In B2B social media, the best results come with great content. With this content, you can showcase expertise and provide helpful insight; you can attract attention and make clients and customers interested in you and your company’s services. Forms, outlets and advice for how to advance content are numerous, though often hard to narrow down and use to formulate a strong content marketing strategy. Here are five of the most useful hidden secrets used to create and ensure great content is shared, liked and remains visible amongst the vast amount of posts and publications within web 2.0.

1. Goals: Have an intention and keep it in mind

It is fairly simple to create great content that has nothing to do with you and your business. This content might be pleasing (maybe even be shared and liked), but it will not get you the professional results you are looking for if it does not advance, intrigue or motivate your target audience. If your content is off topic, your audience will be, too. Entertain your target readers, but be sure you are clear about with whom you are speaking and what you wish to achieve.

Concentrate on content that is somehow related to your field of expertise, but keep in mind that people from your industry will want to establish leadership on similar topics. To combat this, consider taking a slightly uncommon angle or opinion to make you (and your content) more memorable.

Alert: When thinking about topics for your content, also consider where you will publish and push your message. The same audience might consume the same content differently on alternate channels. Getting to know each of your channels and what type of information is best consumed there will help achieve maximum results for each piece of content you produce. The ‘right’ content depends on the knowledge and expertise of your audience, as well as their desires in different places.

2. Provide useful and engaging information

Your content should help you become discovered by being a trustworthy source that continually provides information the audience wants and needs.

Take into account: In the world of web 2.0, the audience has no obligation to read (or finish reading) your content. It is up to you to make them stay with you and read on. The best way to achieve this is to give them something they can utilize – information that resonates with their personal goals, motivates action, entertains, endures and help advances (their) business transactions. The more helpful and engaging your information comes across, the bigger the chance your audience will stay interested.

3. Don’t be a bore

The best information will remain undiscovered if it lacks a certain level of entertainment. Even with content strong enough to inspired the reader to finish the entire piece, they (most often) will only remember a fraction of what you have said. With this reality, we understand the importance of creating content that leaves a lasting impression. Be smart, but be bold – or your content will be buried before it is ever seen.

Have hope: Even the driest and most seemingly serious piece of information can be explained in an entertaining way. With a strong narrative, your story will stimulate the reader – allowing him or her to stay alert and engage with your message. If you are informed while being entertained, are you not inspired to share and then return for more?

4. Make it personal

There is one unique selling proposition that no one can imitate or take away for you: your personality. Keep in mind that even in social media and online networks, people connect to people rather than machines or companies. Personality plays an important role in your social media and content marketing efforts.

In B2B, where business decisions take time, consideration and background information – personality can be the decisive factor for closing an important business deal. The larger the deal, the more time is spent on the decision-making process – thoroughly investigating the company and people involved. In content marketing, high-quality content should communicate a personality which inspires sympathy and trust – the (first, most) important step towards generating lasting connections.

Just think: Even with a stellar product or service, chances are high that someone else offers a service or product that addresses similar problems. Your personality can be the decisive factor to sway your target audience your way. Has a gut feeling, impulse or empathy ever motivate you to make a professional decision?

5. Communication is a two-way street

Content marketing is not about shouting. The goal within content marketing is to connect with your audience. Make it as easy as possible for your audience to get in touch with you. With this in mind – be patient. The first contact will most often not take place via email or telephone; rather, it will happen via comments on article posts, twitter or a news aggregate network.

Include as much contact information (i.e. Twitter, company profile …) as possible in your profile to make it easy for people to connect with you both on and offline. Make it a priority to respond to the people who have taken the time to contact you: this is the first step in forming the valuable connections you need for your business to survive. This is also the foundation for building a following on your social media channels.

Remember: While responding to those who have reached out is of vital importance, a necessary element for establish a healthy dialogue is to listen to the conversations of people who are in – and interested in – your industry. Your responses will be much more effective if it is clear you have been listening before you give feedback.

To sum it up…
If you manage to include at least a fraction of these aspects into your content – you are on the right track. Will time, your audience will guide on you how to get better at addressing the right people with the right content. They will indicate what they like, what they don’t like, what topics they are interested in and what they need from you in order to become a loyal audience member.

Residential real estate prices fell in April at the slowest pace in more than a year, adding to signs the U.S. housing market was firming.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities dropped 1.9 percent in April from the same month in 2011, the smallest decline since November 2010, after decreasing 2.6 percent in the year ended March, the group said today in New York. The median forecast of 28 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected a 2.5 percent drop.

