Social Media Roundup: March 8, 2016

Weak Accountability for Social Media Marketing

Okay, you're spending more money and time on social media marketing -and thanks to improved analytics and tracking technology, measuring the return on your investment is easier than ever. Right? Not according to the biannual CMO Survey of 289 marketers conducted by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. "Despite the increase in spend, almost half (47.9%) of marketers surveyed said they haven't been able to show the impact yet on their business," reports Lindsay Stein, writing in Advertising Age. "More than 40% said they have a good qualitative sense of impact, while 11.5% said they can prove the impact of social quantitatively," she wrote. Additional results include: social media spend as a percentage of respondents' marketing budgets; where that spending is going (62.6% said into content creation, and 43.6% on analytics); and how integrated (or not) SMM is with other brand marketing initiatives and budgets.

Google Axes Right Sidebar Ads

As of February 19, 2016, Google has removed all right sidebar ads from its search engine result pages (SERPs). The move brings the desktop experience in line with what users are accustomed to seeing on their mobile devices. All paid advertising will now be served at the top and bottom of the results. Competition for a more limited supply of ad slots will obviously increase, driving up costs for advertisers. The new format will also put pressure on non-paid listings, since there will be fewer slots for them on the revised SERPs, and they will need to step up their SEO efforts, reports Christopher Ratcliff on Search Engine Watch.

How To Get More Followers on Facebook (and Why You Want To)

Increasing your follower count on Facebook is still a worthwhile goal. Facebook continues to provide a platform for distributing content, announcing products, and engaging with customers. The fact that your followers can share your content with their own networks is the reason it's so valuable to have lots of them. A post on Social Media Revolver lists and explains 11 effective techniques for getting more Facebook followers, including an infographic listing them all.

How Your Email Marketing Campaigns Can Pass Spam Filters

Spam filters are the bane of email marketers' existence. Some email marketing platforms let you test your campaigns against spam filters from multiple popular email services, so you can correct problems before sending them out. Jessica Best, in her blog on emfluence, shows how doing this can work to an email marketer's advantage before activating an email campaign. Some hints:

• Avoid using "FREE!" and overusing capital letters in general, especially in subject lines and in text in larger fonts.
• Typos raise red flags.
• Spam filters see images as blanks, so they assume you're trying to hide something.
• Be careful if you copy and paste text, particularly from Microsoft Word or other word processors. If you aren't careful, you will wind up with a lot of sloppy html code in your emails.

Use LinkedIn Ads for Marketing to Professionals

Google's Adwords and Facebook Advertising are the two dominant search advertising platforms today. For some businesses, however, particularly in business-to-business niches, LinkedIn offers a valuable place to advertise, with access to large, highly targeted groups of professionals in almost any industry or vertical you can imagine. LinkedIn has both text ads and sponsored updates, which are available only to accounts associated with a LinkedIn company page. Writing on Social Media Examiner, Kristi Hines explains 6 ways to design, deploy, and evaluate your LinkedIn Ads.

Daniel Lieberman is the founder of Daniel Lieberman Digital ("I speak Geek - You don't need to"). Based in Shelburne Falls, Mass., he helps companies, organizations, and individuals learn to use the Internet to communicate, market, and brand themselves using the most up-to-date tools and techniques. Contact him at 413-489-1818 or daniel@daniellieberman.org.