For those of you participating in search engine marketing, specifically pay per click within Google Adwords, you understand the importance of doing it right to maximize ROI.

There are plenty of e-books, "definitive guides," seminars and tools to help support your efforts - but every once in a while you come across a (often simple) tool that becomes a permanent part of your marketing arsenal or process. Such is Microsoft's Commercial Intention tool.

 Why is this valuable? Fact is, most search marketers get overly focused on click through rates. The reality is good marketers are not as interested in click action as they are in conversion (i.e. download, register, buy) action. Microsoft's tool essentially enables you to run a search query on any keyword to determine the probability of a user's intent to pursue information or transactional activity beyond the first click.  

Having this kind of information in hand can sharpen your focus when it comes to ad spends dedicated to certain search terms or how budget should be shifted from one campaign to another.

And now for our regularly scheduled program: For many, what Twitter is remains a mystery. Although I get it, I have to admit I have stayed on the sidelines with it.  I have yet to download Twhirl, so I can be distracted by everyone's tweets -- but I know I won't be able to hold out forever ("welcome to the brave new world," as my endless wormhole business partner likes to say).

Those who are actually using it, recognize its value, yet still find they are wasting copious amounts of time will appreciate the Penny Arcade post about Twitter.

When I start twittering more frequently, I hope I can keep it "tweetworthy."

As our economy is feeling the crush, companies are becoming more interested in how they can be marketing online. Not to say that interest is tied solely to the state of the economy, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Bottom line: Internet marketing is more cost effective.

Consider one aspect in Lehman's latest report predicting that the domestic online advertsing market will grow by over 23% before the end of this year, bringing it to just over $26 billion. The Internet may still be a child, but increases like this continue to demonstrate a shift in thinking.

If you told me you were considering spending $90k on a full page ad in the NY Times, I'd likely challenge you for the same price to consider an entire search visibility effort with a pay per click campaign in Google lasting no less than 6 months.

Hmmm, one-hit wonder (maybe) in a popular paper... or sustained search engine visibility with conversion metrics, business intelligence and residual benefits from an indexing and place of acquisition perspective.

Not that it has to be one or the other, but as companies continue to understand what's available to them in the context of shifting budget from some efforts to others - we will inevitably see more spending on a variety of old and new online initiatives.

The benefit is they get insight into the metrics of others who are also choosing to share. So if you are running Google Analytics on your "shopping site" you can now see how your web stats compare to other shopping sites. The degree of categorization is obviously still in the works - and the value of this benchmarking effort should only increase as you are able to compare your stats to sites that are closest to what you would consider competition.

How will this get better? As a search marketer, the granularity of comparison you would hope for would be at the keyword level. If the benchmarking tool would pull keywords from the titles and meta descriptions that corresponded with your own website, then benchmark other sites using the same or similar keywords, that would be sweet!

Chris Brogan brought up the question of what will convince businesses to delve in and experiment more with social media. The answer, simply, is results.

I'm seeing more businesses interested in pursuing social media as a marketing tactic, but they are at the same time eagerly grasping for the evidence needed to assist in turning their interest to action.

When you find something that makes sense for your business and can clearly present a case for moving forward with it, there is often very little convincing that needs to happen. At this point, however, I'd say there is still a lot of convincing going on.

An effective tactic? Maybe as much as any banner advertising. The pivot point upon which all other social media efforts rest? Far from it. James Clark had a good social media program post on Capture the Conversation today about the "marinade" needed to address the word of mouth (most effective) side of social media.

One of the more significant statements to me was in the opening of the podcast when one of the Chris's said the fragmentation of social media is starting to wear on people. Other than companies trying to catch the "video boat," businesses are really beginning to look for aggregation tools that leverage the many social media web applications and properties.

This couldn't be truer. And although more aggregation tools keep popping up, they are not keeping up with the formation rate of social networks and communities (whether they consist of 30 people or 300,000). Can they ever?

For social media marketers, this is good news. But it also brings on new challenges because staying on the bleeding edge of online marketing means you are the pioneer when it comes to determining which efforts are relevant and impactful to your client. 

You can keep up with what many of the experts are saying, but must ultimately take action yourself (and learn from it). We must also keep in mind that the fragmentation of social media certainly isn't limited to the tools. Afterall, it's really about the people. 

Now I am EATING MY WORDS. A few posts ago I mentioned the research related to 42% of A-list bloggers postiviely responding to an outside pitch incentivizing them to write about something (i.e. a pitch from a public relations or social media agency).

That topic, in and of itself, is a white paper waiting to happen - but an obvious consideration is the method by which an agency might effectively reach out to an influential blogger. I'm happy to say my social media agency now knows from experience that when email isn't working to reach out to influential people, twitter can be (and the results have translated into valuable and relevant coverage for our clients).

And forgive me if I'm just cluing into the obvious - but it took me a while to re-accept that some people I know prefer to communicate with others via texting simply because vital information can quickly be communicated without the expectation of a lengthy email or phone conversation as the receipt. 

If I'm receiving tons of email because of my influential prowess online, seems obvious I would embrace twitter.

illustration credit: Deborah Goss

I was reflecting on the term "social media," and how it was much more prevelant on the the Room 214 website last year. We made a choice to remove it because it didn't appear to be generating a great deal of interest from a search and conversational perspective.

Yesterday, I spent time adding it back in. As the fellas I met with this morning suggested, there was a gap between the use of the term social media vs. the desire of the marketing practice. Now I'm finding more companies are not only using the term - but asking (demanding might be more accurate) what they should be doing to execute. 

It's amazing how that statement instantly raises walls. People think of wars, persecution, hypocrisy, forced dogma, abuse, George Bush, YouTube clips of Jeremiah Wright, the list goes on. It isn't difficult to understand why. I know Christians who feel like they need to apologize on behalf of all Christians before revealing any of their personal beliefs... an oppression in and of itself if you think about it.  

Hearing "Jesus is the one" on this day was not the alter-call scenario you might imagine. It was instead coming from a real posture of humility. From a man who was saying "because I choose to be a Christ follower, that's really all I've got for you." Loving God and loving others is what it's about. Now you go get it for yourself.

He spoke about how he has only been able to hang on to about 20% of what he considered to be non-negotiable truth several years ago. His point was to say that there are times in each of our lives when whatever we might concede as a fact actually becomes a truth for us.  

Truth, whatever it may be for us, hopefully transcends beyond a compilation of facts we have somehow ordered to reach a conclusion. And those who may choose to believe in something without the evidence of things seen (faith), will still eventually need honest points of validation or adjustment based on their own experience.

I'm finding it more of a philosophical study from the point of a CEO who really believed he could run a multi-billion company employing a set of real human values that were at such the fore-front of everything the company did, that the SEC actually percieved the emphasis on the values as a potential threat to shareholders.

My new favorite concept from this book applies to the search marketing and social media business efforts in my own company, Room 214: "We try out it in practice, then see if it works in theory." 

As of today, we have been at war in Iraq for 5 years (some anniversary). We are watching the democratic party on the verge of implosion despite Barack Obama being perhaps the most transparent presidential candidate in history. The world is getting warmer (temperature that is). We are in a recession... and I'm having an easier time identifying with the likes of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert than I am the talking heads in the "real" media. 

To close on  a positive note: God is still in control. Most of my family and friends are healthy and happy. Business is good.