For example, this past weekend the first TEDx conference (a localized version of the famous international TED gatherings) for our local area (the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina) made use of the hash tag #TEDxRTP to aggregate tweets from conference participants. Though I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, I could still follow the highlights through a Tweetdeck column built around the conference hash tag. In addition to as-it-happens impressions, these conference and event hash tag lists usually contain a treasure trove of valuable links to conference- and speaker-related sites and resources.

In fact, a conference Twitter stream may be so valuable that you’d like to save it and be able to refer back to it later. Google Reader, Google’s RSS feed reader that’s oh so much more, makes it very easy to do just that. Here’s how (prerequisite: a Google account that you’re logged in to:

1. Go to search.twitter.com and search for the hash tag associated with the event you want to archive.
2. The results page for any Twitter search is automatically an RSS feed. Right-click and copy the feed link.
3. (Alternative, but recommended: Go to TwapperKeeper and create an archive for your hashtag. Advantage: the TwapperKeeper feed will pull all of the tagged tweets into Reader, whereas the direct RSS from the Twitter search will only pull in about 25-30 of the most recent Tweets. Once the TwapperKeeper archive is generated, right click on the RSS Feed link and copy its URL.)
4. Go to Google Reader and click the “Add a subscription” button at the upper left.
5. Paste the feed URL you copied in step 2 (or 3) into the Add box and click “Add.”

You now have a complete archive of the Twitter stream for your conference hash tag. Even better, Reader will automatically update this archive with any new tweets using the hash tag…forever!

Now that you’ve captured and archived that feed, you can put the power of Google Reader to work for you. Use the “Add Tags” link at the bottom of each post (i.e., tweet) and label the most valuable so you can easily find them later. For example, you might want to tag tweets from people or companies you want to pitch later as “prospects.”

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What is Buzz? In brief, it is a Google-developed social web platform that is tightly integrated with other Google products (such as Reader and Picassa, but primarily Gmail). It’s main features:

• Integrated into your Gmail inbox. Appears in a folder there, and posts with which you interact show up as inbox messages.
• Unlimited length posts and comments.
• Comments stay in threads with original posts.
• Ability to share either publicly or privately.
• Easily incorporates media (photos and videos) right into your posts.
• Can auto-incorporate feeds from Twitter, YouTube, Reader, Picasa (several others, more to come)
• Uses intelligent algorithms to bring what you’re most likely to be interested in to the top of your feed.
• Posts from friends update in real time. No refreshing needed.

If you are a business owner trying to promote your business on the web, you’ve probably by now incorporated at least some social media outlets into your mix. Maybe you’ve got a Twitter account and a Facebook Fan Page. Now Google, the 50,000 ton elephant drops Buzz, it’s 10,000 pound gorilla, into your social media jungle. Do you need to engage?

There are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t: Buzz is not the most intuitive of networks (although far easier to pick up than Google Wave). It moves really, really fast, and thus can be a time suck. At the present, it’s user base is minuscule compared to Twitter or Facebook, and limited to Gmail users (or those with at least Google Profiles, on the mobile version).

But why should you have a presence on Buzz? I think there are at least several good reasons:

• It is not only “the next big thing,” it is the Next Big Thing Backed By Google. I’m aware that Google has allowed a few of its past experiments to die on the vine (Hello Orkut? Paging Sidewiki), but every indication I’ve seen is that Google is committed to Buzz. The “Buzz Team” at Google (Follow on Buzz: http://www.google.com/profiles/googlebuzz#buzz) is active on Buzz, interacting with user complaints and suggestions, and providing tweaks and improvements almost daily.
• Because it’s Google-backed, I’ve got to believe that your posts on Buzz will eventually rank high in Google search, and also provide Google juice back through your links.
• It’s early-adopter user base, though still small compared to Twitter or Facebook, is enthusiastic and growing rapidly. People who stay with Buzz tend to be people who really like it, and who use it actively. They will quickly follow anyone who seems to be adding value to the conversations there.
• Buzz facilitates a much higher level of engagement with followers than is possible on Twitter. Comments stay in a thread with the original post, which encourages back and forth conversation. Once someone comments, future comments put the post back in their inbox, encouraging ongoing engagement.

