The problem is that the current state of social marketing is much like online marketing was 10 years ago when every channel – search, email, affiliate, display - was lumped into the same general “online marketing” category and marketing strategies were applied uniformly across all. In the time since, the industry has evolved to understand that these channels have unique opportunities for engagement and should be managed as such.

Social marketing is in that same early stage with many marketers treating Twitter and Facebook the same by simply synching their Twitter Tweets with their Facebook Newsfeed. What gets lost in the excitement is that Facebook and Twitter offer completely different opportunities for brand building, direct marketing and customer engagement.

A look at how each site classifies connections tells you all you need to know about where Facebook and Twitter fit in the mix.

ON FACEBOOK YOU MAKE FRIENDS
Facebook offers a rich interactive experience with the “friends” you make. Facebook provides a multi-dimensional interface for discussion and engagement with prospects and customers. Marketers using Facebook at its best are interacting with their friends on an ongoing basis and not just broadcasting mass market messages. For example:

• Engaging in conversations started by anyone (not just the marketer);
• Posting, tracking and sharing events with others;
• Sharing, tagging and discussing relevant photos by anyone;
• Posting and discussing content such as industry news, emails and blog posts.

On Facebook, brands are interacting one-on-one with key customers and influencers. Generic messages have a limited place in that kind of environment. A personal touch will pay off in spades.

ON TWITTER YOU GAIN FOLLOWERS
Twitter is the place to listen and join in on the mumblings and shouts of the web at large. Unlike Facebook where users must be “friends” to participate with each other, Twitter allows anyone to see a user‘s updates. This provides a whoe set of opportunities for marketers on Twitter. For example:

• Broadcast events live with tweets, twitpic, etc. to gain more participation;
• Monitor tweets via Twitter search or Tweetmeme to gauge public opinion and attitudes;
• Follow specific users to see what they are saying on an ongoing basis and join the dialog;
• Broadcast deals, news and other important information out to their followers.

Just as important as broadcasting, Twitter provides a completely unique opportunity for marketers to listen to their customers’ general attitudes and thoughts about brands and competitors. This latent monitoring – of sometimes seemingly irrelevant thoughts - can provide incredibly valuable insight into the mind of a customer.

One other key difference with Twitter is that discussions are broadcast in short messages for all to see. This allows anyone to join the conversation at any time, and as a result it also more difficult to track the history of a specific discussion or the full thread. In effect, it is less of a discussion and more a running dialog on any number of topics at any given time with any given number of people.

Click to read more posts about Earned Media or Social Media.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Have you ever been too hot and turned down your air-conditioner only to find that you are too cold later? And then you turn the AC back up only to find that you are too hot later? The difficulty getting it just right is, in effect, what happens with over-optimizing search: The user logs in, changes all the parameters (keywords, bids, creative, etc.) to improve results and then finds that they did too much. So they log back in and make a number of similar changes to correct the campaign; except the campaign quickly goes back the other way. This happens to too many search campaigns and the following is intended to provide a brief guide on how to avoid over-optimization:

Scientific Method: This holds true for Adwords as much as science: Before taking action, create a hypothesis and construct the campaign in a way that lets you know if your hypothesis was right or wrong.

Learning: Whether a test succeeds or fails, knowing what does not work is just as valuable as knowing what does. Ensure that variables are isolated so that results – positive or negative – are definitive.

Historical Data: Do not continue to rely on results and assumptions that are more than 3-6 months old. Continue to re-test former winners and losers to ensure that optimization takes into account changes in the landscape that may impact current results.

Limit Variables: Tests should not overlap with each other. All testing variables should be isolated to eliminate the chance of misreading results and to drive learning more quickly. For example, a change in bid strategy should not be executed at the same time as a creative test if at all possible because it will be difficult to attribute a change in performance to the correct cause.

Limit Risk: Do not run tests on all keywords or adgroups at the same time because results will be unpredictable and there is always a chance that tests will yield poor results. Segment a portion of the campaign to test and run winners on the remainder of the campaign. The level of testing is dependent upon the marketer’s threshold for risk, but should be somewhere between 10-40% of budget. For example, if there are 10 adgroups spending $1000/month each, then segment 1-4 adgroups to be eligible for tests and run winners on the remaining adgroups. Rotate the 1-4 adgroups every time a new test is started to ensure that no overtesting of any particular adgroup occurs.

