Social Media Series Kick-Off: 5 Must-Do Guidelines for Success

I often talk to brand marketers who know that they need to improve their social media performance but are stumped on the "How."

They've "checked the boxes" and created their Facebook fan page, Twitter handle, Pinterest boards and even gone out on a limb and created a Google+ account (after all, it made their Google reps happy). They've decided what their consumer needs to hear about their brand and the tone in which the user must hear it. Yet, now they are left with the burden of providing constant content across multiple networks without a sizeable audience. Add to that, the fact that mysteriously their content doesn't seem to be getting as many impressions as they have fans. In fact, despite their beautifully designed, on-brand posts, no one seems to be engaging with their content and every post's impression count gets a little worse. What the Hell is going on here? They ask...

Checking the boxes, while useful for a kick-off executive buy-in preso, can actually be detrimental if you don't have the strategy or resources to make your social media content work for the long run.

First, you must clarify your objective - what exactly are you trying to achieve with your social media program? For the sake of simplicity, I will start with an assumption that the goal of your social media program is to cultivate a community of brand advocates who will spread your message throughout their networks and eventually buy products or services from you, maybe even on an ongoing basis. If you only want them to absorb your content without engaging with it or if you only want people to buy from you right now, you are missing the huge opportunity that social media provides as a dual CRM/Acquisition channel, and you will likely not be successful (see principles below for why eyeballs are not the best goal in social media).

So, assuming the objective above, to be strategic about the "how" we first must step out of our everyday view of who our competitors are, and understand the unique competitive landscape of social media as a marketing channel.

Here is a diagram (created by me) to illustrate the reality of how you need to compete in social media.

The 101: You are not just competing with your business competitors, you are competing with everyone who wants their message to reach your target user:

To put some more real world context into this diagram, pretend that you are an online clothing retailer. You want to reach fashionable women between 25-45. When you advertise on Search, you are focused on other fashion retailers who may be running on the same keywords as you are. On television, you look at the demographics of a show or network and target your advertising to commercial slots that only have a few other ads per commercial break. On social media, however, you are competing with everyone (business and personal) who wants to communicate with this user. Suddenly you are competing not only with other fashion retailers, but with wedding photographers, organic grocers, big budget CPG clients like P&G, and everyone on her friend list from her mom to her former college acquaintances.

Add to this competitive environment that for both paid and organic content on all major social networks, your content must show early high engagement (CTR, likes, or similar) or else the social media content surfacing algorithms (such as Facebook "edge rank") will quickly relegate it to the dungeons of "bad content" and add injury to insult by marking a hit against you as an unpopular content source, making it harder for your content to show at all in the future.

And so, given this unique environment, how do you succeed?

Here are some guiding principles to get you started:

