We announced the winner today over on the Snap blog.  Check it out to see if you won!

The New York eMetrics conference is packed with great speakers. Don’t miss Tom Davenport (Competing on Analytics), Bob Page of Ebay, Peter Fader from the Wharton School’s Customer Analytics Initiative, and of course, the voice of marketing measurement and founder of eMetrics, Jim Sterne.

Social Snap is sponsoring the social optimization track at eMetrics. If you plan to attend, stop by our booth to learn more about Social Snap and to meet our staff!

We’re giving away a free day pass (worth $900!) to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in New York (October 17th – 21st)!  To enter, simply visit our Social Snap Facebook page.  Social Snap is an integrated social media analytics platform developed by Serengeti Communications.  Social Snap will be sponsoring the social optimization track at eMetrics.  Stop by our booth to say hello and catch a demo!

John Lynch, Director of Digital Strategy, speaks at Associated Press Media Editors conference in Denver presenting a competitive analysis of patch.com.

A copy of his presentation can be found on http://cot.ag/qJ7zVc.

John Lynch’s most recent Search Engine Watch blog post describes the five most important steps of an under-appreciated aspect of SEM programs: conversion optimization. Specifically, he describes the importance of quickly displaying the ad proposition, conveying trust, relaying relevancy, understanding user intent, and removing any potential distractions. Check out the full article below:

Conversion Rate Optimization

.

Serengeti Communication’s Director of Analytics Nathan Linnell recently wrote a brilliant description of landing page design and optimization for searchenginewatch.com. The structure of each landing page is often the most important factor in the success and failure of an online marketing campaign. Motivated by the general lack of awareness of the benefits of quality landing pages, Nate outlines several critical elements that digital marketers should be aware of to improve their current landing pages.

Read the full article at http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2101611/Create-a-Robust-Landing-Page-Testing-Strategy

We need to talk.

Yesterday, I was logging into Google Adwords when I noticed this picture of you. Jeff, you look great. It’s the caption that scares the bejesus out of me.

You don’t want to pay for the keyword “organic.” Not now, not ever. This keyword will drain your budget so fast that you might have more fun watching the cash swirl counter clockwise into the depths of your septic system.

If you appear for keywords such as “organic”, hopefully you don’t have it set on broad match because–if you do– your ads are probably appearing for keywords that have nothing to do with your business such as “organic chemistry”, “organic clothing”, “organic soil.” Jeff, Google’s belly is getting full from your hard earned cash. You’re going to get a ton of “curiosity clicks” from people that don’t need catering and aren’t getting married. Trust me Jeff, this traffic is no good. Total ROI waster.

You’re much better off bidding for keywords like “organic catering”, “organic weddings”, “sustainable catering”, or even “wedding catering” if you want a broader audience. If you want to get after the organic market in SF, I might recommend regionally targeted display/banner ads in relevant websites. Sponsor organic events and help establish online relationships with your audience. It will be lower ROI, but a better way to build brand than a text ad.

Anyways, I want to make it up to you. I’m happy to give you a few hours of my time for free. Feel free to call our office and I’ll go combing through your campaigns to see if I can offer ways to make it better- no charge.

Love always,

John Lynch
Director of Search
Serengeti Communications
@johnslynch

After reading through Symantec’s informational white paper on social media safety, I’m struck by a couple of things. The first thing is the feeling that I’ve read a million white papers like this before. This one reads like an long painful echo of the 999,999 before it. The second thing is the realization that this white paper isn’t meant for me; while I’m considerably bored, it’s hard to feel patronized by the material. This paper is meant for the countless amount of rookies who are newish to social media and aren’t experienced enough to avoid malicious phishing attempts that are becoming ever more frequent in social media.

