If you aren’t already advertising on Facebook, we think you should be! Facebook advertising can help obtain new fans as well as market and promote products and services. If you’re new to advertising on this platform, here are 4 tips to help launch a successful campaign:

1. Be Original

Facebook is crowded with content. Aside from other ads, when advertising on Facebook you’ll be competing with status updates, photo albums, break-ups and make-ups. As a business, your advertisements need to stand out amidst this other content. No one is going to click on a boring advertisement; keep it simple and be imaginative. With Facebook, we’ve found success in being relevant, targeted and engaging.

2. Images are Important

When selecting an image for your advertisement, keep in mind that you’ll need to stand out amongst the clutter. In our experience, a simple logo or graphic doesn’t resonate as well as colorful photographs that catch the eye. Making the switch from using logos to bright, compelling images increased our CTR immediately with one client.

3. Target Creatively

The luxury of Facebook advertising over any other advertising platform is the ability to target not only on demographics, but also on interests specified by users. Try targeting your fans’ friends, your competitors and any other group or interest you can think your target audience might be interested in. This is where you can get creative. If your target market is college women, for example, you can target by college, age, gender and any other demographic you typically consider. Then think about what your target typically likes—this could be certain stores, musical artists, even a particular magazine. The options are endless when it comes to targeting, so experiment and optimize with each ad you create.

4. Utilize Your Options & Stay Current

Though there are multiple advertising formats available on Facebook, be sure to utilize the ones that help you achieve your campaign goals. This is another area where testing comes into play; while some of our clients have seen success with “sponsored stories,” others have experienced better results with traditional Facebook format advertisements. As Facebook’s advertising platform becomes more robust and available formats continue to evolve, be sure to stay updated on platform changes.

The opportunities with Facebook advertising are seemingly endless and, if you follow the above best practices, you’ll be well on your way to reaping the benefits they offer. However, as with any social media strategy, remember to always operate with your business goals in mind. If you’re not getting the right results for your firm’s underlying objectives, your social results won’t have a measureable impact in the long run.

Stay tuned for more topics in our Facebook Success Summit Series!

Following the results of a recent Prophet survey, Forbes released a list of the five brands U.S. consumers viewed as most likely to fall flat by 2015.

The brands are below, listed in descending order by most likely to drop off:

• Kodak (with 27% of the overall vote)
• Netflix (19%)
• U.S. Post Office (18%)
• RIM – Blackberry (14%)
• Sears (11%)

While these brands once held dominant spots in the marketplace, most consumers cited the organizations’ collective

inability to stay in touch with their customers’ needs as a reason for their slip into irrelevancy.

The top mistakes consumers listed included:

• A failure to understand what customers want, in addition to providing an inadequate customer service
  experience.
• Lag time in innovation and a failure to respond to changes in competitive and environmental landscapes.
• Pricing inaccuracies (nickel and diming customers for services once considered common courtesy).
• Ineffective management and outdated business models.
• Inability to keep up with the digital revolution. On the flip side, companies listed as best for keeping up with the times included the New York Times for its mobile app and the American Red Cross for its charitable giving social media efforts.

The five companies cited as most likely to disappear were guilty of at least two of the mistakes listed above; who can forget Netflix’s blunder with naming, customer service and pricing? At the core of each mistake above is the central need for brands to stay engaged with their customers to ensure continued relevancy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, respondents praised Nordstrom, Amazon, Disney, Southwest Airlines and Zappos for being responsive to their audiences’ ever-changing worlds.  Thus, businesses are tasked with not only being responsive to industry changes, but also being innovative, embracing digital technology and evolving their business models to meet customer expectations.

When expanding your company’s advertising reach abroad, the first thing to understand is the online habits of a particular culture or region. While it may seem obvious to some, it is easy to overlook what may work in another country simply because it does not work in the U.S. (e.g. while banner ads are not as successful in the U.S., they do perform better abroad). These differences are further highlighted in China, where the culture, freedom, and even written language differ so greatly from our own. The following tips will help you plan your online venture in China:

Clicks Trump Type
Take the Chinese text, for example. The complication of typing Chinese characters has resulted in greater popularity of web pages that require less typing and integrate more clickable content. If your company’s site requires a larger amount of typing to navigate, you might consider clickable images.

