Everything was so good until you realized that the efforts you are putting in managing the FB page are not reflecting in terms of sales or ROI, and then you started making up your mind that social media is just a hype, it doesn’t work. At this juncture, somebody who is so called an “EXPERT” of social media whispers into your ears that you are into B2B business and having a FB page is a good strategy for B2C but may not always work for B2B. This expert doesn’t tell you the tools you need to resort to in order to get benefited from the social media, consequently, a more prominent thought that Social media works for B2C businesses but not a good medium to consider for B2B, makes inroads into your head permanently. Now you adorn the status of “EXPERT” and are ready to spill the beans everywhere.

I read an interesting article on social media Vs search on forbes website with the title Social is Intriguing, But Search is Proven, where the author has compared the two form of online advertising and proved the efficacy of search over the social media, when it comes to B2B marketing. Though, it is a very good article to go through but compares two completely different mode of online marketing. Where search is completely “intent” driven i.e. a user was looking for something with an intent and luckily (pat the back of your SEO guy) came across with your page, got his/her intent fulfilled and went away. He/she may or may not come back to your page ever, they may not even remember the name of your website. They don’t need to. On the other hand social media, just like videos are driven by “interest” i.e. you want to connect with a brand or company because you are interested in them. You may not always be a buyer but could be a strong admirer or influencer in buying cycle. Remember, no marketing is as good as word of mouth. A user, advocating your brand is the best brand ambassador, you can ever have.
The biggest question is if ROI is the correct parameter for Social media. Which is the better sales pitch, a cold call or pitch where you already have some relationship in place. Most of you would vouch for the later, won’t you? If yes, then why are we judging Social media only on the matrix of ROI? Isn’t this medium is good in building a network of your prospective, who may not be shelling out money on your products as on today, but may get convinced enough in future to become loyal customers with you? It is all about having relationship in place before you can pitch them for your products.

In a recent study done by KnowledgeStorm of B2B technology decision makers the following statistics were revealed:

• 90% Participate in Video
• 80% Participate in Blogs
• 80% Participate in Wikis
• 69% Participate in Social Networks
• 53% Participate in Podcasts

The above stats are convincing enough to prove that how important it is that B2B companies explore social media marketing channels.

Source: http://www.njoyurjourney.com/2011/09/social-media-and-b2b-myth-is-broken.html

88% of marketers reported better business exposure because of the use of social media marketing. 72% marketers confirmed the increase in traffic since they switched to social media and 62% marketers noticed an improved search engine ranking;
45% people who had been using social media marketing for 12 months or less have indicated of acquiring new business.
52% of marketers saw lead generation benefits by spending only 6 hours per week on social media.
So all a marketer needs to do is to have a presence on social media, hire an expert, and handover the key to success to him. Is that what your are thinking? take a breather and look at the downside of it else it can boomerang and will hurt you badly.

Social media marketing is like a new kid in house and everyone wants to pamper it without even knowing about the repercussion. It is unarguably a very strong tool but at the same time irrepressible i.e. you don’t have much control over it. Once something goes out on internet; spreads like a wild fire and reaches to millions in no time. Hence it needs to be used meticulously.

As, I have mentioned that the concept of social media is new to Indian market and hence there is no set rules to follow. Everyone is using the trial and error method in order to figure out the best SMM strategies. Nevertheless there are some basic rules that need to be adhered to. Let me try to pen down some of the common mistakes that are made and lead to failure of the social media campaigns.

For more details: http://enjoyurjourney.blogspot.com/2011/08/social-media-marketing-get-it-right-to.html

For full details – http://enjoyurjourney.blogspot.com/2011/08/most-effective-tool-for-digital.html

The research company conducted over 14,000 surveys evaluating 238 brands, 412 products, and 951 ad executions, and collected data on general recall, brand recall, message recall, and likeability. The results suggest that for each metric, consumers reacted better to ads delivered via online video than they did through traditional TV.

Nielsen says the increased impact could be attributed to the nature of the viewing experiences offered between the two platforms, with online video viewers often more “engaged and attentive” to the content they are consuming.

