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Having recently passed the Google Adwords Professional exam to become a Qualified Individual in the Google Advertising Professionals program, I thought it would be constructive to sit down and create a short list of items I found helpful while preparing for and taking the exam. Obviously, being a multiple choice test, the usual test-taking tips apply (use process of elimination, go with your first impression, etc.), but here are a few ideas that you may or may not want to use in your Google Adwords exam preparation.

1) Use the Adwords Learning Center lessons and quizzes

Though it seems obvious, I cannot stress enough how helpful the Adwords Learning Center lessons and quizzes can be. I prefer the text lessons, though others may be partial to the video lessons. Also, I noticed that the exam frequently borrowed and reworded questions from the sample quizzes, making the practice quizzes a valuable asset as well. Either way, taking advantage of the learning center when studying for the exam can be tremendously helpful and should not be ignored.

2) Take a practice exam

There are plenty of practice exams floating around the web – do yourself a favor and track one down. The best thing you can do before taking the exam (other than studying, of course) is to get a feel for the wording and pressure of the 100+ question test. Taking a (free) practice exam gives you an idea of what to expect before actually sitting down to take the real exam.

3) Make smart use of your browser tabs

Google allows users to keep other windows and tabs open while taking the exam – use this to your advantage. Is there a specific section that you’re worried about? Open up a tab and visit the Adwords Learning Center lesson on that topic just in case you need to refer back to it during the test. Keeping the learning center and Google Adwords help page open during the test provides some optional support during the exam (though don’t spend too much time looking up answers – there is a 90-minute time limit).

4) Create a “cheat sheet”

While much of the exam is based on Adwords practices and techniques, there are a few questions on the exam that are strictly memorization. If you’re worried that you might forget the answers to these types of questions, make a “cheat sheet” comprised of a few particularly obscure subjects. Not everyone is blessed with the world’s best memory, so keeping a short list handy can help relieve the stress of having to remember that mobile ads contain 2 lines of ad text with a maximum of 12-18 characters on each line.

5) Know the Adwords interface

Finally, my primary piece of advice is to make yourself as familiar as possible with the Adwords interface. Several questions on the exam use this form: “If you wanted to perform/view X, you would visit the Y page in your Google Adwords account.” These questions can be tricky, so familiarizing yourself with the Adwords layout and sections is a big part of making a passing grade.

These are just a few techniques I picked up while studying for the exam, so if you have any other helpful suggestions be sure to let me know. Though the exam is difficult and sometimes confusing, it’s far from impossible. Several hours of studying combined with a firm grasp of the Adwords program should be more than enough to help you get through the exam with a passing 75%. And remember, if at first you don’t succeed, you can always take the exam a second (or third) time.

The news that the 200-foot wide asteroid dubbed DD45 2009 narrowly avoided a collision with the earth earlier this week got me thinking.

Sure, the economy sucks, the advertising and marketing job force is contracting at an alarming rate, my 401k is shrinking faster than a pair of silk undies laundered on hot, and my follicle-challenged pate now has way more salt than pepper in it. But, on the other hand, I didn’t have my molecules rearranged on Monday by a concussive force equivalent to a thousand atomic bombs. You can whine all you want about the current state of world affairs (and I’ll continue to contribute to the cacophony myself, to be sure) but you have to admit, we still have a lot to be thankful for. Sometimes it just takes a bolt out of the blue to remind us.

Advertising and PR firms are often the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to economic indicators. Because we work on the cutting edge of production and consumption, we often see, and are affected by, economic downturns and upturns earlier than more general service industries. So for all the folks who thought we were crazy talking about a downturn back in late 2007, oh well….

But now that we are all here, let’s talk about survival.

Surviving in a downturn means taking the same medicine as our clients – controlling costs, being fiscally responsible, and providing value for money.

The first responsibility is to stay solvent. If this means cutting agency travel, perks and even staff, then you just have to bite the bullet. Observing the impact of some recent agency bankruptcies provides well-managed companies a chance to capitalize on Koroberi’s history of fiscal responsibility, good credit and strong cash position – credentials and references that are of equal importance to good work. Nobody wants their trusted business partner to go under, and even less so to go under owing money already paid by the client in good faith.

But in addition to sound financial management, you’ve got to proactively provide clients with more for less. Don’t wait for the budget cuts, they are going to come. Instead, look at ways you can help your client succeed in spite of the budget pressures they face.

If you are able, offer to assist with client cash flow management through delayed or accrued billing.

