Top 10 Social Media Mistakes Made by Large Companies…

by Carey on January 19, 2011

Carey Sherry, Account Management, Business Development

Carey Sherry, Account Management

1. Failure to convey a personality: Establish a recognizable ‘voice’ and personality in your on-line strategy, output, and audience engagement.

2. Failure to stay fresh: Frequent relevant updates are key

3. Failure to capture people’s attention: You are trying to be noticed among massive volumes of information – use varied and frequent means to connect with people with those important, opportunistic moments.

4. Failure to interact with your audience. A pure push all about you is one-dimensional and shallow. Your audience wants a voice to! Give it to them. For example social media opens a free, 24/7 focus group to converse with and learn from.

5. Failure to capitalize on key events: If significant industry, world or company events are occurring and your voice is not heard, another companies will be.

6. Directing traffic to the wrong place, including not directing at all! Your social media strategy must include a filter/funneling system that systematically sifts and leads your targets to where you want them to be.

7. It’s not Social vs. Search: Social media is an extension of SEO, which supports search marketing. Search (organic and sponsored) and social media must be a combined strategy of your comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

8. Ignoring user generated content (UGC): Whether it’s good or bad. You do not control all content of social media – you have an on-line reputation regardless of your level of participation in it, simply because that is where people are looking today. Your company will be in a stronger position if you establish yourself and develop practices to keep up with, and leverage UGC in your favor.

9. Failure to measure results: Social media is a means to an end: Revenue growth and/or cost reduction. Be specific in quantifying your financial objectives and measure!

10. Limiting search or social to a public relations function. From SEO to Facebook apps, new technology leads the charge. While we have great respect for our AE and PR colleagues, the reality is: Tech savvy, multi-directional communication and relationship building are not their strengths. Experienced social media experts know the terrain and have the proper disposition and technical competence to move you beyond public relations to public relationships.

Blue Poppy will filter through the buzz, master technical requirements, and exploit opportunities for your company! Give us a call, 404-954-0354 or better yet send us a tweet @BluePoppySEM.

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Your Google AdWords Account is Suspended!

by Blue Poppy on May 3, 2009

Many Google AdWords DIYers find their accounts get suspended. Why? All that they recieve is an email from the Google AdWords Team stating that their account has been suspended and no advertisements will run on Google. The reason being non-compliance with Google AdWord’s Terms of Service and Advertising policies.

Have you received one such email from the Google Team?

Many customers who are new to AdWords are unaware of Google’s policies that they need to adhere to while setting up their accounts. Google’s Help Center provides all the necessary info but let’s face it – you were anxious to dive in and get started right away.

You created your AdWords account created the new campaigns, ad groups, and stuffed a huge list of keywords in each ad group. The next thing that happens is you spend a ton of money, wonder if it’s working and then one fine day your shocked with an email that the account is suspended.

On the flip side, many small business owners acknowledge that they are too busy managing their business to familiarize themselves with everything they need to know about online marketing, SEO and geo-targeting local search shoppers. Additionally, such companies usually don’t have an IT department or an in-house web staff so they choose to outsource it to a third party provider. They contact faceless providers through any of the many project bidding websites. You post your requirements and set a budget. Someone bids as low as $50 for your project, which is really worth $500 and a full day of planning. End result, dissatisfaction!

So what’s the solution? The solution lies in searching for a good provider who has the necessary credentials for optimizing an AdWords account and partnering with you to build an online web presence for your local business. How do you ensure that you’re getting a quality search marketer?

  1. Ask your provider if they are GAP certified? GAP stands for Google AdWords Professional. This certification is only awarded when a person completes an online exam and is well versed with the Google AdWords system and their Policies and Terms and Conditions?
  2. Find out if your provider has any hands on experience in optimizing Google AdWords accounts? In SEO?
  3. For how long has your provider been optimizing Google AdWords accounts? Has your provider hired an experienced staff?
  4. How will they go about optimizing your PPC and online presence?

We all like to make the best use of our hard-earned money. In most cases, low priced services do not offer the best quality. They are low priced because the quality is compromised. Where does this leave the small business owner? Caught between a rock and a hard place. Until now. Blue Poppy SEM’s small business solution offers local businesses the only cost-effective and strategic solution to compete with big-budget competitors.

The choice is now in your hands!

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