Some tips, should you decide to engage on Buzz. As with any social web medium, the following should not be taken as hard and fast rules. Rather they are some suggested guidelines based on my own experience and observation as an active user from Day One of Buzz’s existence.

1. Buzzers value and expect engagement/conversation. There may come a time when broadcasting your posts may be more accepted, but right now the people who are most active on Buzz are there because they see it as primarily a conversational medium. They will follow anyone who is seen as making valuable contributions to the conversations.
2. In keeping with #1, I make it my practice to immediately comment on some post of anyone I decide to follow. I find some post in their stream, any post I think I can engage, and leave a constructive comment. Because of the instant inbox feature of Buzz, they are likely to have seen your comment (and name) before they see the notification of your follow. This may make them more likely to follow you back.
3. Sign up with a personal, not a business-named account. Buzzers are very sensitive to even the appearance of spam. They realize that Buzz is virgin territory, and they want to protect their virtuous lady from the ravages that have happened on Twitter and Facebook. Unless you already have a very well-recognized corporate name on the social web (e.g., Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch), Buzzers will treat your non-human-named account with suspicion. (TIP: the name that will show on Buzz is the name you put in the Google Profile associated with the Gmail account you use to access Buzz.)
4. Then what about branding? At least for now, your branding value on Buzz will come in through the back door, as it were. As you are seen as a “real” person who interacts well with other’s posts, followers will pay more attention to your own posts (which will come from your corporate blogs, articles, etc.), and also take note of your company’s brand in your Profile. This is the way it should be on the social web, however. Company recognition and credibility are the rewards of real social engagement.
5. Build a detailed and complete Google Profile page. Log in to your Google Profile page with the Gmail account with which you are accessing Buzz, and fill it out as thoroughly as you can. This is your chance to do the branding for your company. The Profile is where many Buzzers look to decide whether they are going to follow you or not; it is your credibility establisher. Be sure to link all your company’s web presence locations. For added credibility, have Google tag your Profile as a “verified name.”
6. Turn off the Twitter and Friendfeed connections into Buzz if you’re a prolific poster on either of those services. Buzz followers tend to see anyone feeding a lot of tweets into Buzz as a noise generator. Buzzers seem to be more sensitive to noise than people on Twitter or Facebook. Also, try to keep a balance between “shares” (stuff you find around the web that you share into Buzz, usually through Reader) and original posts in Buzz. When people look at your Profile, they will scan the last five or six buzzes. If they are all tweets or shares, they will be unlikely to follow, seeing you as a broadcaster, not an engager.

Follow me on Google Buzz

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Brief intro to Buzz: (skip this paragraph if you’re already Buzz-savvy). Buzz is Google’s latest foray into the social web. It’s most unique twist is that it is integrated into the Gmail inbox of anyone with a Gmail account. Gmail users were automatically “subscribed” to their contacts with whom they most interact. That practice proved controversial (there were concerns that it exposed one’s contacts to the world without permission), so Google has made it easier to moderate one’s followers, and future users will be asked first whether or not they want to have contacts auto-subscribed. Like Friendfeed, posts on Buzz are not limited to 140 characters, and media can be easily incorporated into a post. Followers can comment on any post, and the comments are kept in a thread with the post. In a feature that delights some and annoys others, comments or replies to posts you created or interacted with appear in your Gmail inbox.

