Search Marketing Sage

Search Mojo is hosting a free webinar, Top 10 Resolutions for Search in 2012, on Thursday, January 5th at 2 p.m. ET.

Amanda Chaney, Account Director, and Avelyn Austin, Senior Account Manager, of Search Mojo will headline a free webinar discussing the top ten innovative tactics for search in 2012.  The Top 10 Resolutions for Search in 2012 webinar will be held on Thursday, January 5, at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Danny Sullivan introduced the panel of Drew Conrad of Zagg, Martin Beck of the LA Times, and Jean Scheidnes of Nieman Marcus. The panel’s focus was on the daily life of social media.

Drew started off by introducing himself and saying that at Zagg, an internet retailer, social media is working with all types of teams from search to web developers. For the most part, their social media team is marketing-focused.

Martin handles the social media for the LA Times, and there are two people on the social media team there. He’s in charge of the engagement with social media as well as comments. There’s a team of people who tweet and schedule tweets. Facebook presence is more selective and Martin and his assistant handle that. Martin also responds directly to those that reach out via social media.

Martin said they have a whopping 150 Twitter accounts… most are RSS feeds. They have about 20 Facebook pages. The copy desk helps with social media.

Jean said her role is to oversee a small team of editors who create the content for the social profiles and to respond to inquiries/comments. She said that Facebook comments ended up being a huge time commitment.  Their goal is to be focused on fashion content, so she partnered with customer service to help with the Facebook comments.

Drew said that someone else owns @Zagg and @ZaggDaily, so he has to monitor those too in case requests go there. They don’t necessarily monitor everyone who follows them. Martin said they reach out to individuals occasionally, like when they are looking for influencers. Jean said that they reach out to people too and look for brand mentions and interact with certain folks, regardless of follower count.

Danny asked the panel which was the most important social channel for them. Drew said that, in terms of revenue, it would have to be Facebook. Martin also said the bulk of the social media traffic also comes from Facebook, in large part due to the “like” button and sharing. Jean also said that Facebook would likely be NM’s choice, but she really believes the blog is crucial and she favors Twitter.

As for Twitter, Martin added that he felt that reporters are more apt to respond on Twitter than other social networks.

Danny asked the panel about their take on Google+. Martin said it’s easy enough to get on and do something similar to what they do in Facebook.

The first session after lunch featured Mathew Guiver, Paid Search Manager at e-storm International, Kurt Krejny, Director of Online Marketing at Fathom, and James Zolman, CEO of Quality Scores.

Kurt Krejny

Kurt was up first and covered Twitter analysis and action — how to cater to followers and attract influencers with a laser-focused strategy. He shared a case study of a online educator and how they turned around their Twitter strategy.

He started by sharing some Twitter pain points:

Next up we had a panel featuring Addie Conner, the VP of Advertising for SocialCode, Matt Lawson, the VP of Marketing for Marin Software, and the incomparable Marty Weintraub, President of AimClear.

Matt Lawson

Matt Lawson from Marin Software kicked off the panel with seven strategies to successfully target on Facebook. Matt started by comparing Facebook advertising to Google advertising. Facebook surpassed Google in traffic in March 2010.

There are a few facts you should know in transitioning from search marketing to Facebook advertising:

• There are more impressions on Facebook.
• There are lower click through rates on Facebook. He said Marin customers are currently seeing an average CTR of about 0.9%.
• There’s a lower average cost per click on Facebook.
• It’s tough to pin down conversion rates. Different companies use Facebook differently with different success metrics. Determine your goals first.

We kicked off the first SMX Social with a great panel of Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures, Drew Conrad, Social Media Marketing Specialist at Zagg, and Kevin Scholl, the Social Media Manager at Red Roof Inn, discussing “Free Facebook Tactics to Drive Traffic & Conversions”.

Kevin Scholl

Kevin kicked things off with sharing tactics that Red Roof Inn uses. Since it was founded in 1973, much has changed for Red Roof Inn, including how they communicate and how they engage with guests. They’re focusing much of their time on Facebook right now.