1. Your target user calls the shots.  Gone are the days of prime time television slots where 1/3 of Americans were forced to receive your message. On social media, your content will need to appeal so much to this user that she will consistently choose to engage with it, and you can't force her to. This means that you MUST think as the user, not as yourself. Just because you want her to care about your sale, doesn't mean that she does. Want to make your brand seem "aspirational" by posting lofty content that seems just beyond a standard user's comfort level? Good luck with that. Talk to her about what she wants to talk about in the way she wants to be talked to, or else quickly no one will see your posts, even your followers, and your sale language will be dead in the water before any eyeballs see it. The principles here are a huge change from what traditional brand marketers are used to, because in social media, due to the nature of the platforms and the "edge rank" algorithms, the user controls which messages get through. She can even control how she talks about the brand, because hey, she's the one sharing your message. Successful brand marketers understand this and use it to their advantage. Brand marketers who choose to ignore what the user wants in favor of their own rigid brand ideas often struggle needlessly to make social media work for them. 
2. Respect your users! A faux-pas on social media (like the one Nestle made a few years back, from which they still suffer) can be worse for your brand and business than a botched Super Bowl commercial. Users are savvy, users remember, and users will call you on Bullshit. Social Media gives them the vehicle to make their dissatisfaction viral and public, and efforts to contain this often backfire. Respect your users from the get go. Respect their intelligence and manage negative feedback proactively (such as ensuring that your social media contest rules are fair and clear, not only legally but also in the court of public opinion). Never, EVER challenge them to a proverbial duel. They will ALWAYS win.
3. Be consistent and optimize. You must choose a tone and content theme and stick to it. This doesn't mean that you can't experiment, but understand that your users are savvy enough to recognize a bait and switch. Don't entice them with interesting info only to harangue them with offers after they've trusted you enough to follow you. Make them trust you, make them love you, reiterate that trust and love constantly, and then you will have the flexibility to optimize and include additional content that you want them to see. Want to advertise a sale? Pair the sale announcement with other useful content that is in-line with your tone. Don't always advertise sales (unless you are a coupon affiliate). Users get enough spam in their email boxes, and over time sale language there doesn't work either. In order to achieve this equilibrium, you must have a social media writer who is consistent and has the bandwidth to post high quality content often (at least several times a week for larger companies, at least once a week for smaller companies) and who can analyze the performance of posts and make improvements to drive higher engagement over time. If you don't do this, if you just, for example, plop your PR press releases onto all of your social networks, quickly you will have no audience for your boring content.
4. Start with the content, then build your followers. It may seem disheartening to create content when you have 10 followers, but remember, the internet remembers everything. When you do start gaining users, either through social media ads or through other related initiatives, users will want to see what you're about - do you consistently offer content that they value? The historical content that lives on your social pages is the proof that savvy users will use to decide whether to sign up for a long term relationship with you. For most users no historical content means no "follow."
5. Be savvy about who you get to follow you. You can't be everything to everyone, and social media will not reward you for trying. The most successful companies know what their niche is and customize their content to those users. All eye-balls are not created equal, and impressions to users who won't engage will prevent your content from showing to users who otherwise would. Build your follower bases with the right interest-groups and you will be more likely to have them engage with you, and thus more likely to grow your follower base organically. These days, a follower base of people who don't care about your content is a detriment rather than a benefit. Don't waste your effort and budget building an audience that doesn't want to have a two-way conversation with you for the long-haul. 

Stay tuned and subscribe for more posts on Social Media and many other topics near and dear to the 2014 Digital Marketer's heart!

For help customized to your business needs, contact us at www.DigiMarketeer.com!

Demystifying SEM: How specific do Ad Groups really need to be?

To continue the series in which we use real world examples to make SEM and other digital marketing topics easier to swallow, here is another question from a local business owner:

In thinking of the theme, Kid's Performances, should I group keywords and ads with Kids, Children, Toddler together, or is better to have an ad group for each? I guess I am wondering how finely I should organize the groups.

So, the core of the question really is: how specific do ad groups really need to be? 

The answer: pretty specific. 

Marketing Meme: Grumpy Cat

Why?

While it is tempting to plop all your keywords into a few ad groups and call it a day, there are many benefits to having very specific ad groups...and many drawbacks to not doing so.

In general, the more specific your ad groups are, the more related your ad text can be to the keywords in your ad group. This is important for CTR (click-through-rate) and ROI (return on investment) and will ultimately impact how much you pay for ads and how much you get in return. It can even have a long term impact on user trust and confidence in your business. In short, having specific ad groups is necessary for the health of your business!

Here's an example to demonstrate the real world application of this concept:

Take, for example, a company selling shoes, "Advertiser #1." The company wants to sell boots on their e-commerce website, so they start with an ad group for boots. They put all of their boot keywords into that ad group: nine west boots, gucci boots, high heeled boots, rain boots, etc. Boots is a clear theme, and they write a relevant ad text:

Boots on sale

Shop all the hottest brands.

Up to 30% off today!

This is an adequate starting point. BUT... let's say the competitor,"Advertiser #2," has a better structure, in which Gucci Boots, Nine West Boots, high heeled boots, rain boots etc. all have their own unique ad groups. 

Advertiser #2 is going to be able to make her ads even more relevant to the user who is searching for each of these items:

Gucci boots ad group:

Authentic Gucci Boots

Premium leather, sleek & stylish.

