Social Media Marketing is Dying

Posted by | Posted on 9:37 AM

If nothing is certain, one thing is - social media is losing its magic. What once was a new and improved way to keep in touch with your closest loved ones has become just another sales pitch to convince you to sign up to another dreadful business prospect, newsletter, product, or service. There is no opening or closing - simply raw advertisements that lack sincerity. The people advertising their products don't care about you or your general interests. They're too set on the idea that you're going to sign up and turn them into a success.

What's wrong with this picture? Could it be that the advertisements lack taste and real value, or could it be that the people who want your business care less about who you are and what you are interested in?
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What business entrepreneurs are forgetting is that they are on the other side of the fence of social media. They are on the advertising end, which means without a real connection to the "the people," they are getting nowhere. At some point, a real connection needs to be established or otherwise all efforts to make a sale or spread the word are pointless.

The truth? No one cares about you unless you care about them, particularly when it comes to social media. Let's say that you've got an account with Facebook. Each day when you see those tiny red notifications, you're dead sure that they signify a message from your friends or family. Unfortunately, you open your inbox and all you see are loud advertisements. What do you do? You delete them, and you do so automatically without any interest whatsoever about what they say.
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Advertising gurus are no longer "gurus," they are simply annoying spammers who have no clue what they are doing. Business owners are missing the point. If their emails are getting read, it's only by other advertisers just so they can compare tactics and techniques. Another sad part of it all is that no one is coming up with new techniques. Everybody is following someone who they think is successful, but in reality, no one is making any money because of their lack of effort and knowledge.

If you haven't noticed (and you most likely have), all online entrepreneurs go about advertising their businesses in the same way. First, they request you as a fríend or become a follower (Twitter). Some of them may greet you with a "thanks for the request" or some other similar phrase, while others jump straight to the point and start bombarding you with their "winníng" sales pitch. Who are you more likely to communicate with? Nothing screams "delete" louder and faster than a sales pitch.
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Some of the "thanks for the request" people might actually make it, as long as they don't jump the gun too quickly. Unfortunately, the majority of them end it right there and automatically go on a link-posting frenzy, and immediately begin flooding your inbox with details about their products with no mention of how they might benefit you individually. It's almost as if they are "demanding" that you purchase from them without any clear reason as to why.

On the other hand, some people are making sales. They are the ones who take their time in getting to know people. They ask questions and take a true interest in their prospects. Developing customer relationships is the most important part of advertising on social media because in the real world, customer relationships are a must.

It helps to wear the shoe on the other foot. Picture walking into a store with workers that aren't friendly and don't seem to have your interest anywhere in their top priorities. They are anxious for you to purchase something and that is it. They don't care what you purchase or why, they just want your money. When you leave, they want you to come back over and over, even if you're not interested in what they've got. It's a horrible experience for both you and them.

When you look at it from a different perspective, it helps to see why social media is dying for your company. What people want is warmth and a display of interest in who they are, not lousy sales pitches. As soon as business professionals establish a connection, then they might have a chance, but until then, it's best to just stick to more familiar means of advertising and leave social media to what it was always meant for. Bring common sense back to your marketing.

What does the future of display advertising look like?

Posted by | Posted on 1:19 PM

This afternoon, we gave a keynote address at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX Conference in New York, entitled “Display 2015: Smart and Sexy.”

As you know by now, we’re investing significantly to make display advertising better for users, advertisers and publishers. Display advertising really is at the heart of what we’re doing at Google these days. 99 percent of our top 1,000 clients are now running campaigns on the Google Display Network. And last year, they increased their spending on display advertising by over 75 percent.

Today, we explained why we think display advertising is about to go through the biggest and most important revolution in its history. We made seven predictions about where display advertising will be in 2015:

 50 percent of ad campaigns will include video ads bought on a cost-per-view basis (that means that the user will choose whether to watch the ad or not, and the advertiser will only pay if the user watches). That’s up from very little today.

 Today, advertisers are starting to deliver ads that are tailored to particular audiences. Many are using real-time bidding technology, so that they can bid on the ad space that they think is most valuable. In 2015, 50 percent of these ads will be bought using this real-time technology.

 With smartphone growth skyrocketing, mobile is going be the number one screen through which users engage with advertisers’ digital brands.
 Today, the “click” is the most important way that advertisers measure their display ad campaigns, but it’s not always the best measure—especially if an ad campaign is designed to boost things like brand awareness or recall. With new measurement technologies emerging, in five years, there will be five metrics that advertisers commonly regard as more important than the click.
 Just like most news articles on the web today can be commented on, shared, discussed, subscribed to and recommended, in 2015, 75 percent of ads on the web will be “social” in nature—across dozens of formats, sites and social communities.

 Rich media formats work. They enable great creativity and interaction between users and advertisers, but today they only represent about 6 percent of total display ad impressions. That will increase to 50 percent, for brand-building ad campaigns.

