Black Friday. Not as popular over here in Canada, but for the United States, it’s a typical tradition filled with early mornings, long line-ups, pushing, shoving, and intense shopping. Literally, the only time that the phrase, “shop ’til you drop“, should apply is when it comes to this pre-Christmas shopping extravaganza.

However, while big name companies get the upper hand with blow-out sales and a chance to get rid of stock prior to the Christmas season, what’s the benefit for the little guys?

Well, to compensate for the madness, Twitter is lending a hand to small businesses by offering up to $1 million in free ad credits in total to 10,000 businesses to support Small Business Saturday this weekend. Basically, the first 10,000 small businesses who apply and are eligible for the promotion will automatically gain $100 in free credits.

Benefits to Small Businesses:

1. Free Advertising: These businesses can use these ad credits to purchase Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts on Twitter, which will allow them to get their content featured more prominently on the site.
2. Building Awareness and Gaining New Customers: When it comes to advertising on Twitter, small businesses are being exposed and introduced to over 140 million of Twitter’s users. Especially when starting up, it’s a cost-effective way to get oneself known to the community.
3. Engagement with the Online Community: Make a Twitter account and become a source to go to after users see your advertisements. Hear and listen to what your followers are saying. Understand and develop a following. This is an opportunity for, you as a company, to build a personality and be recognized for your help, instead of solely just sales. However, when it comes to sales, it’s also nice to know that studies have shown that 64% of twitter users are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.

Benefits to Twitter:

1. Entice Thousands of New Businesses to Start With Them: With Twitter’s offering, they’ve given new, start-up businesses a chance to try out advertising on the website. And what better place to start than to advertise on one of the most used social media sites to date. Twitter is smart by offering this promotion, especially during Black Friday weekend. They’re providing a freemium, in which they’re providing the advertising service at no charge at all. They’re giving small businesses a chance to experience social media advertising for the first time, and easing the transition for companies to transition from offline to online marketing.
2. Gaining Commitment and Increasing the Number of Businesses that Pay To Advertise: Although it’s free for now, Twitter’s step in introducing new businesses to the online world won’t go unpaid for. They’ll definitely be making profits off of their premiums, such as for new businesses deciding to continue their advertising services after the $100 credit is used up or for advanced features. Although giving up things for free initially, Twitter’s giving new businesses a feel of what online advertising can potentially do for their businesses, and after the term is up, it may be hard for businesses to turn away after they’ve seen and learned the outcomes of social media.

My one concern for new businesses is to be cautious of the “shiny objects syndrome“, which basically means that although a trend is a trend, don’t get too easily distracted by it. Getting distracted by the latest fad or new ideas can get a company in trouble, and be costly in the long run. When it comes to Twitter’s Free Ad promotion, who doesn’t like free stuff? But if you don’t exactly understand or know how social media can benefit your company specifically, it might be better to lay off and avoid getting sucked in. A company may spend thousands of dollars and hours of time investing in this “shiny object”, without actually knowing whether it’s “right” for the business. Take precaution! New shiny objects are nice to look at, but so are tigers in a zoo. Getting too close might cause you more damage than if you hadn’t tried at all.

Before jumping on the bandwagon, it’s best to build and get a better understanding of the people, objectives, strategy, and technology in order to develop your approach to the social strategy. Below, I’ve broken down the POST acronym into questions that a small business can ask themselves before taking action on a social strategy. The POST acronym is a way to breakdown and approach a social strategy based on your business fundamentals:

When I first heard about this, I was amazed at the unique and clever way to make purchasing a Hellmann’s mayonnaise that more exciting. As we know, mayonnaise can be used with all sorts of products. It’s more than just a condiment. It can be used in multiple ways, but do you know them all ?

Hellmann’s created a rather “quirky” campaign called “Hellmann’s Recipe Receipt”.

How it works?

