Social media marketing is a sword that cuts two ways. It’s easy to build a community, but can be difficult to get them to trust you. This is because there is so much garbage on the net – everyone is trying to make a fast buck.

Building trust is key to making sales. So, how do you get your community to trust you? Let’s look at some numbers to gain some insight. According to What Makes Social Media Trustworthy?, a recent study highlighted by eMarketer, a firm that tracks trends in digital media and marketing:

Just over a quarter (26%) of those polled trusted a brand product or company based on its blog posts, Twitter feed and/or Facebook updates.

BUT . . .

Approaching two-thirds (61%) trusted blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates found on pages from someone those surveyed knew.

Social Media Marketing Message: To Get Trust You Have To . . .

Be a real person, not a company.

Remember, social media marketing is all about building relationships. And, people don’t have relationships with “companies.” People have relationships with other people. So it’s imperative to interact with your community from a human standpoint, not a corporate standpoint.

This can be as simple as signing up using a real name as your “account name,” instead of your company name.

Other Tips for Creating Trust in Social Media Marketing

Stay in contact regularly;

Don’t talk about you so much; send links to information relevant to your target markets’ lives; and

Create conversation by asking your community’s input.

If you remember your old-school social graces and apply them to the new medium that is social media marketing, you’ll have no problems getting your community to trust you – and increase sales.

What social networking sites do you use? Are you reaching your customers on Facebook, Twitter or other sites? We’d love to hear your comments.

A recent survey of pay-per-click advertising platform vendors by PPC Summit reveals significant shifts in paid search marketing strategies. Among them, bid management, which historically has been the cornerstone of paid search optimization, has become just one of many elements affecting the effectiveness pay-per-click (PPC) advertising programs. In line with the shift, vendors are expanding their product offerings and search marketers are altering their paid search strategies and practices.

“Historically, bid management has been focused on optimizing position and keyword costs but it has become clear that other factors affect overall ROI and competitiveness,” said Lisa Morgan, the report’s principal analyst and CEO of Strategic Rainmakers. “Although position and keyword costs remain important factors, search marketers also want to drive process and integrated marketing efficiencies.”

The 2010 PPC Management and Optimization report profiles 14 of the leading PPC management and optimization vendors that have traditionally been categorized as bid management vendors. The report also includes the results of in-depth interviews with the vendors and 27 of their agency and enterprise customers.

Only two of 14 vendors profiled in the report consider “bid management” an accurate characterization of their product offerings. The other 12 say bid management is only part of what they do because their products now provide considerably broader functionality. Although features varies from vendor to vendor, there are now three fundamental feature sets that include bid management, campaign management, and reporting.

The expanded features are typically integrated so the data collected for reporting purposes can be used to optimize bid, position, ROI, margin and other factors. The feature expansion is also affecting paid search function automation, and allows for more granular forms of conversion attribution. According to the report, the expanded functionality enables greater efficiencies at more levels that collectively improve bottom-line results.

Available now in two versions, both  profile vendors and their products, and include in-depth buyer’s guide.

- Professional Edition: for paid search practitioners, covers interviews and tool acquisition processes, outcomes, and tips for identifying and selecting paid search tools. (150+ pages for $399).

- Executive Edition: for executives and managers who oversee paid search programs,  a summarized version of the same information designed for fast readability and streamlined decision making. The Executive Version includes tips for more effectively approving and overseeing the purchase of paid search tools. (Available for $299)

To purchase the reports or to download a complimentary report preview, go to 2010 Pay Per Click (PPC) Management and Optimization report.

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Ben & Jerry’s recently made what some would consider a ballsy move? They abandoned email marketing in favor of social media. While arguments can be made on both sides — ie, it was a good move or a stupid move – that’s not the point.

The lesson here is one every business can capitalize on. What is it?

Social media marketing is not a fad; it’s here to stay. And if you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, you’d better bet your competition has, or plans to very soon. Proof?

50-75% of Businesses Worldwide Use Social Networks (eg, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

According to a July 2010 post on BizReport.com entitled, Survey: Small businesses find success with social networking” on BizReport.com:

Social networks are now actively used by between half and three quarters of companies worldwide for  various networking functions . . . [and] 40% of businesses globally have found new customers via social networks.

While some may argue that Ben & Jerry’s have gone a little far in their adoption of social media marketing, the argument could be made that pouring a company’s resources into a marketing method that works is just smart business.

Social Media Marketing: It’s Biggest Advantage

Social media marketing provides immediate feedback. While email can be pretty immediate, a newsletter, for example, may sit in a prospects mailbox for days or weeks before it’s read. With social media marketing (eg, Twitter), prospects are primed to respond to tweets immediately – and constantly.

Perhaps the brand manager for the giant ice cream change said it best, ie: “Developing friendship and a relationship is key for us and social media [marketing] is the best place for that.”

