Why Social Media Marketing is a Must for Most Companies

Social media is playing an increasingly vital role in business marketing. Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized businesses (and a few large corporations) are not getting nearly as much out of their social media marketing efforts as they should be. In short, social media is proving to be a bust.

Broadly speaking, many companies are failing to convert on social media because of they are not using it to build brand advocacy, drive web traffic, and generate leads.


WEAK BRAND ADVOCACY


Loyalty and trust play a big part in social media success. Businesses should use social media to build brand advocates.  Social media marketing gives companies exponential reach, empowering brands to leverage their content and messaging more efficiently than other marketing channels.

The Internet rewards reach. The more social media followers you have, the more your content spreads, and the more impact you have on results in search engines, but many of them might be able to share content or take an action online that could refer a customer.


Social Media Examiner’s recent survey of social media marketers found 85% indicating that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses.Many companies are under-utilizing the potential reach of their social media. They should be promoting their social media channels as aggressively as possible. They can do so by optimizing each page to speak their company’s target audience, sharing valuable content their audience finds useful, adding social share buttons on their website, blog, and all offline marketing pieces, emailing existing customers to encourage them to interact with their social media, and interacting with fans and followers.

FAILURE TO DRIVE WEB TRAFFIC

Social media is the new promotion. Companies that do not integrate their website and social media are blowing a huge opportunity to drive web traffic. Increasing web traffic was the second major benefit of social media, according to social media marketers polled in SM Examiner’s study.Social media channels can be used to bring relevant visitors to your website - visitors who will convert into customers. In fact, that same study noted that 74% of marketers interviewed found a substantial increase in website traffic with as little as 6 hours per week invested in social media marketing.


Prospects who have enjoyed what you have to offer on social media can be encouraged to share their experiences with friends via Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest etc.  This will increase web traffic and bring more relevant visitors to your website. In this way, social media acts as a referral service for your business.Businesses should also integrate their social media marketing efforts with their website marketing and existing search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Integrate your website content campaigns with your social media by offering web content on social media and using the same SEO keyword list to optimize its performance across all channels. Doing this will help ensure your SEO, website content, blogging, and social media efforts are all working in concert.

POOR LEAD GENERATION

The best source of a website lead is a recently-satisfied convert from one of your social media channels. Looking at data from 2011, inbound marketing experts Hubspot did a study of 3,000+ B2B businesses to understand how their companies were succeeding with social media. The data revealed that 63% of B2B businesses were not generating leads from social media. While these companies were generating traffic from social media channels, they were not converting that traffic into leads for their businesses.

The main culprit was a lack of calls-to-action (CTAs) and landing pages. In other words, companies were not providing prospects a clear path to deeper engagement. This can be easily remedied by placing CTAs on every piece of content you publish on social channels. These CTAs should be linked to landing pages with forms to collect new leads. Each offer should have its own unique CTA and landing page that is promoting a specific offer such as an ebook, free consultation, demo, webinar, etc.

When it comes to marketing, social media is about lead generation. Building communities online and educating leads is important, but if you don't present lead conversion opportunities, you will never generate the revenue needed to fund your social media marketing efforts.

Many companies still in the early stages of implementing social media don’t have a clear understanding of how to take advantage of its many benefits. Many have set up their Facebook Timeline or LinkedIn Company Page, and done little else.If this is true for your company, you are not using social media to effectively promote your brand, drive web traffic, and generate leads online. By following this simple advice, you can quickly remedy the problem and start getting more out of your social media efforts.

Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live

The fourth release of Google’s spam-fighting “Penguin Update” is now live. But, Penguin 4 has a twist. It contains Penguin 2.0 technology under the hood, which Google says is a new generation of tech that should better stop spam. 

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Web spam team, announced the new Penguin 2.0 update during This Week in Google (Episode #199). He referenced the earlier video of himself talking about the next generation Penguin update, and said this is being rolled out “within the next few hours.”

Webmasters and SEOs: expect major changes to the search results. Matt specifically said that 2.3% of English queries will be noticeably impacted by this update.