1. A software to analyse what products a consumer has purchased with their Hellmann’s mayonnaise at the point of checkout.
2. Once your products are scanned and payment has been made, a receipt is printed out.
3. At the bottom of the receipt, the software uses what you’ve purchased, including Hellmann’s, and creates a personalized recipe for yourself that includes all of the products.

I found this to be a great idea of Hellmann’s. Similar to the successful marketing strategy by Blendtec, Hellmann’s is making an ordinary and typical product to become something more. They’re adding value to the product and allowing a more personalized approach to the consumer. In addition, they’re informing the customer of ways you can incorporate Hellmann’s with your purchases and be exposed to new recipes. In return, this can increase customers’ usage of mayonnaise and provide a greater percentage of repurchases in the future.

Especially, with the idea that whoever is purchasing the product already has intentions to use it in their own cooking, this receipt/recipe concept is a great way to give additional ways to love the product even more. Being more than just being spread on bread, Hellmann’s mayonnaise informs and gives their customers a  new recipe idea that many didn’t even know included mayonnaise. It’s a great incentive, even for first-time purchasers, to give it a try and see what the software analyses and produces with the collaboration of your common, everyday purchases. Your use of mayonnaise has grown and expanded!

And the results of this campaign? Sales increased by 44 percent in one month. 

Did you know that you can help and give your fashion opinion to someone from the comfort of your own home? Well, your Facebook “likes” matter with Brazilian retailers’ C&A Fashion. I came across an interesting concept where the underlying goal was to help minimize and ease shopping. As most of us know, and myself, we experience and desire for social acceptance. We are interested in what others have to say, and often look towards them for a pre- and post-purchases. How many times have you based your purchasing decision on what someone said about the item?

What C&A Fashion created was an integration of social media into a daily lifestyle of shopping. Online connects with offline. Check out the video for yourself:

 How it works? 

1. Each piece of clothing is hung on a hanger, which has a counter on it. The counter number is based on the number of people that have “liked” the piece online.
2. Online, users can give their opinions on all the pieces and “like” it. The “like” is real-time, which means that the addition is immediately added to the total number of “likes” and updated on its hanger.

The Purpose?

Well, to help minimize that need for a second opinion on whether to buy the jacket or not. Viewing a decent amount of “likes” can support and convince shoppers to purchase the product. If 1,000 users online have seen it and liked it, wearing it out on the street will be just as eye-catching. The question is:

Are we all socially conscious? Does the opinion of other people matter when it comes to our physical appearance?

To most, I believe it does. On social media websites, such as Facebook, you have multiple posts of users asking for preferences on which electronics to buy, what dress to wear for prom, etc. Overall, users want to wear not only what they feel is aesthetically pleasing, but also, what will be social accepted by others. In Paul Adam’s book, Grouped, he explains and mentions we talk to help others. People share because they have do so to help others and expect no reciprocity in return. Although we do have a small group of people that we trust most and are the key influences of our decisions, the use of a hanger “count” can assist our consumer decision making process when those influential few aren’t around.

We talked before in class how communities breed conversations. The concept of Facebook “likes” can increase purchases by giving that additional “push”. Approximately, 78 percent of consumers will trust peer recommendations, even if that means accepting the information from completely unknown consumers. With the comparison that consumers only trust 14 percent of advertisements. Listening into an online conversation can be extremely beneficial, and there are advantages in doing so:

1. Understand what your users like: The clothes, colours, styles, etc. are all qualities that one can use as useful information to possibly generate sales in the future.
2. Use the Facebook Wisdom App for collective intelligence: Extract the data from those that comment and “like” the items of clothing from the collection and use it to better understand your consumer market. Their demographics, personal interests, etc. are all useful information to help leverage your marketing and direct it more effectively towards your target market.

