Why am I so insistent on your business getting on Facebook? It’s not just because everyone (and I mean everyone – 750 million active users and rising) is on it, or because more and more businesses are getting on it. It makes sense for your business, and here’s why:

1. Facebook pages perform differently than websites. Should you get rid of your standard business website in lieu of your new Facebook page? No! But a Facebook page serves a different purpose. Most Facebook users use the site at least once a day—this means that it’s possible for you to reach your fans at least once a day. Your Facebook page can help you maintain an online presence and stay in front of your customers.
2. A Facebook page is good for SEO. We’re still deciphering what the exact impact of a Facebook presence is on a business’s search engine presence, but Google and Bing have both confirmed that they take Facebook content into account when calculating a business’s overall content quality. Initial research shows a compelling link between Facebook ‘likes’ and search engine traffic, too.
3. A Facebook page lets you listen to your customers. Facebook has a tool called “Questions” which serves as an automatic survey opportunity, allowing you to ask your customers questions on your wall and monitor the responses. It can be something fun and topical meant to engage your fans (“Superbowl Weekend is finally here! What’s your favorite Superbowl recipe?”) or something more specific meant as market research (“Attention Chicagoans: what do you think of the new State Street location?”).
4. A Facebook page = out-of-the-box viral marketing possibilities. When you post interesting updates—news, events, product updates, etc.—on your page, it will show in your fans’ newsfeeds. Then your fans are allowed to ‘like’ the post, and when they do, that ‘like’ will appear in their friends’ feeds and their friends will see the link. The more fans you have and the more friends your fans have, the more possible people are exposed to your brand.

If you’re clamoring to get started, check out Facebook’s “Facebook For Business” Get-Started Guide (which is actually pretty comprehensive and a good place to start). And keep your eyes peeled for my very own getting started guide.

It’s a new product that Google has put out and a few people have asked me what it’s all about– here’s a primer.

Quite simply, Google+ is Google’s attempt to create not just a social product, but a cohesive interface through which consumers view the web. Ambitious? Absolutely. Will it work? Only time will tell, but the project’s founders, Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, strongly believe that the product will solve some enormous existing marketplace problems:

“We believe online sharing is broken. And even awkward,” Gundotra says. “We think connecting with other people is a basic human need. We do it all the time in real life, but our online tools are rigid. They force us into buckets — or into being completely public,” he continues. “Real life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software.”

But what does it do? And what are all these buttons?

1. Google+ has Circles, which let you group your contacts for optimal sharing. The interface is very simple– drag and drop– and is meant to be an easy way to organize your friends into different groups based on how you know them, interests, etc. (It’s much easier than creating a group within Facebook, that much is sure).
2. +Sparks is like an RSS feed, except it finds the content for you based on your interests. Each topic you choose gets its own “Spark” page and provides links to articles, pictures, etc.
3. +Hangouts allow you to notify people that you’re around and free to video chat. Hangouts are meant to be the front porch of Google+ (and that’s a direct quote from Google, by the way).
4. +Mobile allows you to share content on-the-go in an easy and seamless way. Depending on your settings, Google+ can identify where you are, post it and enable people to comment on it. There’s also an instant upload picture option which is nice if you’re tired of having to manually upload pictures via Facebook.

It’s still new, but has the potential to be a digital game-changer. Google is still trying to figure out what this means for Business Profiles, but in the meantime, check out “3 Easy Ways to Optimize Google Plus and Promote Your Personal Brand” by my Resolution Media coworker Aaron Friedman. Highly recommended, and not just as a cheesy plug.

Now, for the goods. I’ve been asked a few times lately for a primer to paid search. This is going to be a very basic introduction (as in, discussing what paid search is and a rudimentary explanation of how it works) so it might bore some of you, but I’d rather start at the beginning for those of you who aren’t as familiar with this sort of campaign.