Incorporating Buzz into social web flow. Operators of various social web outlets have realized that very few people will limit themselves to participation in just one outlet. Moreover, people like to flow their posts and shares between multiple portals. Buzz was designed out of the box to facilitate that, albeit in a (for now) limited fashion. At present, you can connect up to nine sites to Buzz, including Google Reader, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. Posts from the sites you choose for connection automatically flow into Buzz. (In the case of Reader, only “shared” content auto-posts to Buzz.) For now, there is no automatic outflow (Buzz to other outlets) built into Buzz, but Google promises that is coming, along with more sites that will have auto connections in.

Eventually anyone who wants their content to show on more than one social web outlet has to decide on how to flow that content. (Unless one chooses to hand copy and paste to each outlet, which would be cumbersome.) There are some solutions (such as ping.fm) that broadcast a user’s post to all her outlets at once. I find this approach too broadly cast; I still want the option to decide how far down my social web pipeline my posts go. So I opt for the other alternative: building an automatic (but controllable) flow that goes from one outlet to the next.

Each person has to decide his own direction of flow, but it is good to have some rationale for why you flow the way you do. After some thought, I decided to make Buzz my new social web “hub” (the place I’ll usually post first), and let Buzz posts flow down to Twitter, and then (selectively) to Facebook. Here’s my rationale:

• After sorting out my friends and followers on Buzz, I realized it is the most worthwhile place for me to post content I find on the web that I think will be interesting or useful to others. Also, I’ve found that Buzz has attracted many of the same tech & web gurus I enjoyed following on Friendfeed (such as Robert Scoble and Leo LaPorte), and that they are very active and engaging on Buzz. Finally, Buzz links directly with my Google Profile, which I have adopted as my web “business card.”
• Although I still occasionally have conversations with friends on Twitter (about as much fun as an iPhone dropping calls), I see it now mostly as a broadcast medium, a place to aggregate and post links to my content elsewhere. In reality, although I called Buzz my hub above, Buzz is really my root, and Twitter will become more and more like an flight travel hub, the airport my stuff passes through on its way to somewhere else.
• Facebook is most truly about friends, the people I’m most likely to know in “real life.” And my mom is there. And my kids. You get the picture. I want to be active on Facebook, but I won’t want everything I share on the web to appear there. So I want the ability to feed content to Facebook, but also limit so that everything doesn’t go there. By the way, I still do and always will visit Facebook on its own because it is the most truly “social” of my social web stops. (UPDATE: Louis Gray of ProBlogger has an interesting post on why he has decided to defriend all but “real” friends on Facebook and use his Fan Pages for relationships with people who want to follow him because of his professional work.)

Building the flow. Once you’ve determined the best direction of your flow, the next step is to build the pipelines that will allow the flow to, well, flow. Here were my steps:

Buzz to Twitter: This was the trickiest, as Buzz does not yet include any built in way to feed your Buzzes to Twitter. There are several hacks out there already that will accomplish that; this is the one I ended up using:

1. Go to http://reader2twitter.appspot.com/buzz
2. Connect it to your Twitter account using OAuth
3. You will be redirected to reader2’s Google Reader synch page. Ignore it and go to http://reader2twitter.appspot.com/buzz
3. Add your Google Profile Number ID (find it here – click “More options” at bottom of page)
4. Make sure “Sync” is On and hit Submit

UPDATE: An alternative to the above is buzzcantweet.com, which seems to work better for some, and also has some cool options to control what goes from Buzz to Twitter.

Now, native updates you make from Buzz, and not those pulled in by 3rd party services, will be sent in near real-time, powered by Pubsubhubbub, to Twitter. Important! If you do this, make sure you disconnect Twitter from Buzz (in the “X connected sites” link at the top of your Buzz stream). Otherwise you will set up an endlessly-echoing loop between the two that will eventually destroy the universe. (UPDATE: It appears that Pubsubhubbub only passes to Twitter posts that you originate on Buzz. So far none of my shares from Google Reader have gone through to Twitter.)