In September, Nokia launched promo videos for it’s newest upcoming smartphone device, Nokia Lumia 920. These videos reflected one of Nokia’s most eye-catching features: Pure View IOS (image optical stabilization). Pure View IOS “floats” the lens on springs, which allows it to enable video recording that is less shaky and enhancing low-light settings. However, viewers quickly noticed that the video was fake, in terms that the phone’s technology was falsely represented by an actual camera instead. In the background and reflection, there shows a camera man with a DSLR recording the scene and in the commercial, the video quality is labelled as “IOS ON”. Check it out below:

And here’s an image of the camera’s reflection caught in the background:

We’ve talked in class before about how social media marketing can easily benefit you, but also, can just as much damage as well. A simple mistake can lead to a drop in reputation, after it took years and years to develop a strong one in the first place. And it depends how a company handles a controversy, such as this, that determines how well they’ll be able to get back on their feet. Although shortly after, Nokia did release an apology to the public for its misrepresentation of the product’s actual technological capabilities, damage had still been done. Heidi Lemmetyinen, one of the many bloggers of Conversations by Nokia blog site, issued an apology:

In an effort to demonstrate the benefits of optical image stabilization (which eliminates blurry images and improves pictures shot in low light conditions), we produced a video that simulates what we will be able to deliver with OIS.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we should have posted a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS only. This was not shot with a Lumia 920. At least, not yet. We apologize for the confusion we created.

(Source: http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/09/06/an-apology-is-due/)

However, in my opinion, I didn’t think that Nokia took the right steps in order to effectively minimize the damage in the best way possible. Below the apology, there are 214 comments, about 60 percent of them negative, speaking in regards to the apology post.

Nokia’s next initiative to minimize the damage was to release a new video, that reflects the true comparison of the Nokia Lumia 920’s Pure View IOS. However, Nokia released it a bit too late and the audience still pointed out the negatives, stating whether this was another “fake” as well. Although it is an attempt for recovery, much of the damage had already been done and although the original promotional video was taken down, there are still multiple user-generated ones lying around the Internet.

Although I’ve seen this controversy, I don’t think any less of Nokia. I’ve looked and researched the phone, and in my opinion, it’s still a great catch. The promotional video is misleading and tampers with the brand’s name, but the phone’s capabilities are still existent and haven’t changed. However, I do believe that there are initiatives that the company could have better taken and utilized in order to simmer the fire around this controversy.

1. Monitor and Respond to Customer Comments: Of the 214 comments on the apology blog post made by a representative of Nokia, not one of the posts were acknowledged and responded to. There were quite a few meaningful posts that showed constructive criticism and Nokia could show a simple recognition that they’ve taken into consideration the opinions and thoughts of their blog followers. It’s the least they could do after the controversy hit.
2. The Nokia Lumia Has Amazing Specs, So Let People Take It To The Test: A promotional video, especially about a phone’s image quality, is very subjective, as it can easily be altered and in this case, be fake. Unlike the call features of the phone, picture quality is a lot harder to appreciate over the web when a user can’t experience it for themselves or look deeply at the prints. I would suggest to immediately send the Nokia Lumia 920’s to influential people, specifically technology product reviewers, that can try the phone out themselves and give an honest opinion out to their followers. By releasing a side-by-side comparison that now showed the “real” Pure View IOS as Nokia did instead, consumers aren’t as willing to believe what they hear after being lied to. Nokia can’t influence these consumers if they’ve already significantly lost their credibility and trust. Without a doubt, the camera quality may be great on the phone, but Nokia can’t broadcast this themselves anymore. They need people, that can relate to their audience, to present a change on their initial mindset after the controversy.

The other day in my e-marketing class, we had a current Robert Lee Graduate School (UBC) MBA representative from Microstrategy come in and speak about the Facebook Wisdom App and its data collection analysis. Heard of the Wisdom App before? Well, it’s something that may catch your attention if you knew the amount of data that is contributed by your profile and the profile of your friends (which quickly made me want to alter those Facebook privacy settings after listening to the 80 min. session!). Basically what the app does is help marketers facilitate their marketing activities by using collective intelligence to organize and obtain the data collected from over 16 million profiles that have given access to Wisdom. Although this is a portion only of the billions of users on Facebook, it’s a good start that’s continually growing. Your profile can easily provide useful data that shows what places you like to eat at, an approximation of your income, what type of music you like, etc. that can be used by marketers to create campaigns to suit their target market’s interests or even look towards competitors that may give insight on how to leverage their own success. For example, businesses can use data to find out which celebrities are more significant and influential to their audience, and as a result, can use these influencers in their ads to better connect with their audience.

