Search Marketing Sage

With Google AdWords for Video, you have the ability to use the videos from your YouTube channel as advertisements. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “We should make a viral video!” If that’s what your goals are, then I can’t help you. The concept of viral videos could be a whole blog post in itself, so my short response is this: you can’t make something go viral. (Michelle Doty actually touched on this in her recent blog post about how to make an effective social media campaign). Instead, I’m going to give you some first steps you can take to leverage the power of YouTube for the long-term success of your business, making it an integral part of your marketing plan.

Image by macwagen via Flickr

The rundown of this week’s social media events…

The new press release: Twitter Haiku

OK I’m sure you’ve all heard about it by now, but this week, Sun Microsystem’s Chief Executive, Jonathan Schwartz, quit by tweeting a haiku.

1. It’s liberation for all other Fortune 200 bosses to just up and resign in 140 characters.
2. It’s a revolutionary use of haiku (bet his middle school English teachers are proud).

New Facebook Ad Layout

Be on the lookout for overall Facebook UI updates, and among those, Facebook is also changing the layout and design of ads.  Advertisements will increase from a maximum of 3 ads to 5 ads per page and their current vertical format will switch to a horizontal one. The increase to 5 ads per page leaves advertisers wondering about positioning information.

Google’s self-serve advertisement system for example, provides information about the average position that your ad is being displayed. Facebook in contrast provides less information about ad positioning.

IMHO Facebook should emulate Google and provide advertisers with more information. With 400 million users, more advanced ad feedback would make advertisers very happy. If you’re an advertiser, check out your ad data to see if this affects your campaigns once it rolls out.

Image via Wikipedia

Read on for an overview of this week’s social media happenings.  The rundown: Facebook analytics, Twitter growth slowing, KnowEm acquires FriendsCall.me, YouTube updates and social good continues in the movement to repair Haiti.

Facebook upgrade: Post analytics

Two recent Facebook developments such as post analytics and real time ad targeting based on status update were revealed earlier this week. Now, page administrators will be able to determine the level of engagement and number of impressions for each post. On Thursday, post analytics went live and are rolling out to administrators as we speak.

It’s a minor upgrade but it presents a ton of value and it’s something that the competing service, Twitter, doesn’t provide for brands.

Instead of guessing, Facebook marketers will be able to alter their posts and better plan for the future after checking out the analytics. As All Facebook mentioned, this is something that Twitter hasn’t attempted.

Image via Wikipedia

Today I’m at OMMA Social in NYC, and I’ll be live blogging the presentations all day. The first presentation today was “The Socialization of CNN: The Presidential Election from YouTube to Facebook Connect”, presented by Andy Mitchell, VP of Digital and Developmental Marketing at CNN Worldwide.