Shop hundreds of Gucci designs!

Rain boots ad group:

Premium Rain Boots

Keep your feet warm & dry.

30% off rain boots today!

Why is Advertiser #2 better?

Advertiser #2 is not constrained by needing to use generic language that is applicable across a range of different brands and styles that should all have their own nuanced tone and value props. Instead, with specific ad groups, she is able to easily address the specific customer segments for each product group with the most relevant language possible. 

Why is relevant language so much better?

Beyond the obvious, that it's important that users know what you're selling, there are additional reasons why relevancy is so important. On search engines, savvy users are used to seeing generic ads for companies that don't actually sell the product (Find 'whatever you want' at eBay...), and so Advertiser #2's ads have the added benefit being *very* clear to a skeptical user that she is, in fact, selling Gucci boots, whereas company #1 may just be an over-stretched ebay-like ad, running generic language across millions of products that it doesn't actually sell. 

Additionally, let's say that Advertiser #1 does in fact have some products that are 30% off (as stated in the ad), however Advertiser #1 isn't allowed to discount the Gucci products. She may have a higher CTR due to the sale language, but when the users get to the website, they will likely bounce and be annoyed because there aren't actually Gucci boots that are 30% off. By having separate ad groups, Advertiser #1 could segment sale language so that it only applies to the applicable product areas and brands, thus increasing ROI, conversion rate and user satisfaction and trust.

Advertiser #2 will see the results of her initial extra effort indefinitely, because the great thing about internet advertising is that there is a revolving door of new potential customers shopping for her products all the time. What starts as a few hours or days of extra effort pays off in perpetuity. 

OK, so now that it's clear why you should strive to have specific ad groups, we should talk about exactly where to draw the line.

How specific is specific enough?

To decide, you should ask yourself:

1) Can I write more targeted ad texts that will get a higher CTR by having a separate ad group? 

In the example of the Nutcracker requested by the client (at the beginning of this post), I would separate toddlers into their own ad group and then combine kids and children into one because they are basically synonyms. Toddlers are a more unique group and users searching for "nutcracker for toddlers" will find an ad that calls out toddlers more relevant.

2) Is there enough potential traffic on these variations to warrant the extra effort of a unique ad group?

This is tougher than it sounds to decide, especially in the Nutcracker example because 1) it is a niche product in which the traffic is generally pretty low to begin with and 2) it's highly seasonal.

Theoretically, they should look at traffic in November/December (the high season for Nutcracker), but the Google keyword tool only shows you monthly average stats. Everyone should take these stats with a grain of salt -> they very often show 'no search volume', which doesn't mean you shouldn't add the keyword, because: 

1) Based on Google's own stats, ~500 million keywords get their first impression (show for the first time) every day. 

2) It doesn't hurt to have keywords with no traffic, even though the system gives you scary warnings. There is no negative impact of zero traffic on your quality score (the main metric they use to calculate how much you have to pay). 

3) If a user searches for "nutcracker performance" in October because they are an early planner - it's good that you have it on your list already. 

In the absence of clear data in the tool, I basically ignore it and add keywords that I think are relevant to the topic, however I will typically not break out entire ad groups if the tools show no traffic for anything related.

At the end of the day, it is up to your judgment. If you think a set of low traffic keywords is super relevant to your business - add them, put them in specific ad groups, write great ads and then wait and see. There is no disadvantage to doing this, other than managing your time.

If you are looking to prioritize, create the most specific ad groups for areas of keywords that have both the highest traffic and the highest relevancy to your business, then work your way down the list. NEVER combine high traffic words that are peripherally related to each other in the same ad group - ALWAYS give them (plus their plurals and synonyms) their own ad groups. You will need to manage their performance carefully and optimize their ads with extra focus that cannot be achieved in a blobby generic ad group.

