10 Reasons to defect from Facebook to Twitter

August 9th, 2009 by Shoshana Yossef

#1 Friends vs the world

On Facebook I can only chat to my "real" friends. It's so sad, but I only have 22 Facebook friends in the whole world. On Twitter I can speak to anyone I want including Barak Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Ok most celebs don't answer back, but a few do. I am not revealing my special "friends" to anyone!

#2 Real-Time Trends

On Twitter, I can see world trends in real-time throughout the day. If you watch the timeline you can see what's "hot" in Australia, followed by UK, then East Coast, West Coast and ....

#3 Breaking News

Does Facebook really break a news event like a plane crash or the death of Michael Jackson? What about the hoax death of a Hollywood actor that can travel around the world in 3 minutes?

#4 Games, hugs & quizzes

Is it just me, but these apps seem like toys for kids and bored housewifes. By the way I am a "bored housewife" and I don't find them funny.

#5 Building a personal following

I am not a celeb, brand or organization. Who is going to search for me on Facebook? On Twitter I can claim to be the number one social media expert in the whole world, and build up a large following.

#6 No hashtags & limited search

If I want updates, prices, comments on the iPhone I need to join an iPhone Group and add their fans as a friend. Seems a long-way round to get product or company info to me. Of course you could revert to Google/MicroHoo for some out-of-date links or paid ads.

#7 You can only talk to one person at a time

On Twitter you can mention 6 plus people in one Tweet and invite them to join your conversation. Or you can send a Tweet to your followers, which is passed on to their followers, and their followers, until you get to the whole Twitter universe.

#8 You can't butt in on someone elses conversation

I just love this on Twitter, you can decide to join in any conversation without having to send out an invite. Not polite, but a lot of fun!

#9 Real sentences are so hard to write

It's such a bind to write in good English on Facebook. I can mispell, write acronyms and just post 2 word tweets on Twitter. Good for illiterates like me. Best of all, you can ReTweet the best copy-written Twitter headline in the whole world.

#10 Long is more difficult than short

Yes, I'm lazy, but 140 characters is long enough for me. I can write a witty headline, but give me a page and I run out of ideas. Less time to write saves me time. So in theory I could be more productive at work. The trouble is, you just get addicted to Twittering 24/7 ...

Anyone, please defend Facebook or add your comments. Even better ReTweet this article!

Oops I forgot that I am supposed to be an Internet Marketing expert. There is one thing I love about Facebook:

TARGETED, PAY-PER-CLICK ADS

You can target by demographic and interest category. Yes, the ads get results.

LOVE THEM ....

How many Jews are there on Facebook or Twitter?

by Shoshana Yossef

The worldwide population of Jews is approximately 13.2 million (most recent data from The Jewish Agency in 2007).

The question is: how can you best reach this audience on the Internet? Do you try Google, Facebook, Twitter, Jewish News sites or something else?

Let's do some rough estimates for each option.

1. Google

Probably used by at least 50% of the Jewish population if you base it on US usage during 2007 (source: Nielsen).

However, how many of these 7 million Jews are using "Jewish" keywords in their search?

According to the Google AdWords Keyword Search tool; 4,090,000 monthly searches were carried out in April on the keyword "Jewish". Other popular Jewish search terms include:

"Jewish holidays" - 110,000 searches

"Jewish calendar" - 110,00 searches

"Jewish community" - 110,000 searches

So, yes appearing on a Google page is important for Jewish terms. But how can you guarantee the number 1 spot, and how much do you have to pay on Google AdWords?

The average Cost-Per-Click's for a few sample words (according to Google's predictions) are:

"Jewish" - $1.99

"Jewish stores" - $2.08

"Jewish learning" - $1.86

Targeting Jews on Google is a good idea, but can be expensive if your site doesn't appear on the first page in the "natural" search results.

2. Facebook

Total Facebook membership worldwide is only 200 million people. So how many of these are Jews that like to chat?

The only way to estimate their Jewish audience is to use their Ad targeting mechanism, and type in "Jewish" as an interest category. This comes up with only 25,720 in the US, 2,760 in UK and 4,220 in Israel (over age 18).

Maybe Jews don't like to list their interest as being Jewish. Let's try a top Jewish celebrity, say Matisyahu (Jewish Rap Singer). Only 112,540 people in the US fit this category and I am sure a lot of his fans are not Jewish.

So having good profile pages on Facebook is worthwhile because it is free, but ads don't reach many people. Also cost-per-clicks can be over $1.

