Image credit: powerof9

On the eve of Facebook’s historic IPO announcement, General Motors announced that it will pull all funding from advertisements displayed on Facebook. According to General Motors, they feel that paid ads through Facebook have little impact on consumers’ vehicle purchases, rendering them unnecessary costs. So what does this mean for the future of paid ads through social media? If rendered ineffective by other major corporations, where will the money come from for the social media giants? Is this the end of social media marketing as we know it?

Short Answer: Not a chance. Many other large automakers see great value in advertising through Facebook. However, it is easy to understand why the effectiveness ads on Facebook continue to come into question, as they have in the past. Important metrics that measure the effectiveness of advertisements are significantly poorer on Facebook than on the results pages of search engines like Google and Bing. The user intent is typically much different on a search engine, where users are often searching for a product or service to buy, whereas the users on a social media platform, like Facebook, are typically not searching for products or services to purchase online. This generally leads to lower click through rates for the ads and higher costs per conversion for the campaigns as a whole.

So what makes Facebook ads appealing to advertisers? The plethora of information Facebook gathers from its users is immense and is extremely valuable for any advertiser looking to target a very specific demographic, which is something Google, in a way, has tried to replicate. Many businesses have also found that Facebook ads, when managed properly, can be quite effective for getting a message across, like an upcoming event or product release, or simply for building brand awareness. They become more effective when targeting a specific demographic niche that cannot be reached through traditional means of advertising, and for products that are not necessarily purchased online.

GM’s drop of Facebook ads is more of a statement than an actual financial concern for Facebook, and GM won’t be leaving the Facebook world anytime soon. Last year, GM spent about $10 million on Facebook ads last year and $30 million elsewhere on Facebook, which is small change when measured against their overall ad spend of $1.8 billion. Other motor leaders like Ford and Nissan continue to believe in Facebook ads, and have stated that they won’t sell any cars over Facebook, but the brand awareness gained is worth the money spent.

GM "Unlikes" Facebook Mike

Online Marketing Specialist Michael Hall Presents at East Lansing High School Mike

In today’s digital world, even the most seemingly miniscule customer has power. The internet gives them a voice, and information can be spread to thousands in a matter of seconds by hitting a few keys and clicking “Enter” on a social media platform. There are Google Reviews, online communities, blogs, and other outlets flooded with people who are understanding and supportive. All of these avenues can be found by a basic Google search.

So what’s the overarching theme here? Be careful who you make angry.

I recently came across a story on Jalopnik about a gentleman named Nishboo who won an eBay auction for a BMW X6 he wanted to give to his mother for her birthday. To make a long story short, the dealership declined his deposit and ended up selling the car to a local buyer a couple days later for more money - even after Nishboo told them it was against eBay’s policies to do so.

Angry and frustrated, Nishboo turned to a forum where members gave him advice, and, more importantly, began calling the dealership and flooding their Facebook and Google Reviews with negative posts.

This doesn’t make Major Motor Cars look too good, especially to a curious person who may be interested in their company. If a basic Google search is done, the company page and rating is the first result. Someone may think ”Why only 2.5/5 stars?” and read the negative reviews.

If someone is especially curious, they may do a news search of the company. Google even has filters to allow a person to search for content posted on specific dates. In cases such as this, the range can be restricted to dates surrounding when bad reviews are posted. Since this is a newer story, it showed right up when I did a news search:

The headline does no good for the business, either.

This reminds me of a similar story from a while ago on 27b/6 about a sporting goods store that allegedly treated David Thorne, the owner of 27b/6, with disrespect when he attempted to return a pair of defective gloves. Although Thorne is a fratirist and thus known to stretch the truth, the post still evoked a variety of responses from fans and followers.

While there used to be over 100 reviews, most of which were negative, the bank has since been cleaned out. Some posts still remain, however:

Although the company did the right thing by replying and offering an explanation, they waited quite a while to do so. Thorne has claimed he was treated rudely, but regardless it just goes to show that employees need to be careful of how they speak to all customers.

On another note, negative reviews still remain on Yelp for Function 4 Sports.