Cutts later posted more details about this roll out on his blog. He explained that the launch is now complete, including for non-English languages, and that “the scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.”

Top 10 SEM Campaign Mistakes

PPC advertising is a powerful mechanism for creating new customers. It is; however, one that is ripe with trip wires, snares, and third rails. Below lists the top 10 most common PPC campaign mistakes that prevent companies from finding a pot of gold.



10. Not Using Geographical Targeting


Whether you're an international conglomerate or a localized small business, geographical targeting is tremendously important. Avoid wasted spend by only targeting the areas that offer maximum ROI.For small businesses, maximum return might only occur within - say - a 20 mile radius. Also, companies selling higher-end services can benefit by targeting higher income regions.Finally, large companies benefit breaking out campaigns on a geographical basis as country-by-country performance can vary greatly based on a wide range of factors such as disposable income, need, spending habit, currency strength, etc.



9. Not Using Site Exclusion



Site exclusions remove high-click, low yield partner sites from the display network. Avoid thousands of dollars in wasted spend by consistently removing sites/pages that are not a logical fit for your target audience.To do this, simply select the ‘Networks’ tab, select the ‘show details’ link next to ‘automatic placements’ and check and remove all underperforming/undesirable sites.



8. Failing to Recognize the Existence of Match Types


PPC newbies can often frequently don't realize the tremendous power of match types. Below lists how each of the four match types handle the keyword ‘red kite’:

 Exact Match: Triggers ads only when the exact phrase ‘red kite’ is queried.

Phrase Match: Triggers ads that include the exact phrase ‘red kite’ and any words or phrases that surround it such as "red kites" or ‘red kites miami.’

Broad Match: Displays ads for an even wider range of keywords, including variations that only loosely match such as ‘fly kites’ (although more control can be used through broad match modifier


There is significant opportunity within each of these keyword umbrellas. For example, broad match keywords often have a lower bid price than their exact match counterparts, and can be relatively controlled with an abundance of negative keywords. Additionally, you can find opportunity in the long-tail with specific high bids dedicated to longer tail keywords with less search volume.



7. Not Utilizing Negative Keywords


Negative keywords are life preservers for your accounts. Regardless of the match type, negative keywords prevent your ads from being displayed when unattractive modifiers accompany your broad and match phrase terms. For example, the keyword ‘Chicago legal services’ might be a great keyword, but ‘free Chicago legal services’ is a resource draining keyword.Adding negative keywords are simple, and you can find great negative through google's keyword tool or by going into the keywords tab and selecting ‘See search terms all.’


6. Not Separating Search/Display Campaigns


We can't help but blame Google for this one. Google essentially forces new campaign creators to opt-out of the display network, which is likely to be tremendously confusing for beginners.It's incredibly wise for businesses to have campaigns segmented based on Network type. The reason is simple: in all likelihood, performance will be significantly better in the Search Network than the Display Network.Separating these campaigns offers maximum control over budget allocation, which allows you to reap higher ROI in the early stages of a campaign. After your higher ROI budget is maxed, it then makes sense to begin to dial up the display network.A quick fix is to copy your campaign in Google Adwords Editor, rename your campaigns based on the network, and adjust the selected networks in the setting tab.

5. Being an Adwords-only Organization


Clearly, Google Adwords has more than a 2:1 advantage in market share, but many companies miss the enormous opportunity that lies in MSN. As I've previously written, an MSN campaign can be created in just 15 minutes and often offers cheaper CPC's and cost per conversions. It's a great way to give overall performance a 20 percent lift.

4. Selecting keywords that are too broad


Many companies make the painful mistake of targeting keywords that are too broad. Specificity is paramount in pay per click advertising, as broadness directly correlates with saturation, expensive costs, low match, and negative ROI.A perfect example is when a company selling fine cheeses advertises for the keyword ‘appetizers.’ While a fine cheese makes for a great starter, who's to say the searcher isn't a lactose intolerant DIY chef looking to whip a quick appetizer for dinner guests?


Look for keywords that communicate not only direct product/service, but also intent (in this case "fine cheeses online" while produce higher returns).