Twitter to Facebook. There’s a feature built in to Facebook that allows you to connect your Twitter account to Facebook. I chose not to use that, as I didn’t want all of my Twitter posts going into Facebook. Instead, I used the Selective Tweets app on Facebook. Selective Tweets grabs only tweets you tag with #fb and posts them as your Facebook status.

Now my flow pipeline is complete, and I can sit at Buzz as my control panel to decide how far down the pipeline any Buzz post goes. As I said earlier, I want Twitter to aggregate all my posting and sharing, so I let that flow run free. If I want the post to flow on down from there to Facebook, I just add #fb to the end of it when posting at Buzz.

What’s your flow? Do you mediate the flow at all as I do, or just let ‘er run?

UPDATE: I could have added Google Reader in to the mix, as a frequent front end in front of Buzz. I have the “Note in Reader” bookmarklet in my browser toolbar. Clicking that on any site I want to share (with the “share” option checked) not only posts it to my Reader shares, but now makes it a Buzz post as well.

Share in Google Reader/Buzz

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Most everyone agrees that automatic feed systems such as RSS (Wikipedia) were a great leap forward in the history of the World Wide Web. RSS allows web users to “subscribe” to any blog or website that implements the code. When combined with a feed reader (such as Google Reader), the user can follow the latest updates to her favorite sites.

The problem with feed readers, though, is that most people rarely use them. I have dozens of sites I follow in my Google Reader, but I only go there occasionally. I think there are two reasons for this behavior (lack of behavior?):

1. To use the reader I have to go to it. One more place to remember to go on the web, precisely what I was trying to eliminate by using a reader in the first place (having to remember to visit my favorite sites).
2. The number of entries unread becomes quickly overwhelming. By the time I remember to fire up my reader, I’m tempted to click “mark all as read” and start over.

But what if you could accomplish the same purpose through a web site you already use every day?

Consider Facebook as the ultimate news reader.

• It’s the web site you already visit every day.
• It updates in real time.
• Nearly all major news sources have Facebook Pages.

I already realized that I often found out about breaking stories–whether in world news, technology, sports, etc.–through Facebook updates from Pages of news sources of which I am a “Fan.” The problem is that it’s easy to miss important stories if you have a lot of “friends” and therefore a lively Live Feed. The key to an effective news reader is the ability to pull all the sources you most want to see into one stream. And Facebook has long had the tool to do just that: custom lists.

Here’s how to create news feed lists in your Facebook feed:

1. Subscribe to the Facebook pages of Internet news sources you want to follow. Most such sources now have Pages that are regularly updated with breaking stories. Examples include the New York Times, CNN, USA Today, ESPN, Mashable (social web news)…literally thousands of possibilities. Most will have a link to their Facebook Page on their web site, or you can search for them on Facebook itself. You subscribe by clicking the “Become a Fan” button at the top of the Fan Page.
2. Click on “Account” to the upper right, and select “Edit Friends.”
3. Click the “Create New List” button at the top of your friends list.
4. Enter a name for your new feed. This might be as simple as “News,” or more specific if you are going to create several genre feeds (“News,” “Sports,” “Tech” for example).
5. Now select the Pages you want to follow in that feed, and click “Create List.”

Now back in your main Facebook page, you’ll find any of these custom lists you created under the “Friends” link in the left-hand column.

Last Friday Facebook rolled out a new feature that by default includes a link back to the original poster of shared items.

Facebook Share Via Feature

The link appears as “via [Facebook name of original poster]” (as in “via Mashable” in illustration above). The link may be removed by the sharer using the “Remove” link next to the share via information. When posted with the “via” left in place, the name of the original poster becomes a clickable link back to that poster’s profile or Page. For now share via works only with posted items (such as web page links, photos, videos, etc.), not with status updates.

This new feature greatly magnifies the value of posting media and web page links if you are using Facebook Pages to market your company or service. Your fans who share that material are no longer “stealing” it (even though that was almost always unintentional in the past). When their friends see the shared item in their newsfeed, if it grabs their interest they can now go directly back to you to get more of the same.

