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When AdWords Makes Sense, Make The Most Of It

July 29, 2010 By Kara View Comments

hand clicking mouseFor everything there is a season…

…a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Even AdWords.

Yesterday I wrote about how AdWords can be a black hole for a small business marketing budget. Today I want to point out a few circumstances in which AdWords makes sense.

Sometimes AdWords is the right thing to do.

According to a great post yesterday on Hubspot Inbound Marketing‘s blog called 3 Strategies to Run an Effective Google AdWords Campaign, one good reason to use AdWords is if your website is brand new and you’re not sure which keywords to focus on for your organic search efforts. AdWords gives you a chance to test different keywords’ popularity. Another reason to justify your PPC spending is if you’d like to reach “audiences different from those drawn from organic search and thus maximize your reach to potential customers.” (Hubspot)

Want better results? Let me show you the world in Google’s eyes.

If you need to use AdWords, a great exercise might be to put yourself in Google’s shoes. If Google isn’t seen as reliable, then Google goes go out of business. While we’re busy using them to market to our prospects, remember that they’re Google’s prospects first. If serving up our ads is not what Google thinks is best for their customers, they will either not serve them up at all, or they’ll make it much more expensive for us.

What makes a good ad from Google’s perspective?

A good ad is the sum of three parts:

  1. The keywords we choose to target
  2. The ad copy we write
  3. The copy on the landing page

If Google doesn’t think those three things go together like a hand in a glove, then we’ll be paying more, or the ads won’t be seen much at all. There are many sources for information on what makes a good AdWords campaign, especially Hubspot’s post, so I won’t recreate the wheel. But the thing I think is usually underestimated is the power of keeping things simple and keeping these three elements in sync.

Keeping it simple: Now jump into the shoes of the searcher.

You need an A. You decide to look for A online. You type A into the search bar. You see ads come up promising a good deal on A. You click on the ad… but there’s no A. There may be lots of B, which is close, but you were looking for A. B might be on the next page or even implied, but if you don’t see A, are you going to stay on that page? Or click away as fast as you can to go back to the other search results because you have other things to do and you just need an A.

So the best idea for the vendor selling A is to target the keyword A, include A in the ad itself, then make sure that the promise of the ad is fulfilled on the landing page with lots and lots of good A. Google will reward you with a lower CPC and more impressions. They like it when our prospects are getting what they search for. That’s Google’s job. They want to help us do ours better too.

Filed Under: AdWords, Featured

Who Represents Your Business In Social Media?

July 26, 2010 By Kara View Comments

Masked Faces - who do you trust to promote your business in social media?Would you send an intern, alone, to your industry’s most important event?

Would you allow an outsourced contractor to get on the phone, 1:1, with a promising prospect?

We don’t need one more thing to do, but…

As a marketer with a specialty in social media best practices, I’ve come across many businesses who tell me they’d like to have their networks set up and managed by someone else so that they don’t have to think about it. This is so understandable. Most business owners and employees are more exhausted today by their jobs than at any other time in recent history.

But according to a recent article in the LA Times, small businesses are still starting up and even succeeding because they’re focused on “working harder to build relationships that fuel sales.”

You can’t outsource a relationship.

Outsourcing social media is just a bad idea. People out there in the “socialsphere” logically assume that when your company name is on it, someone from your company is behind it. Realizing this, you might seek to control what the intern/contractor does by giving them approved messaging – which is the equivalent of ad copy, which has no place in social media.  Hired guns don’t have the expertise to answer your prospects’ questions. There is no substitute for a real, dedicated, knowledgable employee when it comes to relationship building with clients and prospects.

What about Brand Evangelists?

You might get lucky and find a consultant with vast experience in your industry. There are some who look to hire a “brand evangelist.” This is a very special kind of relationship between a brand and a consultant that involves a great deal of access and trust. But most small businesses I’ve come across aren’t looking for such heavy involvement.

What is a social media consultant good for then?

One of the things we do that can save you loads of time is keep up with all of the latest, most excruciating details about what works best. We sit on long webinars learning about where to put keywords in LinkedIn profiles. We eat this stuff up. A good consultant will help you set up your profiles, then teach you the importance of learning to use them yourself. Unless you’re looking to hire someone to be your official brand evangelist, the person you hire to help set up your social media presence should be, first and foremost, a good teacher.

Filed Under: Featured, What Is Social?

Ads and Social Media: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

July 21, 2010 By Kara View Comments

Remember this game? It’s time to play!

Which of these pictures represents something completely different from all of the others?

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

If you chose LinkedIn as the one that does NOT fit in, you’re right!

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about how to use social networking to promote business. But before we can even talk about that, it’s important to be very clear about what social media is not.

Social Networking Sites Are Not Ad Space

You’ve worked hard on (or paid well for) your marketing copy. Maybe you use it in ads, postcards, yellow page ads, pay per click and e-mail blasts. But social media will never fit into the category of places for you to distribute well-crafted marketing messages.

