When you run a search marketing campaign, the questions is bound to arise at a point of time whether we should bid on our competitor brand keywords?

There is no correct answer for this question in reality. It’s legal that you can bid for a competitor brand keyword. So is it worth?  When you want to bid on your competitor brand keyword, just have these following thoughts in mind

•  What you offer is a relevant or an alternate to whatever your competitor has to offer.
•  Check the price & compare it to yours. If you have low price then you can bid for it.
•  When the competitor is targeting your brand keywords then boy don’t even think about it fight back aggressively.

Some situations you shouldn’t bid on your competitors brand keywords when,

• Your competitor price is lower than yours.
•  You are worried that your competitor will fight back by aggressive advertising on your brand keywords
•  You don’t want to take a chance.

Key points to remember when you bid for competitor brand keyword.

• Avoid keyword insertion in your ad messaging (not to use dynamic insertion).
• Don’t be disconcerted by small traffic volumes from competitors brand terms.

So, as you can see there is no definite yes or no answer to whether bidding on competitors brand keyword is a good or bad thing.  However, think about the points above and if you choose to begin bidding on competitors terms TEST the results and then analyze the data.

Contributed by Rajasekar Ragavan

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Online and Search marketing are even more important now to marketers in the current recessionary environment. It is more cost-effective and measurable than other media. Further, expectations from Search and Social Media Marketing are now much higher than before.

How to advertise effectively using Social Media networks?

Join Position2 in Effective Advertising via Social Networks, a panel discussion on Social Media and Video forum at the five-day Search Engine Strategies Conference from August 10 to 14, 2009. For the first time in 11 years, the Conference will include a full-day track Social Media and Video, where Position2, represented by Soumya Ravi, Director of Client Management, will share insights on Effective Advertising via Social Networks.

An expert on Social and Search Marketing, Soumya Ravi says, “Social Media acts as a catalyst that enables companies to shorten their marketing cycles. Today, online video and social media are experiencing significant growth compared to the past couple of years, from both the audience and engagement standpoints. The adoption of social networking capabilities, by both consumers and corporations, has seen online outperforming all other media in terms of growth. This has helped digital marketers achieve their goals faster and improve their ROI.”

At the Panel Discussion, Soumya will share her experiences and learning on using Social Media as an effective tool for advertising. The discussion will open with a keynote by Clay Shirky, a New Media expert and author of the book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Nate Elliott, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research will moderate the discussion. Other panelists, apart from Soumya Ravi, include Stacy Gratz, Social Media Marketing Manager, H&R Block, and Beth Murphy, Sr. Director of Marketing & Communications, Digg.

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Since the start of 2009, Position2 has accelerated on the momentum it gained in the second half of 2008. In the past week alone we have won four new clients, significant new business from current clients, hired new talent, and are on the cusp of deploying some cool new tools and processes to better serve our search and social media marketing clients .  All this despite the recessionary turmoil that surrounds us.

We’re happy, confident and know we already match and better the best in our industry. So, as a rapidly growing start-up we entered TiE50–a contest run by, TiE Silicon Valley, the founding chapter of one of the world’s most prominent networks of entrepreneurs. The winners will be announced at their annual convention, TiECon, May 15-16, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA. TiEcon is the largest entrepreneurial conference in the world, attracting thousands of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other professionals. TiEcon has a successful track record built over 16 years.

While we have the products, services, clients and growth trajectory to reasonably expect to be selected as one of the TiE50 companies, it’s the excitement, aptitude, capacity to learn and the rapid maturation of our young employees that holds the promise of a prize even more meaningful and rewarding for the longer term. That prize is a cohesive team of winners. If the TiE selection process included a step for the judges to witness this energy and how it is propelling our company forward, surely a spot in the TiE50 would be in the bag for us! As it stands, our growth spike, cool new processes and happy clients will have to win it for us.

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I was excited by the large turn-out at the Q&A session I hosted in Santa Clara at SMX West—the popular conference for online and search engine marketing experts.

Leading up to the SMX conference what weighed on my mind was the obvious—our collective anxiety about the recession and the ubiquitous pressure to do more with less. Focusing the Q&A on strategies and spending choices across PPC, SEO and Social Media Marketing must have struck a chord because we covered more questions in greater depth than I anticipated.

The savvy search marketers at SMX zeroed in on questions like “PPC advertising–Technology or Human Driven?” and “Social Media Marketing for brand reputation monitoring and brand healing?”. Folks wanted to hear about Ford’s Scott Monty smartly using social media to nip a PR nightmare in the bud. I went on to explain how a major travel firm used the social media group at Position2 to turn around negative sentiment from a promotion gone wrong.

In these tough times, every search/online marketing manager and CMO is ready to listen to innovative approaches. I’m glad the Q&A lifted attention from each company’s specific business challenges and the sometimes arcane technical aspects of a conference for experts. To view the full Q&A presentation visit

http://www.position2.com/toughtimes-toughquestions.html.

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