Phishing is, “a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication”. A common example on Facebook may happen after clicking a friend’s link on your wall. Let me suggest that this link is of a cute boy or girl that you are interested in seeing. So you click on the link and for some reason, “Facebook” prompts you to re-log in order to proceed.  Since you’re only half paying attention, you quickly volunteer your credentials so that you can finally see the goods. Unfortunately, there are no goods. You’ve just been robbed.

Early this week, reports surfaced that a group of Chinese hackers defrauded US diplomats, military personnel, and journalists by using a technique called “spear phishing” to dupe them out of their g-mail passwords. According to a respected security blogger — the attack that targeted the State Dept. looked like an innocent looking email offering the latest U.S./China joint statement — but if the reader clicked on the document, what appeared next was a Gmail log in page — which was fake — and which fooled some users into giving up their private passwords.

I suppose the message I want to convey is: be skeptical. Do not trust anyone so that your business never loses credibility by getting hacked. While these hackers wanted to spy on the US Government, other hackers may want to hijack your Fan page to post messages about cheap Viagra. On Wednesday, Google’s Official Blog posted  detailed steps for ensuring your g-mail account is safe. Please read this and remember: Be skeptical.

Today, I’ve posted the excel sheet for quickly generating bulk ads for PPC campaigns. The formulas should be pretty easy to understand, but feel free to tweet me @JohnSLynch if you have any questions.

If you didn’t have a chance to read the column, you can check it out here:
Build PPC Ads Using Excel

Also, please let us know if you can think of ways to make this file even better!

Enjoy!

John Lynch
Director of Search
Serengeti Communications
Twitter: @JohnSLynch

May 6, 2011
By Nan Dawkins

Are you plagued by a sinking feeling that your organization is failing to “engage” sufficiently?  Do you fear that you are woefully behind in creating warm, fuzzy, cozy relationships with each and every one of your customers (not to mention the universe of prospects who may one day become your customers)?

If you’re sweating your performance in this area, stop for a moment and ask yourself the following question:  To what extent do customers really want your friendship?  In other words, how much “relationship” do buyers really need in their relationships with brands?

Different customers will give you different answers to that question.  A few will love your brand and be willing to evangelize and co-create until the cows come home (these are the customers who want The Relationship).  A larger number will likely be willing to talk and connect only if there is a discount involved.  And some (probably a pretty large percentage of your customer base depending on your product or service) just want easy access to whatever it is they want and need from you at the moment (Example: I’m having trouble installing the software for my new Garmin Forerunner and I need help getting this done – NOW.).

Eventually – and this will happen as the industry gets better and better at Social CRM – you’ll know how your customer list breaks out along the continuum of relationships desired, which will enable you to target the level and types of engagement required by you across several customer segments.  Until then, don’t assume that you should stay out of social media because you don’t have the resources to create and sustain high-engagement social campaigns and programs that make you a BFF with customers and/or prospects.

If you do nothing more than listen (using a free or paid social media monitoring tool) in order to better understand your customer’s needs, you are taking a good first step toward creating better, more targeted and relevant content.  Whether you deliver this content through your Blog, Facebook page, email, or even your Web site, giving customers and prospects more of what they want and need can be a big down payment towards creating a solid relationship.  (Note: Our social media data mining services can help you navigate through your social mentions to find nuggets of wisdom!)

Bottom line:  SOME customers don’t need or want your friendship (i.e., The Relationship).  ALL customers want a good product or service, a fair price, easy ways to get whatever they need from you whenever they need it, and the occasional discount.  If you use social media to improve in any of those areas, you can achieve worthwhile results, even if your BFF count is low.

The team at Serengeti Communications is happy to announce that we officially launched Social Snap in April of this year.  Social Snap is a social media analytics platform designed for organizations with a strong focus on both social media marketing and social media ROI tracking.  Social Snap integrates metrics from web site analytics, social media channels, buzz monitoring data, and other sources in order to provide in-depth insight into social marketing results.

For more information on Social Snap, visit the product site at www.socialsnap.com or call us at 703-556-8680 to request a demo.