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Social media marketing is a sword that cuts two ways. It’s easy to build a community, but can be difficult to get them to trust you. This is because there is so much garbage on the net – everyone is trying to make a fast buck.

Building trust is key to making sales. So, how do you get your community to trust you? Let’s look at some numbers to gain some insight. According to What Makes Social Media Trustworthy?, a recent study highlighted by eMarketer, a firm that tracks trends in digital media and marketing:

Just over a quarter (26%) of those polled trusted a brand product or company based on its blog posts, Twitter feed and/or Facebook updates.

BUT . . .

Approaching two-thirds (61%) trusted blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates found on pages from someone those surveyed knew.

Social Media Marketing Message: To Get Trust You Have To . . .

Be a real person, not a company.

Remember, social media marketing is all about building relationships. And, people don’t have relationships with “companies.” People have relationships with other people. So it’s imperative to interact with your community from a human standpoint, not a corporate standpoint.

This can be as simple as signing up using a real name as your “account name,” instead of your company name.

Other Tips for Creating Trust in Social Media Marketing

Stay in contact regularly;

Don’t talk about you so much; send links to information relevant to your target markets’ lives; and

Create conversation by asking your community’s input.

If you remember your old-school social graces and apply them to the new medium that is social media marketing, you’ll have no problems getting your community to trust you – and increase sales.

What social networking sites do you use? Are you reaching your customers on Facebook, Twitter or other sites? We’d love to hear your comments.

Facebook, now known worldwide as a social media marketing site, didn’t start out that way. When it was initially launched in 2004, it was just a site for college students to interact, eg, share photos, send messages, update personal profiles, etc.

It quickly grew to become one of the most popular sites on the web. As of July 2010, it had more than 500 million users worldwide. And of course with numbers this large, it’s one of the premier social networking sites for businesses of all size.

The “Secret” to Standing Head and Shoulders above the Competition on Facebook

Many companies fall into the trap of using the same Facebook setup that casual and non-professional users have. In order to ensure that your presence on Facebook is as professional as it can be, customize your firm’s page.

By customizing your company’s page, you can easily make it stand out from the competition. To do this, simply use Static FBML (Facebook Markup Language). It allows you to not only create unique tabs and content, you can also change where visitors land when they visit your Facebook page.

This can be extremely important in converting mere prospects into customers. Why? Because the default landing page in Facebook is “the wall.” But, if you have a particular product or service you want to feature, you can have prospects land on one of those particular pages instead.

It’s the little edges you gain in business that, over time, make a big impact. And, the reason they do is because most don’t go the extra mile. They stop at “good enough.” To get the edge in social media marketing, go the extra mile – and reap the rewards of doing so.

Let us know what is working (or not) for you in social media marketing. Are you getting a good return on the time and money you’re spending? Are you reaching your customers on Facebook and other sites?

The continued growth of search and social media marketing is creating new opportunities, but Marketers are challenged on how to effectively integrate social media into their search marketing efforts. To address this challenge, PPC Summit presents an all new conference this year “Search & Social Media Success” which will be held at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel on Sept. 21-22, 2010. 

The new sessions will teach expert, trusted strategies, and provide the tools and resources to Marketers searching to improve their campaign results. Registration is open and parties can register now before the full agenda is live to get the $400.00 early bird rate.

The ALL NEW 3 Tracks and 27 ‘How-To’ Sessions cover step-by-step instructions for creating and managing successful search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM) campaigns.

Over the last five years, PPC Summit has trained thousands of internet marketers how to be smarter and increase their ROI using search engine marketing. Results from a recent attendee survey sent to 3500 Search Marketers, revealed the growing need for further advanced training in these areas: Google AdWords, Quality Score, Keyword Targeting, Pay Per Click, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, SEO tips and tools, Landing Pages and more.

What Marketers Will Learn:

• Leading-edge SMM (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube), SEO and SEM (Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing) instruction, content and actionable strategies that can be implemented right away to boost ROI.
• Which SMM, SEO and SEM tools, solutions and resources to utilize to achieve higher profits, and take-away comprehensive reference guides to build an effective search and social marketing plan.
• How to get on the fast-track of successful search and social media marketing–gain answers direct from the SEM/SEO/SMM experts and build lasting relationships with peers

 Register today for the two-day pass, only $995–includes three tracks and 27 in-depth sessions, networking, breakfast, lunches, breaks, 2 comprehensive training manuals and more. For more information, visit the
PPC Summit website or call 800-507-2958.

Social media marketing has grown to such an extent that many companies are abandoning other types of marketing altogether. Proof? Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream was the first major company to announce that it was abandoning email marketing to focus more on social media marketing.

The real “story of this story” though is not that they did this, but why they did this. As the article states:

“ . . . the iconic Vermont-based premium ice cream maker is dropping its regular email newsletter . . . after customers aired their preference to be contacted via social media channels [emphasis added].”

Only you can decide if social media marketing is the only form of marketing you want to engage in. But, it should definitely be a part of your marketing mix – for it’s a direct line to what your customers want. Following is the number one thing you can do to generate traffic – for years to come.

