This spring, I had the opportunity to teach an undergraduate course at UGA on Digital Advertising. This blog post is the second of a series of posts on some of the topics covered in that course.I first started the conversation about Digital Advertising
here, and I have to admit - I meant to blog long before now, but here I am in August, trying to make up for it. So here goes!
First and foremost, it's important to know the different f of Digital Advertising, so that's what I'm going to cover today. Quite often, ad industry insiders disagree with how to separate the types, but this is my way.
- Online Display advertising are ads that appear on website - in the banners, on the side, in-between articles or posts, etc. They're especially popular on media-related websites (newspapers, tv stations, etc.) and blogs.
- Social Media - like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. - offer multiple ways to advertise. Most sell ad spots that allow for very specific targeting, and they have ways that you can set up a page or account for your business to talk to you audience on a regular basis.
- Search Engines, like Google, Yahoo, and others, are widely used and offer two ways for people to find your business. The first is through a search, and your company comes up organically in the findings. This is call SEO or Search Engine Optimization. SEO involves setting up your website in a way that makes it easily found. The second is through paid ads or sponsored links in search engines. This is called SEM or Search Engine Marketing. These are ads that you pay to have placed when certain keywords are typed in. Of course both SEO and SEM are a little more complicated, but that's the basic definition of what they entail.
- Video is an ever-popular and ever-growing area of the web. While many host videos on their own websites, sites dedicated to video, like YouTube and Vimeo, allow users to search and find videos on a wide variety of topics. I recommend posting videos in both places. Never underestimate the power of using web-based video for your business.
- Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) is all about what people are saying about you. eWOM comes in the form of online reviews, like with Yellow Pages, Amazon reviews or Yahoo, as well as people who talk about your brand on social media in their blogs and other places on the web. As Don Draper says, "If you don't like the conversation, change it." It's important to be aware of what others are saying about you so if there's a problem you can address it, and if they say good things you can thank them - even provide them with an unexpected gift or discount for a loyal customer.
- Mobile advertising - or advertising that appears on mobile devices - has a variety of forms of advertising for every type of business no matter your budget. Whether you advertise in an app, create your own app, send text or multi-media messages to your customers' phones or dream up a new innovative way to advertise on a mobile device, this form of advertising is growing by leaps and bounds.
That's the skinny on the different types of Digital Advertising. If you have questions or want to talk to me about creating a digital campaign for your business, drop me a line at
cindy@costa-creative.com 
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