Click to read more posts about paid search or marketing tests.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Quality links from quality sites are hard to come by without effort. They require extended efforts to build, and the approach to achieving a long-lasting quality link can be manual, tedious and very time intensive. At the very least, it is an ongoing effort; not a one time, quick-hit activity. For example, if you are a marketing agency, a link from top university marketing departments would be valuable. It would provide a credible link from a credible institution. It also will help you generate traffic directly from the link as students, faculty and business leaders will visit the university site and likely click through to the links presented on that site. As you can imagine it would take time and extensive relationship building to receive these types of link.

On the other hand, to speed things up, some SEOs build out a network of their own sites against different industry verticals and place links to their clients on those sites. When a client contracts with these SEOs, they will immediately receive some guaranteed number of links, properly optimized, pointing to their site. It always sounds like a good deal. And sometimes it can be. The challenge comes when the client evaluates the long-term implications. When the relationship with the SEO ends, the client’s links are usually taken down and rented to the client’s competitor. All your hard work and money spent goes out the window.

The bottom line is that these types of linking relationships are essentially paid sponsorships where the client is renting space on another website in hopes that they will receive more traffic via the search engines. While there will be some SEO benefit, as with many advertising deals, all clients should look to project the expected results of these paid sponsorships against other paid sponsorships. They could be effective for the client, but it is important for the clients to come to the table with a complete understanding of what is included and not included in any SEO deal.

Click to read more posts about hiring an agency or SEM scams

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Every marketer wants the best toolset to be used for their campaigns, but search marketing software is developed by a wide range of companies. Knowing who is behind development and maintenance of the software is just as important as knowing what features it offers because the costs and effectiveness of software varies by developer and can significantly affect the outcome of a campaign. It is crucial that clients clearly understand the benefits, limitations and market readiness of the software its employees and agencies use and the developers who make them.

Search engine provided tools are available for most paid search and SEO functions. Google’s tools are the most popular but not the only game in town. Most firms use at least one tool from search engines whether it be webmaster diagnostic tools, paid search management or analytics. While these tools are usually free, some firms do not use them because:

• Multiple Interfaces: Some tools, like bid managers, only work with the search engine who provided the tool. The result is that users must use multiple tools for the same function;
• Quality: Effectiveness of the tools across the search engines can vary dramatically;
• Privacy and Security: Some firms believe sharing sensitive client data with search engines is a conflict of interest.

A 3rd party product is software licensed by the firm from another company that is dedicated to building and maintaining software products. 3rd party products have dedicated development, maintenance, sales and support teams to service clients. While many 3rd party products are run as independent businesses, in some cases, a services firm may offer its tools as a commercial product. Such proprietary products are used by the firm’s employees to service clients and are licensed to other firms for use with their clients.

Proprietary software is an application built by the services firm to be used only by its employees. Some firms maintain full-time in-house staff to develop and maintain the software while others outsource. One of the benefits of proprietary software is tight integration into the firm’s processes, but reliability and effectiveness of the tool depends on the firm’s development acumen and expenditure on development, maintenance and support of its proprietary tools.

Like proprietary software, proprietary tools are built by the service firm to be used only by its employees but instead of writing custom software, these tools are built using off the shelf software, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. Proprietary tools often develop organically by the services teams and usually are not supported by dedicated developers. Proprietary tools may be as simple as standardized templates or very intricate and sophisticated tools to automate workflow and other functions. While typically considered inferior to custom software, proprietary tools do offer flexibility and, for some firms, a superior and cost-effective solution when combined with search engine provided tools.

To read more and download the whitepaper,Click here. Please contact us if you would like to discuss search marketing software solutions in depth or if you have any other questions.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Earned media is publicity without payment to the person or company who provides the publicity. One of the primary reasons for the buzz is that earned media is often used synonymously with the term “free media”. The other reason for its recent buzz is that platforms for easily distributing earned media - like Facebook and Twitter - have become very popular over the past couple of years.

Despite the recent buzz, the term ‘earned media’ has been in use for more than 20 years since its first reference in a 1988 Newsweek article by Jonathan Alter and Howard Fineman. At the time, the authors were referring to broadcasting one’s message on TV or radio without any payment to the broadcaster. Since then, the application of the term broadened to include any type of mention of a company or brand in the news. This landed earned media firmly in the court of public relations professionals.

Consumer broadcasting accelerated with Email Forwards and Link Building
With the growing popularity of the internet in the late 1990’s, and email in particular, consumers began to send trillions of emails and many companies attempted to find the next big email forward hit (think dancing baby) or tell-a-friend program.