Ultimately, when looking for a service or product these days, it’s easy to go online, do a Google search, and look at the company website. Furthermore, there are plenty of outlets to investigate what other people are saying about it. Businesses thrive because of a number of these outlets such as forums with dedicated customers, recommendations, and reviews.

As a final note, businesses need to be careful when dealing with each and every customer and have a damage control plan ready. Although it helps to be a consumer with a large following in the case of a dispute, the power of a sole person with internet access cannot be underestimated.

It Takes One Person: The Power of the Internet and Social Media on Brand Image Alyssa Zandi

No matter how much time you carve out in your day to implement some great new idea, it seems a million or more things require immediate attention and it's incredibly hard to get the ball rolling. I guess this is why I manage by day and work at night...thus the reason my former blog was known as "Search Marketing Insomniac". I wonder how many other solo or small agency SEOs find themselves being more productive either outside the office or after dusk?

Source by WebFly

The Reality Of SEO...In Comic Form Adam Henige

1. Ability to create ad groups on the fly while using Keyword research tool:

When I am researching keywords, I often use the Google keyword research tool. Currently I am able to select keywords and add them to my current ad groups.  However, many times I am researching keywords that warrant the creation of new ad groups.  When this happens, I need to copy or save those keywords in other location, like a text file.  Then I need to go in and create the ad group, including naming it, setting the initial ad, adding my initial keywords, and setting the bid.

It would be great to be able to create an ad group within the add keyword flyout, much like the ability to add a new folder on the fly in Windows explorer when attaching an email.  Yes - this ad group wouldn't be complete, but I could then go continue my keyword research, and add more keywords to this new ad group.  Then of course I would need to go back and finish off the other attributes of my new ad group (or groups) once I was done with my keyword research.  This tweak wish my be more just due to my own personal workflow, but I do think it would be helpful.

2. Testing and Editing site links extensions.

Extensions have been a great addition to the AdWords tool kit.  Like ad copy, it would be great to be able to test site link ad extensions against each other.  With 35 characters to work with, there are good windows of opportunity to test ad copy.

However, we restricted in using only one ad extension per campaign.  Additionally, when trying to edit them you have to pause and completely replace the extension, even if you want to tweak one little item.  Like traditional ads, we should be able to pause, edit, and add multiple extensions in order to test their respective effectiveness.  This would lead to a more efficient work flow, and give us the ability to maximize click through rate and conversions.

3. Copying keywords across campaigns

Most of the accounts we manage have several campaigns within them.  On occasion, these are very similiar campaigns that have different geographic targets.  If I find a keyword that is working, or add a new keyword, it would be nice to be able quickly add this edit across multiple campaigns.  Now, I know that this is somewhat attainable in AdWords Editor.  However, I am talking about times when you are editing "on the fly" within the AdWords interface.

When I select my campaign and ad group, I hit copy to ad group the copy function is done.  If I want to copy the keyword to another campaign, I have to go through the same process again.

It would be great in the Copy Ad Group last step if AdWords could provide an option to copy to an additional location. This would be a very efficient refinement, and allow us to quickly add effective keywords across multiple locations "on the fly" without having to use AdWords Editor.

Those are my 3 wish list items.  Just small subtle tweaks that would make life a bit easier for PPC managers, and I don't think would be out of the realm of possibility for the AdWords programming team to implement.

My Own Wish List for AdWords Joe Ford

So for those of us in the SEO world, sometimes you run into the dilemma of trying to move an entire subdirectory. Sure, you can easily change that within the permalinks, but what about the associated media files? Honestly, any time you make wholesale changes to WordPress you set yourself up for the potential "Holy @#$%, {insert anything related to your website here} is broken...what do I do?"

I've moved blog directories before and had to change everything by hand or try to make some complicated htaccess change or annoy developers trying to do it via SQL. None of these are any fun, I promise you. Last week I had the good fortune of having the very smart folks over at Prowebmarketing.com I was made aware of the fabulous plugin Search and Replace. Want to move 500 image files to a new directory? No problem. I moved three subdirectories and fixed the media files in seconds. Here's the deal.