Start sharing!

Enter split testing, or A/B testing as it is also known. Always write at least two ads for any ad group and run them concurrently. (HINT: for valid testing, you will need to set ads to run evenly in AdWords or turn off Optimize Ad Delivery in Yahoo [campaign settings in either case].) Let the ads run for a while, then check their stats. When you think you have a clear winner, deactivate the loser and write a new test ad. Usually split testing works best if you test minor variations (i.e., just change one thing at a time from the original ad), but the more subtle the change, the more impressions you should amass before declaring a winner.

But here’s the rub: How can you be sure you have statistically valid results for a test? And furthermore, what metrics should be taken into consideration for evaluating a test?

As for the first question, there is no hard rule for how many impressions or clicks you need for a valid test. Obviously, the more of each, the more valid the test. Fortunately, there are tools like Split Tester (http://splittester.com/) that can tell you to what degree of certainty you can predict a winner given a low number of impressions.

The answer to the second question (test validity) depends on the intended outcome of the ad. If you are just looking for traffic to your page, then Click-Through Rate (CTR) may be enough, and Split Tester linked above will be all you need. If, however, your ad links to an ecommerce page where you hope to make a sale, CTR is probably not enough, and may actually be misleading. What really matters to you is conversions, and beyond that profits. Which ad results in the most profit is the real question you should be asking. Add to this the fact that it is not uncommon to see one ad in a test have a higher CTR but the other ad a higher conversion rate, and you know you need to be evaluating more than CTR.

Super Split Tester to the rescue! (http://www.supersplittester.com/) Super Split Tester goes beyond Split Tester. Instead of just entering CTR, Super Split Tester asks you for CTR plus approximate value per sale (of the product being advertised), conversion rate, impressions, and the AdWords cost for the ad. Using all these metrics, Super Split Tester calculates which of the two ads has generated the most actual profit. The resulting winner will not always be the ad you might have picked from just looking at the raw analytics data.

If you’re interested in the calculations on which Super Split Tester’s results are based, this video explains all:

Paid search has proven to be one of the highest return-on-investment (ROI) channels both online and offline. Why? Relevancy. Search engines have become the new Yellow Pages where users go to find products and services. Because an advertiser is bidding on relevant keywords to their business (such as a car dealership bidding on their ad to show whenever a user types in “used car” in their area), they are able to get in front of a user who is actively searching for information on that topic. Because of this, paid search is generally referred to as a “pull” medium as users trigger these ad exposures by searching on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Most other advertising such as banners, television, radio, newspapers, etc. is referred to as “push” media.

So here are the top five things I’ve learned from experience, but wish I’d known from Day One:

1. Focus on Quality Score improvement. Like the old saw about what’s crucial in real estate (“location, location, and location”), forming the habit of doing those things that make Google happy and desirous of rewarding you from the beginning makes sense. The reward? Better ad positioning at lower cost-per-click bids. Each of your keywords is assigned a Quality Score  (QS, presently a 1-10 scale) by Google that indicates their judgment of the “relevancy” of your keyword-ad-landing page combination to potential searchers. The higher the QS, the lower your max CPC bid can be to get better ad positions and consequently more clicks. QS is a complex and somewhat mysterious formula, but to keep things simple, the best thing you can do to improve QS is form ad groups with highly targeted keywords; write ads that clearly express the intention of the group’s keywords; and point those ads at well-formed, easy-to-navigate, and relevant landing pages.
2. Organize your campaigns. Before launching an account, think through carefully how you form campaigns and the ad groups in each campaign. Think in terms of both your major goals for your AdWords advertising and the likely desires and intentions of potential customers.
3. Keep ad groups tight and focused. Every ad group should be built around a relatively small group of keywords that are highly relevant to the ad(s) associated with the group. As mentioned above, this will contribute to higher Quality Scores for your keywords. As you gain data, don’t be afraid to split off keywords into their own groups for further refined targeting.
4. Always have test ads competing with each other. No matter how smart and intuitive you are, you can never be sure what wording in an ad might click with searchers or sometimes even why. Therefore you should always be running at least two ads in every ad group, and adjust the campaign’s settings so ads run evenly (rather than the default ad optimization). Revisit your ad groups on a regular basis. When a particular ad is clearly a winner over the other, pause the “loser” and write a new variation of the winner to test. Never stop doing this. Split Tester is a useful and simple tool for helping you decide a winner in your ad testing.
5. Use broad match keywords sparingly. As a beginner, it is tempting to use lots of broad matches, as they definitely cause more impressions and more raw clicks. However, those clicks can come at great expense, as broad match tends to bring in many irrelevant clickers (those not truly searching for the intended target of your ad) at low CTR (click through ratio), which means money thrown away. In most cases, I use broad match keywords as “research bait.” Using Google’s Search Query Report over time I can see what people are actually searching for and clicking. With that data, I can create more targeted phrase and/or exact match keywords. I can also find good negative keywords that will keep my ads from showing for people who aren’t really looking for what I have to offer.

