The Death of Pay Per Click Advertising

For something that's been around for just a few years, PayPer click advertising, or ppc has become an established part of online marketing for many companies. Paid search marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engine. However, recent research revealed that 18% of SMEs using google ads words actually get reimbursed by their reinvestment.

Two Reasons Why It's Failing Businesses

1. It's a short term fix- PPC i purely about grabbing the consumers attention instead of establishing a relationship with them.
2. It is brand unaware- PPC is purely about the ad and about capturing the interest of window shoppers. These people are more worried about cost rather than quality. 

Uconn Student's Mac and Cheese Viral Meltdown Spawns Fundraisers

Freshmen members of the University Of Connecticut raised money for all the workers involved in the 2015 Uconn Mac and Cheese incident with Luke Gatti. Sadie Rumsey set up a page on gofundme.com to give the workers involved a night out. A statement from UConn states that employees can not receive gifts due to their employment. However, the school would like to recognize the workers for how they handled such an awful situation for everyone. Social media is a two edged sword and can really hurt ones reputation. Supposedly now the boy is filing for accelerated rehabilitation, rightly so. Here's a link to the alarming video.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/UConn-Student-Arrested-When-Mac-and-Cheese-Quest-Gets-Physical-330910772.html

Social Media Vs. Police Brutality

Social media is changing the game and now putting the government under pressure. With all the social media that there is now, police brutality is often highly frowned upon. What does social media do? It exposes the brutality in police departments and now exhibits consequences for actions. For example, police now have body cameras on them. However, they can choose whether the camera is on or not. With the constant stories of racial profiling and young black males being killed, the government is now under pressure to not use excessive force. Social Media cannot stop police brutality as a whole because well, it's still happening! For now, it's good that our government is being exposed for unreasonable force because it's starting to change corruption within society. Here's an example of social media and police brutality.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/12/07/ronald-johnson-video-chicago-police-sot.cnn/video/playlists/ronald-johnson-police-shooting/

NYPD's Twitter Outreach Backfires In Most Predictable Way Possible

Twitter has now been around for eight years and it still hasn't made sense to them that it's still a terrible place to promote your brand. Especially when you have a bad reputation for police brutality, unnecessary roughness, and racial profiling. Twitter took a very bad stab when they asked, "Do you have a photo with a  member of the NYPD? Tweet us and tag it." You can only imagine the amount of occupy Wall street people posted along with a photo of an 84 year old man being bloodied for jaywalking. Social media can be rough if you set yourself up for it!

7 Ways to Market Your Business on Facebook

Facebook is the number one way to connect and share with friends online. It has now grown into a venue for businesses to market online. In this post, we will highlight 7 ways to market your business on Facebook.

1. Making the most of your page- This is a great want to create your brand and identity. With that, people also enjoy humor on the site. Hence, share videos that are pertaining to your products or services so you engage people.
2. Facebook Advertising: Classified Ads- Facebook offers it's own advertising that are known as "Classified Ads". They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to a Facebook ad, Facebook app, or outside websie.
3. Hosting Facebook Contests- Running contests, sweepstakes, or promotions, is another tactic that can help you gain fans and increase awareness. 
4. Facebook Promoted Posts- Facebook promoted posts let Facebook page owners pay a flat rate in order to have their individual posts reach a certain amount of consumers. 
5. Facebook Sponsored Stories- This tool shows an ad of another consumers interaction with the business. Basically, it's a word of mouth tool. Therefore, the more your business grows, the more inclined people are going to see it.
6. Facebook Open Graph- This graph lets businesses label a users action with the app. Businesses can create third party applications that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action within the app. An example of this would be Spotify. Anytime a business requires you to sign in with Facebook, Facebook then receives the feedback immediately. 
7. Facebook Exchange( FBX)- Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target consumer markets based on web history data when a user visits a product page on a retailer’s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.