 All the investments that are making display advertising smarter and sexier will help publishers increase their revenues. Display advertising is going to grow to a $50 billion industry in five years.
We also wanted to visualize the face of the display advertising revolution, so we demonstrated four exciting new technologies:
 We demonstrated some new video ad formats we’ve been testing on YouTube that we’re calling “TrueView.” These will roll out later this year. These ad formats give people the option to skip an ad if they don’t want to watch, or to choose from multiple ads the one they want to watch. Importantly, advertisers only pay if the user chooses to watch their ad.

 We showed some of the things that are becoming possible with our new Teracent technology. This technology can dynamically alter the creative elements of an ad in real-time to make it more relevant and effective, depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website and the time of day.

 You might be familiar with Google Goggles, a way to search the web on mobile devices just by taking a picture. We gave a preview of some experimental uses of Google Goggles that could one day enable advertisers to deliver great display ads to users. Imagine pointing your phone’s camera at an ad for a car in a magazine, and having the car appear in 3D in your mobile device. Or pointing at a movie poster and having the movie trailer play in the device, right in your hand. No QR codes, no downloads!

 We even showed a fun example of what rich media can do—our speech was broadcast live in a number of expandable ad units across the web, and was updated with tweets in real time.

Google adwords Reports that have moved to the Campaigns tab

Posted by | Posted on 11:42 AM


To make it easier for you to analyze your account's performance, we're adding more advanced reporting options, previously only accessible through the Report Center, to the Campaigns tab. With these changes, you can manage your campaigns and analyze their performance all in one place.

The following report types are already available on the Campaigns tab:

If you have these types of reports saved in the Report Center, they'll soon be copied to the Control panel and library , a new area on the Campaigns tab where all your reports will be stored. Once they've been copied to the panel, please start using the Campaigns tab if you want to create new versions of these reports.

Enable the Ad Extensions tab in Google Adwords

Posted by | Posted on 5:38 PM

The Ad Extensions tab shows you detailed data about the ad extensions that you've created within a specific campaign. It also allows you to add, edit or delete your ad extensions.

The tab automatically appears in your account when you've enabled ad extensions in at least one campaign.You can enable or disable the tab for your account view by clicking the arrow button next to your existing tabs above your performance table. When enabled, the tab appears in three places in your account:

  • The "All Online Campaigns" overview screen: The tab will show all extensions for all your campaigns (or "rollup view").
  • The campaign details page: The tab will show all extensions for the selected campaign (or "campaign view").
  • The ad group details page: The tab will show all campaign-level extensions that apply to the selected ad group. You'll also see ad-specific extensions, if applicable.

PPC Tips, Tricks and Resources

Posted by | Posted on 3:35 PM

Whether you're new to search engine marketing (SEM) or if you simply need to brush up on your optimization skills, you can use the below list of key performance indicators and possible solutions to troubleshoot any issues that you may spot in your own campaigns. Keep in mind that the bullet points below aren't meant to be used all together as an across-the-board cure-all; you will need to use your own discretion to determine which adjustments may be most beneficial to your particular campaigns.

Low Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Test multiple ads
• Use dynamic text
• Make ad groups more focused
• Make ads more relevant (to keywords and landing pages)
• Adjust match types:
- Use phrase match instead of exact match
- Use broad match instead of phrase match
• Add negative keywords
• Implement demographic targeting

Previous posts on low CTR:

  1. SEM Beginner Series: What is a Click-Through Rate (CTR)?
  2. SEM Intermediate Series: Increasing Click-Through Rate (CTR) in Microsoft adCenter
  3. Low Click-Through Rate Culprits and What You Can Do About Them (Part I)
  4. Low Click-Through Rate Culprits and What You Can Do About Them (Part II)
  5. Low Click-Through Rate Culprits and What You Can Do About Them (Part III)

High Cost-Per-Click / Low Return-on-Investment (ROI)
• Ensure landing page URLs are current (no broken links)
• Revise ad copy; make it more concise, mention special offers, use calls to action (e.g. “buy”, “shop”, etc.)
• Adjust bids (lower)
Match types: bid on broad, phrase, exact
• Add negative keywords
• Set daily limit to monthly budget

Previous posts on cost-per-click and ROI:

  1. SEM Beginner Series: What is Cost-Per-Click (CPC)?
  2. Lowering CPC with Match Types and Negative Keywords
  3. Five Tips to Improve Your Microsoft adCenter ROI
  4. SEM Intermediate Series: Calculating and Improving Return-On-Investment (ROI) in Microsoft adCenter

Low Page Position
• Increase base bid
• Review keywords and ad copy relevancy
Dynamic text in ad title, text, display URL

Previous posts on page position:

  1. Clarifying Base Bids: Enhancing and Optimizing for Position in Microsoft Advertising adCenter
  2. SEM Beginner Series: Why is Ad Position Important?
  3. SEM Intermediate Series: Strategies for Improving Ad Position in Microsoft adCenter
  4. Ad Position Best Practices for PPC