Search engines have two basic kinds of listings– those that advertisers pay for, and those that they don’t. These paid listings are called sponsored listings on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Exhibit A:

The advertiser builds a list of keywords (and decides how loosely they want their ad to be associated with similar terms) and uploads them to the search engine. The system is an auction-based environment, meaning that the advertiser sets a maximum cost-per-click (frequently referred to as CPC). The advertiser also sets the daily budgets (either manually or through a technology called bid management) so the campaigns don’t exceed the desired spend. The search engines determine which ads show in the highest position using a combination of the advertiser’s maximum bid and something called the Quality Score, which is essentially the ad’s history and rewards the most relevant advertisers. The advertiser is only charged when a user clicks on the ad.

(And for the record, Google’s official stance is that the ranking of an organic search result has no bearing on the ranking of any ads, and vice versa. This is a very contentious topic, however, and many people feel that there is a relationship. More to come on that in a separate post).

Although the premise is simple, there are a number of ways to optimize a paid search program. For example:

• Negative keywords: Adding negative keywords helps advertisers to focus on the right customers. If a paid recipe site, for example, wanted to bring users to its page to purchase individual recipes or become a member, it wouldn’t want someone who was looking specifically for free content. Adding “free” as a negative keyword would mean someone searching “free chocolate chip cookies recipes” wouldn’t see this particular advertiser’s ad.
• Bid adjustments: Because paid search is an auction environment, advertisers constantly monitor bids to determine what is the most profitable. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is a major key performance indicator in paid search, because it lets us know how a keyword is returning versus how much we’re spending on it. It’s not uncommon for bids to reach more than $10.00 a click in very competitive, high-reward categories (medical and law categories are two common examples). Ultimately the advertiser needs to decide what a click is worth to them.
• Keyword additions and pauses: As an advertiser learns more about what works, they can add or remove keywords accordingly. Tools like the Google Keyword Tool and Microsoft’s Keyword Forecast AdLab can help identify additional keywords based on volume.

If you’re interested in learning more about paid search, there are a ton of resources online (Google, specifically, has an extremely robust training program for its paid search program, Adwords. They also have a Small Business Center which explains Adwords in terms of what you can get as a small business owner which is easy to understand and pretty simple to use). And stay tuned- paid search is here to stay, so I intend to write much more about it in the coming months.

Isaiah Mustafa, the new face of Old Spice

First, a brief summary, in case you’re new to the internet: Proctor & Gamble (Old Spice’s parent company) and Wieden & Kennedy (an ad agency) recently enlisted former NFL wide receiver and all-around studmuffin Isaiah Mustafa to make a series of funny TV commercials pointing out that if only men would wear Old Spice, they could be as awesome as he is.

The campaign quickly spread like wildfire when Mustafa began responding to Twitter fans and bloggers with personalized video messages on YouTube. He made countless video responses, addressing both famous people and average joes, before announcing that he was done making the videos (and threw in the literal towel in exchange for a chainsaw and giant petrified fish).

When I say wildfire, I mean: this campaign has spread unlike anything the advertising world has ever seen. Visible Measures has done some statistical analysis based on YouTube’s numbers and they’re wildly impressive:

courtesy of Visible Measures

If you’re confused and think you’re reading it wrong: you’re not. These video responses have been viewed at a faster pace than some of the internet’s most beloved videos.

Ultimately, here’s what I love about this campaign:

It has an incredibly universal appeal. Fast Company just interviewed Wieden’s global interactive creative director, Iain Tait, about the campaign. They asked him how the agency came up with the idea for the social marketing campaign and Tait responded, “We had this character who is not only loved by ladies, but equally loved by guys. A woman’s man that was okay for men to love. And we realized there were no edges to where he could exist.” The character himself is universally appealing, but the agency quickly realized that he could be everywhere and people would still be interested.

It reinvents a classic brand. I used to associate Old Spice with my Granddad, but no longer. I overheard someone say on the train that “this campaign makes AXE look like my Grandpa’s Oldsmobile” and had to laugh. I have to think that somewhere, a creative director got his wings once that thought was uttered.

