Maintaining a social media presence can produce many benefits for a company, including increasing brand awareness and industry credibility, as well as generating leads and website traffic. In order to obtain the greatest benefits from social media, you should first develop a strategy for utilizing social media according to the goals that you wish to achieve. In addition to aligning your activity on social media to this strategy, here are a few additional tips:

• Post content that is both relevant and interesting to your customers
• Post regularly, but don’t overwhelm your followers with a constant stream of updates
• Curate original content on a blog and direct your followers there. Ideally this would be on your company’s website.

Unfortunately, not all marketers follow these best practices. Here are a few classic examples of what not to do, followed by ways each could improve.

1. Overwhelming Omar
He posts over 20 random updates on Facebook every day, but is surprised that his fan numbers keep falling.

In 2010, Google revamped its AdWords Certification program, designed to recognize individuals and agencies proficient in pay-per-click management. In order to be individually certified, you must now pass the AdWords Fundamentals exam as well as at least one of three Advanced Exams (Advanced Search Advertising, Reporting and Analysis, or Display Advertising) with a score of at least 85%. Each exam costs $50 to take, contains approximately 120 questions, and must be completed in two hours. I recently completed the AdWords Certification process and thought that it would be helpful to provide tips for preparing for these exams.

1. Use the resources Google gives you
   • The Learning Center is an excellent starting point to prepare for the exams. They provide written summaries of key concepts as well as interactive modules and YouTube videos. Be sure to pay attention to all of the sections, even the ones that you don’t think that you will ever use, as the exams cover all of the materials contained in the Learning Center.
   • The AdWords Help Center offers more in-depth information on the concepts covered in the Learning Center modules. Many concepts in the Learning Center are hyperlinked to their specific help article.
2. Find your own resources
   • Pay-per-click blogs such as PPC Hero and The Wordstream Blog provide explanations of many of the concepts in AdWords. If I was still unsure about a concept after looking through the Google resources, I found that related blog posts were usually a good way to gain a grasp on those concepts.
3. Do-it-yourself
   • The best way to learn AdWords is to set up an account and dive in. In addition to reading about concepts I wasn’t as familiar with, I found that creating a campaign (you can delete it when you’re done) and playing around with the various options available gave me a deeper understanding of those concepts. Many of the questions on the exam are phrased as real-world scenarios, so having experience with the concepts is a definite plus!
4. Take Notes
   • The testing module does not let you have any other windows open while taking the test, so while it’s not impossible to take the test “open book,” Google doesn’t make it easy. I made notes of things that seemed to make good test questions (lists or statistics) and organized them in a way that I could quickly find what I needed.
5. Take Advantage of the Testing Software Features
   • The software used for administering the test has many useful features available while taking the test. The first is the ability to mark questions. As I was going through the test, if I was unsure of any questions (or if I had no idea), I marked them and continued through the test answering the questions that I was sure about. After going through the whole test, the system lets you go back to the questions that you marked. Throughout the test, you can see how many unanswered questions and time you have remaining.
   • Another useful feature is the ability to cross out answers that you know are not correct simply by right-clicking on those answer choices. I found that it was very helpful to narrow down the answer choices on a few of the questions.
   • You can go back through the questions as many times as you want before the time runs out. The software allows you to either scroll through them one at a time or use a handy drop down box in the upper right, which shows whether questions are unanswered or marked.

While studying for the test, I found several ideas for PPC campaigns that we are currently working on. So not only will preparing help you make a better score on the test, you may find features on AdWords that could be useful for current or future campaigns you conduct.

Need AdWords help? Contact Launch today!

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for B2B marketing tips and trends.

I recently attended the Marketo Summit 2012 in San Francisco.  While I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about Marketo’s marketing automation software, I also was thrilled at the number of sessions focused on general marketing tips, tricks and best practices.

Some of the takeaways served as reminders, but many were inventive new ideas with case studies and testing to back them up! One of my favorite sessions was “Writing Better Emails and Landing Pages.” While crafting better emails for lead generation and lead nurturing is an age-old marketing topic, the presenter did an excellent job of really providing outside the box ideas for moving marketing emails from delivery, to open, to click thru!

Without further ado, here are some key takeaways from that session:

Email Marketing Timing:

• Send emails early in the morning if possible.  Studies have shown that emails sent first thing in the morning are more likely to be read.
• Schedule automated emails to be sent in a more human-like fashion. For example, rather than scheduling an immediate follow up email from sales prompted by a case study download (e.g., “Thank you for your interest in our services – would you like a demo? ”), schedule it to send out the next morning.  This makes the email appear less automated and more personable.

Email Marketing Subject Lines:

• Keep your subject line to eight words or less – this keeps subjects short and sweet and more likely to be opened!
• Use brackets in your subject line when possible to call out your offer.  This goal is to make it stand out in an inbox e.g., “[Webcast Tomorrow] Register Now!”.  Differentiating your email is key.
• Address your recipient directly in the email and subject line – e.g., “What You Need to Know about Marketing Automation” versus “What CMOs Need to Know about Marketing Automation.”
• Want to avoid being marked as spam? Don’t use “free” in the subject line.

