The cause and details around this tragedy are still yet to be told. When they do unfold, my site is not the place to turn for that news. I write about social media and internet marketing, I turn to the professionals for details on actual news and the tragedy that surrounds those stories.

Within this tragedy, a smaller and admittedly far less important story emerged in Nashville. The cream rose to the top in Nashville’s news media, especially as it relates to social media.

I thought about showing you all the bad examples of how many media outlets still do not comprehend social media. That list is too long. Plus, I remembered: “If you can’t say anything nice …”

Instead, let’s focus on who got it right. Specifically, let’s talk about the Nashville social media scene’s introduction to Christine Maddela. I am now a fan of Christine Maddela.

Christine Maddela is the Weekend Anchor and Reporter for WKRN - TV, News 2 in Nashville. I do not know if Christine Maddela officially broke the story on Twitter, but she broke it to many of us.

However, it was more then just the breaking of the story. News is not always about who gets it first. News and social media can and should be used together to engage with users. Christine used Twitter the right way, by doing the following:

Taking the time to engage in conversation

Confirming news before “twittering”

Essential Retweets from the public

Tweet often (even while on the air, between segments)

Kept the public up to date on press conferences

For great Twitter connectivity and conversation follow Christine Maddela and become a fan on Facebook. I know I will look to her more often for news.

This event’s focus will be on nonprofit. Panelist from several Nashville area communities and nonprofit agencies will open up on their strategies and hurdles with social media.

The panel consists of representatives from Cool People Care, Center for Nonprofit Management, Nashville Zoo, and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

Social Media Club Nashville is part of an international network of community groups that host conversations that explore key issues facing our society as technologies transform the way we connect, communicate, collaborate and relate to each other.

The Bing commercials follow two themes: “Search Overload” and “Decision Engine”. The problems with these themes are they seem to indicate that users are frustrated by Google and the overloading.

The search overload theory seems to imply that we are worse off because of Google. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I assume the theory is “Bing is better, because Google is broken“. The problem with that theory is that Google is not broken.

Lance Loveday, the CEO of Closed Loop Marketing, recently stated it well on SearchEngineLand.com:

“Trying to claim that search is somehow broken when most users are quite happy with it is also a non-starter. It’s just not going to resonate—especially once the ad campaign ends.” source: http://searchengineland.com/bing-a-google-killer-get-real-20510

True that Google does not always immediately take us to our answer, but that is the beauty of it. Because of that we have learned to “google” more often and queries are becoming more detailed. On our quest to find “the answer”, we discover new questions, new answers, and new queries.

“Googling” is about the journey. Although, none of us will admit we enjoy spending time on Google. I doubt it is on anyone’s hobby list. Well, except for mine, but I am in the geeky minority. However, I do see the traffic and the queries. We know Googling as a way of life now.

It is easy to announce a better “Decision Engine”. However, that assumes the user knows the question. “Googling” helps us define the question.

We query. We learn. We adjust. We query. The Googling cycle begins and we love it!

And we DO find our answer. We also learn how to ask a better question. We learn about other tidbits of knowledge related to that topic. We Google.

We could “Bing” if we do not know the answer. We Google when we don’t know the question.

The goal of Social Media Clubs are to organize people and events for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.

The event will consist of a panel discussion on social media within Nashville’s online community. The panel will include Ben Lehman, Web Marketer at Healthways; Jared Degnan, Interactive Marketing Consultant for Mars Petcare; Dave Delaney, Social Media Coordinator at Griffin Technology; and Eric Shuff, Social Media Coordinator for The Tennessean.

RSVP to this event at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=77128557091

A Geek Breakfast is a monthly community-driven meeting for local (and visiting) technology-minded people. Each month attendees congregate over bacon, eggs and plenty of coffee to discuss topics like social media, digital marketing, design, programming, and ways to better their communities.
source: http://geekbreakfast.org

The Hendersonville Geek Breakfast is a “spin off” of the well established Nashville Geek Breakfast. Everyone is welcome.

RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=91703052789

A Brief Introduction
Google has four keyword matching options that can trigger a pay-per-click ad. Those match types are: Broad, Phrase, Exact, and Negative. For the purpose of this discussion, we will exclude negative match type. That is a totally different conversation, but still very essential for a well optimized campaign.

Per Google’s definition, below are the other 3 match types:

1. Broad match: Allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations
2. Phrase match: Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase
3. Exact match: Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively

(Notice, there is not an actual “Advanced Match”. Broad Match IS Advanced Match, but not really it’s Broad Match. Just not the original Broad Match. Broad Match would be good if it was Broad Match, but Broad Match is really Advanced Match. I want to opt out of Advanced Match and keep Broad Match, the original Broad Match. … Ugh! See what I mean by headache? You have one too now, don’t you? )

Diana Adams helps you make sense of those 3 match types on SearchEngineGuide.com. It’s great reading to help anyone get started with the match types.

All three of above match types have their advantages and disadvantages. Broad matched traffic, for example, will not convert as well as exact matched. That is often because the ad and/or landing page is not tailored toward that targeted keyword. It may also perform poorly because the match may be too broad and irrelevant to the actual keyword.

Because of the ever-growing use of long-tailed search queries, exact match will never match all of the traffic that exists. Daily costs can quickly ski-rocket with broad match, because of the extensive queries that it matches. Thus, analytics must be closely observed to find out when it is appropriate to use broad, phrase or exact.