The #1 Social Media Marketing Tip Every Business Can Use to Get the Most Traffic

Make useful content creation the foundation of your social media campaigns. Following is why.

There are many ways to generate traffic online, eg, commenting on other blogs, article marketing, pay per click, etc. Some are more time consuming than others. But great content will always drive traffic – immediately and in the future.

This is because web surfers look for information. Two hours spent writing an in-depth blog post that answers a lot of questions those in your niche might have will get linked to over and over and over again. This generates traffic for years to come.

How Content Marketing Via Social Media Outlets Saves Time

Once you create great content and make others aware of it via social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you can spend much less time marketing because it becomes viral. Social media users love to promote great content – for it makes them look good. This is akin to having a social media marketing sales force on payroll.

And it’s why great content – whether it’s a series of videos or a standalone blog post – should be the cornerstone of every social media marketing strategy.

Have you heard about PPC Summit’s upcoming Seach & Social two day conference coming to the Omni Los Angeles Hotel in Sept? It’s the event for marketers to learn actionable strategies for effectively integrating search and social campaigns.

One of the benefits of social media marketing for micropreneurs and small business owners is that they can level the playing field — big time — by investing in this medium. In fact, it’s a perfectly suited medium for the entrepreneur with no budget or a small budget to compete with the big boys. Why/how?

One advantage that small businesses have over larger companies is their ability to really know their customer. When you know, you can engage more readily and effectively. This is a powerful advantage that many forward-thinking entrepreneurs are leveraging.

By putting just a small amount of effort into using social media marketing, your firm can stand head-to-head with larger companies — at least in this realm. And, it works! Proof? According to a post on Emarketer.com, a noted research firm that reports on digital media and marketing:

“. . . a February–March 2010 survey from office services firm Regus, smaller companies see the most success [with social media marketing], with nearly half of small businesses around the world having acquired a customer through social networks. . . . Overall, 40% of businesses studied had acquired a customer through a social [media] site, 35% of US businesses said the same.”

So, not only is social media marketing effective for small business, it appears to be a MORE effective outlet for them.

Is your firm leveraging this powerful outlet? If not, why?

Did You Know? PPC Summit’s next conference will bring the top minds in Social Media and Search Engine Marketing together during two days, three tracks and 27 expert-led classes in Los Angeles (Sept. 21-22, 2010).  The educational sessions cover all aspects surrounding: search marketing, search engine optimization, and social media best practices and strategies. You can’t afford to miss it!

Pay Per Click marketing is fundamentally paying for search engine positioning. And, one of the ways Google – the leading search engine – determines where to return your site in results is based on what they call a Quality Score.

Pay Per Click Marketing: What is Quality Score?

A quality score is simply a measuring tool used by Google to determine how relevant your keyword(s) are to your ad text and to a user’s search query.

Following are three quick, easy ways to improve this all-important score.

1. Create Smaller Ad Groups: Having too many keywords in your ad group can negatively impact your Quality Score, even if they are related.

This is because they may not be related enough to what’s on a particular landing page in order to be ranked highly by Google. So it’s better to create smaller, more tightly focused ad groups. One of the cardinal rules of internet marketing – especially in PPC – is niche, niche, niche. The more relevant your keywords and the landing page, the higher Google will rank it.

2. Landing Page Title: The title of your landing page should include your keyword(s).

3. Introduce Keywords Quickly: Piggybacking on the point just above, according to accepted internet marketing wisdom, your keyword(s) should be mentioned on the first quarter of your page. This is because when search engines spider/index your page, they’re looking for relevancy.

If your landing page is relevant to your PPC ad, it makes sense that the keyword would be mentioned as soon as possible, right? If they’re not, the search engines may read it as irrelevant/not too relevant.

There are many, many factors that affect a Quality Score. It’s one of the reasons that you should closely monitor — and forever test — your pay per click marketing campaigns.

Running a Pay Per Click campaign can help your organic search results. Many are surprised by this because internet marketing is usually divided into two camps – paid or non-paid results.

What are Organic Results?

If you’re new to internet marketing, the phrase “organic results” may elude you. Organic search results are simply non-paid results that pop up when you conduct a web search.

What are Paid Search Results?

Paid results are those across the top and to the right. They usually appear under a heading like “Sponsored Links,” or in a shaded box at the top. Advertisers have paid to be put in these positions.

Both are highly effective forms of internet marketing, but knowing which method to focus on, when, and how to combine them to produce the best results can be confusing – not to mention expensive – if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Pay Per Click and Organic Search: The Perfect Internet Marketing Strategy
The short answer to why the two strategies work so well together is time and links.

To explain, pay per click campaigns can start to deliver traffic to your site immediately. If you have done your job on the content end, then those visitors who find you via a pay per click ad will then start to link to relevant content on your site. The more one-way links your site has, the higher it moves up in organic search results.

Organic campaigns like article marketing can take weeks or months to show measureable results. By getting that initial influx of traffic via pay per click marketing, you jumpstart your online marketing campaign.