A couple months back, I had the privilege of participating in a live webinar panel discussion entitled, “Doing to Delivering: Five Considerations for Making Social Media Strategic”.
I was joined by:
Chase Bowers – Internet Communications Specialist, U of Alabama
Melissa Richards – Director of Marketing & Publications, Va Tech
The webcast was hosted by John Mohr of Systems Alliance and was geared towards helping marketing teams in higher education learn how to make social media an effective component of a school’s integrated, strategic communications program.
And, you can check out our social media response flow chart, adapted from the US Airforce Public Affairs office’s own plan. It’s a fantastic logistic blue print to for managing social media response.
I just received a notice from Google as an AdWords advertising notifying me that Google is dropping the explicit ability to target/exclude ads to the 0-17 age group. This age group will no be rolled into a new category called “age – undetermined”.
This is most likely due to Google’s endeavor to be more conscience about restricting marketers from targeting children. Unfortunately, the big side affect is that if you DON’T want to target children, it becomes more difficult to exclude that group.
Most likely you will not want to exclude the “age – undetermined” group because that is a huge group, as many sites don’t provide demographic info.
Therefore, as of December 1st, 2011, when this change goes live, your campaigns may be affected if you are using this type of targeting.
Now would be a good time to go into your campaigns and adjust those targets; and potentially your ad copy, to ensure you are messaging to the proper audience in the most optimized manner possible.
Today, Google announced that it will be displaying some paid ads below search results (opposed to the side). I was not able to confirm, but still assume ads above search results may co-exist with those below search results. In this case, organic results will be “sandwiched” between paid results.
Google explains that during testing the bottom-vs-side scenario scored a higher CTR. I’m not too surprised, as we web searchers do browser in a north-to-south fashion, seldom scrolling back up to see the results on the right hand side.
But, remember that Google is in the business of making money. This means that it wants to have higher CTRs, even if it is just fractionally. We all know that even a fractional increase equals megabucks.
So, you should test this judiciously to ensure you’re obtaining the desired goals of your campaign. In my world, conversion rate is most important and a higher CTR does not always correlate to a higher conversion rate. So tread carefully, measure and monitor.
Google has had a feature in its AdWords ads for about two years now called, “click to call”. You can learn more about it here: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-click-to-call-phone-numbers.html. This is a feature whereby mobile viewers of your ad could click a link an immediately be connected to your business via an intermediary number. As a business, you pay per call placed. There’s a number of metrics Google uses to help you measure the effectiveness of your investment in this technology which you need to pay close attention to.
More recently, Google is rolling out “call extensions”. These are somewhat similar, but instead of clicking on a phone number, you actually dial an intermediary phone number that Google displays in your ad. The user is then connected to your business. Businesses bid on these ads similar to other ad types. Read more here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=173346.
Before you jump into this technology, you need to understand how you will be able to measure the calls and report on the performance of the leads.
I suggest making sure the phone number you use is unique to this and only this medium. This way you know all inbound calls are related to the campaign.
Ensure that your sales team denotes that the lead originated from the call extension campaign when they create the lead in whatever CRM or lead management system you are leveraging.
Not all calls will result in leads. You can reduce the number of “dead” calls through solid ad copy and making sure that when current customers search for you they can find you organically. Since not all calls turn into leads, you’ll need to calculate your CPL and compare this to other channels for bench-marking.
Once you have tracking in place, you will want to measure sales metrics such as sales volume, closing time, sales amount, etc. These metrics will ultimately tell you if your investment is paying off.
Finally, make sure you allow enough time to measure your campaign’s performance. If you sales cycle is typically 90 days, you don’t need to run your campaign for 90 days, but you need to allow for 90 days to reach your “final” conclusions as to whether this medium is right for you.
Hi folks! I will be at the upcoming Site Executive User Conference, “Empower” in Baltimore, MD on November 15, 16 & 17, 2011. This conference is free to all existing SE customers.
On Day 2, I will be participating on the keynote panel, “Creating an Excellent User Experience” along with Dan Greller – Legg Mason (@dgreller); Ken Nakata – Director Accessibility Consulting Practice, HiSoftware; Jeanne Ivy – D.C.D., Web Consultant, Systems Alliance (@jivydesign).
Following the keynote panel, I will be leading a session along with John Mohr (@johntmohr) entitled, Web Effectiveness Strategy Track: Social Media – The Value of a “Like”.
I almost don’t know where to begin with this one… so first, I’ll show Chapstick’s most recent ad:
Did Chapstick make an ass out of itself in its recent campaign, or did the social media team fall on its butt?
Okay, now that you’ve seen the advertisement, AdWeek writes a great article summing up all the shenanigans that ensued upon the advertisement’s release. Mainly, the ad encourages people to go to Facebook, and they do. They speak their mind (some politely and constructively, and most likely some not so friendly). Chapstick proceeds to delete many comments and flounders a bit as it tries to issue explanations for the deletions as well as the advertisement itself.
Whew.
So what’s my take?
First, I’m a male in my 30’s and probably one of the targets of this ad which most likely appeals to women just as much as men. And creating brand awareness is what advertising is all about – and now we (people who write long winded blog posts on the internet who have a combine readership of about 5 people), are talking about it – generating a MASSIVE amount of earned media for Chapstick. Is it all good? They say any press is good press… and in this case, I would agree. The negative press is more related to Chapstick’s handling of the feedback versus the ad itself. Sure, some people are going to be offended by sexually-suggestive advertising, especially in the US which tends to be more conservative in this area. But we’re not seeing even a boob in this ad… just a clothed derriere. So I think people need to be a little less sensitive.
