Full disclosure: I count Jason Yormark among my colleagues, having first met him in 2007 when I first arrived here at Microsoft. Although it may seem that I'm just trying to give him a plug here, I actually ran across this article when looking over one of my LinkedIn group discussions and thought it would make a great blog post. Only after clicking on the title and being brought to his site did I realize that I know the author (and therefore should add this little blurb to the start of the post). That being said, moving on...
Gone are the days when an ad in the local paper, a sandwich board out on the sidewalk and sponsoring local little league teams were the only options for getting exposure for your business. In today's world of increasingly interconnected consumers and the dizzying array of advertising options available for business owners of all shapes and sizes, just figuring out what the right marketing mix for your business is can be a challenging task indeed. In his post, 3 Up & Coming Social Media Tactics Every Small Business or Startup Should Consider, Jason gives a quick overview of some of the more accessible social media options offered by sites like Groupon, Foursquare and Yelp.
I have small business owning friends who're just starting to venture into using Facebook as a means of keeping their customers updated, but aren't so sure how to leverage other social media avenues in their advertising plans. They're who came to mind when I saw Jason's post, and knowing that many of our readers fall into the small-to-medium business (SMB) category, I thought his post would be relevant and useful, though not specifically related to PPC advertising... but wait! Is there a connection between social media and search engine marketing? There certainly can be if you want to make one!
Assuming you take the advice Jason lays out in his post, I would suggest that small business owners who have a solid reputation developing on Yelp, or perhaps a current offer via Groupon, include highly visible, prominently placed links to those pages on the landing pages in your adCenter campaigns (the more obvious the links are, the less likely you'd be to encounter an editorial disapproval). Doing so would then give you sufficient relevance to call them out--"18 Four Star Reviews on Yelp" or perhaps "Save with our Groupon Offer"-- in your ad copy, which could help boost your click-through rates.
You might consider doing some testing with these tactics to see if they make sense for your business and marketing goals.
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