1. Back up your database! I love this plugin, but always back up before making mass changes!
2. Download the plugin at the link above
3. Go to Tools>Available tools>Search and replace in your WordPress Dashboard
4. Do a search for the items that you want to find (use the * as a wildcard where necessary)
5. Check to see if the identified items match what you were targeting, then fill out the find and replace fields again and set it loose
6. Head to your site>Refresh>Watch your files work again

Find. Replace. Take a nap.

Have you tried other find and replace plugins? We're interested in seeing what successes and failures others have had with similar plugins.

WordPress Search and Replace Plugin Review Adam Henige

"I'm not sure we have something like that in our area," they mused.

Local hashtags have advantages that cannot be achieved by simply sorting by region or city; they bring communities together in a more cohesive manner and establish camaraderie among people that would otherwise be strangers. In a nutshell, these people (for the most part) share the same love and pride for their cities, communities, and States; They are able to start conversations and engage one another on topics near and dear to their hearts.  In addition to bringing people together, local hashtags help aggregate local information and content on events, businesses, and recent happenings turning Twitter Feeds into a mini, real-time newspaper of sorts.

I later continued the discussion with avid #lovelansing Twitter-ers and social experts Jen Middlin, Director of Marketing at CiesaDesign and Nicole Sunstrum, New Media Liaison of State of Michigan. We agreed that there weren't any resources we knew of for discerning whether or not an area had a hashtag that was commonly used or for identifying the various hashtags for different regions.

Unable to locate such a resource, I took it upon myself to begin to gather information from Twitter-ers from all corners of Michigan to put together a local hashtag directory for the state of Michigan. I grew up in Ann Arbor, spent my teen years in the suburbs of Detroit, relocated to the West side of the state for college, and ended up working in the Lansing-area, but I am by no means an expert on all areas of Michigan so I hope that some great Michiganders will help me expand upon this incomplete list. Have something to add or alter? Let us know @malloryloren or @netvantage.

A big thank-you to Alex Beaton (@alexbeaton), of the AwesomeMitten.com (@awesomemitten) for her help, to @annarborcom & @wluctv6 for being so responsive, and everyone else that contributed.

When using  hashtags, Twitter warns users of overdoing it. Try to never use more than 2 hashtags in a tweet and try to stick the most applicable. Need a hashtag tutorial? Twitter does a great job of explaining how to and why you should use hashtags here.

General Michigan

• #puremichigan
• #mittenlove
• #greatlakes
• #mittensup
• #michiganlove
• #michiganpride
• #michigan
• #Michiganders
• #madeinmichigan

East Lansing / Lansing / Mid-Michigan

• #lovelansing
  #eastlansing
• #LansingBiz

Grand Rapids/ West Michigan

• #GrandRapids
• #Grmi
• #WestMI
• #GR

Ann Arbor

• #annarbor
• #washtenaw (used for the county)
• #a2traffic (used for traffic updates)

Detroit

• #detroit
• #dtown
• #motorcity
• #detroitlove

Kalamazoo

• #kzoo
• #kalamazoo

Traverse City

• #tcmi
• #nwmi

Upper Michigan

• #yoopers

Colleges

Michigan State University

• #spartanswill
• #spartanpride
• #msu
• #spartyon

University of Michigan

• #uofm
• #wolverines
• #goblue
• #michigan
• #umich

Central Michigan University

• #cmu

Western Michigan University

• #wmu

More Notes

The hashtag #michigan is used for both the State of Michigan as a whole and The University of Michigan.

See something you'd like to add? Tweet us! @Netvantage or @malloryloren.

Local Hashtags Bring Communities Together: Michigan Hashtag Directory Mallory Woodrow

Managing Partner Joe Ford was interviewed on the Michigan Business Network on  Technically Speaking with Chad Paalman on Tuesday March 20th, 2012 at 9:00 AM. It will be replayed at 2:00pm, 7:00pm, and 9:00pm. If you missed it, you can listen to the podcast or download it for free here.