To break it down, here are the key things you can do with Wisdom:

1. Analyze Demographics
2. Discover Interests
3. Explore Activities
4. Investigate Consumer Segments
5. Compare Consumer Segments
6. Study Psychographics

Wisdom extracted the data it had from Facebooks users, and created these rankings based on what users fan “like”, whether their posts contain relevant keywords, etc. This gives a better understanding of exactly what type of consumers are interested and what are their other interests. And essentially, how Microstrategy plays a role is that they help you more effectively engage and monetize your Facebook fans.

Marketers are interested in understanding whether their advertisements are leading to that additional sale and having an affect on the consumers. The effectiveness of advertisements in social media sites have been an issue, as the metrics and measurements for obtaining the results aren’t always what marketers want to hear. Hearing that there are a drastic increase in click rates for a particular advertisement posted may be great to hear, but it doesn’t necessarily show whether these clicks are leading to actual increase in sales.

I came across an article, Facebook to Help Brands Track Ad-Driven Sales, on Adweek.com. Basically, Facebook is in the process of developing a measurement tool that converts a user’s click on an advertisement and tracks whether this click led to a sale, a subscription, and much more.

How it works?

1. Marketers add a piece of code from Facebook to whichever site pages they want to measure conversions on, be it a checkout page or an email newsletter sign-up page
2. When users click on a Facebook ad that leads them to that page, Facebook will see that the page loaded and count it as a conversion in the marketer’s Ads Manager dashboard

(Source: Adage.com)

Although still in beta-mode, I find this a great addition that Wisdom can leverage. This measurement tool will go hand-in-hand with Wisdom and Microstrategy’s existing capabilities and platforms, giving more of a reason for marketers to look towards data collection. It’s a win-win situation for both groups.Now, marketers will be able to soon see whether their advertisements on Facebook (and its billions of users) will help reduce their costs and increase their ROI. Facebook saw that the campaigns averaged a 40 percent lower cost-per-action than the exact same ads run on a cost-per-click basis. Although a lower cost-per-action, but you’ll gain more value than paying for clicks. In addition, companies can lean towards using Wisdom to monetize and effectively develop advertisements that are geared towards the types of users that are likely to convert, based on the data collection. And for Facebook.. well, they’ll gain the additional advertising revenue.. to their last quarter’s $1.09 billion.

#Comodomenu

The above is the Instagram hashtag for one of New York City’s newest restaurant, Comodo. This three-week old Latin-American restaurant, located in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, has integrated their customers to be a part of their visual menu. After the restaurant noticed numerous guests pulling out their phones and taking pictures of their dishes, they decided to capitalize on this trend of Instagram. I, myself, am guilty as charged when it comes to taking photos of mouth-watering and beautifully presented food. Or even huge platters of food that gets the most bang for your buck. Overall, I can relate to the trend of sharing what you’re eating to your friends to make them envious. Anyways, check out Comodo’s video here:

Taking advantage of this trend and jumping on the wagon, the restaurant has embraced the hashtag #ComodoMenu and added it to the bottom of its real-life menu. They always encourage their guests to add, share, and check out photos of food offered. It comes in handy as well, when you are indecisive of what to eat and need a couple of convincing photos to steer you one way or the other (or indirectly, make you more indecisive than you were after looking at all the delicious choices).