At the same time, online search engines started to give away billions of clicks for free to websites who appeared in their listing; listings were gained partially through linking between websites. Businesses, called SEOs, quickly appeared to help businesses take advantage of the opportunity and in the process have developed a $3B market for this service.

New terms emerge
As the internet boom picked up steam in 1999 and later after it deflated in the early 2000’s, the opportunities for earned media continued to grow and soon word of mouth marketing became a popular method for marketers to reach consumers. Word of mouth marketing refers to consumers telling other consumers about a product or brand with professionals focused on facilitating this process. Similar to word of mouth marketing, viral marketing refers to consumers passing along a specific marketing message to other consumers (coupons, promotions, entertainment, tools, etc.)

Social media provides consumers with drastic improvement over email for mass broadcast capabilities
More recently, social applications like Blogger, Digg, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter (ie. blogs, link sharing services, and social networks) provided consumers with a superior forum to broadcast their thoughts, opinions and ideas. Whereas previous earned media broadcast opportunities were from central authorities determining who got airplay, social applications enabled consumers to reach hundreds or thousands of people with one unfiltered broadcast. The power to guide is now in the consumer’s hands and they are actively endorsing companies, products, and ideas to their friends, family and colleagues.

The old adage that a happy customer tells two people and an unhappy customer tells 10 has now been amplified with social applications so that a happy customer tells 200 people and an unhappy customer tells 1,000.

Earned media is not reserved to social networks
Companies that earn media best always invest resources into growing the opportunity. This could be in the form of public relations, SEO, promotions, software development, customer service and hundreds of other ways to build and communicate one’s brand. In the end, earned media is the ultimate branding exercise where the company educates the public on its products and then observes how the market communicates that teaching back to itself.

If you would like additional information on this topic or to meet with an advisor to discuss earned media, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

One of the most frequent complaints that we hear from clients is the difficulty in evaluating and differentiating each firm’s capabilities, experience and ability to deliver. With more than 2,000 firms offering some form of search engine marketing services in the United States, businesses looking to hire or buy a search marketing company encounter a cluttered marketplace with little information on how to distinguish between each firm’s strengths, weaknesses and differentiators. This whitepaper was designed to provide that starting point.

The purpose of this whitepaper is to help businesses learn how to differentiate and segment professional services firms offering search marketing services. The goal is to enable professionals to make informed purchase decisions that deliver beneficial and long lasting relationships with search marketing firms. Key questions addressed:

• What are the different types of firms offering search engine marketing services?
• How can different firms be classified?
• What is the difference between consulting and full service search engine marketing?
• What tools are employed for search engine marketing?
• What positions are staffed for search marketing?
• What are the industry credentials and accreditation services?
• What pricing models do firms offer?

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The approach that a search marketing firm employs in its strategy and tactics for achieving results is born from its search marketing philosophy. A firm’s philosophy is taught from day one to new employees and re-enforced to existing employees through process, training, compensation and other aspects of the firm’s culture. While every firm has a unique approach and competitive positioning, in the search marketing field, there are two general philosophies firms tend to segment themselves into.

A BlackHat firm is concerned with immediate success regardless of the rules established by the search engines in its terms of use and guidelines. BlackHat firms bend and break the rules established by the search engines and opportunistically identify competitive gaps where its clients can maximize results. While results may be achieved quickly, they may be short-lived and the firm’s clients may face consequences from the search engines if the techniques are discovered.

While BlackHat is a term used most often in reference to SEO, it can just as easily be applied to paid search. With commercial contracts and direct API access, paid search offers many opportunities for BlackHat firms to exploit advantages in paid search campaigns.

A WhiteHat firm focuses on delivering results while ensuring that the client’s marketing does not violate the terms of use and guidelines of the search engines. WhiteHat firms work within the confines of the rules to establish practices that will maximize client results without the risk of penalties from the search engines. While the risk of penalties from the engine is greatly reduced and results generally last longer, results may take longer to develop.

It should be noted that a BlackHat firm will include a layer of WhiteHat practices in its offering as a matter of best practice. Balancing the combination of the two provides more stability for the BlackHat program. And on the other hand, there are times when a WhiteHat firm inadvertently employs BlackHat techniques on its client’s business. This can happen when a firm’s training programs are out of date or if inexperienced staff is assigned to a client’s account.