3. No Ad Testing


Ad tests are paramount in determining the words, phrases, and propositions that appeal the most to your target audience. Maybe it's a tempting offer (free shipping) or a quick testament to your company's credibility (90 percent success rate). Ad testing is a powerful way to improve campaign performance.To start, try testing at three different ads per ad group (set ad rotation to even). I first recommend testing three philosophically different ads. Once you have a sample of 300 clicks per ad, you should be able to begin to determine winners and losers by ROI. Be careful not to judge by CTR alone, as high click through rates can actually be detrimental to a campaign if they do not result in conversions.For phase two of ad testing, experiment with language refinement to further boost returns. You should find that strong adjectives such as ‘powerful’ go along way in further improving your ad. Again, keep your first winning ad as the control.


2. Sending Users to the Homepage


My one rule to PPC: control the user experience as tightly as possible. Use research, testing, and analytics to discover exactly what matters to your users and then deliver a tight, visually engaging experience to fit their needs.Sending a user to the homepage enables them to, by and large, determine their own experience. Imagine your hard-fought budget disintegrating as users click your ‘about us’, ‘mission’, and ‘sitemap’ before bouncing.Instead, use landing pages that specifically relate to the users search intent. This should include headlines, content, text, images, and call-toactions. Find a more detailed explanation of conversion rate optimization here.


1. Not Conversion Tracking


This is the Ted Bundy of PPC campaign killers. No conversion data at any level means that a campaign is essentially flying blind (which is scary since the vast majority of campaigns I've taken over are fraught with waste even with campaign tracking).Conversion data allows users to quickly understand the financial returns from a campaign, ad group, and keyword level. This data affects every aspect of campaign optimization from ad testing to landing page performance to bid adjustments.

Affiliate Marketing – Can You Make Money With It?

Affiliate marketing is a wide-spread strategy used in Internet marketing where a merchant or webmaster rewards affiliates for their marketing efforts which direct potential clients to the website where they view a sales page and if sufficiently impressed with the product they may make a purchase. Affiliate marketing, AM for short, is the act of selling a product for a commission and if it is done correctly the rewards can be huge and of course you can work from home.

This type of marketing has made a terrific impact on the Internet marketing scene, particularly on those companies which started in the early years of e-commerce. It is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is indeed incredibly efficient.It has now become normal practice for companies to include affiliates in their marketing plans, as it offers a very attractive online channel with complete precision and accountability.

Affiliate organizations are varied and include individuals, organizations and businesses, networks, management companies, third party vendors, and other affiliates that promote the products and services of their partners.Affiliate marketing really is an excellent system. You never have to touch a product, carry stock, or arrange deliveries. And when the customer makes a purchase you get paid. Network marketing is an extension of AM and also involves selling a product for a commission, but in addition it focuses on bringing other resellers (or affiliate marketers, distributors or representatives) into the program as well.

AM is not difficult work, but the marketer does need to have a clear understanding of what she or he is aiming to achieve. It is definitely a good way to build a business that can potentially become a full time job. To be an affiliate of third party companies like Commission Junction or Clickbank costs you nothing. The affiliate’s objective is to sell or get leads for someone else’s service or product. Because this form of marketing is attractive many people are drawn in to the business and it has therefore become very competitive

As an affiliate you begin by placing ads for your chosen product on your Web site and/or in suitable advertising sites. When a user clicks on the ad, your visitor will go to the Web site where the product is described and they can learn of the potential benefits the product or service will provide for them. The affiliate marketer is performance driven because he or she is paid only when the merchant has achieved the predetermined goal This goal can be anything that a merchant has to get done, for example getting conversions (convincing the customer to buy his product), accumulating data, leads generation, getting feedback or anything at all. The whole idea of affiliate marketing is based on the “No cure no pay “-principle.Generating extra income has become much easier although very competitive. Thousands of the more popular products are marketed on the internet every day using affiliate marketing strategies. Most companies and vendors make use of affiliates to sell their product or service, there-by greatly increasing their turnover and at the same time the affiliate is able to earn money.