PPC Summit is dedicated to bringing you the latest strategies, insights, and techniques for Internet marketing.  Search marketing, search engine optimization, and social media practices are constantly evolving.  Stay up-to-date and learn about special offers with PPC Summit’s monthly email newsletter, and it’s free!

When most business stick their toes in the search engine marketing waters, one of the first things they hear about is search engine optimization (SEO), as it relates to content. Not a lot of talk revolves around images; but it should for, everything on your site (eg, videos, photos, etc.) can help it rank well in search engines. And, this is what search engine marketing is all about.

The first thing you should know is that search engine bots (ie, spiders) can only read (search) text. And this is why things like Flash should be kept to a minimum, or not used at all unless it’s really, really necessary to your industry (eg, you’re a web developer, animator, movie maker, etc.).

Following is a mini tutorial on how to name your site’s images so that it ranks higher in search results.

Name Images Using Keywords: For example, instead of naming a photo photo.jpg1, name it pay-per-marketing-tips.jpg (if PPC marketing is what your firm specializes in).

Use the “ALT” Tag in Your Coding: Piggybacking on the last point, add the ALT tag when you name images. This tag explains what an image file is. A completed coded image with this tag may look like this:
<img src=”images/pay-per-click-services.jpg”width=”250″ height=”135″
ALT=”ABC Firm pay per click marketing services”>

Text Surrounding Images: The text that immediately surrounds your site’s images is valuable real estate from an SEO standpoint. Hence, you should do things like put captions on all of them and use keyworded text (ie, SEO content) in this space.

If you do these three things, your images (just like your site’s content) will increase the effectiveness of your search engine marketing efforts.

In pay per click marketing, keywords are the foundation of every successful campaign. But, your competition uses the same Google AdWords tools you do to discover profitable keywords. However, you can still beat them at this game. How?

By using noncompetitive keywords. Here are two ways to dig up some good keywords your competition may have overlooked.

Use Google Trends: Google Trends displays keywords web surfers are looking for on a daily basis. And, it’s updated throughout the day. It even shows “how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.” [Source: About Google Trends]

This is an excellent tool for digging up profitable keywords your competition may be overlooking. And, the best part about it – as these are “hot topic” items, your ads will probably get a higher CTR – and a higher ROI as it’s highly targeted to exactly what surfers are searching for.

Use Keyword Subsets: If you’re in a highly competitive niche or you don’t have the ad budge to compete with the big guys, use less competitive keywords – but choose them wisely.

For example, “make money online” is a very competitive keyword phrase. Good luck getting any good placement with that one. But, there are other phrases similar to this that are less competitive – and less expensive. Finding a lot of these can really add up – in traffic and sales.

 Some subsets of “make money online” — which is highly competitive at 246,000 monthly searches – are the following:

• Make money online today: 1,600
• Need to make money: 1,300
• Making extra money: 1,300

While the traffic doesn’t compare to “make money online”, by using various subsets, it can really add up. And, not for nothing, the longer a keyword phrase is (long-tail keywords), the more motivated the searcher is to buy because they are looking for something specific.

Keep this in mind the next time you do keyword research for your Google AdWords pay per click campaign. Monitor your results. You may never want to use same keywords everyone else is bidding on again.

New Google AdWords pay per click marketers can waste a lot of money if they don’t know how to property set an ad budget. There’s an art to it. Here are two things to keep in mind that will keep you from wasting money with this online marketing method.

Set Limits:  Figure out how much you can afford to spend monthly, then break it down by day. This will prevent you from going over budget.

For example, if your monthly PPC budget is $500, then your daily limit is $16.66.

Set Dollar Limits on Keywords: As in, set a maximum of how much you’re willing to pay for a click on a certain keyword. To do this, use Google’s Keyword AdWord Tool to see what the average spend is for a certain keyword.

Using this info, bid higher if you want to obtain a higher listing on a page. Or, bid lower if you want to be in a lower position. Nothing is set in stone; you can change these at any time if you want. Check your campaigns often, and if your current bids aren’t giving you the results you want, then change them.

Google AdWords Pay Per Click Campaign: Setting Your Bid Tip

Strive for the Top Spot: Often, this is not the most profitable spot to be in. Oftentimes, the number three, four or five position will get you better results. The reason is, a lot of curiosity seekers may click on the top spot. But, those who are “ready to buy” mode will often click three, four or five ads to comparison shop.

So in essence, the person in the top spot is paying for a customer who’s going to click on lower-placed ads anyway.

Keeping these tips in mind will not only keep you from overspending, they will increase your Google AdWords campaign ROI as well.

Placement-targeted Google AdWords campaigns are best suited to Pay Per Click marketers who want more control over how their ad is presented across Google’s content network.

Following are ways to maximize your ROI when creating a placement-targeted campaign.