Comments on the idea of integrating Instagram into a restaurant’s menu? I have both positive and negative thoughts. Here are some of the advantages:

1. Producing Word of Mouth and Media Share: With customers posting their latest photos onto their Instagram, their followers and any linked social media networks they’ve connected Instagram with (ex. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, etc.) will be able to see them as well. This is a great way to produce media coverage at nearly no cost at all. You have genuine opinions and photos from ordinary, typical users that display the photo just as it is.
2. Customer Interaction: Allowing customers to be a part of the Comodo visual menu makes it a great way for customers to connect with one another and feel a greater connection between the restaurant and themselves. They’ve become more than just “guests” at the restaurant. They’re the framework of the company’s menu and are involved in the value-adding process of the unique experience.

Now, here are some disadvantages:

1. Does it really make a difference in your restaurant experience?: It’s arguable to say that just because you can view multiple images of the dishes offered, doesn’t mean that it will give you a “better” experience. Many restaurants already have pictures of their dishes placed into the menu already, giving you a glimpse of what to look forward to and expect. Posting a photo may feel like a unique and memorable way to record your dining experience, but for a typical food photographer, like myself, the picture would have been taken anyways, with or without the visual menu.
2. Will sales and customer volume increase?: In my opinion, it probably won’t. Regardless of whether there’s a hashtag or not, people that like to photograph their food will still post up and share it on social media networks. Even before the Instagram visual menu was created, customers were already taking photos and posting them. In addition, you also have sites, such as Urbanspoon.com, that already has a well-established site composed of restaurants with customer reviews, ratings, and real-life food photographs. Moreover, when it comes to choosing where to go out to eat, most people will often base their decision on feedback from friends or from their information search, which generally includes being drawn to the restaurant from the food photos.

Overall, I think it’s a unique way to take a trend and integrate it into leveraging one’s business. Whether the outcomes are favourable is still unknown, but it’s an inexpensive way to use social media to develop brand awareness. My suggestion? Possibly suggesting customers to write a review with their uploaded picture and be entered into a monthly contest for a free meal. That would make my mouth water : P

How do we, as consumers, evaluate and make the final decision as to whether or not to purchase a product? What brands do we choose from? How sensitive are variables, such as price and quality, to us?

Everyone’s method of choosing a final product varies. We may rely more on other factors than others, or take into consideration what others have to say about the product than trusting our own judgement. We may search countlessly for every detail about the product until we are satisfied and confident of our decision, or we may impulse purchase on goods that have little to none evaluation process because it is a common necessity to us. Do we choose based on our brand loyalty or are we still in search for the right one?

In my e-marketing class, we previously covered McKinsey Quarterly’s, “The Consumer Decision Journey”, and it mentioned one of the traditional methods that consumers took to evaluate a product before purchase:

The reason why this method of evaluation has become “traditional” is because with the increasing amount of internet usage consumers undertake before product purchase, the number of brands under consideration during the active-evaluation phase can actually increase rather than decrease. Consumers are constantly searching and being influenced by information, whether it be through word of mouth of reading online customer reviews, in order to help their decision making process. Overall, these brands can jump into the consideration phase and potentially force rival brands out. Therefore, here’s the new version of the McKinsey graph:

According to the article, “The Consumer Decision Journey”, on the McKinsey Quarterly:

Two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family.

I came across this website: www.ciao.co.uk

“Ciao” is one of the most popular European comparison websites, largely because it contains more than 2,600 online retailers. They’re a consumer-oriented website that allows shoppers to find reviews, ratings, and price comparisons for goods they can buy elsewhere online. How popular are they? Well, approximately they receive over 26.4 million unique visitors per month from seven countries. In addition, they’ve developed their own online community where Ciao users can review and post their experiences with the product with other Ciao users.

