Online Marketing Blog

I noticed someone using Google suggest in another story today (honestly forgot where) and thought I’d see what Google “thinks” about social media. Then I tried SEO. Not surprising. Funniest of all, considering Google’s business model, was advertising.

Pretty telling when you think about it. Of course this isn’t what Google “really thinks” about social media, it’s Google’s response to search queries and effort to predict what we’re really searching for.

Google Suggest works by drawing from searches by other Google users, sites in Google’s search index, and ads in the Google advertising network. If you’re logged in, Google will use your search history to make suggestions. It can be a handy search tool. It can also be revealing.

When performing a search on Google, there are two different types of results that show up: the organic listings and the paid, or sponsored, listings. Organically ranked sites are those which Google finds most relevant for that search query. The paid listings show up because an advertiser is paying money to be ranked that highly for those phrases. When a searcher clicks on one of those listings, the advertiser is charged the cost per click price for that ranking, so hopefully the searcher will convert into a sale for that advertiser.

But what if you don’t know anything about search advertising or setting up a pay per click campaign? What are the best practices behind PPC? And how do you track conversions? This session at the end of Day 2 of SES San Jose goes over the basics of search advertising and how to implement it for success.

This ClickZ track session on advertising with social media was moderated by Rebecca Lieb and included Gary Stein, Henry Copeland, Bill Flitter and Marc Schiller. I covered a very similar session on social media and advertising at Chicago ad:tech earlier this summer a lot more in depth than this post.

First up was Gary Stein who says social media is a way companies can expand beyond the reach of regular advertising.

Consumers are most responsive when you meet them as equals which is most evident with consumer recommendations. When you start partnering with your consumers and allow them to partner with each other in your presence, is when you can gain real value from social media.

Brands want media and agencies want brands.
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