It’s tempting to see status updates as a wonderful place to display your marketing messages. Lots of people do. But just because someone else runs the social media aspect of their marketing campaign off of a cliff doesn’t mean you have to.

One of these things is not like the other answerSocial Networking IS A Virtual Version Of A Face-To-Face Interaction

Imagine yourself in a room with your customers and prospects. What do you talk about? Do you spout memorized marketing copy to them? Probably not. In this room, you’re essentially doing PR, customer service and lead nurture marketing all in one. In a business environment, that’s what social media can be used for at its best.

Examples Of Human-Sounding Status Updates

You can be human and promote your business at the same time. Remember, if they have any relationship with you at all, they already know what you do. They’ve probably seen your postcards. Here’s your chance to show that you’re forward-thinking, considerate and an upstanding member of your community. Here are a few ideas to get you started thinking in a new direction:

  • If you’re B2B and serve a particular kind of business, tap into their industry news and share interesting articles with a short comment about why you think they’d like to read it.
  • If you’re attending an event or reading a book that’s provided you with new insights on a problem you solve for clients, share short tidbits of that knowledge to let them know they’re always on your mind.
  • If you have a store front, check the local paper. Touch your customers’ sense of community spirit by giving kudos to a local hero or charity.
  • Give advanced notice about a new product coming in.
  • Offer up unsolicited solutions to every-day problems. For instance, if you sell technology-related services, send them info on local charities that help recycle old monitors and printers.
Filed Under: Featured, What Is Social?

Rude Facebook Friends: Just Hit “Remove”

April 26, 2010 By Kara View Comments

edit personal newsfeeds, social media marketing los angeles, social media consulting los angelesRude Facebook friends can be dangerous to your relationships with the rest of your network. Imagine someone plastering an ad for their business to the side of your office building? Or a neighbor planting a campaign sign for a candidate you’re not crazy about in your front lawn? You would take down the ad and the sign without worrying about hurting the feelings of the person who put it there.

Unlike the clear examples above, the rules of social networking can seem a little fuzzy at times. It’s important to take control. You can decide on editorial standards for your “newsfeeds” or “walls” so that you can keep rude Facebook friends from hijacking your conversations with the rest of your network.

There are no 1:1 relationships in social networking.

E-Mail is 1:1. Social networks are 1:MANY. As soon as you accept a request to connect with that woman you worked with a few years back, you have access not only to her individual profile information, you have a window into her online social interactions via her “newsfeed” or “wall.” You can see links to items that reflect the shared interests of her community as well as the conversations she’s having about these links with her other connections.

Your newsfeed tells as much about who you are as your static profile.

Now think of what this woman will see when she visits your profile. Let’s assume this is a profile where you hope to primarily make business connections. You’re careful about what you post, but are you careful about what is being shared on your wall by others in your community? Are they items of genuinely shared interest or are they the equivalent of ads plastered to the side of your office building? Do conversations around controversial posts ever devolve into unproductive banter?

Set Your Editorial Standards

Every newspaper and magazing has a set of standards. You’re not going to find fashion advice in the pages of the Economist any more than you’ll find a long expose on the Nuclear Summit in Glamour. No one is going to begrudge Glamour for not posting a letter to the editor about the World Bank. It’s not a part of their agenda. There are other magazines for that. In the same way, how you manage your community should be a reflection of who you are, not an open forum for friends to post irrelevant ads or promote their personal agendas. They have their own newsfeeds for that.

1. Decide on a primary purpose for each profile. Some are personal, some are for business and some will be a mix. But make sure you’re clear about your goals for each.

2. Imagine the “personas” of your connections. What are you looking to accomplish via a particular profile? If it’s only to expand your business, think carefully about how you want to interact with the members of that community. What connected them to you in the first place? What would stimulate the kinds of conversations that would lead to deeper business relationships? Conversely, what kinds of conversations should you steer clear of in order to keep the professional nature of these relationships strong?

3. Go to your newsfeed and make some editorial decisions.

  • Has anyone posted pure ads that don’t reflect any shared interest at all? Click “remove.”
  • Has anyone posted inflammatory discussion items or polarizing political comments that don’t have anything to do with growing your business relationship? Click “remove.”
  • Has anyone questioned your value proposition or made an on-topic comment that contradicts your assumptions about a posted article or comment? Click “respond.” This is what Social Networking is made to do: foster conversation. Just remember to keep it cool, on topic and don’t take criticisms personally.

If a conversation is derailed by a member of your community who starts down a road that conflicts with your editorial standards, you have some tough decisions to make about your future with this connection. What might satisfy this one person may not be good for your community as a whole.

We’re all in this together.

The refreshing thing to remember is that most people in your community are just like you. We’re in these networks to lift one another up. But the longer you stay in the game, the more likely you’ll be to encounter people who are looking for a place to vent their frustrations, push their agendas or plaster their unwanted ads. But never forget that you are not at their mercy. You have just as much control over your own newsfeed as the Economist or Glamour does. Anyone who begrudges you this may not be looking out for your best interest. That’s your job.

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured

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