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Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fall at Slowest Pace

Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

A Toll Brothers Inc. model home stands in Randolph, New Jersey.

A Toll Brothers Inc. model home stands in Randolph, New Jersey. Photographer: Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

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June 26 (Bloomberg) — David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc., discusses the outlook for the U.S. economy, Europe’s debt crisis and financials. Rosenberg talks with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen and Ken Prewitt on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance.” Bloomberg’s Christine Harper also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

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June 26 (Bloomberg) — Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, talks about the outlook for the U.S. housing market and economy. Low talks with Tom Keene, Ken Prewitt and Sara Eisen on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)

A turnaround in prices is a necessary step toward luring more buyers and sustaining demand for housing, which is starting to stabilize after precipitating the last recession almost five years ago. Record-low borrowing costs, due in part to Federal Reserve efforts to hold down long-term rates, may keep promoting home sales in the presence of an 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

“Housing has picked up since the middle of last year,” said Ryan Wang, an economist at HSBC Securities USA Inc. in New York, who correctly forecast the monthly gain in prices. “Sales have improved and the inventory of homes for sale has been falling, which has brought a bit more balance into the market and fed into a bit of stabilization of prices.”

Estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from declines of 1.7 percent to 3.1 percent. The Case-Shiller index is based on a three-month average, which means the April data was influenced by transactions in March and February.

Stocks Rise

Stock-index futures extended earlier gains after the report. The contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index maturing in September rose 0.2 percent to 1,309 at 9:22 a.m. in New York.

Home prices adjusted for seasonal variations climbed 0.7 percent in April, matching the prior month’s gain, which was revised up from a previously reported 0.1 percent increase. It was the best back-to-back gain since mid 2009. Unadjusted prices increased 1.3 percent in April as 19 of 20 cities showed gains.

Phoenix showed the biggest adjusted monthly increase, with prices rising 2.5 percent from March. Detroit showed the biggest decrease at 2.1 percent.

The year-over-year gauge provides better indications of trends in prices, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller group. The panel includes Karl Case and Robert Shiller, the economists who created the index.

Ten of the 20 cities in the index showed a year-over-year decline, led by a 17 percent drop in Atlanta, the only city to show a double-digit decrease.

Phoenix Rises

Phoenix showed the biggest year-over-year increase, with prices rising 8.6 percent in the 12 months to April.

“We finally saw some rising home prices,” David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, said in a statement. “While one month does not make a trend, particularly during seasonally strong buying months, the combination of rising positive monthly index levels and improving annual returns is a good sign.”

Prices may be on an upward trajectory as the glut of unsold houses that went on the market after the recession shrinks. There were 2.49 million existing homes for sale in May, down from an average supply of 2.93 million in 2011 and 3.22 million in 2010, data from the National Association of Realtors show.

The same NAR report indicated the median price of an existing home climbed 7.9 percent to $182,600 last month, the highest since June 2010, from $169,300 in May 2011.

More Traffic

“Nobody feels like prices are going down anymore,” Larry Nicholson, president and chief executive officer of homebuilder Ryland Group Inc. (RYL), said during a June 13 investor conference. “Everything we see now would tell us the second half of the year will be better than last year. We’re seeing the quality of the traffic pick up. We’re seeing new traffic. The business has gotten better and moving back towards a normalized process.”

Helping potential buyers step into the market, the average rate on a 30-year fixed loan dropped to 3.66 percent last week, the lowest in data going back to 1972, according to Freddie Mac.

Even so, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said last week the economy wasn’t getting a typical boost from a real estate recovery. To spur faster economic growth and more activity in housing, the central bank announced last week it would buy securities to extend the maturities of assets on its balance sheet, thereby lowering longer-term interest rates.

Bloomberg Table

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1-months 3-months 1-year 2-years 3-years

earlier earlier earlier earlier earlier ============================================================ US Composite-20 1.28% 0.41% -1.90% -6.06% -2.48% ————————————————————San Francisco 3.39% 3.78% -1.36% -6.84% 9.92% Washington DC 2.77% 2.33% 1.58% 1.00% 8.37% Phoenix 2.47% 6.00% 8.62% -0.95% 4.37% Atlanta 2.35% -1.10% -17.00% -20.05% -19.84% Cleveland 2.32% 1.38% -1.27% -7.56% -1.24% Portland 2.02% 1.28% -0.92% -10.00% -10.37% Seattle 1.99% 2.93% -0.96% -7.79% -10.40% Tampa 1.87% 2.67% 0.81% -7.02% -9.22% Dallas 1.70% 3.36% 2.82% -1.46% 1.89% ============================================================

