[Co-authored by Zachary Reiss-Davis]

Welcome to the kick-off for the third annual Forrester B2B Groundswell Awards! We’re excited to again read all of your great submissions and examples of innovation in B2B social media marketing. 

Josh Bernoff, one of the original authors of Groundswell, already wrote a great blog post highlighting the history of the awards that I encourage you to go read. 

For the past two years, we highlighted the B2B winners in:

Best practice research reports . . .

. . . blog posts, and presentations, and we plan to do so again this year — the awards are a great way for you to gain positive exposure for your company. 

To steal some of Josh’s words: Entries for the 2011 Forrester Groundswell Awards are open here. If you want to win, start by reading the rules here. The most important thing to remember is that your entry is public — the text of your entry is available for everyone to see and vote on — and that the judges here at Forrester Research are far more impressed by results than by sizzle. So be sure you include the facts and numbers that prove your application accomplished a business goal. Remember that you can include a link to any additional information you want, anywhere on the Web.

The entry deadline is August 3. Fair warning: Don't bother appealing for an extension. Get your entry ready and in before then. And if you're a vendor or agency, avoid one embarrassment: Be sure your client is OK with your submitting the work you did for them before you turn it in.

Finally, I’d like to share a graphic from our 2010 report on the B2B winners, highlighting winning entries by Adobe Systems (Listening), UPS (Talking), Spiceworks (Energizing), IBM (Supporting), Kaspersky Lab (Spreading), and National Instruments (Embracing) as well as all of our finalists.  

Forrester B2B Groundswell Awards 2010, featuring Adobe, UPS, Spiceworks, IBM, Kaspersky Lab, and National Instruments