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News & Trends

LinkedIn is launching a new series showcasing the best young thought leaders on its site. LinknedIn says the authors will include 150 professionals – all under 35 years of age – who are creating innovative ways to tackle problems and establishing themselves as future leaders. In effect, it’s a crowdsourced digital magazine, the content of which costs LinkedIn nothing. They pay the writers in recognition, social capital and potential business. It’s a brilliant example of how the value of a strong professional community can be extended in new ways.

EMarketer now predicts that mobile ad spending will comprise a majority of digital ad spending this year and will own 70% of the digital ad market by 2019. Do you need any further evidence of the importance of this channel to marketers? Even if you don’t see mobile being a major component of your programs anytime soon, you need to follow your customers around to see how they’re using mobile devices professionally so that you can find where opportunities may lie.

Virtual reality (VR) is close to becoming a mainstream sales tool, writes David Kirkpatrick on MarketingDive, and B2Bs should take note. There are many ways VR can be used in the buying cycle, everything from showing meeting planners potential conference space to co-designing factories in three dimensions with manufacturing engineers. The cost of equipment is reaching the tipping point, which means first movers could get a significant edge.

Special Guest: Jim Cahill, Emerson Process Experts

Jim Cahill launched the Emerson Process Experts blog in 2006, when there were barely one million people blogging and most of them were writing about entertainment, politics and food. The Emerson blog was something different: it featured tightly focused, no-nonsense content from process control engineers about issues that mattered to them. Customers and prospects loved it.

Nine years and thousands of updates later, Emerson Process Experts draws more than 25,000 visitors per month and yields a steady stream of leads. Subject-matter experts are so tuned into its value that Cahill says he no longer has to recruit contributors. Emerson is active on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, SlideShare and other places thanks to the success of its social media efforts. And Jim Cahill remains a modest and grateful former engineer who just likes to share good material.

Follow Jim Cahill on Twitter.

About Paul Gillin

Paul Gillin, host of FIR B2B, is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. Full bio