1. Use Text & Image Ads: Placement-targeted Google AdWords campaigns allow you to create both types of ads. The advantage in doing so is that you can run split tests to see how each one performs.

As placement-targeted campaigns are only shown on content sites, it allows end users to respond to an ad in a format that is most suitable for them. Hence, if you discover that one type of ad is performing better, then you can focus creating more of those.

2. Use Placement Tool Effectively: The placement tool gives you three specific ways to indentify sites you may want your ads to appear on. They are: List URLs, Describe Topics, and Select Demographics.

Of course, this should be used to select which content sites you want your ads to show up on. But, just as importantly, use this tool to exclude websites you don’t want your ads to show up on.

When you click on “Select Demographics”, the tool will return a list of sites based on the info you’ve keyed in, eg, target market age, gender, household income, etc.

Try to be as thorough as possible when filling in this category for your Google AdWords ads. The more concrete information you have about your prospects, the more accurately you will be able to select sites for your ads to appear on across the Google Content Network. 

As it’s the holiday season and we know a lot of merchants make a large chunk of their revenue this time of year. And, many new marketers are trying
pay per click advertising with Google AdWords and other search engines for the very first time.

These are the reasons that why we’ve tried to give you as many pay per click “holiday” marketing tips as possible. And, we’re not done yet!

Following are three more PPC marketing tips that can bring in the business. This week, we focus on the really simple little things that many may overlook.

1. Singular/Plural – It Matters: Include singular and plural versions of keyword/keyword phrases in your pay per click campaigns.

As web surfers are human beings, there are as many ways to search for a product/service as there are surfers. So, do the basics and cover your bases as much as possible. This is one way to do it. 

2. Capitalize: This is another tiny change that can make a big difference. By capitalizing each word in your pay per click ad, you make them stand out more.

3. Direct Link to Product Page: Don’t make visitors slog through page after page on your site to find the offer promised in your PPC ad. Deep link directly to it.

Especially as the season wears on, shoppers are harried, tired and frustrated – even when shopping online. And, they are bombarded by so many messages that if they can’t find what’s been promised in the ad, they’ll likely click away to find it – perhaps at your competitor’s site.

These are three quick, easy tips even a new pay per click marketer can do to increase holiday sales.

It’s the holiday season and a lot of first-time pay per click marketers are running campaigns. PPC marketing is an excellent way to capitalize on the busy holiday season. But, as with every revenue generating system, it pays to be careful–particularly this time of year. To that end, following are two things you can do to guard against click fraud this season.

Conduct Data Analysis: You get a wealth of campaign reports when you run pay per click campaigns. Take some time to go through them and do some data analysis.

Where are your clicks coming from? Are they converting? Does the referral source seem suspicious? Is your account being drained of dollars very quickly?

You don’t have to be an internet marketing guru to understand these reports. They are provided to help increase your ROI, so use them.

Set Affordable Ad Budgets: This is probably the simplest way to guard against click fraud, and is one of the things that make pay per click marketing so attractive.

Following is the key thing to remember when setting your PPC ad budget . . . set it to get the most exposure for your ads, without breaking the bank. This can be a tricky balance as you have to figure out the most profitable keywords and phrases to bid on that will: (i) bring in the most business; (ii) this time of year; (iii) via this medium (ie, the internet).

Confused by PPC Marketing: Get the Training You Need
And, this is why it’s important to know what you’re doing when use pay per click marketing. It pays to get pay per click marketing training to run successful holiday campaigns – indeed, year-round PPC campaigns – from the beginning. 

In our latest newsletter, we discussed how to Get the Biggest Bang for Your PPC Buck this Holiday Season. We want to to take another look at this topic and add a little bit more to it. The holiday season is so short and the economy is still struggling, so we’re staying on you a little bit so you can get the most out of it and start off the new year in good shape. 

Hire Help: one of the best things you can do right now is to hire help or outsource work. “But,” you may be thinking, “I can’t afford to hire help. My sales don’t support adding additional staff.”

We don’t mean hire staff to help with sales; we mean hire help so you can get sales. For example, if you haven’t done your “holiday” keyword research, then outsource it so you can get that Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice campaign up and going!

Start Early: Do you notice that every year the holiday decorations, holiday TV ads and holiday radio announcements seem to come earlier every year? This is because merchants are extending their selling season.

After all, the sooner shoppers start thinking about the holidays, the sooner they start shopping. What have you done to extend your holiday sales season? Offer early bird holiday coupons on you landing pages, use holiday language in all of your pay per click ads, “decorate your website, blog, landing pages (ie, use holiday themes), etc.

As an online marketer, your holiday doesn’t have a definitive date; it’s not Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day or New Years Day. Your holiday has a “selling” season – and it’s right now. Are your pay per click campaigns reflecting that? If not, then check out the AdWords Advantage Online Summit - it’s a must-attend online training event to help pay per click advertisers increase AdWords results!