As I was checking out their website, I came across a few take aways that in my opinion, made them an effective website:

• Consumer video and written reviews: The site consists of a user generated 5 point-system rating solely for the product itself (consisting of 2 types of graphs: “a rating summary” and “a detailed characteristic specific rating”). In addition, users have the ability to organize reviews by “most helpful review first” or “newest first”
• Product recommendations based on what other users have bought: What I found extremely effective of this is that not only does Ciao recommend other products that similar users have bought, but also, recommends products that are similar to the characteristics of your own. For example, I searched “Samsung Galaxy S3” and came up with the option to browse various other phones which had similar camera resolution, battery life, and price.
• A “Recommendation” Counts feature: This feature allows Ciao users to hit “Recommend” for the specific product and merchant and see the total number of recommendations for it.
• Price comparisons from multiple sellers and a link to additional offers from the same merchant of the product

I came across a viral video the other day created and led by Intel and Toshiba. The youtube video was one of 6 videos that outlined a series and were uploaded every week from Aug. 16-Sept. 20. These videos were created in order to promote the upcoming product, the Toshiba’s Portégé Ultrabook, which had Intel software installed onto it. Unlike the multiple action-packed or humorous content you generally see online, these videos develop an online coming-of-age love story. The main character, Alex, wakes up in a different body every day, being played by 76 different fans of the bran. Each character is different and the use of different characteristics and personality is used to allow multiple viewers to relate to the protagonist. Check out the trailer of the “The Beauty Inside” series here:

Surprisingly enough, the video’s impact was huge. The video had attracted 55 million views, and for three weeks in August, it remained the top viral video, according to Visible Measures. In addition, the Facebook Fan Page had obtained 94,000 “likes” by early October, just a mere 2 months after the first video was issued.

To follow up with the video marketing efforts, the Facebook page was also used to leverage the product and develop a greater connection for users and the main character, Alex. The Facebook page had Alex, aka agency writers, posting comments related to the plot and engaging with their Facebook fans. Surprisingly, many young men were drawn into asking Alex for relationship advice, despite the fact that he’s a fictional character. The audience got into touch with his character, and developed a trust and open mind for him and the brand. I find it amazing how a simple story can touch the lives of viewers and add value to the product itself. In addition, the Facebook page also had a tab for “Alex’s computer”, which featured product information about the new Ultrabook. Check out their Facebook fan page here: https://www.facebook.com/thebeautyinsidefilm?fref=ts

If you check out their site, you’ll see that the fan page is more than just a place to broadcast when the next episode will up. The staff responsible for the website are actually making their own personality online. They’re asking, posting, and sharing with their followers. These interactions allow consumers to give feedback and stay connected with the series. For example, “The Beauty Inside” posted this:

Here’s a question I’ve been thinking a lot about. Do you guys believe in destiny? Are people “fated” to be together? Or is it all a matter of luck, of chance?

In  the end, there were 110 comments, 156 likes, and 3 shares.

Overall, it seems that an innovative marketing tactic can draw in the attention of many consumers, but it’s the story that makes them stay.  They’ve added a meaning behind the Toshiba Ultrabook, and created a consumer to Toshiba/Intel connection through the main character. Whether you’re talking about what happened in the latest episode, you’re still linking the series to the brand. How the story made you feel can lead people’s first impression of Toshiba to be similar. The number of “view counts” and “likes” towards the series are an outstanding accomplishment for Toshiba and Intel’s brand and product awareness. Who wouldn’t mind having almost 100k worth of likes on their page within a couple of weeks? : )

Brands are getting involved with Facebook, from the use of “Pages” in order to gain “likes” and feedback on their posts from fellow users and fans of the brand’s facebook page. It appears to be a typical tradition now for brands to get more in touch with their fans by celebrating fan milestones. For example, Old Navy recently gave out a “human coupon” concept, which is a “giant 120-by-60-foot coupon, shot from the sky, comprised of several hundred humans, props, text and a bar code made of 88 placards.” The 30-percent discount coupon was rewarded due to Old Navy reaching 5 million fans on Facebook. Check out the video here:

Pretty cool, if you ask me. It seems like this concept of interacting with consumers through celebrating their support on Facebook has not only been used by Old Navy. Once Cadbury reached 1 million UK fans on Facebook, the company built a giant “Facebook-style thumbs up” pose out of 1 million of its chocolate bars, while sharing live updates over two days on its Facebook fan page.