3. Twitter

Total Twitter users worldwide is only 14 million. How many of these are Jewish followers?

According to a JTA survey the account with the largest Jewish following is the Israeli Consulate in New York with a grand total of 5,875 followers on May 5.

Let's check out Jewish celebrities; Lenny Kravitz (Jewish Pop Singer) has 172,634 followers, Matisyahu (Jewish Rap Artist) has 167,304 followers, David Baddiel (UK Comedian) has 14,196 followers. Are these all Jewish fans?

Twitter is free, and so far carries no ads. But it is a social network platform, and sales pitches get very little response.

4. Jewish & Israeli News Sites

The 2 leading Jewish/Israel news websites are Haaretz (www.haaretz.com) and The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com)

Both these sites claim to have approximately 2 million unique users. This is followed by Ynet (www.ynetnews.com) with 250,00 unique users.

5. The Jewish Ad Network (www.thejanet.net)
This is a network of over 30 leading Jewish websites run by The J Media Group

With an estimated total page views of approximately 40 million a month, this network is able to potentially reach 5 MILLION UNIQUE JEWISH USERS a month. More than Google, Facebook, Twitter or any individual Jewish website.

The placement of either a banner or text ad can be geo-targeted to a specific country, and the campaign performance optimized manually or automatically (using www.zedo.com programming). In this way weak performing sites can be dropped, and advertisers can test which sites have the highest clickthrough rates for individual campaigns.

Is it expensive compared to say Google AdWords?

No, for example, Text ads only cost $250 for 500 guaranteed clickthroughs ie. an average Cost-Per-Click of $0.50.

Does it perform well for Advertisers and Publishers? Ask JDate, Aish, US Airways, Delta Airlines, Carnegie Hall, The Democratic Political party, Magen David Adom, JNF and more.

For more details contact:

shoshana@thejmg.com

Jewish Ad Network Special: 35% off banner prices

The J Media Group announces end of month Jewish Ad Network Special!

Get your Banners in by end April 30th and they will run until the end of May with a special discount.

1 Million Impressions
$2.40 Cost per Thousand (CPM)
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2 Million Impressions
$2.20 Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
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3 Million Impressions
$1.95 Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
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On the Jewish Ad Network your banners will be seen on:
Debka, Forward, Jewish World Review, Only Simchas, Virtual Jerualem, Jewish Week, Ynet News, Saw You at Sinai, JDate, Ask Moses, Frumster, Vosizneias and over 20 others

Banner Sizes:
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For more information call:
US West Coast Office +323 939 9377
US East Coast Office +305 677 2956
Israel Office +972 2656 5586

Email:
shoshana@thejmg.com

10 Tips to improve your ad's position on Google AdWords without paying more

by Shoshana Yossef

1. Use Ad groups for each campaign

For each Campaign, create different ad groups using a cluster of similar keywords. As a result you can then write an ad that is targeted specifically to that group of keywords. This will improve the clickthrough rate, quality score and the ad's position on the page.

2. Stop paying the same price for all match types

Match types are broad, exact and phrase. An exact match type means that the exact phrase you're bidding on was typed into Google. Phrase means that the same words were used, but not necessarily in the same order of your keywords, and broad means that your keywords were used amongst other unknown keywords.

If you pay $0.15 per click on a broad keyword and $0.15 on an exact keyword, you're wasting money. You should pay higher prices for exact keywords because they are more relevant to your ad and offer. Subsequently, you should pay far less for broad match type keywords because they could be totally irrelevant for your offer, despite containing the keywords you're bidding on.


3. Include many variations of a keyword

Don't only use short 1-2 keyword phrases in your Ad Groups. You can be sure everyone is bidding on these words and prices will be high. People search on long 3-4+ words in one phrase eg. medical billing software companies. You can find some of these words in Google AdWords Keyword Tool or just look at the dropdown list as you start searching for your keyword in Google search.

4. Use the negative keywords list

There's a feature in your campaigns to use a list of negative keywords. This is used to stop your ads being triggered for search terms that include particular keywords. An example would be the word "free". By adding the negative keyword "-free" to your ad group, you will stop freebie seekers from seeing your ads.

5. Location

Many people fail to realize how important adding a location - whether it's a town, city or state - to your key term or key phrase really is. This is especially important if you offer products or services within a particular area; the traffic you can generate from these keywords may be much higher than a general search and will get you highly targeted traffic. Also, "Campaign Settings" in Google allows you to geotarget your ads so they will only appear in a Country, State or City relevant to your target market.