Baidu Reigns Supreme
Familiar with Google and all that is necessary to promote your company through the all-powerful U.S. engine?  Become acquainted with Baidu, China’s top search engine. It commands over 75% of the market share to Google’s almost 20%. While Baidu does have many similarities to Google, it is a completely different search engine that warrants your attention if China is on your radar.

Learn to Sina Weibo…Not Tweet
With the great deal of control the government has over the citizens of China, one might expect that social media is non-existent. Common U.S. platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are almost completely unused, yet social media is still very prevalent. One social site, Sina Weibo, is very similar to Twitter. Sina Weibo’s top 100 participants have a combined 198.2 million+ followers, a stale number, which may have exceeded Twitter’s top 100 participants at this time.

A company must ask itself if the lure of the large Chinese market is worth hurdling the obstacles of restrictions and an unknown culture. With some research, some flexibility, and a willingness to adapt to a very different set of cultural rules, one might find China a worthwhile investment. Remember, there are 513 million internet users in China. This equals the number of people living in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Italy combined, so it may just be worth it for you.

In the past, the Super Bowl has been aired exclusively on television. If you’ve ever been stuck in traffic or in line at the grocery store getting those game day munchies, you know the agony of missing even a moment of the game. This year, you don’t have to. Got a smart phone, tablet or laptop? Then you’ve got the Super Bowl, live, at your fingertips.

NBC will broadcast the Super Bowl on network television and, for the first time, it will also stream the game on its website. Though it remains unclear if all cell providers will have access to the mobile version, Verizon Wireless customers who have downloaded the Verizon NFL app will be able to watch on their mobile devices.

But did NBC skip a major market? The Super Bowl will not be available online outside the United States. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a Super Bowl weekend abroad. When I was in Dublin last year I noticed that bars held Super Bowl events that sold out days before the opening coin toss. In fact, the pre-Super Bowl commotion there was bigger than any I’d seen before. And yet, these key international fans won’t be able to take part in the online Super Bowl revolution. Yet.

Let’s consider the true winners of this new development – advertisers. Rumor has it that the online Super Bowl broadcast will include the pricey, sought after ad spots that appear on the network version. Imagine the millions who already view the traditional Super Bowl broadcast multiplied exponentially by the millions who will tune in online. It promises to be quite the year, for both advertising and football.

Chairman Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), who introduced the bill in October of 2011, said, “This much-needed legislation makes it harder for foreign thieves to steal and sell America’s intellectual property. The Stop Online Piracy Act protects the profits, products and jobs that rightly belong to American innovators.” But the bill has been controversial.

SOPA is intended to prevent foreign rogue sites from offering or providing goods or services directed at users located in the United States by blacklisting sites when they are deemed to be directed at the U.S., and to “promote acts that can infringe copyright.” First-time offenders may face a five-year jail sentence.

Supporters of the bill reason that some sites steal America’s creative and innovative products and take away 19 million American jobs by attracting 53 billion visits. Without additional protection, content creators are have little recourse when their work is stolen by infringers; these acts are currently beyond the reach of U.S. laws.

But exactly what type of activity is deemed “criminal” by the bill is, according to critics, far too poorly defined, which could result in a serious, negative impact on ecommerce, infringe on the right to freedom of speech and potentially shut down social media sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Critics also fear the bill could fail to stop the conduct it is meant to halt. Offenders may easily move illegal content to another site.

Current wording of the bill is such that Facebook.com could possibly be blacklisted and shut down if there is one instance of a user having posted protected material—for example, a video of a child singing a copyrighted song—and it not being removed within five days after being served a removal order.

An aide to bill sponsor Lamar Smith said that the bill is specifically targeted toward illegal conduct, and that sites that host benign user content, like social media sites, have nothing to worry about.

