Bad news. Yearly media planning is dead. Gone are the days we could plan out placements for the whole year — set it and forget it.

Good news. Media planning is now 24/7. You get to do it every day! (Don’t look so excited.) It’s not easy, but it is worth it. Advertising and media have moved from planning to really understanding your audience all of the time. This will be your greatest competitive advantage.

So, let’s get right to it. The best way to form a successful media campaign is to build the right engagement with your audience. What do you want your customers and prospects to do? Think in terms of actions.

Do you want your audience to:

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First and foremost, having a social media crisis plan in place and being prepared is the best way to minimize negative press when such a situation arises. A crisis plan will be vital if there is any type of scandal, tragedy or wrong-doing on your end. Each crisis plan is different, but it’s definitely not something you want to wait on and try to figure out while things are falling apart around you.

Using social media opens you up to a certain amount of negative feedback, which is unavoidable. It is important not to take these negative comments personally, and resist the urge to get into an online argument. This just makes you look bad. Try to view negative comments as constructive feedback and strive to improve.

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From Harold Camping predicting the Rapture, to the Philadelphia Eagles in the Superbowl, to Conde Naste Traveler citing Libya as “One of the 15 Places to See Right Now” just days before NATO started airstrikes, 2011 was filled with the usual assortment of horrible predictions. And yet we persist in prognosticating every January. While some are predicting gold to surpass $2500 an ounce (don’t count on it), I’m going to give you three sure-fire, can’t-miss, stone-cold locks that you can bet the house on.

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Each year, B2B marketers around the world are surveyed about their priorities. Lead generation always stands out as one of the top three. The results of a recent survey by Focus Research and eMarketer are no different: 55 percent of those surveyed ranked lead generation as their No. 1 priority.

So, with the complicated and every-changing landscape of media and marketing, where do you find quality leads?

To get the answer to this question, check out my guest post at PBP Media’s blog. PBP Media is a digital advertising company helping marketers increase sales through targeted lead generation programs. We’re looking forward to guest blogging on content marketing and lead generation for PBP in the future.

The official holiday shopping season is in full swing! The state of the economy may seem cold and fragile, but the electronic tablet market is blazing hot. This year the sleigh is filled with a variety of tablets including the Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom,  Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Samsung Galaxy Tab and more. Regardless of manufacturer, tablets will win the coveted title of “No. 1 Must Buy Item” this holiday season.

Why is this consumer shopping phenomenon so important to B2B marketers? Electronic tablets mark the beginning of the next major wave in disruptive technology and next stages of adoption life cycle (“crossing of the chasm” for you Geoffrey Moore fans) that will also change the face of B2B marketing. This holiday shopping season is the catalyst triggering the mass-adoption of tablets; however, much bigger forces such as convergence, maturing technology, and new behavioral and social acceptance are the real driving factors.

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While attending last week’s SocialMediaPlus summit in Philadelphia, I ruminated on the following: B2B companies still haven’t grasped the power of social media marketing.

It’s well-known that about 70 percent of today’s B2B buying process happens online. Furthermore, about 60 percent of B2B decision makers use social media. That sounds promising, right? Well, it would be if it weren’t for the following stats presented at the conference:

• Forty percent of B2B companies have little insight into where customers and prospects spend time online.

• Around 60 percent of B2B companies don’t know how to track leads and revenue from social media.

With numbers like that, it stands to reason why the next statistic is so high: Seventy-three percent of CEOs don’t believe marketing drives revenue. Yikes! That’s just marketing in general. I can only imagine the percentage is higher when looking specifically to social media marketing.

Tools for social media measurement are available, and the marketing world is rife with social media experts just waiting to help B2B companies jump start their social networking. So why aren’t B2B companies doing better?

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A recent comScore survey found that in June 2011, 14 million mobile users in the U.S. scanned a QR code on their mobile device – 19.7% of those scans were done at work. I think it’s safe to say this isn’t a fad.

But, where does it make sense for B2B marketers?  Our client, Sartomer USA, recently used a QR code in an ad that ran in Paint & Coatings Industry magazine. Their use, and that of a few other advertisers, prompted the editor to discuss it in her editorial column. “Lately, mobile tags are everywhere, and gaining popularity…” This is the perspective of someone who lives and breathes B2B everyday.

QR Codes can be a successful tool in various applications for B2B Marketers:

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Branding and rebranding are delicate – much more so than most organizations believe.  Usually the most valuable work the communications agency can provide its client is not a catchy tagline or a spiffy logo, but the guidance for implementing the changes that come out of branding efforts.

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When it comes to lead generation, the Internet is the single most important tool employed by marketers today. Google Ad Words, tweets, press releases, online advertising — these are all great tactics for capturing your audience’s attention and generating traffic. But the question arises, “Once you pique their interest, how effective in converting these visitors into leads is the website you’re sending them to?”

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What is web-centric marketing? Well, for starters, it’s a lot like pheasant hunting.

Never been pheasant hunting? Doesn’t matter, neither have I. But I’ve seen it in the movies. Follow along with me here.

Picture it: A pack of dogs rushing headlong into the tall grass with hunters walking further back, rifles at the ready. The activity of the dogs chases the pheasants out of the cover of the grass. They take flight — flushed right out into the open and into the waiting sights of the hunters.

Bang. Bang. Bang. The hunters get the game. That’s web-centric marketing.

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