Google+ : Follow The Links
In late June 2011, Google announced their latest plans for a social media network with the launch of Google + (also called “Google Plus”). Many are asking if Google has the ability to take on a social media giant like Facebook. We see the motivation behind this launch in a different light.
This is not Google’s first foray into the social media space. Their past efforts with “Buzz” and Google Wave were not successful, and one wonders why they continue trying. In fact, many so called “experts” are hinting that if Google fails in their social media efforts, it may mark the beginning of the end for Google. We just don’t see this happening.
The Online Goliaths
Google’s domination of search is well documented and they currently control about 65% of the search marketing space. Facebook, on the other hand, surpassed Google as the most visited website in the U.S. in early 2010, and has not looked back. In spite of this, Google still owns the “Search” world where most online conversions take place. Facebook, on the other hand, owns the “Friends” world, where fewer online transactions happen.
Recent revenue estimates indicate that with Search and Social combined, Google had over four times the projected revenues of the social networks; Facebook, Twitter and Groupon – combined. This alone makes one wonder why Google would be working so hard at capturing a share of the Social Media space. The return on investment for Google to capture 23% of the social media world seems like small potatoes for Google. It just doesn’t make sense for the “experts” to say that “overtaking Facebook” is Google’s primary objective here.
What is Google’s Motivation?
Google is likely looking at social media circles in order to keep up to date with conversations taking place in the Social Media world, and most likely so that they can continue to track conversations related to current topics, as well as maintain visibility into who the experts (influencers) are in the social media circles. Social media has become more and more about current topics, social influence and subject matter experts, and Google seems to understand this well.
How Does Google Measure Relevant Content?
Historically, Google has followed links and content in order to locate and measure the most relevant content and subjects discussed today. They also look at the credibility of links connecting to that content (Page Rank) in order to identify content experts and influencers.
How Social Media Has Impacted Google
In order for search to work, Google must be able to freely access all web content and links, including social media. Unfortunately, for Google, most social media sites have now implemented tighter security measures due to privacy concerns. These types of security measures ends up placing Google outside of the social media fortress, with no way to get inside and “crawl” the content, links and influencers. (Google has no ability to crawl a password protected web site without the permission of the site).
The Social Media Fortress
Without access to password protected social media sites, Google has been forced to reinvent itself and do one of two things: the first being to develop long lasting relationships with social media networks like Facebook (which they have had little success doing); or secondly, to create their own social media network and drive more traffic to it via Google applications.
Google’s Social Media Solution
Google has apparently decided to create their own social media network through with latest initiative, Google +. With Google+, Google has a social network that they can measure topic relevance and influencers in order identify links to the most socially relevant content online. For Google, this initiative seems to be more about improving their search algorithm, and less about the dominance of Social Media. We’ll see how this works for them in the weeks and months to follow.
Online Shopping Influencers
The topic of “Influencers” has been getting a lot of attention in the Social Media Marketing world. In fact, the marketing firm razorfish has apparently trademarked the term “Social Influence Marketing”, but that’s an entirely different story.
So What are Influencers?
We’ve always had Influencers around us. As toddlers, our parents influenced how we behaved and responded in different social situations. In our teens, we kept a close eye on what our friends were wearing. In essence, our friends would have influence on our clothing styles and brands. As we mature, our buying decisions are formed in many different ways.
When it comes to internet marketing though, Influencers of the virtual type have become an extremely powerful force because they can shape and influence the buying decisions of large numbers of consumers and customers online.
Who are the Online Shopping Influencers
A September 2009 study titled Web Shoppers Trust Customer Reviews Most from Ripple6 and the e-tailing group, found that online shoppers are influenced by both online social networking sites and face-to-face conversations with friends. Most importantly though, this study found that online shoppers put more trust into online product reviews from strangers, rather than the recommendations of their friends.
A December 2009 press release from comScore reports that 28 percent of holiday shoppers said that social media had influenced their holiday purchase decisions. Of the types of social media cited in this story, the most influential were consumer-generated product reviews (13 percent of respondents), followed by expert product reviews (11 percent). Only 6 percent were influenced by a friend’s Facebook status update that referred to a particular product.
Although Social Networking is still relatively new (ca. 2004), it’s becoming apparent that online Influencers are playing an important role in terms of how shopping decisions are made. This is one reason why today’s marketers need to pay closer attention to the discussions that take place online about their products or services.
Steps for Today’s Marketers
Influencers can shape both online and offline perceptions. Online though, Influencers have the most impact because they can impact the buying decisions of a larger audience. So, what can Online and Offline Marketers do to become more engaged with their online Influencers? You may want to start out with the following steps:
- Search for your product, brand or company name online with a Blog or Group search on Google or Bing. Search Twitter as well using their search feature. Try to find out what sites or platforms people are using when they mention or discuss your products.
- Start listening to the overall discussions about your product, brand or company. You may need to do this for a week or so until you become more familiar with the overall discussion.
- Try to locate anyone who frequently talks about your product and determine what type of influence they are having on the buying decisions made online.
If you find an Influencer who likes your products, you may want to reach out to them and simply say “Thanks”. If the Influencer is NOT a fan of your products, try to figure out if anything can be done to remedy the situation and take the appropriate action as soon as possible. Online issues left without a quick resolution could hurt sales because they may show up in the search engines for a very long time.
Conclusion
It’s a new day and age in online marketing and the steps above are only a starting point. Overall, you’ll need to learn how to engage with your Influencers and customers because they may have a significant impact on your sales and the overall perceptions about your brand or product.
Who’s Your Town Crier?
In earlier times the Town Crier was the primary source of news and information. They would ring a bell to catch everyone’s attention, read their proclamation or announcement, and then post it in a common area for all to see. Do you see any similarities today?
