T-Mobile Office Connect is the mobile carrier’s communications solution for businesses. It will integrate T-Mobile’s 4G network to enable “desk phone features on mobile devices. The carrier claims that employees will then only need one number and voicemail box to manage all of their business contacts, and that desk phone to mobile transfers will be smooth. The service will also allow customers to route international calls through “the least expensive option” and bills long-distance calls at business rates.

T-Mobile is pricing Office Connect at $9.95 per month per line, which includes hardware, software licenses, and installation costs.

“Today, mobile devices are critical extensions of an organization’s business infrastructure,” said Frank Sickinger, T-Mobile’s SVP of B2B. “Therefore, making and protecting strategic mobile investments are more pivotal than ever before. Our new unified communications and equipment financing solutions demonstrate T-Mobile’s commitment, as the ‘Un-Carrier’, to challenge the status quo for our B2B customers.”

T-Mobile also announced its Mobile Device Payment Solution (MDPS), a service designed to allow business to finance the cost of devices over time. The carrier claims the service has “competitive rates” and can be offered at no interest with the proper credit approval. Qualified Corporate Liable (CL) businesses will be able to reserve capital and finance upfront costs through third-party lender CFS.

“We’ve always been big fans of Ryan Holmes and the HootSuite team, since the days we were all pioneering the social media landscape.” said Seesmic CEO Loïc Le Meur. “We’re thrilled today to announce that Seesmic is joining HootSuite, and we’re excited for our users: they are becoming part of the HootSuite family, and they will be able to continue to build their brand and social business.”

HootSuite and Seesmic were founded around the same time in 2008, though it took a year for Seesmic to move into its social network marketing platform development. HootSuite focuses heavily on marketing its services to its business clients, which it says includes 79 of the Fortune 100 companies. Over the past year, HootSuite has added support for many niche and business social platforms.

“I have always had a lot of respect for Seesmic’s CEO, Loïc Le Meur, and the role Seesmic has played in advancing social business.” said HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes. “We are thrilled to welcome Seesmic’s users into the HootSuite family.”

Details of the acquisition, including how much HootSuite paid for Seesmic, have not been disclosed. In addition, HootSuite was vague on what the future holds for the Seesmic client. HootSuite did, however, invite Seesmic business customers to subscribe to HootSuite Pro, suggesting that Seesmic may be shut down or rolled into HootSuite in some way. Whatever the case, its clear that HootSuite acquired Seesmic for its talent and clients, not its platform.

Computer Shopper was founded in 1979, and was once a bible-thick tome of computer wares geared toward technology enthusiasts. It was originally bought by Ziff Davis in 1993, but then sold a decade later to CNET. After a few more switchings of hands, Ziff Davis again owns its evolved iteration, ComputerShopper.com.

Interestingly, Ziff Davis was founded in 1927 in Chicago by William B. Ziff, Sr. and Bernard G. Davis. The company began to shift a focus on tech in 1980, but eventually filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2008, which prompted a court-supervised restructuring in 2009. Eventually in 2010, former Time Magazine executive Vivek Shah, backed by Boston private equity firm Great Hill Partners, stepped in to acquire of Ziff Davis Inc., calling it the “first step in building a new digital media company that specializes in producing and distributing content for consumers making important buying decisions.”

SlashdotTV offers access to a wide library of video content surrounding its highly engaged community of IT influencers. Users can browse content grouped by a number of criteria – title, subject, popularity and featured videos picked by SlashdotTV moderators.

Geeknet Media Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Wellman states that “SlashdotTV represents an evolution of the Slashdot site experience.” He adds, “since first launching video in January this year, we have seen tremendous growth in the numbers of video views and engagement. The launch of SlashdotTV gives our readers a deeper way to engage with the tech news stories and a great complement to our existing social commenting experience.”