6. Times of Day

If you have a limited budget, try to ensure your ads appear only when the real decision makers are searching. For CEOs or professionals (eg. doctors, lawyers) this may be mainly in evening hours or weekends. To change hours, go to "Campaign Settings" and look for "Advanced Settings". Click on "Schedule: Ad Scheduling" and select the hours you want the ad to appear.

7. Write effective ads

Try to include the keywords you are bidding on in the title of the ad. When your ads appear, these words will be in bold and encourage people to click. Also, try to write straight-forward factual ads, not too "salesy". People are searching for information, not a sales pitch. Google will also reward you for relevancy and increase your Quality Score. The higher your Quality Score, the less you pay for clicks and the higher you are placed in the ad listings at the same time.

8. Test and fine-tune your ads

The feature that I really love about Google AdWords is the ability to test as many ads as you want, and compare clickthrough rates. To do this effectively, you need to change the default "Campaign Settings". Under "Advanced Settings", go to "Ad Delivery" and change "Ad rotation" to "Rotate: Show ads more evenly". The next thing to do is wait until you have at least 50 clicks or 1,000 impressions for each ad, and enter the data into this cool spit test tool www.splittester.com.

Then drop the weaker ad and try another ad, and test again. Keep fine-tuning your ads until you get over at least a 1% clickthrough rate. As you improve your clickthrough ratio for each group of keywords, this will prompt Google to increase your Quality Score.

9. Optimize your landing page

Instead of sending people to your homepage, send them to the page most relevant to the ad eg. product page, sign up page etc. Ideally your landing page should be designed with Google in mind, and identified with a unique tracking code.

10. Track and monitor results

Google's online data and research reports are great, make use of them. Most importantly, don't forget to use Googe's free Conversion Tool to monitor which keywords are delivering sales, leads or sign-ups.


Google Ad Words is a powerful marketing technique that will attract more customers.

But does this sound too difficult to master while you are working 24/7 to run your website and business?

I can get you up and running for a low daily budget with cost per clicks as low as $0.10.

Email me for free advice and problem-sorting:
shoshana@thejmg.com

A simple guide to Internet Marketing terms

by Shoshana Yossef
A lot of different Internet marketing terms are used by publishers, agencies and the media. Some of them are so popular they are reduced to acronyms. This leaves many Internet "newbies" in the dark when they first start to explore how to get traffic to their website. So here is a shortlist of the most relevant terms that you should know.

Hits
A fuzzy term meaning the number of times a webserver has been "hit" by a request for a webpage or a graphic image. Since perhaps 5 out 6 "hits" are for graphic images, the number of "hits" can be grossly misleading. Usually people mean by "hits" the number of times a webpage has been seen, but to be precise, the better term is "views," "pageviews," or (more sophisticated) "impressions."

Page impressions or pageviews
Refers to the number of times a webpage has been requested by the server.

Banner views or impressions
Refers to the number of times a banner has been viewed. Almost the same as "page views," but some banner server programs don't count the banner view unless the visitor stays on the page long enough for the banner to be fully downloaded from the banner server.

CPM
This stands for "Cost Per Thousand," using the Roman numeral "M" to stand for one thousand. A price of $5 CPM means, $5 for every thousand times a banner is displayed.

Banner ad
An ad graphic hyperlinked to the URL of the advertiser. These are sometimes static graphic images, but animated gif, jpeg and flash banners are also common The most common banner size used to be 468 x 60 pixels (Full Banner). To standardize, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) specifies ad sizes in their Ad Unit Guidelines. The sizes they're recommending these days are 300x250 (Medium Rectangle), 728x90 (Leaderboard), and 160x600 (Wide Skyscraper). Also popular today is the125x125 (Square Button).

Creative
"Ad-speak" for the actual banner graphic.

Click
When a visitor clicks the mouse on a banner ad, they are transferred to the advertiser's site. The number of responses to a banner ad is sometimes referred to as the number of "clicks."

Clickthroughs
Same as "click," commonly used to count the number of visitors who click on the banner and are transferred to the advertiser's site.

Click Through Rate (CTR)
The percentage of clickthroughs to banner views. A 1% CTR means that 1% of each 1000 banner views (or 10 visitors) have clicked through.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator )
In popular language, a URL is referred to as a Web address. The typical form of a URL would be:
http://google.com

HTML ( HyperText Markup Language)
This is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document—by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.—and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of "tags" that are surrounded by angle brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document, and can include embedded scripting language code (such as JavaScript).

