Quality Score is important because it directly impacts your Ad Rank, whether your ad is eligible to be shown for a specific search query, and your actual Cost Per Click. In other words, Quality Score has a huge influence on not only when and where your ads are shown, but also how much you pay for the traffic.

Google is very open about how Quality Score is calculated. Although some factors are still proprietary, they tell us most of the inputs.

• The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; note that CTR on the Google Network only ever impacts Quality Score on the Google Network – not on Google
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• The quality of your landing page
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown

Quality Score directly influences how much you spend for a click. For each auction (an auction occurs for every search query), the ads all are assigned an Ad Rank. The Ad Rank is a product of the Max CPC Bid of the ad and the Quality Score.

Ad Rank = CPC Bid x Quality Score

The Ad Ranks are exactly what they sound: a number assigned to your ad that determines where your ad is ranked. This is how Quality Score fits into the equation of where your ad is positioned.

A better Quality Score also means that you will spend less for the same number of clicks. The Actual Cost Per Click that you pay is determined as follows:

Actual CPC = (Ad Rank to Beat / Quality Score) + $0.01

The easiest way to understand all the equations is to look at an example. Let’s assume that you are competing for an ad spot with one other competitor. You have dedicated a lot of time to improving your Quality Score, while they have ignored it.

Even though the competitor has a CPC bid higher than yours, the difference in Quality Score means your Ad Rank is higher and thus your ad is positioned higher. (Ad Rank = Max CPC x Quality Score) Also, the higher Quality Score means the ad costs less. If, for example, your Quality Score was only 9 the Actual CPC would be 16 / 9 + $0.01, or $1.79.

While many people forget about Quality Score, it really is an important metric to consider when optimizing paid search campaigns.

1. Earn authentic tweets, likes, shares, etc.
2. Become a Content Portal – Publish unique research, informed opinions, insights on trends or news, multimedia, expert contributors, quality discussions
3. Invest into video content (it’s not competitive right now!)
4. Build awesome infographics & visual media
5. Build calculators, tools, web based software; engineering stuff that saves people time or money
6. Publish reference worthy research
7. Leverage current events & news in your content.
8. Find amazing designers & pay them. Great designs are liked more by visitors. (Expert Tip: Go to a CSS gallery and find a featured designer with only 1 submission. Likely he is just starting out or doing it on the side, so he will charge less.)
9. Be cautious with ad placement.
10. Compare how you format text blocks with Panda Update losers.
11. Build robust About Us pages. Include real people with real photos, links to social media profiles, what your business does and the why and how, real contact info for real people, and non-generic descriptions. Include a press kit with logos, images, branding material – people do look for these.
12. Use real contact details and real people on your website.
13. Earn & display testimonials. Give testimonials to others (this will often get you a link). Used LinkedIn for this.
14. Optimize your conversion funnel.
15. Satisfy the user’s search query. Ask them what they were looking for or want. Ask them what would prompt them to share the page.
16. Register your business and address, even if you are not a local business. This is a huge signal of authenticity.
17. Build authentic social profiles with your business name.
18. Earn branded search traffic. Google probably looks at this. Tweet or share links to searches for your brand.
19. Diversify your traffic sources.
20. Get your brand name in headlines. If someone has written about you in the past, or written about something related to your business, ask them to cover you now.
21. Hard to get links are often the best links.
22. File patents, fund research, publish a paper in a college journal.
23. Create content about social sites – they love to stoke their own egos.
24. Get a great design, then list it on CSS galleries and design inspiration galleries. There are hundreds of these.
25. Find where big brands get links.
26. Find where relevant pages on .edu, .gov, or .org get links.
27. Investigate brand “sention” sources. Search [brand -brand.com].
28. Get key bloggers, connectors, and news sites aware of your brand.
29. Host, sponsor, and attend events and meetups.
30. Earn citations on industry portals, forums, discussion boards.
31. Get your brand included on industry brand lists.
32. Seek properties operated by trusted entities.
33. Use your bio / profile as a link accumulator.
34. Use RSS feeds with full content and absolute URLs to your website.

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http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart

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Goodbye plastic loyalty cards, hello iphone check-ins!

read more at: ad age

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• Your staff equals one…
• You are in a highly regulated profession with legal implications
• Don’t feel comfortable or can’t get by-in from executives
• Not sure if you customers are on social media

What is the implication on your brand on who you follow and who follows you? Should you go through your followers periodically and ‘prune’ them?

What are some good strategies for highly regulated industries?

• rotating files
• disclosure on blog
• disclosure on image on background

Social media press releases – “pitchengine”

Tactical Planning/Social Media Tactical Grid

Create a tactical grid to help you organize your publication of content across all the various social media platforms:

social media grid

What’s Next? It’s not about the ‘next Twitter’ or “foursquare” – Its about bringing structure, focus and strategy to the idea of social – there will always be new tools, applications.

Structure, focus, strategy

Good reference on social media strategy/structure : web-strategist.com – Jeremiah Owyang

Social Media Structure Types - Multiple hub and spoke – ‘Dandelion’

Integrate into existing business plan – no turf wars needed

Analytics:

• high level metrics
  • goal – foster dialogue; measure – share of voice, audience engagement
  • mid level metrics:
    • # clicks
    • retweets, ‘likes’
    • comments
    • sentiments

Examine your workflow, change as necessary, eliminate confusion – what can you let go of or improve efficiency so you CAN have time for social media!

What do your social media users need, want?

• Think about platforms you want to use
• Who is there
• How they want to be reached
• What you want them to do

How do you monitor? (for free)

• set up Google Alerts
  • Brainstorm terms
  • brand terms
• Nielson’s Blog Pulse
• Set up Tweetdeck
• Set up Twitalyzer – twitter analytics tool
• Tweetreach
• Twitaway

Social Media Case Studies by Industry

• Crisis fund raising – organization needed to raise money super quick for crisis, @PRSaraEvans ‘donated’ her followers as a quick way to generate an audience, $50K in 12 hours
• Cancer fund raising – strategy: largest number of mentions/tweets on Guiness record;high jacked the conference, all people had to do was tweet and money donated, hashtag: beat cancer
• Location-Based Apps
  • Why would user want to check in?
    • show how active they are
  • Why would business owner care?
    • A ‘Mayor’ could be provided incentives to these loyal visitors
    • Pay visitors to visit your establishment, make them prove it with photo – then business gets UGC!
  • schools using foursquare to provide student tours of various locations on campus, provide hashtag to use and locations
• How to reach influencers
  • Promotion or giveaway and have people tweet about their best experience with the product – http://www.tweetgiveaway.com

Final Questions

• Good twitter ‘practitioners’ – zappos; socialfreshbrands (?)
• tweetdeck, seismic – syndication tools
• use twitter text messaging tools for keeping up to date on key brands, people, issues
• QR codes? – get a business card with a QR code
• How can I, a small retail store, compete on Facebook with national competitors?
  • @PRSaraEvans: you may actually have an advantage! You have time to communicate and establish a relationship
  • Be a trusted resource for that niche audience, be their personal shopper