Good question… who are the Town Criers of today’s world of media and technology? Obviously newspapers, radio, and television still play an important role when it comes to keeping many of us informed. Thanks to the internet though, other forms of media have emerged which are providing us with more personalized sources for information.
This morning I attended a breakfast meeting for a local Social Networking group. The primary topic (as always) was the role that social media is playing in today’s online marketing world. One of the groups that presented was an online marketing group with a case study about a product called GoGirl, a “female urination device that allows women to pee while standing up”.
Now, I don’t want you to become too distracted by the thought of this, but GoGirl was definitely a product that caught my attention. What I found so interesting about GoGirl wasn’t so much the product itself, but mostly the presentation which gave social media much of the credit for their success. As it turns out, I think they missed a far more important communication link that played a huge role in the initial success of their product. This missing link is comparable to the modern day version of a Town Crier.
The Town Crier in this case was a local television reporter (Esme Murphy), who after hearing about this product, sent a tweet, ”wow, didn’t know we needed it. what do you think?”. Well, needless-to-say, she has many followers in Twitter and apparently because of the response to this tweet, she decided to run a story about this product on local news.
Not long after the story ran, news about the GoGirl product spread and it was quickly picked up by the national media. Before long, the GoGirl marketing team was making appearances on nationally broadcast talk shows where they introduced this product to even more people. What great PR for a product!
So the question begs to be asked, was more attention brought to this product through Social Media? Or, was it the “Town Crier” (in this case the reporter) who was able to reach out to people via a more mainstream media outlet.
When information about GoGirl was first broadcast on television, it reached a much wider audience than Twitter. Intially Twitter was basically used to gauge interest for this product. But word about this product really reached a more mainstream audience via the Town Crier on television.
Do you know who your primary Town Criers are in today’s world? It’s an important consideration and one that should not be looked upon too lightly. It’s wise to spend time trying to find out who the Town Criers are for your specific market and audience. If you reach out to them, they could become an invaluable advocate for your product or service through their networking channels.
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Tacos and Tweets – A Success Story
When it comes to internet marketing, not all businesses are created equally. An internet marketing strategy that works for one business, will likely not work for another. Unfortunately, most businesses aren’t able to think outside of the box when it comes an internet marketing strategy. They’ll assume that if the competition is doing one thing, they need to do the same in order to keep up.
This past weekend, CBS Sunday Morning, did a segment on the growth of street food vendors in Los Angeles. Many of these vendors operate out of a truck and sell mostly tacos or burritos. Street food vendors park their trucks (or carts) at different locations for only an hour or so at a time because many times they are prohibited from parking longer than this at each location.
Now I know what you’re asking at this point. You probably wondering what street vendors have to do with internet marketing?. Well, let’s look into their challenges a bit more to find out.
Let’s assume that you operate a business that is dependent on walk-up traffic, and your business is required (by city law) to change locations every hour or so. How would you generate enough walk-up business to support yourself? Well, historically, the best way do this would be to make sure that you are parked in an area where there are lots of customers that can generate sales for you in a very short period of time.
The challenge with this approach is that from a marketing perspective, a local business that needs to constantly change locations is going to be a challenge to promote. After all, you can’t advertise your address because it’s always changing. It’s also going to be difficult to capture a loyal customer base because they won’t always be able to find you in the same place at the same time. Lastly, you’re always going to bump into competition at the busiest locations.
So how would you promote this type of business in today’s online world? Well, thanks to Twitter we have our answer. In fact Twitter is responsible for creating a boom for street food vendors. Enter a truck food vendor by the name of Kogi. Kogi began business back in November of 2008 and has become a Twitter phenom (NPR Article).
There were several things that Kogi did differently that made them the business success that they are. One was to create branding around their truck with a logo, a clean look AND most importantly, a memorable company name. Next, and more importantly, they started announcing their truck locations and specials via Twitter. Now they were in a position to create a customer base that could find them wherever they were.
Needlesstosay, business is booming for Kogi and now several other street food vendors are following this example. Just check out this list (from 2009) of street food vendors around the country with their Twitter user names. It almost seems as if Twitter were made for this purpose. In retrospect though, this is a classic example of a business that decided NOT to run with the herd, and instead do something completely out-of-the box when it comes to internet marketing.
Searching or Socializing – A Survey from Nielsen
There is a lot of discussion taking place in terms of what methods consumers use in order to find products and services online. In fact there are so many different viewpoints it’s become more difficult for businesses or organizations to decide upon which direction to go next in their online marketing efforts.
Today I came across a rather interesting article/survey from The Nielsen Company (“Social Media: The Next Great Gateway for Content Discovery?“) which discusses the approaches that consumers are currently using to find information online. Basically it highlights much of what we’ve talked about in our blog about Online Consumer Behavior and how consumers find information based on their habits and behaviors when it comes to doing online research.
This survey shows that over 71% of online users look for information by using either a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.), or by browsing via a portal like Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc. Currently only 4% use a Social Network like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc., to get more information.
The interesting aspect of this survey is that it highlights the fact that many people feel overwhelmed by the amount of information they see online, so much so that they many turn to their online friends for suggestions and information. This survey asked three groups of people for feedback on the following statement, “There is too much information Online”. 26% of people who identified themselves as “Socializers” found this statement to be true. Only 5% of people identified as “Searchers” found this to be true.
This begs the question that – as an online business/organization – do you know which approach your customers / clients use in order to find information about your products or services online? Are they using a Social Network to ask friends, or are they finding you and your products via Search or a Portal? The answer to this question should have a direct impact on where you focus your online marketing energies.
When you create an online marketing strategy, one of the first steps you should take is research in order to understand the online behavior and habits of your clients/customers. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be in a much better position to reach out to your future customers and clients via the most appropriate online marketing channel or channels.
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