“[Social media] is giving us another way to help influence people’s propensity to search.”

Barbara Basney, Director, Global Advertising, Xerox
Wall Street Journal, 10/22/09

The Wall Street Journal reported today in an article, “Shift in Search-Ad Tactics Seeks More For Less,” a shift in thinking and strategy around search marketing for advertisers as they seek to capture a broader audience online with greater efficiency. The shift, which includes more relevant targeting and the integration of search and social media, is evident in the marketing strategy of three leading advertisers highlighted in the article.

For example, the WSJ reports telecom giant Sprint Nextel is prioritizing keywords based on where the consumer is in the purchase funnel, including tying to “phrases consumers tend to search for when they are close to making a purchase.”

Volkswagen, whose advertising in the few decades of my life has always seemed to capture the essence of the changing generations, is “driving” efficiency by coordinating the brand’s search marketing program with hundreds of dealers at a local level. They’re also using search and social to support the launch of their 2010 GTI hatchback, bringing mobile, Twitter and YouTube together with an innovative racing game for the iPhone and iTouch.

And lastly, Xerox, whose approach to social search is giving their brands new life online with social media campaigns, including a spoof video that generated more than a million hits. Combined with their visibility on other social forums, the buzz from that campaign “translated into a 65 percent surge in searches related to the brand and the subject of the campaign.”

The writer suggests the shift is likely to be more dramatic on the heels of the findings of recent research from GroupM Search, comScore and social media agency M80 revealing the interplay between search marketing and social media. (Whitepaper: “The Influenced: Social Media, Search, and the Interplay of Consumption and Consideration”)

Search marketing continues to prove its undisputed value, but as GroupM Search CEO Chris Copeland (Twitter: @SearchBoss) states in the article, “We can buy all the keywords we want, but for every advertiser that does that, there are at least five others that do the same thing.”

This broader view of the integration of the channels is just one strategy in giving brands a place to live online with relevant visibility. Yet, I sense it’s a strategy of the future that will become critical for advertisers in terms connecting with consumers and maintaining an efficient marketing ROI. With social search, brands become a natural part of the online conversation in forums where consumers are spending time, and can capture the activity that results from that exposure with strategic search execution that delivers greater efficiency.

To access the Wall Street Journal story directly, click here. (Story preview available only; full story available with subscription.)

You can access the full story for free with the help of Google News. Go to Google News and keyword search all or part of the headline (I suggest: “shift in search”). Click on the story from there which will bring you to the full version.