If you'd like additional traffic data, you can take a look at Google Trends to get some sense of seasonality and traffic data over time. If you want to play with the Google keyword tool (it can be fun to look for search volume of random words, like 'justin bieber' and it shows you a different view than Google Trends), you can access the tool on the "Tools and Analysis" tab of the AdWords account and then go to "keyword planner" and then choose "get search volume for a list of keywords" and then type in the ones for which you want to review traffic stats. Note that in this interface the back button will take you back to the main account page, not the last page of the tool, which is annoying, and that the ux of this interface changes *constantly*.

And so, in conclusion:

• Make your ad groups as specific as you can.
• Draw the line if there is no traffic on the whole potential ad group, unless you feel strongly otherwise or there is a seasonal reason.
• Think as a user, they don't know your keyword or ad group, all they see is your ad.
• Look at the competition to see what you have to beat on the search results page. Give yourself the structure to be able to beat it, and that means SPECIFIC AD GROUPS!
• Allow yourself the structure in the account to be honest about your sale language. 
• Use tools to make your structuring efficient! AdWords Editor is a MUST.

Good luck! Remember that while it can be mind-numbing to break out specific ad groups, you will be paid back the rewards for your labor indefinitely.

Stay tuned and subscribe for more posts on SEM and many other topics near and dear to the 2014 Digital Marketer's heart!

For help customized to your business needs, contact us at www.DigiMarketeer.com!

Demystifying SEM: Keyword Confusion

At DigiMarketeer, we work with all types of businesses to help them take control of their digital marketing programs. 

With Search Engine Marketing* many people find that the leap from reading the Google Help Center to actually making effective and efficient changes to their accounts is much greater than they would like to admit. 

Marketing Meme: Confession Kid

'It seems so straightforward in the Help Center, I'm sure I'm just doing it wrong.' 

I have heard variations of this phrase so many times, and the truth is, yes - they are probably doing something wrong. But, there's no shame in that! 

Like the software engineers who quietly provide the technical infrastructure that keeps our modern world running, successful digital marketers must take a step back and focus on the ever-evolving process of optimization, which almost always involves recognizing areas of opportunity (ie, things you could do better) and fixing them in order to increase knowledge and improve performance. 

In our Demystifying SEM series, I am addressing questions from real businesses and the many onion-like layers of knowledge that constitute the response to such simple-seeming questions. 

Here's a question I got from someone who was optimizing their account for a local theater:

I am following your advice to better organize our account and made a new campaign for Christmas Performances, and I am thinking of each ad group as a target audience or theme. 

There will be some keywords that will apply to every theme such as (Christmas pops, Christmas performances, Christmas musical shows, etc..) should I have keywords repeat across multiple ad groups? Or is there a way to make them apply to a whole campaign?

Short Answer: 

Definitely don't use the same keyword in multiple ad groups within the campaign! 

Onion Answer:
Let's start with a definition of the term 'keyword' and save a lot of confusion:

Keywords are the words or phrases that you can add to your AdWords account to which the Google system will try to match a user's search query in realtime. You sell picnic baskets, you add 'picnic baskets' as a keyword in your AdWords account and when a user searches for 'picnic baskets' on Google, your ad has a chance to show. Whether it *will* show depends on a number of factors, some of which you can control (quality score, bid, relevancy) and some of which you can't (competitors, auction dynamics, how results are displayed, etc.).

Basically all of fundamental SEM strategy is centered around maximizing the factors that you can control in order to minimize the amount you have to spend in order to get the user that you want to your website or business.

A "keyword" in the context of Google is the whole search phrase. "Christmas Music Performance" is the keyword. "Christmas music performance for kids" is a different keyword. The individual words that make up the phrase, such as 'music' and 'performance' are only considered a "keyword" if they appear on their own. 

Keywords can contain any number of words, 2-3 word "keywords" are usually the most effective. Once you hit the 3-word phrase-length you hit an inflection point and the longer they are the less likely people are to search for them (this differs slightly by language and country, and is changing with features like search-suggest and mobile usage but in general is still true).