About Slashdot:

Slashdot is the first and leading social media destination for
technology professionals and IT decision makers. Slashdot’s highly
engaged community of IT influencers share and socialize hundreds of
pieces of content every day, including news, analysis, peer questions,
and professional insight. Slashdot is a website of Geeknet Media, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Geeknet Inc. (Nasdaq:GKNT).

Hat tip to Geeknet Inc.

Why bother you say? For one, IBM reported a 400% increase in sales after implementing a pilot program to explore the advantages of marketing via social media.

Another reason? Almost 70% of a salespersons time is spent doing things other than selling, social media can cut that time down significantly.

Over 90% of business to business companies are using at least Facebook. That’s almost everyone! LinkedIn generates more leads than a company blog, Twitter, or Facebook and less than half the businesses are using it. Can you say opportunity!

If you’re aren’t taking advantage of these trends, you might as well reserve a spot in the museum because you have become a dinosaur. Selling B2B via social networking helps you build new relationships with ease, gives you broader coverage, and allows new clients the ability to seek you out 24/7. It’s worth a try, in fact, it’s a no-brainer!

This infographic finds that LinkedIn may not be all that it’s cut out to be. Sure, it’s great for business, but people only use it for that – business.

They found that people of the business mindset are still in that mindset even when on Facebook. Using it effectively could tremendously help your business. We’ll let the infographic give you the rest of the details:

This should come as no surprise to those who are business minded. Linkedin is more of a no non-sense social networking site. “I don’t wanna see pictures of your gandchild, I wanna know what your company can do for me”. This mentality rules out Facebook and Twitter seems less than organized for targeted searches of a professional nature.

Business minded people are drawn to Linkedin and the numbers don’t lie. Check out this bar graph assembled by HubSpot:

Some tricks to using LinkedIn for growing your business include paying attention to what’s already working for you on the site. Look at what draws customers in and do more of that. It just makes sense. Why do you think big company’s always ask, “How did you hear about us?”.

Also, stay vigilant. Just because blogs about your industry are mentioning you and bringing in leads doesn’t mean that is the only vehicle you should rely on. Keep expanding your horizons and testing the waters. Exposure in different circles can be crucial to expanding your base of customers.

Word of mouth is still the best way to gain fame in any arena. People love to reccommend services. It makes them feel connected. If someone has an overwhelmingly positive experience or unique story about your services, attempt to capture that feedback and get it visible to other potential clients.

Not that Facebook isn’t a good place to advertise, but to me, it seems like more of a ‘family and friends’ network. Concentrate on something designed for strict business and marketing connections.

LinkedIn can be a tremendous source of web traffic, and perhaps more importantly, it can be a tremendous source of highly targeted web traffic, given the professional nature of the network.

Do you count LinkedIn among your most valued traffic sources? Let us know in the comments.

A while back, we posted an article about how LinkedIn can be one of your most valuable traffic sources. We talked to entrepreneur Lewis Howes, who claimed LinkedIn was one of the top traffic sources to his blogs.

“Anytime you can increase the size of your network on LinkedIn, it will give you the opportunity to distribute your content to more people, therefore driving more traffic back to your site,” he said. “You need to take into consideration that LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers). That being said, these are business decision makers you are targeting with your traffic from LinkedIn. The network is for real, and it will only continue to grow in time as there are currently 60 million professionals.”

That was over a year ago. The network has indeed grown significantly since then. It now has over 100 million members, and going public probably won’t do much to slow down growth.

Howes had written his own article on steps to take to drive traffic with LinkedIn. These were:

1. Complete your profile.
2. Increase you connections.
3. Customize your website links.
4. Answer questions.
5. Update your status.
6. Join niche groups.
7. Post comments in groups.
8. Add RSS feeds to groups.
9. Create a group.
10. Add the blog application to your profile.

Since that article, LinkedIn has done quite a few things, and luckily for site owners, some of them have huge implications as traffic drivers.

Earlier this month, BusinessInsider posted a pretty inspirational chart showing how traffic from LinkedIn suddenly skyrocketed:

Nicholas Carlson says LinkedIn product manager Liz Walker told the publication that the traffic was “coming from a bunch of sources – mostly new products like LinkedIn.com/Today, newsletters, and LinkedIn News.” LinkedIn’s “inShares” (see the LinkedIn share button at the top of this article) contribute to these. Obviously using these and/or other plugins from the company can help.

LinkedIn Today is a product the company launched in beta in March. It was launched with the aim of showing what users’ connections and coworkers (people you know) are sharing, what industry peers are sharing, and what stories are interesting to the broader audience. If you’re creating compelling content, just like with any other social network, you have a good chance of increasing your traffic here, provided you are able to drive influence within your industry.

Again, this brings forward the appeal of targeted traffic, as opposed to just traffic. LinkedIn Today is accessible via the “news” tab on the LinkedIn homepage.

Of course, LinkedIn has a news feed section just like Twitter/Facebook, so building your network in general is key. Obviously this key for reasons beyond traffic, but it should certainly help in this area as well. LinkedIn’s Lindsey Pollak recently provided some tips for sprucing up your presence on the network, which could help overall. She suggested kick-starting your keywords, featuring a new photo, adding some apps, and getting active in groups.

“If you’re not attracting a lot of interest to your LinkedIn profile, take a look at what words you use to describe yourself,” she says. “They might be doing more harm than good. Last month, LinkedIn released a list of the top 10 LinkedIn profile termsthat are most overused by professionals based in the United States.”

These terms are as follows:

Extensive experience
Innovative
Motivated
Results-oriented
Dynamic
Proven track record
Team player
Fast-paced
Problem solver
Entrepreneurial

Suffice it to say, you should be giving people a compelling reason to want to connect with you, and separating yourself from the crowd. Even if you are already doing this with your content, they may never see the content if their first impression of you comes from a lackluster LinkedIn profile.

In terms of apps, she says, “If you travel frequently, try TripIt, which enables you to share your travel itineraries and potentially set up appointments and build deeper relationships with LinkedIn connections in the cities you visit. If you’re a visual type, consider SlideShare or Google Presentation, which allow you to add presentations to your profile. I also love the Reading List by Amazon, which invites you to post books you’re reading and share your reviews with your LinkedIn connections. The overall goal of adding more applications is to give people as many reasons as possible to find something in common with you.”

Essentially, these are just more ways to spark engagement, which can trickle down into traffic (and engaged traffic at that). LinkedIn’s app directory can be found here. Obviously the Groups also contribute to the engagement factor.

Also keep in mind that LinkedIn regularly sends emails to users. These include emails for LinkedIn Today updates and Network Updates, which display profiles, connections, new contacts, posts, groups, photos, recommendations, and applications.

Study

A recent study from LeadFormix found:

1. 24 % of all visitors from LinkedIn to a B2B website are enterprise visitors (leads).

8. Visitors from LinkedIn company pages are most likely to spend more than 10 minutes on a company website.

Given all of this week’s LinkedIn news, it’s clear that the network is bigger than ever, and doesn’t show any signs of dwindling down anytime soon. If you’re not capitalizing on it as a potential traffic source, you might be missing out big time – and at a time when the importance of diversifying your traffic sources has truly been driven home by Google’s Panda update. It’s also worth noting, however, that people sharing your content on LinkedIn can actually help you with Google’s social search.

LinkedIn has expanded its mobile presence recently too. This should only help general use of the network, and potentially help for increased traffic as well. Last month, the company launched the first version of its Android app. Shortly before that, they also launched a feature phone app. Remember, there are still a lot of people out there that haven’t upgraded to smartphones. This can keep them engaged with the network and show them your content while they’re on the go.

Do you see significant traffic from LinkedIn? Comment here.

While the announcement doesn’t make any mention of expansion beyond these three industries, it would only make sense. The company already has strong footholds in a variety of sectors with sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, AOL Autos, etc.