Keep negotiating with publishers and other vendors for better deals and discounts, and pass these on to the client. Of course, you need to have great credit and a good paying history to get these discounts, which reinforces the need for sound fiscal management mentioned earlier.

Develop program and package bundles that allow you to pass on savings in return for longer term client commitments. We are all in the same boat, so be open about what you are doing and why. Publishers, media companies and printers intent on survival would all rather have some business at some price than no business at too high a price.

And finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There is nothing like sharing the bad times to build relationships.

With a little help from our friends, we can all survive to thrive another day.

We have established a Koroberi Twitter account to promote our brand on the web’s fast-growing social network. Follow us at @koroberi for our updates on B2B marketing, advertising, public relations, agency process and other things going in our world.

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We recently interviewed George Wright, VP of Marketing, and Kels Goodman, Video Producer, of Blendtec. They are the creators of the popular YouTube videos series, Will It Blend?, which has generated over 200 million views. They spoke to us about the inspiration for the series, the goals behind the campaign, the keys to social media, and how it relates to B2B marketing and corporate culture. They even gave a shout out to Koroberi. It is our video after all.

Watch the video here and share with your friends and colleagues. We have also posted this on YouTube so you can embed the video in your own blog if you want.

Lots of companies in the B2B space offer webinars about marketing, public relations and social media, among other topics. The purpose of these is two-fold. The first is to present useful information to participants who have signed up to learn about the topic. The second is to promote the company running the webinar. If the material is well presented and offers real insight into the topic, participants leave with a good feeling about the company. That’s a positive brand experience. But if you feel like you just wasted an hour out of your busy day, that does not reflect well on the presenting, or sponsoring, company.

I recently sat in on two webinars from two companies and had two very different experiences, mainly due to their incorporation of web conversational tools into the presentations. Based on these two examples, here is a list of five things to look for at the beginning of a webinar to determine if it is worth your time. If you are planning a webinar, keep these things in mind to provide a better experience to your customers and potential customers.

1. Provide Twitter address for questions and comments
If the webinar leaders do not announce a way to interact with the presenters during the seminar, this is a broadcast not a conversation. Twitter is the most common way to take questions during a live presentation. If you can’t ask questions, this will limit your involvement in the presentation. Sometimes presenters’ points need to be clarified, and if there’s no way to do that during the webinar, you are left shaking your head.

2. Hashtag to follow conversation on Twitter
A hashtag is a keyword or abbreviation placed anywhere in a tweet, or twitter message, that tags the message as part of a larger conversation. There may be an official hashtag for a webinar or event, or sometimes participants agree on hashtags as they go. This is one of the strongest benefits of an online presentation. Participants can connect and communicate about the topics being presented. It is also a great way to share information and knowledge that expands the presented information. By following the Twitter backchannel of a webinar, you can engage with new contacts who are also interested in the subject of the webinar. From the presenters’ side, it generates Twitter buzz as lots of people tweet the company’s name (if that’s the hashtag).

3. Contact information for presenters
Whether the webinar offers a means to ask live questions during the presentation or not, you need to be able to contact the presenters after the webinar. Questions might come up after the presentation and you will want to follow up. Again, there might have been a good point in the webinar, but if you can’t clarify the details, the point is not made.

4. Way to get presentations later
Just like you might want to contact the presenters after the webinar, you might also want to get a copy of their presentation. Slide Share is a common option for posting presentations. These presentations allow you to easily share ideas and concepts with colleagues and clients who were unable to participate in the webinar.

5. Video
And finally, more companies are using video to present their ideas. It is a much more engaging medium than audio. Sometimes it is just easier to follow a talk if you can see the speaker and watch their facial expressions. This is not a dealbreaker for a successful webinar, but as people get more comfortable with video, this will become a requirement.

Really breakthrough stuff in bringing the look and feel of Flash to the iPhone, although we all know iPhones don’t (and in the near future, won’t) support Flash. Read on…

So what if the Big Three go belly up!

Because before the Big Three, we had the Medium Thirty. And before the Medium Thirty, we had the Small Three Hundred. Carriage makers, engineers and engine builders with names like David Buick, Charles Nash, Louis Chevrolet, Walter Chrysler and, of course, Henry Ford. And while Flint, Michigan had become a center of horse-drawn carriage production, carriage builders existed all over this vast country, meeting demand with local production, made to order, just in time (even North Carolina’s own Corbitt Automobile Company figured in the mix for a period of time).

Fast forward from the early 1900′s to a century later. As local carriage makers moved, consolidated, merged and rebranded during the birth of the American auto industry, we eventually ended up with our current colossus of bloated, mismanaged, centralized and inefficient assembly centers, better known as the Big Three.