To install, in Firefox go to the KGen Add-on Page and download. After installing and restarting Firefox, to use KGen first browse to a page you want to analyze, then select Sidebar > KGen: Keyword generator from Firefox’s “View” menu. The Word List tab shows the keywords with the rankings described above. There is also a Cloud view for a quick graphic representation of the relative strength of the various keywords found. In the Word List view, selected keywords can be copied to your computer’s clipboard to paste and use elsewhere.

While the lack of analysis for phrase keywords limits the tool’s usefulness, particularly for PPC, I found that useful combinations still suggested themselves by glancing from the top ranked keywords to the actual text of the page under analysis. For SEO purposes, right-clicking on any keyword will open a browser tab suggesting common misspellings and lettter-omissions and -substitutions for the word.

If you’ve got some experience managing cost-per-click (Google’s term for pay-per-click) advertising using Google AdWords, you surely by now realize the high importance of optimizing for Quality Score. Either that, or you enjoy throwing away your or your clients’ money.

According to Google, Quality Score (QS) is “the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword’s click through rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page.” Those last three elements that I’ve bolded are under your control, and thus ought to be high on your priority list of what you tweak on a daily basis in your accounts. Why? Because higher QS = lower cpc and better ad position = better ROI for you or your client.

I’ve recently observed, though, that just watching the QS score number on your keywords can lead to unnecessary frustration. You may be diligently putting into practice those things which should result in a higher QS*, yet not see a higher QS number for some of the related keywords. I’ve noticed recently, however, that in many cases it appears that Google is indeed giving you a boost reward in such cases even though they did not increase the QS number. In quite a few cases, after QS optimization, I’ve seen ad position rise (at the same bid level) and/or CPC go down, while the QS remained the same. Another indicator I’ve observed of post-optimization bump is a sharp drop in minimum first page bid for a highly competitive keyword.

So why didn’t the QS go up in these cases? I believe that part of the reason is that QS is a 10 point scale. It’s possible that you could be getting real credit from Google for optimization that isn’t quite big enough yet to bump you all the way up to the next whole QS point. I suspect that if QS were expressed to one decimal point, you might in such cases see something like QS going from, say, 5.2 to 5.4.

The lesson in this is if you put a good amount of effort into making a relevance flow from keyword to ad to landing page, don’t write off your efforts if you see no consequent increase of QS over the next several days. Be patient and wait for data to accumulate. Did the associated ad start to rise up the page at the same bid level? Has the CPC of the keyword been trending downward for the same or increased number of clicks? If yes, then it is likely that you got your reward, even if the QS number doesn’t immediately show it.

*The linked post is a bit out of date (was posted when Google QS was “poor – good – great” instead of 1-10), but most of the tips are still relevant.