Why Using Social Media for Fundraising Isn't Effective

You couldn't look anywhere on Facebook or Instagram without seeing it. There were countless posts of people dumping ice water over their heads for the ALS ice bucket challenge for Lou Gehrig's disease. The 2014 challenged raised over $115 million for ALS research. Hence, you would think that Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are effective ways of marketing for fundraising. Wrong. These challenges aren't effective in actually getting people to click and donate. Obviously, these challenges help because it gets issues on the radar. "It's useful because people are seeing your issue," says Michael Ward, a principal at strategy firm M+R that publishes the Benchmark, a nonprofit industry guide to online fundraising and advocacy. "But then to actually get them to divert that knowledge into a donation, it really takes other channels, such as email marketing or even direct marketing to close that loop." It is said that only 3% of people donate due to social media channels according to an Adobe. "Adobe collected data for a year from websites. But the Adobe findings also echoed the results of a Red Cross survey also done in 2014, which found that online solicitations and engagements helped sway people to donate; however, people didn't report them to be as motivational as in-person requests or emails and direct mail, which remain the bread and butter of fundraising."

How To Start Freelancing With No Experience

In 2011 Financial Times (UK Magazine) reported a 12% increase in freelance growth from 2008. The popular site known as Elance has had consistent growth over the years. In 2012, there were 200,000 job postings in the first quarter. There was 300,000 jobs posted shortly a year after. With freelancing being so enticing, people have serious thought in starting up but do not know how. No worries, you will learn today. 

1. Choice your craft- Almost anything can be outsourced these days. So think about what you enjoy and what you can realistically offer. You need to find demand for ultimately what you want to do. 

2. Create a brand- Your brand is your identity that you're associated with such as website, blog, and social media sources. Make sure you narrow down your target market and find the industry you think you can succeed in!

3. Build a portfolio and source testimonials- The freelancing world is not as defined as the corporate world. This is due to to the fact that your prospective clients aren't concerned with your background. They want to see your work and proof that it is excellent. Therefore, if you create testimonials to show your success, there's a better chance you succeed. 

4. Start pitching- You should only seek paying clients when you have an effective portfolio and testimonials. At this point you should start pitching to your target market. If everything is done well, you already know who you're target market is!

5. Play the odds- Freelance work is a numbers game. The more clients you contact, the more work you're more likely to find. Hence, get motivated and follow up.

The Facebook Intifada

The article I came across was entitled The Facebook Intifada . Basically, the article spoke about how a Jerusalem man was shot, stabbed, and killed and how it spread all over Facebook and Twitter. The article was written from the son's perspective, however. As the boy sulked and thought about his fathers death, he realized a couple things. The following quote is directly from the article: "Watching the well-wishers congregating in the intensive care unit, however, I realized that the world leaders who were having the most impact on the situation in the Middle East right now weren’t Mr. Ban or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and other young entrepreneurs who shape the social media platforms most of us use every day." This is an example of how Facebook can have direct consequences. These terrorists are using the social platform to promote their violence in Palestinian society. This is completely unacceptable and not a good way of getting peoples' attention via social media. Hence, this is one downfall of social media. The terrorist group used Facebook to promote something that is obviously negative. 

This week's post will be about Social Media Marketing Gone Bad. The following 5 marketing campaigns are examples of exactly not to do when it comes time to market for your business!

1. Coles- This super market chain tried to engage tweeters by tweeting, "in my house, it's a crime not to buy." This then lead to various negative comments referring to buying locally, and not at the chain!

2. McDonald's- McDonald's inspire customers to share their experiences under the hashtag #McDStories. Unfortunately, many customers did not have flattering things to say about the restaurant.

3. Coca- Cola- Although this certainly wasn’t the intention, Coca-Cola caused a number of Australian Facebook users to throw obscenities towards one another in response to a post by Coke that encouraged users to add a word to the comment of the person above them to write a happy story. This obviously did not go over well and Coca-Cola had to stop the campaign due to an online outbreak with unhappy users of the product. 