It exists in real time, a feat that seems impossible for something of this scope. In the same interview I referenced earlier, Tait explains that this campaign “blurs the lines between things that people don’t expect to be able to be done in real time. So that’s the surprise, that “Hang on, you’re producing these things kind of in real time? How on earth are you doing that?”

What do you like about the campaign?

I’m relatively new to the corporate blogging space. There’s a number of people out there who have been in the game since it started and they’ve laid the ground for the rest of us. How frequently do you read blogs, either for business or personal use? I know I read blogs constantly, since I work in a field that literally can change from day to day. There’s no doubt that blogs can be a huge asset for a company. But how to go about it?

As with most things, there is no one right answer. Different industries and niches need different things for their audiences. But so far, I’ve stumbled across some blogging best practices and I think they’re relevant for most corporate bloggers– that is, people writing on behalf of a company. Some of these seem pretty common-sense to me, but considering how frequently I stumble across people who have chosen to do the exact opposite of what I recommend, I think there’s a place for those recommendations here.

Provide interesting, valuable content. I will say this on every single recommendation list that I put together until I die (or until I think it’s a universally acceptable truth, whichever comes first). People don’t read blogs that they don’t find interesting, period. All too often, companies put the cart before the horse and plan their entire website and social media strategies on a tactical level, creating accounts all over the place, before deciding what they’re actually going to provide for their customers/readers. Really.

Don’t focus on “Return on Blogging Investment.” Ultimately, blogging is not a direct sales tool. If you try to use it as one, customers will smell it from a mile away, and stop reading. No one sits down at their computer, opens their blog reader and thinks, “I can’t wait to be obnoxiously hard sold to!”  I’ve seen a number of companies look only at the number of dollars spent on their blog and, when they can’t attribute any revenue dollars to it, decide it’s not worth it. Don’t make that mistake. A blog is an invaluable tool for interacting with current and potential customers, but the only way they’ll come to you- and stay with you- is if you drop the marketing talk and provide some value (see point #1).

Stay fresh. It’s important to keep a steady stream of new content coming in to your blog. Statistically, pageviews will plummet if you let the same content sit on your blog for even a few days. Don’t make the mistake of going for quantity over quality though, as balance in that regard is really important. You should constantly think about what you can write about, and don’t shy away from talking about what’s happening in the world at large and how it pertains to your industry.

Get involved and Stay Involved. If you put the effort into creating and maintaining a blog, don’t forget one enormous component: comments. Keep track of your comments and respond to them. Remember, the point of a blog is to engage with customers and start developing relationships and customers’ affinity for the brand. Alienating them or ignoring them is going to do exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to do.

If you’d like more information, here are some really helpful resources: Outspoken Media’s Blogging Category, Compendium Blogware’s Blogging Whitepaper and HubSpot’s 4 Business Blogging Tips.

A 'Kidnapped Chicagoan' ad on the train

I like the campaign a lot. Why?

It’s different. It’s intriguing because you don’t know who the actual campaign is for, and there’s very little information on the ads themselves (just a URL). There’s something appealing about ads that have some mystery behind them, for a couple of reasons: first, you want to know what is actually going on, because it might be cool, and second (what most people might be a little embarrassed to admit to, but it is nonetheless very real!), you want to be a member of whatever club knows about what “it” is and have the power to decide who you will share this information with. Being behind the figurative velvet rope in a viral marketing campaign is what marketers hope appeals to people, and in this case, I think it’s spot on.

It’s integrated. I like the fact that the website has non-awkward integration of various social media outlets. There’s a foursquare module, Twitter feed and a Google map with various places the kidnapped Chicagoan has been mapped out. Because this campaign is about tracking someone, it makes sense to use those items. When companies force those sorts of initiatives into a campaign, it’s not only weird and off-putting– it screams, “We don’t get it!”

It’s customized. The kidnapped Chicagoan lists his interests as: “thick mustaches, thicker pizza, oversized softballs, tweeting, beer, neon green relish, Da Bears, parking permit stickers, above-ground subways, trixies.” Little elements like that make the site fun to use.