Low Traffic
• Shorter keyword phrases
Expand keywords (try Microsoft Advertising Intelligence)
• Increase bids to improve page position
• Use broad match
• Remove or expand geographical targeting

Previous posts on traffic:

  1. SEM Intermediate Series: Troubleshooting Low Traffic From Your Microsoft adCenter Campaigns
  2. Qualifying Traffic with Negative Keywords
  3. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence - Using the Traffic and Demographic Tools for Market Trends

Low Conversion Rate
• Update landing pages
• Bid higher on the keywords that perform the best

Previous posts on conversion tracking:

  1. Conversion Tracking: 5 Improvements Scheduled for the Fall Release of Microsoft Advertising adCenter
  2. Conversion Tracking: What It Is and How to Enable and Disable It in Microsoft adCenter
  3. Improve Conversion Rates and Maximise ROI


A Google Health update

Posted by | Posted on 11:59 AM

Google Health launched a bit over two years ago, and since then it's been listening to the users, analyzing feedback and conducting research. google’ve learned a lot from You! You’ve confirmed that having a central place online to store and share medical data with whomever you want is important and a step in the right direction. And google’ve added a number of features based on what you’ve asked for so far. But you’ve also told to google that it’s not enough; that you’re also looking for tools that will help you act on all your health and wellness concerns. Google’ve heard you ask for easier data tracking, more personalization and the ability to set and track progress toward your health goals. Google listened, and today they’re announcing a new design and new features for Google Health.







So what’s new? Well, Google’ve developed an easier-to-use dashboard that brings together even more of your health and wellness information in one place and makes it easier for you to organize and act on that information. they’ve also heard from you that focusing on wellness, and wellness goals, is a big part of the solution, and that it’s important to record your daily experience and set goals









So our new re-design better organizes your medical information, while creating a more welcoming place to set goals for yourself and check in daily on your progress. For example, you might want to set a goal around walking more each day or to lower your cholesterol over time. With our new design, you can easily monitor your path to success with a visual graph that shows your progress towards your personalized goal. You can even create custom trackers for other things that you want to monitor like daily sleep, exercise, pregnancy or even how many cups of coffee you drink a day.



We’ve also integrated with several new partners to make it easier for you to collect the data you need to track your progress, including Fitbit, maker of a wearable device that captures health and wellness data such as steps taken, calories burned and sleep quality; and CardioTrainer, one of the top mobile apps for tracking fitness activity and weight loss. In the two weeks since CardioTrainer’s integration went live, CardioTrainer developer WorkSmart Labs reports that users have already uploaded more than 150,000 workouts to Google Health, where they can more easily view, track and set goals around their workouts and monitor them along with other health and wellness information.



Besides tracking progress toward your health goals, our new design also gives you the ability to take notes or keep a journal on your progress for each health condition or medication you’re taking. The new design also delivers information that is more personalized to your particular set of medical conditions or specific medications. You can access improved content links for each medical condition, medication or lab result you have in your Google Health profile. And they’ve made the Google Health profile easier to read and customize, with the ability to hide past items or sections that are outdated or no longer relevant. All of this helps you keep your dashboard up-to-date with current, relevant information, while still letting you maintain a complete health history.



In addition to redesigning the product and forming new partnerships with device and mobile apps developers, they’ve continued to expand our more traditional integrations with hospitals and other healthcare data providers. Three recent highlights include Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Sharp HealthCare.



With this update, they’ve made Google Health an even more powerful tool for organizing all your health information online, and also for achieving your health and wellness goals. We think you’ll find that organized, measurable and engaging information helps make it easier to achieve better health and wellness.



http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/health/about/





Gist Gadget in Gmail

Posted by | Posted on 10:36 AM




 

Gist Gadget - Rich Business Profiles by Gist, Inc

Get latest contact details, news, and updates about anyone in your inbox right inside Gmail. The Gist Gadget creates a business profile for anyone in the "From" or "CC" fields.




  • See contact details, work information, and updates

  • Request profiles to build direct connections

  • Search across all your contacts in your network


Gist helps you prepare for a meeting, make an introduction, or just find a better way to connect with others by bringing together your contacts with related content about them to provide important context in your interactions.

Gist constantly generates updates for individual and company profiles with the latest from social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, over 20 million blogs, and over 50,000 news sources. The Gist Gadget then brings all of this social data together and prioritizes it for quick consumption and action right inside Gmail.

"More context, less clicks." ReadWriteWeb
"?find out way more about the people in your inbox, directly from Gmail." Mashable
"?an easy, intuitive CRM app." Gist user

Users can experience Gist as a feature rich web application, as an add-in to leading email applications like Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes or on a mobile device with both iPhone and Android applications available.

The Gist Promise:
- Your data is wholly owned and controlled by you. At no time is your data shared unless specifically granted by you.
- Your data is secure. We take great lengths to secure all user data and ensure your data privacy and confidentiality.
- The level of data integration that Gist performs is fully under your control.
- We will never use your data to reach out to your contacts.