4. Dr. Pepper- The company ran a campaign that allowed users to opt in and and allow the brand to take over their status updates. Things end bad when a 14 year old girl's status was taken over by an inappropriate comment. 

5. QUANTAS- The company was offering a first class luxury flight experience to the person who could explain what a luxury flight experience would mean to them. As you can imagine, it got out of hand and the company thanked all the participants. This is why you must be careful when giving power to the audience. 

Are you possibly thinking about putting your small business on twitter? Do you know the benefits of this social media site? Did you know it can be extremely beneficial for your company? By being an active tweeter, you can reach a much larger audience, and generate many more leads for your company.     Twitter has significantly evolved since 2007. It once was used mainly as a site with small communication. People soon realized it can be a marketers dream! Here are nine basic steps on how to use twitter to maximize your marketing within a business!

1. Use twitter to stand out
2. Keep your followers interested
3. Stick with it
4. Provide a balance of work and fun
5. Keep your mobile users in mind
6. Listen to your customers
7. Promote hard to find products
8. Connect with people who need what you have to offer
9. Use twitter for lead generation

If you are looking for even more tips on how to promote your products or services, please see the video below! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=araqT_oZl-g

Small businesses can stand out significantly with a Facebook fan page. If you're looking for some creative Facebook fan pages, click here. More than 1,800 requests came in and these represent over 500 small businesses. Please see this link for examples of the 2012 Social Media Examiner winners http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-10-small-business-facebook-pages-2012-winners/.

David Packard once said, "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department." This comment shows how crucial marketing is to a company. There have been many epic screw ups all over the world and here are the top 5 companies that continue to come out with insanely bad marketing tactics.

• Motorola Droid Razr Maxx- that doesn't roll off the tongue too well does it. How it anyone supposed to remember all that?
• Quiznos- Besides being sued by thousands of franchisees, they had a disgusting marketing creature called a sponge-monkey. Probably not the smartest creature to feature while dealing with food. 
• Sony's Synergy Campaign- I don't understand why you can't watch a Sony streamed movie on a non-Sony television. I'm pretty sure there is no synergy between the consumer electronics businesses and movie.
• Sprint's Unlimited Data Plan- CEO Dan Hesse was losing subscribers rapidly due to the awful service. Well that and $3 billion dollars. However, Sprint now offers "unlimited data service" which took an estimated $4,000 to film each commercial.
• Research in Motion- The CEO finally took the hint and changed the name to Panasonic. I wouldn't buy their products when they are promoting the fact they have to do more research. 

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

How Are Search and Social Media Marketing Related?

Social media usually discovers the new content like current events and  "discovery" is a search activity. Many people search social media to find social media content. Fair enough, correct? Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results.

Social Media Websites

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Google+
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Tumblr

A Beginner's Social Media Guide for Small Businesses

Social media marketing is low-cost and gives you direct line to current and prospective customers. What you save in dollars, you'll invest in time. This is a guide for small businesses with limited resources but who want to learn how to establish their brand. 

Step 1: Do your homework

Behind every successful social media campaign there's a well thought out strategy. You must connect with you audience on an authentic level. Therefore, you must understand your current and potential customers. 

Start by defining your audience. 

Next, crystallize your message. Based on your defined target audience, what are the key problems or concerns you can address or solve?

Below that, write down three key marketing messages you want to communicate to that audience.

Step 2: Coordinate your social channels

Coordinate your social media channels to push people to buy your products or service.

Use your blog to establish your brands voice and share information. 

Include a live call to action at the end of your blog posts to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter. 

Incorporate sharing buttons on your pages and posts and make sure content is share-friendly.

Step 3: Get started but start small

Social media takes time and energy, which are precious resources. Set yourself up to be successful by doing some work that is manageable!

Step 4: Listen and share! 

Respond to comments and feedback even when they are negative. Turn that negative into a positive! 

If you have any more questions, please see this link http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-guide-small-bu