While the Facebook example above is extreme, it’s feasible that the bill, if passed, would at minimum result in reduced user engagement. People may no longer feel comfortable sharing, and company websites will also have to be extremely careful not to host any copyrighted material as well, because the Department of Justice would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site.

A press release dated December 16, 2011 states that the House Judiciary Committee adjourned its markup of the act by voting down all amendments 2-1. The committee will reconvene the markup when Congress is next in session.

Read the official bill and a summary, and see a list of supporters and opposition.

As Margaret Mead so wisely stated, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

What charities and causes are near and dear to your heart? What would you like your community, whether it be your hometown or the globe, to work towards achieving in 2012? We’d love for you to join the efforts of our small group of dedicated people.

Happy New Year from your friends at 90octane!

The new Google “Personal Results” link delivers information relevant to searchers based on their search behavior, as well as their social connections. This means that two searchers will see different results for the same query. Regular, nonsocial search results will now be presented to users as “Other results.”

In a recent article by Search Engine Land, Googler Amit Singhal states, “The social search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.” Only users logged in to Google will receive personal results, though each user has the capability to remove social content from their search results by disabling the option.

Miguel Helft, senior writer at Fortune magazine writes, “The change will expose Google+ profiles, as well as posts and photographs uploaded to the network, to hundreds of millions of search users whether or not they have Google+ accounts. In many cases, the changes will push content from other sites, including Facebook, further down on the search results pages.”

Content on other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr will not be included in personalized results. Singhal states that this is due to the fact that their “terms of services don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things.” Twitter lashed out at Google this morning over these new changes, claiming that the algorithm update will make information more difficult to find, while increasing the number of irrelevant results returned for any given search. Further, social results at the top of the page will push information from reputable, search engine optimized sources out of the top rankings. This would be detrimental to marketers, searchers and businesses alike. It’s surprising that Google would release such as radical change, favoring its own services in rankings, especially at a time when it is facing antitrust scrutiny.

Critics are voicing their privacy concerns over this development, but it is important to note that personalized results are not making it possible for users to search for information they couldn’t see before; it makes social information previously available easier to access through the main Google search pages. Rather, “private content shared on Google+ could be found with a Google+ search. Google’s really just making Google+ Search one of its Universal Search sources, in some ways,” describes Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.

Search, Plus Your World will be available to all logged in Google users over the next couple days. Learn more at Google’s Official Blog.

What this means for SEO

A basic SEO strategy involves knowing what keywords send searchers to your site. “Not provided” keywords limit the data that will help users determine if specific keywords are creating conversions, which limits strategic marketing efforts.

This change also drastically changes mobile searches, especially in the Android market. Android requires a Google account in order to be activated. According to eMarketer, Android accounts for roughly 40% of the smartphone market, and its market share is on the rise. This means roughly 40% of searches from an Android device are secure, and the data for a large portion of this growing advertising platform will be limited by secure browsing.

How it works

Signing into Google Calendar, Code, Finance, Gmail, Moderator, Google+, iGoogle, Google News, Reader and Google Voice turns on the encrypted search feature by default. In addition to Google-specific accounts, other websites that allow you to sign in using your Google account will trigger Google searches in SSL/encrypted browsing. Try signing into your YouTube account using your Gmail username, and after signing in, open a new tab and type in Google. You’ll see that Google automatically sends you to https://google.com, even from YouTube.

The projected impact

In an interview, Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand questioned Matt Cutts, Director of Web Spam at Google, about the amount of data affected by the privacy update. Although he didn’t provide an exact number, Cutts said the percentage of searches affected was expected to be in the single digits. In the weeks following the privacy update, many webmasters, SEO specialists and bloggers said the percentage of “not provided” results is much higher.

The actual impact

Image source: Conductor

Many sites reported their average of percent of results “not provided” at around 10%. However, some have reported that over 20% of the results from signed in Google users are blocked. Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz published data showing sites surveyed had, from November 4–10, an average of 12% of Google natural search traffic “not provided.” Brian Whalley at Hubspot reported an 11.36% average for Hubspot customers.

