5 Things On My B2B Wishlist For 2010

It’s that time of year again where we tend to reflect on the past year and look forward to a fresh start. People are already writing some amazing content about great B2B articles in 2009, B2B social media predictions for 2010, and ideas for improving your B2B search results in 2010. I am going to […]

Chat with SearchBot

It’s that time of year again where we tend to reflect on the past year and look forward to a fresh start.

People are already writing some amazing content about great B2B articles in 2009, B2B social media predictions for 2010, and ideas for improving your B2B search results in 2010.

I am going to take a slightly different spin looking ahead into the next year, and share my own personal wish list for B2B search and social media marketing in 2010:

1) Flexible budgets

Given the rough ride the economy has given companies the past year and a half, it is no surprise that many of us who speak with marketing executives on a regular basis are hearing that they are being asked to put together conservative budgets for 2010. I hope that as 2010 progresses, we will see companies incorporate any financial success they may realize back into revised budgets in order to take advantage of opportunities (if you don’t, someone else will and they’ll take “your” leads).

2) More Universal search results

Back in 2007 Robert Murray, iProspect’s CEO, identified an opportunity for B2B search in Google’s Universal Search “product”. Murray was spot on, and we have seen an increase in the frequency and variety of content types in Google search results (news, book search, shopping results, images, video, etc.). I wish that in 2010 Google will further integrate various content types into business-related searches in order to give us a starting point for finding interesting and valuable information. I’d like to see more videos and diagrams find their way into page 1 (and page 2) SERPs.

3) Deeper integration of social media and search

One could easily argue that this is happening already, and at a rapid pace. The social communities and search engines themselves are charging ahead with integrating our favorite communities into the world of search. In 2010, I wish for more companies to adopt a comprehensive approach to embracing their presence in social communities and working to tie the two together. As an example, in my last column, I provided a concept of how to tie PPC landing pages and social media together.

4) Keep LinkedIn for B2B and Facebook for fun

LinkedIn has had some severely limited functionality in the past, at least compared to Facebook (and MySpace), which I believe has contributed to companies setting up Facebook pages and Groups to market their businesses. My wish for 2010 is that LinkedIn push to enhance its functionality and features (both for individual profiles and for company pages) and give B2B companies a reason to leave Facebook to friends, family, fun and good-old-fashioned consumer marketing. LinkedIn: please give us Facebook for B2B! Or, Facebook, maybe we could see you do Facebook B2B?

5) Marketing & Sales collaborate and share

In 2010, I’d like to see more internal corporate Marketing and Sales teams collaborate on search engine marketing and social media marketing initiatives, and share data about what’s working and what’s not. One can dream…


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Andy Komack
Contributor
Andy Komack is the founder and former president of KoMarketing Associates, LLC, a search engine marketing firm based in Waltham, MA. Andy is has been in the search marketing field since early 2000. He holds an MBA from Babson College. You can learn more about what he does at www.andykomack.com and can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/akomack.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.