Contrary to many reports, the research also found that repurposed TV ads actually outperformed bespoke online ad creative across all four of the metrics. This suggests advertisers are better off using what assets they’ve already created for a broadcast TV audience, as opposed to reinvesting in dedicated digital creative.

Botnets and Traffic from Mobile Devices, Video Content, Social Networks, and User-Generated Content Drive Growth

AUSTIN, Texas – October 20, 2010 – Click Forensics®, Inc. today released advertising audience quality figures for the third quarter 2010 from the industry’s leading independent online advertising data reporting service.

Now in its fourth year, the Click Forensics reporting service provides statistically significant data collected from Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising campaigns for both large and small advertisers across all leading search engines as well as comparison shopping engines and social networks. Traffic across more than 300 ad networks is reflected in the data. Key findings for Q3 2010 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 22.3 percent. That’s up from the 18.6 percent reported for Q2 2010 and the 14.1 percent rate reported for Q3 2009.
• In Q3 2010, the countries outside North America with significant CPC traffic producing the greatest volume of click fraud were Japan, The Netherlands, The Philippines and China, respectively.

“During the past quarter, we saw a growing volume of click fraud flow through a more diverse number of sources, including mobile proxies,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. “As advertising in videos, social networks and mobile devices continues to grow, advertisers will need to pay close attention to the quality of traffic they receive.”

Since 2006, Click Forensics has published online advertising industry data collected from the first independent third-party Cost Per Click (CPC) and online advertising fraud detection service. The service monitors online media traffic across over 300 ad networks as well as billions of clicks from top search engines, comparison shopping engines, social networks, leading publishers and advertiser web sites – providing the most accurate view of online advertising audience quality.

For more details, visit http://www.clickforensics.com/resources/click-fraud-index.html.

About Click Forensics, Inc.
Click Forensics® is the industry leader in online ad verification and traffic quality improvement for the online advertising community. Click Forensics provides audience verification and traffic quality management solutions for leading online search and display advertisers, agencies, publishers and ad networks. The company also regularly publishes industry data on online advertising audience quality. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and is privately held with funding from Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.

CPM

CPM (cost per thousand) is frequently used by advertisers; it relates to the cost for a thousand page impressions.
An online advertisement impression is a single appearance of an advertisement on a Web page. Each time an advertisement loads onto a user’s screen, the ad server may count that loading as one impression.

Online Advertising Definitions

Ad Impressions:
This is the number of times an advertisement is displayed on a webpage.

CPM Rate:
CPM rate is the cost per 1,000 impressions or the amount that you pay every 1,000 times your advertisement is displayed.

Advertising Cost:
This is the total cost of your ad campaign.
How do you calculate CPM costs for online advertising?

To calculate CPM:
Take the cost of the campaign divided by the impressions divided by 1,000.
[CPM = Ad Cost / (IMP/1000)]
To calculate Ad Cost:
Take the CPM cost times 1,000 and then divide the impression number by that result.
[Ad Cost = IMP / (CPM * 1000)]

To calculate Impressions:
Take the Ad Cost divided by CPM and then multiply that number by 1,000.
[IMP = (Ad Cost / CPM ) x 1000]

 
CPC
CPC (Cost Per Click) is also known as Pay per click (PPC). Advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website. They do not actually pay for the listing, but only when the listing is clicked on. This system allows advertising specialists to refine searches and gain information about their market and pay only when someone clicks on their listing which links directly to their website.

CPA
CPA (Cost Per Action) or (Cost Per Acquisition) advertising is performance based and is common in the affiliate marketing sector of the business. In this payment scheme, the publisher runs the ad, and the advertiser pays only for the amount of users who complete a transaction, such as a purchase or sign-up.

CPL
CPL (Cost Per Lead) advertising is identical to CPA advertising and is based on the user completing a form, registering for a newsletter.

To carry out this task, specific tools like “Ad server” and a ticketing system are used. The ad operation activity is initiated by the Advertiser/Publisher sales team/Media space sellers. The media sellers get the required creative materials like image files and landing pages from their advertisers. The sales team adds information like inventory, targeting details and scheduled periods. Generally, this information is communicated through email. Ad serving is one of the tools used for the success of online ad operations.

