump.

Here are 5 personal branding tips to help you gain lift:

1.) Identify and introduce yourself to 10 strong personal brands in your niche through Linkedin

When you know the people with juice in your niche and you begin to develop a relationship with them, opportunities will come your way. A great way to start the introduction is to read one of their blog posts and let them know what you thought of their work in the introduction...

Twitter remains blocked in China, but that has not stopped Twitter-like activity.

Similar to other foreign Web 2.0 services that the government keeps out, China’s vibrant web sector has created domestic alternatives.

This graph from CIC Data shows that almost 40% of the online buzz they found around the Toyota recall on the day that Toyota president Akio Toyoda spoke in China about the issue came from Sina’s micro-blog.

Note that this is a measure of volume, not impact. A well considered posting on a particular blog or forum may well have had more impact. But it does show that micro-blogs are growing in importance in China for breaking news events...

The Million Follower Fallacy: Audience Size Doesn’t Prove Influence on Twitter, on Read Write Web, cites a recent survey that found “Twitter follower count is somewhat of a meaningless metric when it comes to determining influence.” I was excited that finally someone realized that these numerical measures were totally unrelated to influence. My excitement was short lived, however, as I read:

“They then went on to measure various statistics about these accounts, including audience size, retweet influence and mention influence. The conclusion? Those with the largest number of followers may be ‘popular’ Twitterers, but that’s not necessarily related to their influence. High follower counts don’t always mean someone is being retweeted or mentioned in any meaningful ways.”

“Retweet influence”? “Mention influence”? I have yet to see any of these things linked directly to real influence...

Do you know the Page Rank of your Twitter Home Page? You may be surprised to find it is a lot higher than you think it is – and you probably achieved it without even thinking about it.

For example, the Page Rank for my blog home page is 5 – and that’s taken a little while to get to, not withstanding the blood, sweat and tears of creating and maintaining content. In the course of some client work recently...

 While there are those few companies that do it very well many of them don't have a presence or if they do it's a lame attempt.

Here is my list of the 4 Reasons Why Companies aren't on Social Media...

Google Analytics might be one of the best things that Google "Robin Hooded" to website owners large and small. The analytics package provides incredible functionality and does so for not a dime.  That combination of functionality and free have lead to massive market share for Analytics.  One estimate last year put Google Analytics at a whopping 80%, while another fell slightly shorter, but still impressive at 74%.

It’s been a win-win for Google and for the sites that use the tool to measure their efforts, but a post on the Google Analytics blog today should have some eyebrows raising.  The post is short, titled:

More choice for users: browser-based opt-out for Google Analytics on the way

Maybe Google realizes they need to earn back some “do no evil” sentiment from the population at large.  Maybe there’s a clever reason why it’s best that you not know what happens with the traffic on your site...