Chapter 20
Safko, The Social Media Bible
Search engine marketing (SEM), paying search engine providers for sponsored ads on search engine result pages, offers an excellent return on investment (ROI), Safko points out. The advertiser pays according to the amount of traffic sent to its Web site. No traffic, no cost to the advertiser. Not only that, but a good job of choosing key words and key word phrases can translate into a better class of clicks – prospects whose interests match the advertiser’s offerings more precisely.
Other advantages to SEM: The advertiser may submit a significantly higher per-click bid than the second-place bidder for a given keyword, but will not be charged the higher amount – just enough to be higher than the second-place bidder. Plus, there are built-in safeguards against fraudulent clicks by competitors.
According to Safko, SEM is most effective as part of a broader marketing program that also includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and blogging.
As a communications staffer for the University of Nebraska, I found myself wondering while I read this chapter how relevant SEM is to me. For tax supported organizations, advertising is sometimes a questionable use of tax dollars. But I can also see that SEM might conceivably offer a safer, must justifiable way to make paid advertising a part of a total marketing plan. It depends on the purpose of the marketing program. For commercial interests, promoting your organization is a means of strengthening the brand. But using tax dollars to promote an organization, though it may be part of a sound marketing plan, may be harder to justify.
Pay-per-click advertising allows a public entity to sidestep these questions in several ways. First, the organization is paying to drive traffic to its web site, not to promote itself. Hopefully your clientele will find something of value at your web site. Second, PPC advertising avoids another thorny issue related to paid advertising for public entities, that of being fair to several competing media. SEM sidesteps this issue because the search engine providers used SEM are not local media.
I could see where targeted facebook ads or google ad words might make sense for you, particularly related to attendance at some high-profile event or even promoting and supporting undergraduate admissions through Extension programs. I found the Rural Poll published a couple weeks ago extremely interesting about how rural Nebraska is using the internet and the importance of cell phones - lots of good data in it. Figuring out what your audience is searching for and how to get in their searches, that's the whole point. If you give them what they're looking for time and again, they won't need to search, they'll come straight to you.
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