To read more and download the whitepaper,Click here. Please contact us if you would like to discuss your upcoming agency search with a Thrivepoint advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Ensuring success and limiting risk starts with the implementation of a robust regimen of upfront planning before any SEM meetings take place. The upfront planning process is designed to ensure that clients are making objective and well-informed decisions that lead to long-term, successful partnerships with their SEM.

Here are five steps that clients should take before meetings with the SEMs:

Current Situation: Write an evaluation of the current situation. Key questions to answer are: What is the current budget? What is the current approach? What are the current resources and tools? What is working? What is not working? Why are we considering hiring a new agency? What will change from the current situation when the new agency takes over?

Objectives: Outline the objectives of the engagement and expected results. Create a business case which outlines the expense, projected quantitative and qualitative results and costs for not making any change.

Requirements: Outline requirements for the agency’s capabilities, resources, tools, staff, client experience, case history, proximity, scope of work, etc. Prioritize requirements as need to have and nice to have. Need to have requirements are the minimal requirements the SEM needs to meet to be considered. Nice to have requirements will provide flexibility for the SEMs to differentiate their offering from the competition.

Constituents: Identify who in the client organization will be involved with the research, evaluation, negotiation and decision making. Ensure that there is buy-in from each consituent on their role in the process and the time commitment that is expected.

Decision Criteria: Review the objectives and requirements with constituents and determine each constituents decision criteria. Ensure that there are not any conflicts between different constituents criteria. Ensure each constituents criteria matches the role that they will play in the evaluation.

By implementing a planning process that involves these five steps, clients will maximize their odds of finding the right long-term partner and realizing the gains that a business can achieve with the right SEM partner.

If you would like additional information on this topic or to meet with an advisor to discuss your upcoming agency search, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

What is the current stage of the buy process? Disclosing the current stage of the buy process enables the agency to tailor the information they provide to the buyer’s needs at the time. Receiving a full-blown proposal during the information gathering stage is overkill, because at this stage, the buyer might be interested in reading whitepapers, case studies and other industry research published by the agency. On the other hand, receiving research instead of a proposal when the buyer is at the decision making stage is a clear miss for both buyer and agency.

What is the current solution in place? Whether the buyer uses consultants, in-house employees, another agency or nothing, the agency should know the details of the current situation. With this information, the agency can provide case studies and references that most closely match the buyers existing situation so that the buyer will be armed with most relevant information about the agency’s track record.

What parameters will drive the decision? Communicating needs and requirements to the agency ensures that the buyer’s decision making process is objective and that the agency has a fair opportunity to demonstrate its historical track record in meeting the requirements. Distinguishing between need to have and nice to have requirements is also important because it lets the agency know the minimal requirements for contention (need to haves) and how to differentiate from the pack (nice to haves).

Who will be involved in the decision making? No matter who is making the final decision, it is important to disclose the other people who will be involved in the evaluation process whether it is the finance department, executive staff or others. The information the finance department needs will be different than what the CEO or VP of Marketing need and outlining these information requirements will help the agency to deliver the most relevant information.

When is the buyer making a decision? All agencies are glad for the opportunity to share its capabilities, case studies and research with interested marketers. The exception to this rule is if the buyer does not correctly disclose the decision making deadline. In this case, the agency may put in more work than necessary to design materials to try to close the business and they will likely tire out the buyer with followup calls and meeting requests. Setting expectations upfront for whether the decision is happening imminently, never or somewhere in between helps the agency share the right information with the buyer and to ensure that its communications are timely and productive for the buyer.

If you would like additional information on this topic or to meet with an advisor to discuss your upcoming agency search, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

After listening to the panelists present case studies with results and innovations for testing, we asked the panel about risk management. Specifically, with client budgets on the line, what is the best approach to manage and limit risk from a testing regimen?

Surprisingly, the answer that the panelists unanimously agreed upon was, “It depends on how much the marketer is spending.”

To be fair, the panelists were there to promote the benefits of testing and thinking about the sample size needed to determine when a test has enough data to declare it the winner. However, the assumption that all tests are winners and that risk depends on how much the marketer is spending may not take into account the marketer’s best interests and business requirements.

A test by nature has unknown results and there is always an equal chance that the test will deliver very poor results. Risk management is not a subjective determination based on spend; it is an objective decision based on business requirements. Before setting up a testing regimen, it is critical that both marketer and agency have a discussion to determine and design what threshold of risk will be inherent in the test.

Simply put, before launching a test, always ask, “What is the downside?”

If you would like additional information on marketing tests and risk management, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.