Curious about Facebook and their changes to Privacy options?  This article aggregates in chronological order Facebook Privacy articles in 2010.  Learn about the wacky Privacy Updates that Facebook has made and reactions around the web on Facebook’s radical changes.

*4/19/2010* Facebook Privacy Update

• Facebook Launches New Privacy Section That May Make Your Head Hurt via TechCrunch

*4/21/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Facebook Data & Prviacy: So Much Change in 2 years via Read Write Web

*4/22/2010* Facebook’s Original Privacy Policy

• Original Facebook Privacy Policy Page via Facebook.com

*5/5/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Facebook Chat Bug Causes Invasion of Privacy For FB Users via Hudson Horizon Blog

*5/7/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles

• Evolution of Privacy on Facebook by Matt Mckeon
• Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time For An Open Alternative via Wired

*5/12/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Private Meeting Called!

• Facebook Calls All Hands On Meeting On Privacy by Huffington Post
• The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying Your Hand by Jason Calcanis  <— My Favorite article

*5/13/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Solve Your Facebook Privacy Articles in Under A Minute by Computer World blog

*5/15/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Worried About Your Facebook Privacy? Six Things You Should Know via New York Daily News

*5/16/2010* Facebook Prviacy Article – Defending Facebook (?)

• In Defense of Facebook via Mashable

*5/17/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Glitches and Reclaiming Privacy

• Facebook Privacy Glitch Exposes Your Cheesy Movie Quotes via TechCrunch
• How To: Reclaim Privacy on Facebook via Mashable

*5-18-2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Facebook Didn’t Create The Personalized Web

• No, Facebook, Your “Extraordinary Gift” Did Not Create The Personalized Web by Danny Sullivan
• 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips via Mashable

*5/19/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Facebook Privacy is NOT an Issue (to some)

• Facebook Privacy is Not An Issue by Mark Cuban
• Facebook Grapples with Privacy Issue via Wall Street Journal
• New Facebook Privacy Options Go Live – May Overwhelm Users by Read Write Web

If you still use facebook after reading these articles, let’s connect on Facebook.

B2B Content Creation for Marketing comes in many forms: Blogging, Video, Podcast, Photos, Presentations, News Releases, etc.  When done right, B2B content marketing can be extremely effective for getting high quality visitors to your website.  Today’s article is more of a rant focused on the easiest way to create long term value-added content that will continually work hard for you.  Instead of calling it “B2B Blogging,” let’s call it “B2B Content Creation.”

Barry Bowman recently published an excellent article on Search Engine Land, B2B Blogging: Let’s Call It Something Else.  Barry’s article really hit home as I have recently come across similar challenges in that some B2B Marketers look down upon the dreaded word blog. Barry likens B2B Blogging with Customer Relationship Management, and Reputation Management, which is so true!

To paraphrase some prospects that I speak with on a daily basis:

• Isn’t blogging for my son/daughter?
• Blogging is an online diary, right?
• Blogs do not have a place in the business world.

B2B Blogging Frustrations

• I don’t have time to blog (create content).
• What do I write about?
• I am not a copywriter, nor do I have an English degree.
• How do I edit and create a blog?
• Our business is very niche and our target audience doesn’t read blog articles.

The final bullet point really irks me.  Perhaps, your target audience doesn’t “subscribe” to blog articles.  Perhaps, your target audience still reads the Newspaper offline instead of consuming newspapers online.  Fine.  The question I pose to B2B Marketers is, “When your target audience is looking to solve a problem or shop for a product or service relevant to them, how do they find answers to their questions and solve their problems?”  Almost 100% of the time, the answer is: “Google.”

B2B Content Creation Helps Your Business To Rank on Google

The easiest way to Get Found by the right prospects and rank on Google is to create content (via blogging).  Throw the word blog out the window and create remarkable b2b content.  Now that we have established content creation as a mechanism that can help b2b marketers rank on Google, there are a few questions that need to be answered.

B2B Content Creation Is Not As Hard As You Think – What Should You Write About?

• As a business owner or marketer, you know your business better than an expert copywriter.
• You are passionate about your business.  Take that passion and talk about your remarkable products/services.
• You solve problems every day.  Your target audience is searching for answers to their questions that your product/service solves.

Call “B2B Blogging” what you want.  The bottom line is: B2B Content Creation will help marketers immensely to get found by their target audience. The longer you wait to produce relevant content around the problems your product/service solves, the harder it will be for you to get found by your target audience online.

Is B2B Blogging such a scary thought?

This article originally appeared on HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog on Monday, May 3rd 2010.  See the Original Article on Social Search.

Late last year, Google launched real-time search into its algorithm. What does real-time search mean to Googlers? When you perform a Google search, there is a very good chance that the most recent and relevant blog articles, news, and social media conversations related to the search query will show up in Google’s SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). Social networks ARE relevant in the eyes of Google! Now that Google is indexing social media content in real-time, how can you leverage blogs and social networks to rank on Google?

How to Use Social Media to Rank on Google

1) Trending Topics – How do you discover keywords and trending topics? A few good places to Discover Trending Topics are: Google Trends, Twitter Trending Topics and Yahoo’s Trending Now. Consistent themes across all of these tools reveal pop culture, breaking news, and sports. Once you discover a particular trending topic related to your business, the next step is to determine how you can create remarkable content that can be indexed by Google and potentially show up in their real-time SERPS?

2) Relevance: Understand the target audience for your content. What do they like? What types of activities do they enjoy? Is your target audience local? Is the target audience Gender/Race/Age Specific? Think about ways in which you can relate the trending topic to your business and prospects.

