Google AdWords vs. Facebook Advertising

When it comes to deciding to choose a social media and online advertising channel, a company must consider their goal. There are a few similarities between Facebook and Google AdWords, such as their massive potential audience, and the fact that both are basically PPC (pay per click) advertising channels. However, The web audience uses Google and Facebook differently – they check their Facebook accounts and they search Google, not the other way around. Depending on what the company wants to achieve in their marketing campaign, one or the other will be a better fit.

Both advertising channels use systems that are mostly self-service for the smaller advertiser, and they both have the ability to target very specific market segments, which is where the major differences lye between the two platforms. Futhermore, Facebook does not allow for mobile advertising options, retargeting options, partner sites, and keyword-based contextual targeting options (Meredith, 2012). If a customer is driving through a town and needs to pick up a prescription or other items, chances are they will use their phone to locate the destination. An effective local SEO campaign and mobile-specific ads can help customers see a particular pharmacy first (Meredith, 2012).

Google still dominates the search game with nearly two-thirds market share, according to Experian HitWise while Facebook is The Social Network--it seems just a matter of time before they announce 1 billion accounts (Meredith, 2012). However, one can assume that Facebook sessions lasts much longer than a typical Google Search, so Facebook Ads are perhaps better if companies want to build brand awareness or get a specific message across. Facebook Ads may also be better if the said message is targeted towards a certain audience, such as fans of a specific movie or TV show, or an alumni group. It’s not impossible to achieve the same targeted people-centric campaigns through Google’s AdWords, but it would be more difficult to do. With Facebook ads, companies can target their ads by age range. Offering a special on make-up or hair products? They can create campaigns by gender. There are a number of demographic categories that can be combined to reach a specifically targeted audience.

However, when it comes to pure web searches, Google is the clear leader. Google Adwords is more suited to driving actual clicks and conversions around specific services and products. It all comes down to intent – while Facebook users are only checking up on status updates and posting photos, Google searches are specifically searching for keywords and have a clear goal.

Basically, Facebook Ads are better suited to building brands or delivering a message to a target group over a longer period of time, while Google AdWords provides an easier way to capture consumers that are dead set on buying specific products or services. Let’s check out this brief video of how one local real estate agent use Facebook Ads to grow her business (Elias, 2012).

In summary, if the question is which channel to use, think of Google and Facebook as venues. Either venue is capable of achieving your objective whether that be awareness building or driving purchase, a company just has to be sure it’s advertising in the right spot and in the right way. Companies should advertise for awareness at the entrance (generic keywords on AdWords or unaffiliated users on Facebook) and for purchase in the back (specific keywords on AdWords or existing fans on Facebook) (Elias, 2012).

References

Elias, H. (2012). YouTube Video: Better Than Google AdWords - Why Facebook Ads Are All You Need. Retrieved on November 12, 2012 from, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Zub5MRGx4

Meredith, A. (2012). Show Me the Money – Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising. Retrieved on November 12, 2012 from, http://scalablesocialmedia.com/2012/10/google-adwords-facebook-ads/

Content Marketing vs Starting the "Conversation"

Marketers can argue that there are many pros and cons deeming content marketing or conversational marketing as the better choice to implement. Truth is, they work together.  However, companies have stopped (and more should) thinking only in terms of “creating content” and started thinking about having conversations. The ultimate focus should be putting messages in motion—helping clients become meaningful members of relevant communities and creating content those audiences will find compelling, useful—and spreadable.

Why? What do I want to achieve by writing this bit of content? Who? With whom am I conversing? What brings those people to my site or app? What are their top tasks? Top questions? Conversations they want to start? Companies should start by surrounding their customers with thought provoking content that is buzzworthy, posting content at the right times, making content useful and easy to find, targeting influencers and structuring content with brand advocates in mind (Fay, 2012). Good storytelling is less about “telling” and more about starting a conversation in your audience’s head.

Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising because it goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor and stops there. It’s one way. A well thought out content strategy is two-way and may result in a message getting lodged in a person’s consciousness and becomes something they want to talk about and share. That message then gets a whole new burst of energy.  The energy behind the message is what gives it meaning, and a life of its own.  Thus the conversation begins. In order to decide which conversations are right, brands need to understand how conversations can be used to achieve a wide range of goals.

As content is shared to start a conversation, companies should then work to stimulate soft conversions, which includes viewing a video, reading a blog or magazine article, or subscribing to a blog or magazine. To trigger hard conversions -- when customers go through a registration page to obtain content – a company should offer white papers and e-books. Drawings at trade shows also drive hard conversions. It’s also important to have an in-house semantic search engine that crawls the network on a regular basis and categorizes every single piece of content against scores of different conversation tags. Basically, that will identifies what a piece of content is talking about and what the comments attached to that content are talking about.

Fostering conversations help humanize brands. Consumers want to have a conversation with a company. They don’t want to be told just how awesome the brand is or that if they don’t drink your Kool-Aid they won’t get to play with the cool kids. Your clients and customers want to feel like they are important. They want to feel engaged.

In summary, as a company moves ahead with the conversation marketing tactics, they should keep in mind their marketing fundamentals:

• What are the campaign goals?
• What segments do customers naturally collect into?
• Which segments will be targeted for marketing success?
• What message content will best resonate with target customers?

References

Fay, B. (2012). How Online Marketing Can Fuel Offline Conversations. Mashable. Retrieved on November 12, 2012 from, http://mashable.com/2012/07/18/online-marketing-offline-marketing/.

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Making the Most of Web Analysis

Understanding metrics can help enable companies identify big problems such as poor timing, inconsistent search phrases, incorrect prospect definitions and flawed audiences. Most importantly, it can help avoid wasting time and money due to poorly executed websites or marketing campaigns.

The tricky part is knowing the different types of metrics and how they can affect a business. There are four basic ways to break down web metrics: Traffic, Conversion, Performance, and Maintenance.

As it pertains to traffic, “visitors” tracks the overall traffic to a website. It’s important to know who the repeat visitors are and who they unique visitors are. “Page Views” refers to the number of pages requested from a site. Pageviews are used to convey the popularity of a website or page. They are usually what someone means when they say their site gets "a lot of hits" (Kyrnin, 2012). The “length of time” a visitor stays on site may determine the level of interest in a company. The busiest or slowest times can help figure out if certain campaigns or times of day tend to bring about more traffic. Most popular pages are reported also to what visitors to a website are interested in finding (Kyrnin, 2012). Search engine rankings, referrals, and Keywords show how a company ranks within top search engines, the traffic coming from search engines, and the keywords used to find the website. Traffic is just the first step in understanding and using web metrics.

Goals should help to separate valuable visits from less valuable ones and should reflect an organization’s goals and reason for having a website. A goal is worthless if a visitor can accomplish it accidentally. Conversion rates are based on how many times the desired goal was reached. What are you asking in return from your visitors as they move toward the goal? Do you ask for an email address? A credit-card number? Are visitors filling out a form or watching a video?

Regular maintenance to a website can have a positive impact on web metrics. A sites needs updating with fresh, accurate content. As this is done, companies improve their search engine rankings, increase the number of visitors to the site, and strengthen their online presence. If the site is not updated regularly, visitors will assume there’s nothing new to share and they will not bother to return. Without occasional new information or resources, visitors will not have a reason to come back.  What's worse, companies may lose them as a potential customer.  No matter how well designed and well publicized a site is, if it’s not maintained, it will decline in popularity and eventually in search engine rankings.

This ties hand in hand with performance. Tracking a websites performance can make companies aware of possible errors, long download times, problematic data, broken links, etc. Errors can drive visitors away from the website. A company would  also want to know if their website is functional across many platforms. A non-optimized website can have a low conversion rate because the customer was unable to complete their desired function due to poor mobile functionality.

References

Kyrnin, J. (2012). Web Analytics Basics: Learn to Measure Your Web Site. About.com. Retrieved on November 5, 2012 from,http://webdesign.about.com/od/loganalysis/a/aa092605.htm.