1-months 3-months 1-year 2-years 3-years

earlier earlier earlier earlier earlier ============================================================ Denver 1.69% 2.30% 2.80% -1.37% 2.95% Charlotte 1.60% 2.42% 0.76% -4.19% -6.32% Los Angeles 1.53% 0.88% -3.57% -5.59% 1.76% San Diego 1.38% 2.02% -1.78% -5.97% 5.07% Chicago 1.12% -3.88% -5.63% -13.71% -15.08% Las Vegas 1.08% 0.65% -5.84% -11.65% -19.18% Boston 0.87% -0.45% 0.09% -4.15% 0.51% Minneapolis 0.51% -1.33% 3.80% -7.97% 1.12% Miami 0.40% 1.98% 3.17% -2.56% -3.05% New York 0.13% -1.87% -3.77% -6.60% -7.59% Detroit -3.62% -7.14% 1.23% -3.76% -6.66%

It remains a buyer’s market in Spain, as desperate vendors continue to slash asking prices in a bid to attract more homebuyers, according to the latest data from property portal idealista.

The figures reveal that over half – 54% – of existing vendors reduced their asking prices by an average of 12% in May compared to the same month last year.

The reduction in property asking prices is pretty much in line with the latest property price index from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which shows that average Spanish house prices fell 12.6% in Q1 compared to corresponding month last year, with the greatest decline – 13.3% recorded in the resale market.

The latest INE index represents the greatest year-on-year fall in prices since the housing crisis started, with the biggest declines of almost 15% in regions like the Balearics and Catalonia.

Despite the recession in Spain and the dire state of the country’s property market, there is mounting evidence to suggest that more international homebuyers are looking to take advantage of cheaper property prices.

Over 3.2m searches were conducted on Rightmove Overseas in May, with Spain accounting for a quarter of all searches on the website. Traditional locations, such as Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, are the main areas of interest.

Crazy right?  Who in their right mind would make a silly claim about a network that has close to 900 million active users with average usage times close to 20 minutes per day?  The fact is, no one is bullet proof.  Ask Yahoo, MySpace or ….., all major networks that ruled heavily at one time and all which fell from grace to other up and comers.

I’ve felt a growing sense that Facebook might have already peaked and is currently beginning to slide.  The only missing piece to truly escalate that slide is an alternative to do better what Facebook fails at.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

That being said, here are the 5 reasons I think Facebook is on the decline:

1. All The Numbers Are Starting To Say So.  According to numbers cited on The Inquistir, in April Facebook witnessed 158 million US unique visitors, only 5% higher than 2011 numbers. While 5% growth may not seem horrendous, it’s a drastically big decline from April 2011 when Facebook witnessed 24% growth and far worse than April 2010 when the social network had an 89% growth rate.  Facebook points out that users are now spending up to six hours per month on the social network, up by 16% during the same 2011 period, however that rate of increase is also slowing, jumping by only 23% from last year compared to 57% in 2010.  Throw in the disappointing stock showing, and you have quite a few numbers pointing to some trouble.

2. Their Apps Are Terrible.  How a network as large as Facebook can take such a lacksidaisical approach to their mobile app development is mind boggling to me.  While I have not experienced their mobile apps outside of Apple devices, their iPhone and iPad apps are horrendous.  Terribly slow, they crash frequently, and often times they are simply unusable.  Now, it’s clearly obvious why this has been the case…Facebook doesn’t make any money with their mobile apps.  They want users on the actual website.  Fair enough.  But ignoring a mobile audience for so long is a death sentence.  Especially with the sheer growth of mobile penetration across the world.  They may figure out how to monetize mobile, but clearly they are opening up the door for someone else to come along and get the mobile social experience right.

3. Their Website Is And Has Been A Mess.  While I actually like the new Timeline layout, it has received mostly negative backlash.  But more importantly, I’ve just never found the Facebook site to be all that intuitive when it comes to managing those you are connected with.  Sure you can create lists of folks, and have features available to you, but the execution just seems terribly over convoluted.  If I can’t figure out how to do certain things quickly and easily, then I can assure you folks who aren’t as seasoned on a computer will be even more.  The problem here is that generally people have short attention spans, and are easily distracted.  If Facebook doesn’t do a better job at delivering a world class user experience, they again are opening up the door to someone else to do so and lose users.