3) Schedule in Advance: Know events that will be coming up so you can create content and analogies relating your business to the local event/pop culture event/breaking news event. Major events often become the focus of trending topics. because these events are planned far in advance it is possible to create content ahead of time and publish it as the events becomes a trending topic.

4) Breaking News: When you can’t schedule in advance, you want to have your finger on the pulse of real-time search and understand what is going on in your industry. Internet marketer, business owner and blogger, Barry Schwartz recently reported Google’s real-time search results included a “top links” section for the keyword “plane crash” after the tragic news of Poland’s president and over 90 others killed. The Top Links section shows the most popular and authoritative links based on the search query.

I am not advocating creating content around every trending topic related to pop-culture, sporting events and/or breaking news.  Rather, think about those trending topics and how they may relate to your business. Can you create content around one of these topics that provides value to your customers?

While there is no “guarantee” that you will show up in Google’s real-time search results, you want to understand what topics will trend and be covered by major media outlets, bloggers, and talked about on social media networks and then create remarkable content that is relevant to your business AND the event.

I’m a big fan of Social Media.  You probably know that if we are connected on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.   I recently stumbled upon Drew McLellan’s Social Media Cheat Sheet (see to the right) and had a few thoughts on it as it relates to business.  Drew is a public speaker and gets questions from his audiences on which social media networks should be used for business.  His response to that question is prefaced with:

Social Media Cheat Sheet

there is no single, magic or easy answer to that question.  It all depends on your goals, your overall marketing strategy, your resources and your industry.  It’s not a cookie cutter sort of thing.

I agree.  Goals must be defined, marketing strategy, target audience, time and resources are all factors that must be taken into consideration prior to identifying which social media networks should be used for business.  Drew then took the next step and created “The CMO’s Guide To THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE,” describing the business value of 10 social media networks.

Today is March 21, 2010 (and the first day of golf season-totally unrelated side-note).  If a CMO has not familiarized themselves with the top Social Media Networks and the business value to social media marketing, then they need to do their homework.  Social Media Marketing can have a potentially large impact, on both short term and long term goals, for just about any business.

The Social Media Cheat Sheet certainly adds value to anyone unfamiliar with Social Media Networks, but I want to make one thing clear:

B2B Social Media Marketing Is Useless Without a Business Blog

B2B Companies that create LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook pages for Business, with the intention of generating quality traffic to their website and converting that traffic into leads are setting themselves up for failure without a business blog.  I speak with business owners and marketers on a daily basis that are trying to figure out why their social media marketing strategy has not yet worked and very few of them have blogs.

Why is blogging important?  Stay tuned for my next post on the “Value of B2B Blogging.”

Post Image Attribution

Let me start off by saying that I enjoy LinkedIn and its functionality. LinkedIn has helped me stay in touch with family, friends,  and colleagues in a business capacity and ultimately helped me connect with like-minded people.  Social Media Networks like LinkedIn have opened the door for traditional sales representatives to connect with spam members of the same LinkedIn Group.

I recently received this spam email and wanted to share what NOT to do when using LinkedIn for Business. [The Spammer will remain anonymous, but the content of the email will not.]

How To Fail At Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn Email Spam Headline

LinkedIn Spam Email Title

How did I get spammed?  I share a LinkedIn group with the spammer, opening up the opportunity for the spammer to contact me via email.  The Title of the email is “Build your sales pipeline.”  Ugh. Really?  Yes, I am a “Sales Representative” but, really?

LinkedIn Spam Email Introduction

LinkedIn Spam Email Intro

The Spammer says, “Hi” but does not reference me.  If you are going to spam someone via email, at least have the courtesy of personalizing your message.  If the spammer was genuine, I may have responded to the email.

Want to fully understand how to use LinkedIn and learn LinkedIn Best Practices from The Inbound Marketing LinkedIn Group?  Here is a video and eBook:  LinkedIn Best Practices from LinkedIn’s Top Marketing Community

Many questions need to be asked prior to creating a B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy.  Who is your Target Audience? What are your businesses goals?  Are you looking to increase brand awareness?  Are you looking to generate leads for your business?  Are you looking to use Social Media Marketing for customer service?

4 Rules for Creating an effective B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy

Rule #1: Identify your Target Audience. Know who your prospects are and try to understand their online behavior.  By knowing your target audience, you can do keyword research to develop content for engaging with peers online.

Rule #2:  Start a Blog.  Do NOT host a blog with blogspot or Wordpress.  Rather, create a sub-directory or sub-domain on your business’s domain (ie. www.YourBusiness.com/Blog or Blog.YourBusiness.com).  Think of your blog as your Social Media Hub.  Use your blog to establish credibility and authority amongst your peers online.

Rule #3:  Get Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin Accounts. Sign up for all three of these Social Media Networks and link back to your Blog (your social media hub).  Create online profiles so your friends, colleagues and prospects know that you exist online.  Search all three social networks using keywords that are relevant to you and your industry.  Connect with industry peers.  Be positive.

Rule #4:  Commit, Optimize and Engage. Commit to a Social Media Strategy that makes sense for your business.  The commitment should be in terms of time spent writing new blog posts each week, and engaging in social media networks.  Commit to writing a minimum of 2 blog posts per week.  Optimize those blog posts for search engines by using keywords relevant to you and your industry.  Engage in the online conversation by reading other industry blogs, commenting on them and linking back to your blog.

Industry related conversations are happening online as I type.  It is time for your business to create a social media marketing strategy and join the “never ending cocktail party online.”

Brian Carter, an Internet Marketing Expert and Director of Social Media, SEO, and PPC at Fuel Interactive put together an excellent presentation on “How to Create Business and Find New Business Opportunities with Social Media and Social Networking” below: