I'm often asked how business-to-business (B2B) marketing is different than business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. Although you are still selling a product or a service to a person the marketing is difference for B2B and B2C. The purchase motivation is different and they have different needs when it comes to the information that they need in order to make the decision to purchase. The differences between these markets run deep and they are important.

When we take time to understand what is needed we have a better chance of closing the deal with a B2B or a B2C market. It's when we ignore the differences that we fail to provide the information and the support to turn a prospective consumer into a customer.

A consumer purchases on emotion and a business purchases on logic. Let me show you the difference in marketing to a B2C market vs. a B2B market.

Your Turn: What differences have you found in marketing to a B2C vs. a B2B market?

For those of you interested you can now become a fan of Marketing at About.com on Facebook.

I created the Facebook fan page in order to collaborate with readers on a daily basis as well as give you a community that you could use to ask marketing questions and get to know other readers. I've been wanting to do this for awhile and truthfully it has evolved into a great place for collaboration and discussion.

If you can't get enough of all things marketing-related, you now have an opportunity find people to talk marketing with all day long.

Become a fan, it's easy and I'm sure you will enjoy the community that is developing there.

Recently I shared with you a search engine marketing secret - how to gain market share in Google within your local area. This doesn't take months to do and often can be achieved within a couple of days, if not hours. One reader found themselves struggling with getting a high ranking, because of the competition within their location and industry.

There are ways that you can improve your Google Local Map listing and I wanted to share a few steps that can help in improving your ranking on Google Local.

• Step 1: Claim your Google Local Map listing if you haven't already.
• Step 2: Login to Google Local online.
• Step 3: Verify your information and make sure your description is specific with keywords. Use keywords to describe your location and what your business is by as well as search keywords that customers will use to find you.
  
  
• Step 4: Use keywords in your company and organization name. For example in my Google Local Map listing I used the following as my company and organization name (Keywords are in bold) - Laura Lake Consulting - Small Business Marketing and Social Media Strategy Consulting
• Step 5: Don't forget to categorize your listing and make sure that you complete all 5 categories. The 1st category is the most important, but the next 4 follow in at a close second when it comes to ranking importance. Try to use Google's suggested categories.
• Step 6: Customer reviews will also help in improving your Google local listing rank. Don't write your own review, but ask your customers for a recommendation.

The secret is that Google focuses rank mostly on the businesses closes to the center of the city. If you are not near the center of the city the prior steps are vital to improving the rank of your Google Local Map listing in order to compete with the businesses that are closer to the center of the city than you.

It's no doubt social media is changing the way that we market. There are new social media platforms appearing daily, so how do you as a business owner or marketing manager know which platform is right for you? There are many deciding factors that go into selecting a social media marketing platform. A few of those questions include:

• Where is my demographic?
• What is my marketing goal when it comes to social media? Am I looking to bring awareness or sell something?

Today I want to focus on why businesses select Twitter as their social media marketing platform. We can learn a lot from the stats that are published. Stats including the following data:

• 50 Million Tweets per day
• 75 Million Twitter users
• Reach outside of the U.S. has grown over the last 6 months

While the statistics are impressive, there are also reports that Twitter registrations have decreased and there are many inactive Twitter accounts.

I think the best way to learn about what is working and what is not working when it comes to using Twitter as a marketing tool is to listen to the stories of others, so I'm asking my readers the question:

Why Do You Use Twitter to Market?

*Statistics by Twitter, Hubspot, Sysmos and ComputerWorld