The old ad manager was very archaic and impeding. The front page of the interface screen had all of your campaigns laid out with the title of each ad displayed. If you are only handling one campaign, it was simple to use, but with multiple campaigns with multiple ads in each, it was a pain in the a** to say the least. The old interface made it difficult to analyze the data in the campaigns and time consuming to sift through each campaign to find exactly what you were looking for.

Now, the new ads manager has made some strides and good improvements. First off, the front page lays out all of your campaigns without the ads. You can macro-manage each campaign from this front screen, and if you want to go into the nuts and bolts, you can click into the campaign to make changes. The daily budget and spend is right there on the front page as well, though my dates are off (must be a bug). You can also search for an individual ad easily with a search box located on the left sidebar. All of these are nice upgrades and happy to see they removed the cumbersome home page that was with the old ads manager.

There is a still a ways to go for Facebook. They did not make any changes to their reporting and believe this will be their next step. Also, I would like the ability to hide paused ads (have the same issue with Adwords). I like to pause my ads but not delete them for CTR reasons, however, I don’t want to have to look at them on a daily basis.

Overall, I am happy with the changes and believe the right steps are being taken to help out us internet marketing managers who are in these screens for hours on end on a daily basis.

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From the report:

“According to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.”

The power of real-time search is becoming known, and the titans of the search engines are trying to get into the space before they are left behind. Users are increasingly enjoying the fact that they can jump onto Twitter to find exactly what is going on–right now. Google and Microsoft’s search algorithms, at this moment, do not have the capacity to offer a solution to its customer that matches what Twitter can provide. They are obviously taking the old business mindset of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

A deal  like this between these groups does not seem extraordinary to the average everyday Joe. Sure, there are business deals all the time,  however, IMO, this is huge.

The search engine giants are realizing the move by its user base to other platforms, most notably real-time search with Twitter. Not to mention, Facebook and Microsoft’s deal some time back to provide Bing search results in Facebook’s search engine. All of these deals back up my notion about how companies need to embrace social media.You need to get you and your company out there in these platforms to be found.

If Google and Microsoft are realizing it, shouldn’t you?

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“I don’t have time to do Twitter.”
“I don’t have time to do Facebook.”
“Who has time to do that?”

Think again. These excuses are just that–excuses. Twitter and Facebook, along with other social networks, actually save you time and can make you a more productive individual.

For example, call ten of your friends to see what they are up to. How long is each conversation going to take? 10 minutes?

If you are lucky, most will probably take longer, but for the sake of argument, lets say it took 10 minutes a person.

10 people X 10 minutes = 100 minutes or 1 hour and 40 minutes

Now, go onto your Facebook or Twitter account and check your friends status updates. How long did that take? 2 minutes?

Looks like you just saved 1 hour and 38 minutes out of your day. Sounds like to me you do have time to Twitter or Facebook. I understand that you do not get the personal touch of speaking with somebody on the phone, but it does save you that precious time.

Here is another example. Let’s say you and your spouse are looking to go out for the night and your babysitter just canceled. How would you get a new one? Let me guess, you have to call around and try and find yourself a new one. How long does that take? 30 minutes, an hour?

Why don’t you put a post onto your Facebook or Twitter account asking for a good recommendation on babysitter tonight? How long did that take 30 seconds?

These are just a couple of personal examples of how Twitter and Facebook can be used to save you time. People shouldn’t be so afraid to change, and they should embrace some of these new technologies that have become apart of millions of people’s lives.

Sometimes change can be good and make you more productive.

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We have been hired in the past and present to help brand individuals online, to put them on the cybermap. Think about it for a second, would you pay $1,000, $2,000, or $100,000 to promote yourself in your career that will take you from one rung on the professional ladder to a much higher–more profitable–rung? What happens if you branded yourself on the web and took yourself from being a manager in your industry to an executive, would it be worth it?

I know you are sitting there and asking, “But, I am unknown and do not have the persona of Ashton Kutcher, this doesn’t apply to me?”

Oh contraire, I believe “regular” folks can achieve what they are looking for by promoting themselves on the web and showcasing their talents in their specific field. Think about it once again. What better resume to show a potential employer than a successful Blog, Facebook fan page or Twitter following that you have generated in your particular industry. If you have carved yourself out as the platform on the web for your field, who wouldn’t want to hire you.

How can you brand yourself?

Here are 3 quick first steps to take when beginning to take yourself online:

1. Find a niche and start a blog.

• The #1 problem for individuals when they want to promote themselves online is they want to talk about everything in their lives. One day they write about pink elephants and the next nuclear physics. Before taking the leap onto the web, find out what you know and what you want to write about. Be specific and specialize, and most importantly, write passionately about it. The better your content, the more you specialize, the more likely people will read, like, and link to your blog post. Getting links to your blog is the cornerstone to being successful, and these links only come with rich content that people find intriguing.

2. Promote yourself. Attend conferences and follow other Blogs in your niche and make comments.

• If you have the ability to be a speaker at a conference, do it. Promote your blog when you do and people will write about it and start following you. For those who are not quite to that level, follow others in your niche. Comment on their blogs with thought provoking insight and chances are their followers will check you out as well.

3. Social Networking

• Nothing spreads faster than social networks. Keeping your fans up to date via Twitter or Facebook will spread your message virally. You want to open up your brand to as many people and platforms as possible and nothing is bigger than the major social networks. Stop resisting change and embrace it.

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Note- This definitely sucks for the people like ourselves that are running a legitimate business page that had 950 fans as of May 31st, and will now have to wait, and potentially lose out on getting our desired username, but we are definitely in the minority and I understand why they are doing it.

I think it will be extremely important for businesses to get a search-friendly username that matches their business name.  Essentially your page will then be treated like a second website, and obviously Facebook will make the pages as SEO-friendly as possible, so they will rank well and drive more traffic.  This is a bigger deal than some people realize, because I think we will definitely start to see more and more facebook pages cracking into the search results, which we know is a huge business.  I think we will also see people advertising their facebook pages more (like some big businesses already have) because their platform is so user-friendly.

Essentially having a facebook page for your Business with a good username is like getting a second website with great functionality, SEO, and access to a HUGE community for free.

But choose wisely with your username for yourself and your business page, as you will only get 1 chance.  I would recommend going with how you want people to find you or your Business on the web.

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Facebook continues to promote their advertising for Facebook Pages. If you are a business owner and you are not aware of this type social media advertising, you are truly missing out. The system caters perfectly to local businesses that can achieve a “geographic” [community] following. It is however, important to understand internet marketing to get the results you want, and to understand how landing page optimization, analytics, split-testing and other tools can make a drastic difference in your conversions to customers and overall campaign goals.

Most business owners or decision makers that I speak with have two major issues: time and money (sound familiar?). In my opinion if you hire a good consultant / marketer you can save on both of these by achieving greater results than with what traditional advertising options (print, yellow pages, radio, mailers, etc) yield. The technology platforms are available and the people are engaging with it at a tremendous rate. Why not take advantage of an interactive environment where you actually get to communicate with those that are interested in your product or brand, while targeting the specific demographics you want?

Let us explain a bit further about the ways  we may be able to help your business.  Tell me more

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