Managing Partner Joe Ford Interview on Michigan Business Network Radio Netvantage

The March meeting featured: How much "business" is ok on social media, and which tools should you focus on?

For more on the event, visit the Capital Area IT breakdown of the panel.

Mallory Woodrow Speaks on Social Media Panel at The Capital Area IT Council Netvantage

One of the first topics to discuss is what we have been seeing work in e-commerce for paid search. The performance numbers for our e-commerce clients have been frankly outstanding in the last 6 months. We have seen great increases in CTR, revenue, and ROI, with significant decreases in CPC. Believe me, it isn't all us. It is a combination of our AdWords playbook, our clients having good products, our clients caring about their site, and our clients listening to landing page recommendations for conversion. From an AdWords standpoint, here has been an overview of what's working:

1. Small ad groups - tight keyword matches. We are finding lots of success constructing very small ad groups, and using very tight keyword match types around product keywords. I bet in the thousand keywords we have been managing for various clients, we have probably only a dozen purposeful broad match keywords. And we are only using those in short run tests. Doing this has enabled us to write very focused ad copy, especially using keyword matches in our headlines. This has also protected us from displaying for poor queries. I like to call it reducing our keyword risk exposure.  Yes - impressions and clicks may drop - but if done right cost should decrease and revenue should increase (last time I asked, clients like this). In order to be sure we are staying on top of query trends, we activley use the See Search Query Tool to mine for negative keyword opportunities, as well as any broader variations we may be missing. When using matching we also keep a close eye on impressions share per ad group to ensure we are on the mark with budget, bid, and quality. We most frequently use phrase and exact match types with success.  If we think we are losing impressions share, we will widen out to both modified broad and broad keywords.

2. Ad copy tests. You always hear about testing in paid search. It isn't just important - it is everything! We are constantly trying to find ways to test ad copy to maximize conversions. Often times search advertisers can get wrapped up into measuring conversions by keyword. While good, I think it is also important to measure how specific ads convert. There can be some major discoveries in looking at this data. Click through rate is important, but look at how your ads converted against each other as well. For example, was it better to use "Quality Products", or "Lowest Prices". We also do a lot of testing of using price within our ads. There is no across the board answer here - in some cases it worked - in other cases in bombed. That is why testing ad copy is important.

3. Ad extensions. I think ad extensions have been an extremely important development for paid search. Product extensions have greatly enhanced conversions for many clients. We are seeing product listing ads vastly outperform normal text ads for conversions in many cases. Sitelinks extenions have increased our click through rates over 35% in some cases. An important tactic to keep in mind is the usage of calls to action within your Sitelinks - such as Sale, Best Deal, Limited Time Only.  Phone extensions have given us another great lead and buy generation touch point for our clients to interact with buyers for less. We also use Google call forwarding for the $1.00 cost per call option, and to provide our clients with a call report. (Location extensions are important as well - if you have a local geographic footprint with your e-commerce site)

4. Landing pages and site layout. Beyond AdWords tactics - it still is a gigantic factor to work with the sites that you are driving traffic to. We always use the analogy - don't drive people on nice roads to shacks in the woods - drive them on nice roads to mansions that they can explore and use. It is important to match query intent to content. If a user searches on black leather shoes - don't bring them to the mens shoes page - bring them to the black leather shoes page. Or, at least test it! When working with campaigns, we feel it is important to constantly be in communication with our clients on landing page tests and tweaks to maximize conversion. The best AdWords campaigns depend on sites that are positioned to convert. You still need to address product layout, content packages, visuals, and of course pricing. If you are not priced competitively, then any e-commerce campaign is going to suffer with conversions percentage.

That is an overview of what has worked in our world for e-commerce. Yes - there is a lot more to it. I didn't cover bidding, conversion optimizer, Enhanced CPC, KPIs in the new Google Analytics, etc, but these are the high points for now. What's been most effective lately in e-commerce for your site, leave a comment below! More to come from our paid search arm in the coming weeks.

Paid Search For E-Commerce - What's Been Working Joe Ford