Email Marketing Content:

• Use bullets or numbered lists at the top of your email – people skim emails and you want your message as clear and concise as possible.
• Always use clickable links versus URLs.  What does this mean? It’s the difference between “Visit our website” (hyperlinking to the site) versus “www.launch-marketing.com.” The first is a clear call to action and much more compelling.
• Don’t use URL shorteners in your clickable links in emails. Sites like Bitly are awesome for Twitter or other places where you are limited to a word count, but using a shortened URL in your email links could mark it as spam and affect deliverability.
• Always use a greeting/salutation such as “Hello [First Name].”  This makes your email appear more personal, and less like spam.
• Here’s a new one – include typos in emails intentionally!  This typo tactic is used often by sales teams when sending out automated emails. Their goal is to appear as if they were typing the email at 7am at their desk and they happened to make a few typos as they were following up with each prospect individually.
• Last but not least – have ONE call to action.  The best way to ensure your most important link is clicked is by providing only one option to click!

I hope you found these tips as insightful as I did.  If you have any to add, let me know – I’d love to add them to the list!

Interested in more B2B marketing tips and tricks? Read these tips to increase demand generation email response rates.  Also, follow Launch on Twitter & Facebook!

Twitter is deceptively simple – all you have to do is create a tweet with fewer than 140 characters, throw in a few hash-tags, and post it – right?

Well maybe not. Judging from the amount of articles written on Twitter best practices it seems that people might be having a harder time than it appears creating posts that really engage people and incite them to act; ahem, re-tweet.

Having been a tweeter for some time now, I’ve observed a number of best practices that really do make a difference between somebody just hanging out and posting randomly, and someone taking their Twitter strategy to the next level.  Here are a few:

Who’s following whom?

When first starting out on Twitter, people will typically follow a large number of people in the hope that they will get followed back. This, however, sets them up for a misperception of value. For example, if you’re following 100+ people but only 20 are following you, it sends a message that you’re really not providing content or tweets of value. On the flip side, if you have 500 people following you but you are only following four or five, that sends an ego-centric message that you perceive your value to be far greater than perhaps it really is. And who likes a snob?

The golden rule of any social media effort is to engage people in a collaborative way. The best practice here is to follow a balanced ratio of people based on how many people are following you. As an example, if you have 500 people following you, you might follow 200 or so.  If you’re just starting out then follow a handful of people that you really want to engage with and enlarge the group as you build your followership via great content.

Good start.

Could be better – not quite wholesale arrogant, but close.

Perfect! Nice show of balanced reciprocation.

Populate a good profile – really.

Regardless of whether you’re tweeting for a corporate entity or yourself, the value of a good profile cannot be underestimated. Your profile tells people what your interests and focus are, as well as gives them clues as to the type of personality or tweeting style you represent. Think of it as your calling card – if it’s weak, then people will be more inclined to bypass or dismiss you quickly. A profile with a unique approach and some depth is a lot more intriguing. Here are a few examples of some good ones:

Are you on hash-tag overload?

Hash-tags are enormously valuable – until they clutter up your tweets to the extent that someone needs a cipher to break the code:

Yikes! Not only self-serving, but impossible to tell what it’s about other than a chat session. Pick your hash-tags carefully and incorporate only those that will keep your tweet in a particular conversation thread. Typically one or two hash-tags per tweet will suffice.

And, if you’re one of those that populates a random hash-tag to insert your tweet into a popular stream – that’s even worse.  Hash-tags serve a valuable purpose, but don’t be an abuser please! You might win short-term by getting your tweet in front of more people, but ultimately you won’t gain much. No one wants to read self-serving content that isn’t related to what they’re interested in.

Speaking of content – it really is king.

Twitter’s recent announcement of refinements to its’ Discover tab, which makes it easy for people to find information without following other accounts, is yet another step up in the content game. With the addition of enhanced personalization Twitter will now surface stories and tweets that are popular among those you follow, and those they follow as well, making the reach of content published on Twitter that much greater.

The goal of anyone generating content is to get it in front of as many people as possible, and tools like this make it even easier. But, you’ve got to generate great content that is relevant and compelling to people. Without that key piece, your best efforts are likely to be in vain as tools like Twitter’s Discover tab are based on connections – meaning a ranking of the content based on how many people shared it.

This goes hand-in-hand with the ultimate goal so many people have of generating a huge following. To date, the best way to do this is to consistently share great content and actively interact with people. This also means doing away with self-serving posts that do little more than pontificate about how great you or your company is or where your next lunch is taking place.

Are you an update maniac?

If you like to post a lot of tweets all at once, it’s time to step away from your computer. Seriously, posting a laundry list of tweets is just bad form. Some of you may argue that it’s just convenient to push out those great tweets you’ve been dreaming up all at once, but if you’re publishing more than a couple in one instance you’re setting yourself up to be un-followed, and fast.

Still not convinced?  Consider this – with more than 150 million (yes million) Tweets being published each day, it can be pretty hard to keep up with the flow. When presented with a list of tweets back to back from the same person, it’s highly unlikely that someone is going to take the time to digest your litany. Never mind the effort you took to create them – they’re probably not even getting read at all. Take the time to space out your tweets.  Great content, plus a steady, spaced out flow of tweets will keep you top of mind.

Looking for more tips on Twitter?  Check out this blog post. And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with our insider marketing tips.