But, as with everything in SEM, there is a complex "but" hidden in this simple rule;). Typically, different types of users search for different length terms. Let's use an example:

An advertiser is trying to compare "music" and "berkeley christmas music performances" as keywords-> which one should she use? According to the length rule, the shorter one is probably better, right?

"Music" will certainly get the most traffic, *But* a user who knows what she wants and is ready to buy it is more likely to search for something specific like "Berkeley Christmas music performances." Both keywords are "relevant" and both keywords serve a purpose. More people will search the first term, but that includes tons of users who are irrelevant if you are trying to sell them tickets to your show- you will get people who want to listen to music, download music, etc. Fewer people will search the longer term, but those few are certainly more likely to click and to buy if you use the right ad language and landing page. So, to simplify the onion layer: whatever length it takes for your keyword to be relevant to your business is the right length. Relevancy is more important than length, and knowing which users you are trying to reach will help you make your own judgment.

Why duplicate keywords are bad:

Having the same keyword in multiple places is confusing. It makes it hard for you to manage your accounts, and a properly structured account should not need keyword duplicates (see the exception below). The google system will only show one variation of your ad per keyword, so you get no system benefit from plopping it all over the place. What you will get is unusable data and therefore constraints in your ability to properly optimize your account over time. The system will split the performance data so that some of the traffic for the keyword shows up in one place, and other traffic stats show up in another place. While this might not seem like a big deal, if you really care about optimizing your campaign, you basically can't do it in an informed way with this situation - plus, there's usually no reason to have duplicates!

Exception: The only exception to this would be if you were segmenting your campaigns to be duplicates for targeting or budget reasons:

1) You are targeting different locations in different campaigns in order to better manage your budgets. For example, if you wanted to pay more for users in San Francisco than in Berkeley, you can create duplicate campaigns and then set a higher budget for your San Francisco campaign. In this case, you'd likely have many of the same keywords but you should customize your ads for each place to make them more relevant.

2) You are using the same keyword in campaigns targeting different languages. For example, the word for 'poster' is used in english and spanish. If you wanted to target spanish speakers separately from english speakers in the US, you would create a spanish-language campaign targeting the US in addition to your English one. You would put the keyword 'poster' in both your english and spanish targeted campaigns. You could then pair the spanish keyword with a Spanish-language ad that would only show to US users who have Spanish set as their default language. This is an advanced example that only applies to people with multi-lingual advertising needs.

Because your campaigns will show to clearly defined different audiences in this example, these keywords are not technically "duplicates." Also note that different match-types are actually different keywords. Advanced post forthcoming on that topic, but basic/intermediate advertisers do not need to worry about this. 

So, to return to the question that the advertiser asked - how do you choose keywords and structure them so that there are not duplicates?

Choosing and structuring (non-duplicate) keywords:

Basically, the game is to make each ad group unique, or else you don't need more ad groups. So, here is an example of some ad groups within the campaign:

Ad group: Christmas Performances

Keywords: 

Christmas performance

Christmas show

Christmas shows

Christmas music performance

Christmas musical performance

Christmas musical show

Christmas musical shows

Ad group: Christmas Music for kids

Christmas music for kids

Children's Christmas music

Christmas music performance for kids

Christmas music shows for kids
Christmas music show for kids

Christmas music for children

Christmas music performance for children

Christmas music shows for children

Christmas music show for children

Ad group: Christmas Music Berkeley

Christmas music berkeley
Christmas performance Berkeley

Christmas show berkeley

Christmas shows berkeley

Christmas music performance berkeley

Christmas music shows berkeley

Christmas music show berkeley

Note that the campaign is targeted to the SF Bay Area - that geographical targeting is the single most important way for them to hone their budget on the users that matter.

With these keywords, the ads will also need to specify that the theater offers live performances, because not all users searching for "christmas music for kids" are looking for live performances in their neighborhood. That doesn't necessarily mean that the theater shouldn't run on that keyword, if a reasonable % of users would find their ad relevant, but in order to not pay for clicks from confused users, the advertiser needs to make their service very clear in the ad text so that users self-select before they click. 