4. The Ad Platform Doesn’t Deliver.  I’ve used Facebook Ads a ton.  In some cases, they can be a useful tool to build reach and connect with the right folks.  The targeting options are fantastic, but that’s it.  The bottom line is that Facebook Ads fail to deliver true business results for most organizations and the exodus is beginning (See General Motors?).  They are also very hard to measure beyond Facebook’s own home grown stats, Facebook Insights, which are pretty terrible in their own right.  If they can’t deliver true value with their ad products, there goes their revenue stream.

5. They Do Not Care About Users.  Have you ever heard anyone ever say something positive about Facebook when it comes to customer service, feedback consideration or anything when it comes to community interaction?  Does anyone have any sense that they could feasibly influence a feature or improvement for the platform?  Nope.  Yes, managing 950 million users is a daunting task, but I’ve never really understood why Facebook never considered  a world class community set up like Dell’s IdeaStorm or My Starbucks Idea.  In addition to crowd sourcing great ideas, the good will that comes from platforms like this is priceless.

Regardless of these or any other reasons, it’s not like Facebook is going anywhere anytime soon.  But given these and a number of any other missteps, there’s no reason to think that Facebook can one day be yesterday’s news.  It’s happened numerous times in the past, and likely to happen again.  What say you?

Ever since its inception in 2004, Facebook has been on an unstoppable march to become the most influential social media platform around, and one of the most powerful brands of all time. It didn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s brain child long to overtake early social networks like Bebo and Myspace, and with a 900 million strong user base as well as the vast majority of businesses having a presence there, could we ever see the day when Facebook is dethroned?
Believe it or not, there are various signifiers that are suggesting that Facebook’s best days may very well be behind it.

The IPO Was Disappointing

Anticipated with the same level of excitement and hot air usually reserved for a Royal wedding, the Facebook IPO was nothing short of a fiasco. After closing flat on its first day and down a massive 18% by its third, there were many excuses cited for the poor showing. The late opening due to mistakes made by NASDAQ certainly didn’t help but more concerning reasons were offered, such as investor caution over investing in social media and the suggestion it could be overvalued.

General Motors Pulls Advertising

One of the reasons put forward for the cool reception Facebook’s IPO received was GM pulling their paid advertising was a huge blow for the social media giant. Analysts have long debated the true value of a company that offers no paid for service to users, and one of the biggest names in car manufacturing removing their money was a massive vote of no confidence.
The reason for this decision by General Motors could barely have made more unpleasant reading for Zuckerberg and pals, as they claimed they had found their paid for ads to be ‘ineffective’ and having ‘little impact on consumers’.
Given that a vast majority of their 2011 revenue came in the form of advertising, this news could be a major warning for the long-term future of Facebook.

Their Popularity is Slipping

It seems bizarre to question the popularity of something that was nearly 1 billion users worldwide, but rumblings of discontent have been sounding for some time now. It seems that Facebook can’t put out an update without groundswells of opposition rising up against it, and the case of Timeline is no exception. In October this year if you have not already made the switch and adopted Timeline it will be done for you, angering many users who prefer the simple, no-frills layout. Coupled with continuing concerns over privacy, it often seems that Facebook is deliberately trying to irritate and alienate its users.
The figures bear this out as well. The user base growth has been slowing for some time, and it has fallen from 8.39 new users per second in July 2010 to just five in December 2011. As well as this, Facebook has been slowly losing its social media dominance according to recently released comScore data, revealing that the number of members that also used other platforms doubled in 2012 compared to the previous year. Although this doesn’t mean that these users are planning on leaving Facebook, it does suggest that we are less reliant on it than we once were.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Despite all of this, the game is far from up for Facebook. As its membership approaches the magic 1 billion figure it has arguably weaved its way so intrinsically into our lives that it has put itself into such an incredibly strong position that it can weather almost anything.
Also, there are few up-and-coming platforms that look set to realistically rival Facebook. Twitter and Pinterest are serious social media players, but it is uncertain whether they could genuinely replace Facebook. Meanwhile, the launch of Google+ has been met with a lukewarm reception, and it certainly has a very long way to go to get near the levels of success that Facebook has achieved.
Ultimately, the internet is a fickle mistress, and as the burst of the Dot Com bubble showed, companies that are given massive valuations on the markets can be reduced to nothing. With all of that considered, with a valuation of $100 billion dollars and a prominent part in modern life, it will take one hell of a storm to topple the King of the social networks.