It does say, “AOL Industry will offer subject-specific news, information, tools, video and analysis, and foster niche communities that enable professionals, experts and government employees to engage each other.”

The new initiative makes interesting use of LinkedIn. Users can use the social network integration to see personal connections to people and companies that are making news in a particular industry.

“Launching AOL Industry allows us to bring to specific business sectors the same sense of community for which AOL Huffington Post Media Group consumer sites are well-known,” said President of the recently formed AOL Huffington Post Media Group, Arianna Huffington. “We’re applying a blend of news, opinion and engagement to industries that have their own unique audiences, and creating a forum for influencers to connect and communicate with one another. We’re excited to launch AOL Energy today and see the site as an original offering for decision-makers and experts looking to keep up with a fascinating, fast-moving and complex field.”

The AOL Industry unit is being led by VP and General Manager Jay Kirsch. He says, “We believe there’s a great opportunity in creating targeted platforms by and for influencers in distinct industries and government. These sites will combine the best of news and information with the social, visual and personal aspects of today’s web. In fast-moving, specialized industries, decision-makers need an easy to use, authoritative source to stay on top of the news and to connect with one another.”

Naturally, the whole thing creates some new advertising opportunities for the company. “This is not only an incredible opportunity for industry experts and thought-leaders to take advantage of a unique platform, but it’s also a new way for advertisers to connect directly with executives and influencers in these sectors,” said AOL Advertising President Jeff Levick.

AOL Energy is up and running, while AOL Defense and AOL Government will be “launching soon”. Peter Gardett, Colin Clark, and Wyatt Kash (respectively) have been appointed as editors.

Much of this trend has been based upon B2C offerings, however, and where B2C trends occur, B2B trends tend to follow. It’s happened with email, social media, and will likely come around again full circle with local and even local email. 

It’s all about the next Groupon or "the Groupon of…fill in the blank" these days, it seems. Google and Facebook, for example, have products on the way like Google Offers and Facebook’s Buy With Friends that could rival Groupon in the niche of localized deals and group buying. 

Everywhere you look, you see Groupon clones or some niche variation on the concept. For instance, you’ve got:

- "The Groupon for Good"
- "The Groupon for Casual Games"
- "The Groupon for Green Shoppers"
- "The Groupon for Travel"
- "The Groupon for Publishers and Bookstores"
- "The Groupon for Cause Marketing"
- "The Groupon for Moms"
- Etc. 
- Etc.
- Etc.

Groupon is about group buying, but even more so, it’s about localized content and email marketing. How do I know what Groupon offer is available in my area every day? I get an email from Groupon letting me know, and I know it’s personalized to me based on geography, which makes it much more likely to be something I’ll actually use, than if it were something available to all Groupon customers around the world. 

Now apply that concept on a B2B (that’s business-to-business) level – perhaps an office supplies vendor, a business that cleans uniforms. In fact, you can apply it to B2C businesses as well, because the businesses have employees, and they’re all consumers. 

B2B works for consumer-facing businesses too. A restaurant, for example, could offer a business a way to give their employees discounts on meals, or a golf club or gym could do the same with discounted memberships. 

In fact, the concept works even for national brands (which could spend a lot of money with such a service) that have local locations. Much of the appeal of local is on the consumer side anyway. A consumer (or business on the receiving end) is likely to feel a deal is more personalized to them as long as the local angle is there (this is an area Groupon could improve upon itself, by the way).

Email marketing works for B2B. It stands to reason that local email marketing, of the sort Groupon caters to, would work extremely well for small and local businesses. It also stands to reason that we’ll see more startups looking to fill this void in the Groupon-mania induced gold rush of 2011.  

Expect to see more "The Groupon of…" verticals aimed at local businesses. Groupon calls itself the "savior for small business". There’s room for such a savior for local B2B business too, which isn’t the kind of business you normally see in your daily Groupon emails.