In addition, Verizon also celebrated its 3 million Facebook fans by developing a video thanking its fans that features a Rube Goldberg machine. The Rude Goldberg machine features a number of unnecessary and complicated series of steps in order to accomplish a very simple task. By the end of the video, a tablet is switched on and displays a “thank you” message to its supportive fans.

After watching these different attempts at celebrating Facebook fans and developing a milestone, I’ve considered a couple advantages:

1. Creative and Share-Worthy: Social media networks are a way for users to not only display their own personal broadcasts to their friends, but also share interesting or relevant stories that they think will appeal to their friends or followers. A unique and creative campaign can help develop the brand’s exposure to others. Fans have the option to share it and present something memorable to their audience.
2. Developing a Personality and Telling its “Story”: Developing marketing initiatives, such as these, can assist in providing that deeper level of connection between the brand and its user. As what was mentioned in class, having that “personality” that can speak to your consumers can make a huge difference on how they perceive your brand. Celebrating a fan milestone allows users to feel appreciated and creates a community of the million of users and the brand.
3. Gaining New Fans and Referrals: Sharing a coupon is a great way to send the love to their fans. Sharing is caring, right? A good deal is meant to be shared with their friends. Whether you’re gaining off a friend’s referral or double glancing at a Facebook share because it catches your eye, the brand may have a greater penetration in being exposed electronically more so than it would appeal to you on a conventional giant billboard. In this century, the size of the advertisement doesn’t necessarily equate to greater exposure.

Overall, these Facebook fan milestones are now being celebrated as if sales results have been reached. These real-life marketing tactics are a great way to engage with their audience and show them a part of the company’s story.

Google? Well, that name isn’t much of a surprise as Google has become the leading and most  relied on search engine in the world. The company’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it univerally accessible and useful.” And since 1998, they’ve done so with clarity, richness, and credibility.

For users, Google is their source and access to the web of information. First, you have your organic searches. They are essentially listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, and are not sponsored or paid by its owner. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of these websites or a web pages in a search engine’s “natural,” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”), search results (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization).  Secondly, search engines are also a source for paid advertisements to be placed and sponsored.   Paid searches or pay-per-click (PPC) are advertisements that are shown on web sites or search engine results with related content that have agreed to show ads. They are displayed when a keyword query matches an advertiser’s keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. So, what exactly  do they have to do with Google?

Today, I came across  Forrester’s U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, for the years 2011 to 2016. According to the studies, they projected that on average, marketers are spending approximately 88 percent of their search marketing budget on paid search campaigns and only 12 percent on organic search. Surprisingly, while over 2/3 of their budget is focused on paid campaigns, it is still only accessing just 6 percent of the available click-throughs. Furthermore, the mere 12 percent budget towards organic search is accessing 94 percent of the available click-throughs.

Now, what seems to be the problem here? The majority of the marketing budget is being spent on the type of search that attains and gains access to the least percent of available click-throughs.

What’s being done here is that the two resources of time and money, that are responsible and play a role in leveraging the positions of SEO vs. PPC. For SEO, there is an input of time and money where the amount is undetermined. In order to achieve under the top 5 results listed or be within the first 3 pages of the search, developing that position and keyword relevance in a search engine requires effort. However, the results tend to be long lasting. On the other hand, with PPC, a website or web page can instantaneously gain a top position with payment, but can just as easily disappear as well.

Although paying to be “on top” can help develop awareness and click through rates, organic search results can be just as influential. While less of an average marketer’s budget is allocated towards organic, it’s important to take into consideration the content, PR, social media, etc. for the website. Just because it doesn’t take on the greatest funding, doesn’t necessarily mean that the supporting marketing tactics can potentially add more value than a fixed cost.