The Headache

At first, those match types seem simple, and at one time they were. However, over the past 8 months, Google has made some significant changes to broad match. Broad match has recently been “Expanded”. Those changes are causing an increase in spend and a decrease in conversion, which means many marketers may be shutting down broad match soon. Especially, if the broad match (Advanced Match) changes continue.

The problem with broad match being “too broad” has always existed, but those problems were able to be overcome with phrase matching, pausing and/or an extensive negative keyword list. It’s only recently that these matches have reached out of control.

One problem with the new “enhancement” is a broad match term competing against an exact match term. If a search query matches exactly, then the exact match keyword should be the keyword that Google matches. That would mean that the tracking tags, landing page, and ad type are the intended match.

Yes, that is ideal, but is that always what happens? Yes, if two keywords are active, and equal in bid, then the exact match “wins” our over broad match.

However, what happens if an exact match keyword is performing poorly and the keyword is paused? Because that keyword is poor, the last thing you would want is traffic on that keyword. However, because it’s paused it now becomes eligible for broad match. D’oh! That’s exactly why the keyword was paused to begin with. Thus, the headache continues.

The simple fix is for Google to count all exact matches, paused or not, as a match. That would basically treat a paused exact match keyword as a negative keyword. Currently, advertisers have to tweak minimum bids on keywords that SHOULD be paused. This allows the keywords to be active, but have a low enough bid that it costs very little. Of course, the bid can’t be too low, because then it becomes inactive. And the inactive means, it’s now eligible for Advanced Match … er, I mean broad match.

Rich discusses some improvements Google can do to prevent these headaches on distilled.co.uk

Another nice addition would be to add another optional match type: Advanced Match. Then, we can opt out of Advanced Match type and broad match will remain “broad”.

Ultimately, the broad match strategy by Google is causing advanced pay-per-click advertisers to go around and circles with their ads. Now, do you feel that throbbing directly between your eyes? It is called the “Broad Match Headache”.

Pay-per-click spend is dictated by demand, not by budgets. Yes, it can probably stay under a predetermined budget, but why? Since PPC is based on demand, if demand goes up, isn’t that a good problem to have.

Pay-per-click is an essential part of marketing. In fact, if done correctly, it’s the last piece that should be cut in tough times. As noted before, when times are tough, think twice before ending PPC advertising.

On the other hand, a company should also not set a budget to reach if the demand is not there. In hard economic times, often demand is down. Pay-per-click often generates very little demand. It only takes advantage of the demand that is available. If people are not interested, thus not searching, then it does not matter what the budget is. Spending PPC money just because the budget is set is bad marketing. Spite is a bad marketing stategy.

I understand not setting a marketing budget does not work for many CFO’s, however they do understand revenue. Like any good PPC Manager knows, statistics are essential. Proving every $1 spent generated $100, or whatever margin works for a given product, will make any Chief Financial Officer happy. Having that data and then showing demand increase, will help sell the spend increase.

Sure, there are always tactics that you can do to cut the fat in pay-per-click campaigns. Thus, it’s essential to have detailed statistics on PPC, in order to justify the increase spending. When that happens, it’s an easy sell.

Despite what “experts” say, advertising is NOT failing on the internet. In fact, any real expert will tell you that search marketing is stronger than ever.

As we know, if paid search is not working, then you are doing something wrong. Assuming that all campaigns are optimized, there are no options but to follow the demand not the budget.

The organizers and all volunteers did a terrific job pulling it all together. If any problems occurred, it was not noticeable by us participates.

PCN09 had many terrific sessions. You can find several of PodCamp Nashville presentations on SlideShare.net, including mine.

NewsChannel 5 also happened to show up directly before my presentation, so look who’s on TV.

Thanks again to the great sponsors for stepping up to the plate. It couldn’t have been done without your help.

See you at BarCamp Nashville!

In fact, there are many great PodCamp Nashville sessions.

It’s an essential next step for everyone to pick sessions, now. This really helps the organizers plan room sizes and time slots. Otherwise, your favorite sessions may be at the same times or in smaller rooms.

What is PodCamp Nashville?

PodCamp Nashville is Saturday, March 7, 2009, from 9am to 4pm, at Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management.

“PodCamp Nashville (PCN) is a free, all-day event that brings together Nashville’s podcasting, blogging, digital music, and new media communities.” – PodCampNashville.com

“PodCamp isn’t just about podcasting! If you’re interested in blogging, social media, social networking, podcasting, video on the net, if you’re a podsafe musician (or want to be), or just someone curious about new media, then please join us — and bring a friend or colleague”. -podcamp.org

So, what’s new with Google? It seems like every day Google is announcing new products, new mergers, and new resources. I have filtered through the news and announcements, so you don’t have to. If you want to learn more, sign up for the session.

• I would follow the rules and keep people safe.
• I would make sure there is no war and send out solders to keep us safe.
• If someone tried to steal I would call the police.
• I would write important leaders.
• I will make sure no one gets hurt.
• I will be nice to people.
• I will not hurt animals.

The above was written by my 6-year old daughter (1st grade). The image shows the actual handwritten note. (I took the liberty of fixing grammar for the sake of posting).