Radium

I’m not going to spend this blog post convincing you that your business can benefit from a well thought out social media strategy. I think you already know that. In fact, most companies now realize that social media isn’t a fad and can provide some serious results. I’m simply going to ask you one question: do you have time for social media?

Another popular form of this question is “who is going to do all this stuff?” While it may seem funny, it’s one of the most important questions to ask before diving into a new campaign. Unlike some other forms of marketing, social media requires a constant investment of time and effort.

How much time does social media take?
It’s less “Build it and they will come” and more “Build it, take care of it, staff it, ensure it has all of the proper resources and then they will come.” Building a successful social media presence is like establishing a friendship. It’s not going to happen over night and it’s going to take a lot of effort on your part to develop.

Forecasting your time investment
I don’t know if there is an absolute way to quantify the time requirement but the considerations below should help you estimate the level of time needed to properly manage your campaign.

In the spirit of the holiday season, Radium is offering 5 promotional Google AdWords coupons valued at $100 each! These coupons entitle the recipient to $100 of free Google AdWords advertising. If you haven’t tried pay-per-click marketing yet, this is a great opportunity to test it out risk-free.

To be eligible for this promotion you must meet the following criteria:

• Must currently operate a functioning website. No under construction websites.
• Coupons can only be applied to new Google AdWords accounts (less than 2 weeks old).

To enter the contest simply:

• Leave a comment below (OR)
• ReTweet this post on twitter

Winners will be chosen at random. Good luck!

Even though the music industry gets all of the press about piracy, stealing software is still alive and well. Actually, with the proliferation of torrent sites, it’s probably easier than ever to pirate software. But this isn’t a post about software piracy. Nope, this is a post about reaching potential customers is places you might not expect.

Rosetta Stone is a leader in proprietary language-learning software. If you’re not familiar with the product, their language software is priced per level per language, i.e., level 1 Spanish. With each language consisting of three levels and each level costing around $200, the software is not cheap. And, needless to say, software with a high price tag will be subject to piracy.

So the question becomes:
Can a person actively searching for an illegal copy of software be convinced to pay for it?

Most companies would probably say no and simply pretend these people don’t exist and hope they go away. But Rosetta Stone doesn’t appear to be ignoring this group and actually is going out of their way to target them.

Originally this post was supposed to be a non-rant about companies utilizing Google AdWords and mobile landing pages. However, a little bit into my research it became clear that most of the ads I clicked on directed me to the main company website. For mobile users, with a tiny 3.5-inch display, regular websites don’t always render images and text in a useful manner making these landing page useless.

If you’re familiar with Google AdWords, then you probably know that within the campaign settings you have the ability to target consumers with smartphones (i.e., full HTML mobile browsers). Google calls this “device platform targeting.” Even better, AdWords allows you to directly launch the iTunes Apps Store, Google Maps or YouTube applications from the sponsored ad.

This seems like a no brainer for companies selling apps and music downloads. Create a campaign – target only mobile users and direct them to your offering in the app store or on iTunes. Keep in mind that you can’t target specific types of smartphones (i.e., only iPhones or only Blackberrys) but with smart keyword and negative keyword choices, you can get pretty darn close.

Tom Tom AdWords ad and corresponding mobile site

Tom Tom provides a soft landing for mobile users and quick access to buy the app in the iTunes App Store.

When not searching from a smart phone, the same ad directs you to the regular website.

Recently I have been working with clients on their affiliate marketing programs and it dawned on me that many of the skills that make affiliate marketers successful could be appropriately applied to search marketing (both paid and organic) professionals.

What makes a good affiliate marketer?
Here are 3 strategies that you can employ to become better at search marketing.