Balancing the battle between ROI and CTR:

This situation is a good example of the balancing act that exists between ROI** and CTR***
because for ROI reasons, the advertiser doesn't want to pay for irrelevant or non-converting clicks, but the Google system rewards CTR and over time will punish advertisers who have a CTR that is too low. Therefore, before choosing a keyword and while writing ad text, all advertisers, no matter what the business, must put at the front of their strategy how to find the proper balance of ROI and CTR optimization - because they often are at odds and they both matter. More detail on dealing with this conflict in this post!

Hopefully, you now know more about:

1. A clarified definition of a keyword -> it can have multiple words!
2. Duplicate keywords are bad, with some advanced exceptions
3. How to choose and structure non-duplicate keywords into relevant, unique ad groups
4. Considerations about balancing your need to not pay for irrelevant clicks, and Google's reward for getting lots of clicks.

Stay tuned and subscribe for more posts on SEM and many other topics near and dear to the 2014 Digital Marketer's heart!

For help customized to your business needs, contact us at www.DigiMarketeer.com!

~~~~~~~~~~~~
*I am referring to paid search marketing with the major search engines, primarily Google. With very few exceptions, Search marketers should mainly focus on Google. Their market share and the quality of their users, tools and platform make it the highest value priority. Concepts around account structure, relevancy, quality score, bid dynamics etc. generally apply to Yahoo and Bing as well, with a few exceptions, but in general, it is a most efficient and effective use of your limited time to focus on Google. When I managed SEM at a large e-commerce company, despite millions of keywords on Yahoo and Bing, only a few hundred keywords drove any traffic, ROI was worse as well. If you start with Google and then want to expand, you can copy your Google accounts over to Bing (which absorbed the Yahoo platform years ago) for a good start there. Also, if you want to perform on "Ask.com" (I won't suggest that you do, since I've found the traffic to be generally worthless), they are a Google search partner - you can just check a button in the Google interface and your ads will appear on Ask.com.
**ROI: return on investment - how much revenue you are getting compared to the money you spend on clicks
***CTR: click-through-rate, the % of users who see your ads who click on them. One of the most important metrics for all search ad systems (and most other ad systems) to determine how relevant you are to users which thereby determines how much you have to pay for your ads to show (lower CTR ads cost more per click to show).

Demystifying SEM with Expertise

I am often asked questions by marketers who are trying to get a stronger handle on their Google AdWords accounts. 

Most people I work with have already built a basic AdWords account with the help of the great Google resources available (support.google.com/adwords) but aren't able to make it perform to their desires.

As anyone who has tried to create a strategic digital marketing plan knows, translating best practices into real-life practice isn't usually as simple as it sounds. It can't be stuffed into a 20-minute conference lecture entitled "Mastering SEM," nor a 1-hour agency pitch entitled "Unlocking the Secrets of Google."

The truth is that success and strategic management of digital marketing, especially Google marketing, is not driven by mastering and gaming a treasure trove of secrets. It is driven by three core areas of knowledge:

Marketing Meme: Imminent Ned

1) How the ad systems work, based on information that is publicly available (rest assured that there is absolutely no 'secret sauce' that only agencies know)
2) How digital marketing works in your industry
3) Who your customers are and how they want to be communicated with

When you combine these three concepts, you will undoubtedly find that secrets are not available nor are they necessary. But getting to the level of expertise in which you can answer the question of "but should I do x for my business?" requires more than a passing familiarity with terminology and high level concepts. 

And so (drum-roll)....

In an effort to help people take the big step from reading best practices to strategically and situationally implementing them, I am going to do a series in which I share the real-world answers to commonly asked questions. 

Stay tuned and subscribe for more real-world inspired posts across lots of topics central to the 2014 digital marketer, including SEM, Social Media, Re-targeting, Display, Email, Online/Offline integration, Branding with Digital, Measurement and Analytics and more!

Check out the right sidebar for quick links to other posts or use the 'Search' function - this is a Google platform after all.

To learn from an expert and improve your performance with customized help, visit digimarketeer.com and contact us!