And last but not least- it’s not obnoxious. (Spoiler alert!) The Chicagoan has been taken to St. Louis and the website details his travels there (very robust information with links and reviews of the various places he goes). The campaign itself was created by Hoffman Lewis for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission. Sure beats the boring “Pure Michigan” tourism ads, no?

An unexpected move, especially for a tourism organization. There’s word that they might be doing similar campaigns for other cities, and I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for any information on them. Kudos!

BP's brand value has been annihilated by its involvement and response to the oil spill.

There are many lessons that we can learn from the oil spill quickly spreading from the Gulf of Mexico towards Louisiana and Florida, but the most relevant one I’d like to look at today concerns brand integrity and authenticity.

In 1999, British Petroleum began a massive re-branding, illustrating how it could transcend the oil sector by delivering top-line growth while remaining “innovative, progressive, environmentally responsible and performance-driven.” With the ‘Beyond Petroleum’ tagline, BP’s message to consumers was clear: we aim to navigate our complex world by combining energy and environmental concerns, going above what is expected of us to deliver longterm and innovative solutions. And that’s a pretty heavy promise to make to consumers.

It soon became clear that the marketing message and BP’s business practices just didn’t match up. As disasters caused by their refineries and pipelines continued to make headlines, the company continued to insist that it was responding- not only in a legal sense, but out of moral obligation. In 2006, CEO Robert Malone said that “what happened may not have broken the law, but it broke our values.”

And then the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico happened.

BP was talking the talk, but not walking the walk. Branding begins and ends with operations. And because they have made such a strident effort to be seen by consumers as environmentally friendly, responsible and trustworthy, their current response is all the more devastating– and alienating– to the public. This isn’t about condemning BP’s actions during or following the disaster– I think that argument speaks for itself. It is about companies living their own brands.

In some cases, it’s appropriate to alter operations to match a brand perception (I’d say that’s the pretty obvious preferable choice here– if BP took more environmental precautions, their usage of the yellow and green sun wouldn’t be as jarring and laughable). But if you’re comfortable with how your business operates, take a hard look at your brand. Is it authentic? Do the day-to-day happenings behind the scenes of your company fit within the larger picture? If they don’t, it’s either time to re-brand or start changing processes.

We recently made a change to Google Maps to require all community edits to be reviewed before they are shown. In the past, some “pending” edits were shown immediately on Maps and only moderated (and sometimes denied) later on.

We’re taking this step to ensure that changes to Google Maps pass the high quality bar our users expect, while preventing SPAM and other problems from showing up before being reviewed first.

It’s late-coming, but a very welcome change, nonetheless. Some marketers are dubious about the new process, which requires a manual review time on Google’s part (because, well, it’s manual and might be more time consuming than anyone would like). I personally would choose a slightly longer review period over instant free-for-all editing any day.

And of course, it doesn’t change one very important best practice: if you haven’t claimed your listing, you need to do it!

Each of the different venues has a very distinct personality, environment and decor– each of them has a clear brand. Some of the themes are more explicit (I’m thinking specifically of the Excalibur and the Luxor, which are meticulously styled as medieval castles and Egyptian scenes, respectively) where some are more nebulous (if asked to sum up the Wynn’s brand, one might use words like classy, chic or luxurious).

The more memorable places in Las Vegas have real personalities and unique features. Drawing on what I noticed in Las Vegas – that each brand is meticulously planned so customers can identify and resonate with the brand both immediately and in the long term-  I started asking myself either-or questions regarding some of my favorite brands to see if they were distinct in the same way.

For example- is the brand’s target customer:

• seeking luxury or seeking value?
• interested more in tradition or innovation?
• spontaneous or methodical in their purchasing habits?

Too often, marketers get so caught up in casting the widest net possible and looking at numbers without giving some real thought to the brand itself. Try this exercise yourself with your (and your competitors’) brands.  Do they hold up? If you find yourself unable to answer these sorts of questions, it’s seriously worth considering going back to the drawing board and carving out a personality for your brand.