In my opinion the ad is creative and fun… and those of us who use Chapstick (myself included, though I tend to be brand agnostic when it comes to my lip protectors), I don’t think I have ever used up a whole tube of Chapstick before either throwing it out because it has a date from the prior decade, or losing it. And, based upon the number of tubes I purchase annually for my beautiful and intelligent wife, she either uses it once a minute, or suffers from the same problem the woman in this ad does; frequent-loss-of-chapstick-syndrome. I tend to find tubes in the bottom of backpacks, purses, suitcases; in glove boxes, junk drawers; in couch cushions and medicine cabinets, and of course winter jacket pockets.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter, what Chapstick really screwed up – its social media team/response. As the team started observing a larger number of comments coming in to its Facebook page, they should have had a better triage and response procedure. Criticism is a part of any business, and you should be willing to accept it. And via social media, your policy should be to acknowledge, empathize and if necessary, address. In this case, Chapstick should have delete any posts that were clear violations – over posting/spam, foul language or harassing in nature. If it saw a large number of these, it should have posted a notice on its page very quickly explaining its policy. “Please understand that do want to hear from customers about this advertisement and anything else related to their use of Chapstick, but please be respectful of others and the community. If your comments are deemed disrespectful or foul, we will remove them.”
And you usually do not want to be defensive in social media, as the community and really tear you apart… so on that issue, be particularly careful. Let the community have its debate. Your supports will defend you if you have a solid customer base and product.
If you really did screw up in your advertisement, or in a related area, it is extremely important that you have a rock-solid escalation policy so that issues can bubble up the chain of command efficiently and consistently. The last thing you want to happen is to issue a statement that isn’t convincing or credible – the community will see right through it. (Take the New England Patriots for instance, in response to QB Tom Brady’s “drinking comments“). Don’t think your customers, especially the ones on Facebook are dumb. That strategy will not be successful.
So, if you need to issue a clarify statement, or even the dreaded “mea culpa” then you only want to do this once. And, be prepared for comments about your admission. You will receive feedback.
Chapstick has a legacy of quirky, cutesy, and slightly-suggestive advertising. It works. And this latest ad worked too, but the social media team got in the way.
Just a reminder to all my friends and readers that I believe this business is operating a con by claiming you damaged their vehicles on your trip. I would be extremely cautious when considering this attraction and urge you to think twice.
A recent article by Erik Saas at The Social Graf sums up the state of would-be competitors to Facebook nice and succinctly. I do believe that folks may be generally agnostic when it comes to social media with a hint of laziness or hesitancy towards adopting new technologies when they are for the most part content with current offerings. In other words, while people may have some issues with Facebook, there’s no real viable alternative, because there are not 750 million people on any other network; and, your current investment (building relationships, posting pics) is too time consuming to replicate elsewhere.
While Google+ made an admirable run at challenging Facebook by gaining a massive number of new signups in a relatively short time period, it seems to have stalled out because users simply aren’t using it as heavily as Facebook.
A comment post on Erik’s article by Douglas Ryan at Digitas suggests that technology, not a direct competitor will ultimately unseat Facebook as the king of all social media. I tend to agree with this hypothesis to an extent. Technology will change (or evolve) and may perhaps offer new tools to exploit pop culture, but ultimately that will take a new competitor to introduce.
Facebook would not succeed without ubiquitous internet access (be it wired or wireless), and the next service will surely need a new technology as a catalyst to unseat Facebook.
But, not all social phenomenons sunset as fads. In the early days of the ‘net, pundits called online shopping a fad, as “people would still want to go to store for a tactile experience”. And sure enough, both co-exist. However, I would not say online shopping is a fad. Similar statements could be said about online music sales, eBay and amazon.com. We forget that these “things” where once social phenomena because they are no mainstream. Facebook could very well become the Google of social media – something that is here to stay.
Just wrote a quick review of this terrible tour operator out of London, England and I wanted to be sure to share it with my colleagues.
Golden Tours has really inconvenient stops… their stops don’t align with the other tour operators. Additionally, their stops are mostly hourly, which means you’ll only be able to see a few stops in a day, and will spend most of your time waiting for the bus. We also contacted customer support twice. The first time the support person was rude and unhelpful; the second time was via email and the support person was extremely rude and unhelpful and even at one time accused me of lying. I would avoid these people at all costs – even if you are given free tickets, you’ll have a much better time at one of the larger, better-known operators.
In summary, avoid Golden Tours in London, England.
I just read via SearchEngineWatch.com that Google will be rolling out the +1 button on display ads. You’ll be able to “+1” the ad as well as see the number of others who have done so along with photos of those who have plus-one’d within your network.
I do believe that social signals such as +1 will positively affect two major metrics for display advertisers:
1) Engagement time with the advertisement will increase. When the ad is displayed, if you see people in your circle who have +1’d the ad, you’ll apt to look at the ad for a longer amount of time. This will increase recall for your display ads.
2) CTR. Your click-through rates should increase as well, with heavy increases weighted to those people being show the ad who have other’s in their network who have +1’d it. Simply put, social signals usually equal higher CTRs.
Now for the downside:
3) Bounce rate. Social signals mean higher CTRs, but those clicks may not be relevant. They may fall in a category which I refer to as “curious clickers”. People who are interested in the ad, but not necessarily the product.
4) Google says that the +1 will be for the URL behind the advertisement. So if I show an ad for a cute cat and you +1 it, but then I change the ad to a dog, it still looks like you have +1’d my ad. Obviously, this could create big problems, so I’m sure that Google will work out a way of preventing this “+1 and switch” potential. They just haven’t explained how they are going to do that yet.
Dan Soschin 