Conductor, makers of the SEO platform Searchlight, compiled data from five high traffic websites, three service providers and two online retailers showing that traffic data lost went from 1% growth after the first week to roughly 9% growth within the weeks to follow. Google suggests using Webmaster Tools in conjunction with Analytics; Webmaster Tools does not have personal information and will provide the top 1,000 keywords from the past 30 days that drove traffic to your site. However it only provides data about keyword performance before the visitor comes to your site.

In a published Twitter exchange, Matt Cutts of Google suggests that the results of Fishkin’s five-site analysis is too small a sample to provide accurate results, and that different demographics affect the accuracy of reports of high “not provided” statistics. Cutts says his projection of a single-digit percentage remains accurate.

Looking forward

Google says its ultimate mission is to have more users logged into a Google account while searching, and is pushing to make Google+ a primary contender in social networking, resulting in increased encrypted searches. Meanwhile, the amount of queries in natural search referral reports labeled as “not provided” is likely to increase.

Privacy settings are expected to remain tight, so it’s a good idea to monitor your Analytics (especially “not provided” results) and Webmaster Tools closely to minimize the impact of encrypted searching on your optimization efforts. It’s possible that this is a fundamental step in growing industry-wide efforts to utilize SSL encryption.

In the past year, businesses have become more active on Facebook than ever before. However, it is vital for businesses to realize that Facebook is most effective when the conversation is flowing both to and from fans. After setting the goals of your social strategy, several steps can be followed to optimize your Facebook page and foster conversation flow. The following categories outline a few of the recommended methods to increasing and engaging your fan base:

Build Trust
Creating a community in which your fans can interact with each other and your brand not only builds trust, it also keeps the conversation about you and your products fresh. In order to maintain a safe environment for all users, develop a “Terms of Use” tab that lets everyone know the rules of conduct for your community, then stick to it. You have every right to remove belligerent or profane comments from your page, but remember that building trust by handling non-offensive negative comments in a timely and respectful manner can have a significant and positive impact on brand perception. Also, let your fans speak for you in response to negative comments; if you have created strong relationships with certain fans, they will likely come to your defense if a crisis ever arises.

Foster Community
Posts to your Facebook page should be educational and intriguing. Though you may operate on Facebook with the end goal of increasing sales, remember that a social network is just that: a place for people to interact and communicate with each other in social ways. Post yes/no, fill in the blank or multiple choice questions that invite your fans to participate. Recognize influential fans by reposting their content or giving a shout out to a “Fan of the Week.” Acknowledge when a fan posts something interesting by “Liking” or replying to their post with input and questions of your own. Follow up is crucial, and not just for negative comments; people are far more likely to begin and continue interacting with your brand if they see that fan comments are heard and valued. Also, be sure to “Like” other brand pages for complementary businesses. For example , interacting with important news sources in your industry will help keep you informed and can increase awareness for your brand through the fan base of the page you’ve “Liked.”

Create a Management Strategy
The tone and voice of your Facebook page should be both consistent and personable. To aid in the management process, create a team of individuals who are aware of your social strategy and the best practices you want to employ. To humanize your posts, consider having a “Meet the Admins” tab and encouraging your staff to sign their posts. Determine if and how you will use Facebook advertisements to promote your content and ensure that calls to actions are used not only in ads, but also in posts that you make. Remember that your social strategy is a combination of all social media outlets, from your blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. To support this, be sure to create a strategy that recognizes the interconnectedness of your social platforms and develops collaborative content.

The above recommendations provide a solid foundation to your Facebook engagement strategy. Specific situations and goal sets will require variations to your approach, but beginning with the pillars of trust, community and management will set you on the right track for Facebook success.

Stay tuned for our next Facebook Success Summit topic: Dynamic Facebook Tabs.

In 2010 the Denver Santa Claus shop, believed to be the longest, continuously-running charity of its kind in the U.S., served 18,000 young people. This year, local families with elementary school-aged children were invited through Denver-area social service agencies to receive donated toys. Toy drives by volunteers, area schools, companies, King Soopers and 9NEWS helped keep shelves at the temporary “toy store” stocked. 90octane’s employees organized toys and assisted the families with their selections.