Landing Page
Sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is designed to result in an action.

Conversion Rate
The percentage of shoppers in an online store who actually make a purchase. This varies a great deal, and depends a great deal on the quality of the landing page.

Run of Site (ROS)
Refers to displaying a banner ad throughout a website or a banner network with no targeting by site page or keyword. Run of site advertising will usually be lower in cost than homepage or targeted advertising.

Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines eg. Google via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). SEM methods include: search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.

Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system.

Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to or above organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site. Although many PPC providers exist, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are the two largest operators.

Cost per Visitor
CPM / (1000 x CTR)
Here are some arbitrary numbers to use in our calculation:
CPM = $3 (a not untypical rate for websites)
CTR = 0.20%
Cost per Visitor = $3.00 / (1000 x .002) = $1.50

In this example, the $3 you spent to show the banner ad to 1000 people netted you 0.2% or 2 visitors to your site. Each visitor cost you $1.50 to get there.

Cost per Sale
Cost per Sale = Cost per Visitor / Conversion Rate
Here are some arbitrary numbers to use in our calculation:
Conversion Rate = 2% (from your landing page)
Cost per Sale = $1.50 / .02 = $75

At a 2% conversion rate from your landing page it would take 75 visitors to make one sale.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing is an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity and sales. The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Some social media marketers offer to write content (such as white papers) that are unique and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a “viral” video on YouTube and other video sites, including getting involved in blogs, forums, and niche communities.


Compiled with the help of:
Wikpedia
Web Marketing Today

How to build website traffic from email lists

by Danny Gewirtz; CEO of The J Media Group
Email lists, Email lists, Email lists. It's all about email lists. Avid readers of this column already know how I feel about email lists. What you may not know is that it is a two sided coin. In a previous JMG newsletter I wrote about the rising popularity of email lists as the element of choice in the arsenal available to the Jewish marketing professional. However, Jewish online marketers should quickly realize that while procuring appropriate lists that work for them is an important marketing component, building up an internal email list is just as crucial if not more.

It is no secret that of all promotions, messages, and offers that organizations and businesses send out, the highest response rate is always achieved through that internal mailing no matter how large or small the list is. I get this feedback from a growing number of my clients. They all say that the emailing they did to their own list elicited the best results. Armed with this information, Jewish marketing professionals should make this their number one priority when formulating an online strategy. How best to go about this is the big question.

The infrastructure of the email collection process includes many aspects including everything from collecting the names to creating a database up to sending out the actual email messages to your list. Exactly how to go about doing this is way beyond the scope of this column but feel free to contact me (danny@thejmg.com) and I would be more than happy to discuss it with you.

Raising funds for charities online

by Shoshana Yossef
Traditionally, charities and non-profits have raised funds from private donors, personal solicitations, telemarketing and door-to-door leafleting. All of these have been successful methods, but return on investment has been hard to quantify.

With the advent of Internet, larger organizations quickly realized they needed a website in order to have a virtual calling card and a place to keep the public up to date with their activities. But what about fund-raising?

National disasters and tragic events were the trigger for a few brave non-profits to try out some Internet marketing activities. Soon they came to realize that within a few minutes of promoting themselves online, hundreds of thousands of dollars were coming in via online credit card donations.

So what works online and how?
- Banner ads and Text ads on newsites: good for branding and keeping an organization's name top-of-mind
- Email lists and Advertorials: good for explaining activities, promotional devices (eg. raffles and auctions), and straight forward appeals
- Pay-Per-Click: good for seasonal promotions (eg. charity cards), and tactical advertising (eg. national disasters)
- Social Media Marketing: good for personal contacts and communicating news to PRs and the public

But don't take my word for it. The J Media Group works with all the major Jewish and Israeli non-profits and every single one could give you a success story. Here is one example:

"I just wanted to let you know that we at curebreastcancer.org as well as all the people involved in the Breast cancer Stamp how much we appreciate all that you have done for us.
The campaign is not even over and as far as bringing people to the site has far surpassed our expectations. You definitely delivered tens of thousands of the on-line Jewish audience."

Ernie Bodai,M.D., F.A.C.S
Director Of Breast Health Center
Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Sacramento California

Call up anyone from these organizations for their opinion: Magen David Adom, Meir Panim, Yad Sarah, Yad Eliezer, Zaka, Chai Lifeline, Sharei Tsedek Hospital and many more.