Ad trafficking is the process of supplying campaign creative materials and tracking links to publishers through an ad serving platform. Besides, Ad trafficking, Optimization and reporting, we are also involved in knowledge management of the process and trainings to Advertisers/publisher on trafficking and reporting. We guide through basic ad operations process. Get best services on trafficking & campaign management.
 
Online marketing and advertising is known to produce the desired result and helps gain abundant visibility. There are numerous ways to approach online marketing strategy. It has proved to the most effective advertising and marketing method.

Online advertising is a form of advertising that uses the Internet and World Wide Web in order to deliver marketing messages  and attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, Rich  Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including  e-mail spam.

The Complete Guide to Online Advertising
Advertisements are a great way for online publishers to be make money. However, for someone getting started with online  advertising it can be extremely confusing. There are lots of different advertisers, types of ads which you can display,  payment models such as CPM, CPA and CPC, and different ways of getting paid.

Payment Models
There are basically three different ways in which advertisers reimburse publishers for displaying their ads. These are known  as CPM, CPC, and CPA.

CPM means Cost Per Thousand Impressions (M being the Roman numeral for thousand). An impression means your ad is being seen  by a a visitor to your site. Therefore if you’re being paid on a CPM basis the more people that see the advertisements the  more you earn. CPM advertising is generally a good choice for websites that receive a high volume of traffic in a general  niche where it is difficult to cater your advertisements to one set of targeted demographics.
Because CPM offers a good metric for comparison you’ll also see eCPM, which means equivalent CPM. So if you’re displaying ads  on a CPA or CPC basis you can quickly and easily see how much your making per 1000 impressions.

CPC means Cost Per Click. This is where advertisers display ads on your site, often through a medium such as Google Adsense,  and you get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad. This is a great way to put up advertisements that are relevant to the  content of your websites. Many webmasters have found success by driving targeted traffic to their websites monetized with CPC  advertising.
When displaying CPC ads an important metric is your CTR, or Click Through Rate, meaning the percentage of visitors that click  on the ads. Obviously the higher this number is, the higher your earnings.

CPA means Cost Per Action. An action can mean different things depending on the offer being advertised, with the action  usually coming in the form of a lead or a sale. Affiliate Marketing is considered CPA, and while it is difficult to master  the profit potential for professional affiliate marketers is virtually unlimited. CPA advertising generally works the best  when you have highly targeted traffic searching for the products that you are advertising.

Types Of Advertisements
There are many different types of ads that we can display, from simple text links to full page interactive banners.

Ad Formats
Text ads
Advertisements displayed as simple, text-based hyperlinks are known as Text Ads. As their name suggests, text ads they do not include graphic images. Text ads are sold on non-search websites and can be served either by individual websites, or a publisher’s own ad servers.

Display Ads
Graphical advertisements featured on websites are known as Display Ads. Display ads are often available in many standard shapes and sizes, including: banners, leader boards, skyscrapers, large boxes, and other sized graphical ads. Display ads use eye-catching visuals to quickly grab catch the attention of website visitors browsing the pages on which they are featured. Display ads are sold on non-search websites and can be served either by individual websites, or a publisher’s own ad servers.

Pop-Up Ads
Advertisements that appear to “pop up” in a new window as users browse a website are known as Pop-Up Ads. Hover ads, floating ads and slide-in ads ads are all considered pop-up ads. (Sometimes these ads are also known as Pop-Under Ads, depending on whether they are displayed over or underneath the current web content being browsed.) The use of Flash and DHTML ads has risen in recent years in an effort to counter the increased usage of pop-up blockers.

Flash / DHTML Ads
These kinds of ads incorporate Flash animation or other motion graphics. Ads may be animated display ads in more traditional shapes and sizes, or, as of late, they can be sophisticated ads that function similarly to pop-up ads but with much deeper integration into the overall design of the site.

Interstitial Ads
Interstitial ads appear between web pages that the user requests. For example, an interstitial ad may appear after you click on a link in an excerpt to view the full content of news story. Because interstitial ads load in the background and do not interrupt the users immediate browsing experience, they are a preferred method of delivering ads with rich media, streaming video, and/or large graphics.