But perhaps this is exactly where we need to be. Perhaps we are actually at the right place, at the right time, with the right technologies, to encourage the type of turnaround the automobile industry, and the American public, is begging for.

Imagine that instead of dozens of huge assembly plants we have thousands of local assembly stations, about the size and shape of your favorite car dealer. Imagine an automated supply chain linking the internet to the second and third tier suppliers already in the business of making pretty much everything that goes into a car. Imagine placing an order for exactly the vehicle you need, customized from a menu of options, and then picking up that vehicle a few days later at your local assembly station/dealer. Think about where car manufacturing could actually be in 2009. Sure, we might have to compromise on some standard chassis dimensions, but no more than we already do today.

The failure of the big three could be one of the greatest economic boosters this economy has ever seen. North Carolina’s Research Triangle is already home to two of the nation’s most ardent champions of manufacturing reform. Geomagic’s Ping Fu has long championed the possibilities of mass customization using new technologies and production techniques. UNC’s John Kasarda not only developed North Carolina’s Global Transpark, but has provided a glimpse of what the future of manufacturing centers could look like. Under the guidance of visionaries like these, true distributed manufacturing on a just in time basis of locally assembled vehicles is a concept whose time could be just around the corner. While it would make too much sense to divert TARP bailout dollars from the casinos of Wall Street and our friendly bankers to fund early stage development, it would not take much to turn the corner sooner than later.

I’m ready to order my customized “Tarheel 3000″ Carolina blue convertible today, the hybrid edition with the special game day package. No need to deliver. I’ll drop by next week and pick it up myself. See you then.

According to a recent online survey of 400 senior marketing and media executives, two-thirds of them expect 2009 to be the year they embrace online video as an important part of their marketing strategies. Nearly three-quarters of those plan to use video to expand their brand awareness. And this trend will certainly be part of B2B marketing in the upcoming year.

Video is a more engaging medium than text on a screen, and as people become more comfortable with web video in their daily lives, this will flow through to the business arena. While there are several different approaches to generating video content for the web, companies will succeed when videos are created as part of a campaign with a clear goal in mind, and are developed within the context of the brand.

1. Develop your own videos
Cisco is a well known brand and a leader in the technology industry. As part of a product launch for the ASR 9000 router, they created a campaign around a bumbling tech reporter who is assigned to break the story of the new product. Even CEO John Chambers shows he can play along. The initial video was combined with a blog, facebook group, twitter account, youtube and a preview launch site to build awareness of the product launch. Read more about the success of the campaign and the importance of cross-promoting video content on Dianna Huff’s B2B Marcom blog.

Marketing software and service provider Hubspot created this video to explain what they can do for their clients. Again they cross-promote this, and other video content, through their blog, facebook, twitter and youtube.

2. Call for user-generated content
Software company iRise has a slew of informational corporate videos, product demos and customer testimonial videos on their website, but according to this blog post by Tom Humbarger, the company CMO wanted to host a user-generated video contest to build awareness for the company’s products and give its customers the opportunity to share their passion.

By offering a $15,000 first prize, the company generated 44 entries to the contest. This was the result of posting in over 100 online forums and groups for film and video makers. While he calls the campaign a success with over 16,000 visitors to the contest website, 57,000 page views, and more than 30,000 video views on YouTube, I would point back to the goals of the campaign. No videos were created by iRise customers, including the 3000 members of their user community, but only by creative types competing for a cash prize. And the winning entry is not even included in the video section of their web site. The announcement of the winner was on the company blog, and the contest site is still live for your perusal.

Since the creator of the contest no longer works at the company, we may never know how this user-generated contest affected the brand, but this is a good example of a B2B video contest.

3. Embrace existing user-generated content
And the final example of video marketing is to seek out and embrace video content that is being created. This example may be less relevant to B2B marketers, but people are passionate about their favorite brands and talk about them online. As video continues to be more widely used for online conversations, marketers and pr professionals need to be comfortable reaching out to video bloggers and be receptive when they reach out to them. Below is a video interview I did with Lynn Williams, Community Relations Representative of Mt Olive Pickle Company. I contacted her as a blogger interested in their New Year’s Eve event (a pickle drop) for my site NewYearsDrop.com
http://www.vimeo.com/2691396

So, in summary, video will be an important part of marketing in 2009, but like all components of a marketing campaign, it must be developed with a clear goal for success, be consistent with your brand, and be part of a larger promotional strategy. If you have other examples of B2B video, or any comments to add, please leave them below.