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.

Donate Today!

Donations for the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2009 have reached record proportions. According to CNN.com, the amount of money raised for Haiti in the first 48 hours of the disaster was greater than the amount brought in during a similar period after Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami disasters. What’s really amazing is that all of this is happening in the midst of challenging economic times.  

As of January 19th, the American Red Cross has raised the most money so far (1), and donations are still pouring in. Wendy Harman, the director of social media for the Red Cross, has stated that both Facebook and Twitter have played a key role in getting word out about how to make donations to Haiti relief. Nearly two-thirds of donations received by the American Red Cross have been online contributions (2).  

Within hours of the Haiti Crisis, the Red Cross announced that Haiti relief donations could also be made via text messaging “Haiti” to 90999 (these donations are charged back to the the phone user, via their phone network carrier, and shows up on their monthly bill). About 15-20% of the Red Cross donations have been made via text messaging. In fact, the amount raised so far (via text messaging) has surpassed the $4 million that was donated to all charities via mobile texts in ALL of 2009.  

Donations made via text messaging helps to resolve many of the online challenges that mobile phones users face today. Some of these advantages are:  

• No need to navigate through numerous web pages
• No need to enter billing information like addresses, credit card numbers
• No need to hold on the phone “for the next representative”
• No need to have a credit card (payment/billing processed by phone carrier)

Donations via text messaging is a quick and efficient way to donate money. Best of all, it makes it easy for many of those that want to help, but don’t have immediate access to a laptop or desktop computer. Basically it provides a great option for the growing mobile phone generation. 

There’s so much to be learned here as an online marketer. The donation options provided by the Red Cross clearly illustrate that it’s now possible to promote your cause, product or service via a simple Tweet or Facebook page. It also shows that you do not need to refer potential customers to your eCommerce oriented website in order to accept payments. This alone raises all kinds of new possibilities for online marketers.  

Hopefully at some point we’ll see data in terms of how users initially found out about the Red Cross text Messaging campaign. It looks like Twitter and Facebook were first used to promote the text messaging donation option and that it went viral on broadcast media and news outlets after that point. It would be extremely interesting to see just how important the Red Cross web site was in terms of promoting the text messaging option.  

This concept should be raising questions and ideas in terms of how your own business or organization is reaching out to prospective clients and customers. Are you using the most effective communication channels when promoting goods or services? Do you know what devices or platforms people prefer to use when they are searching for solutions? These are the types of questions that you should be asking in today’s social media world.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Although we now have greater opportunities to share information, the downside is that personal information is more likely to be seen by a wider audience, including potential employers and others that we never anticipated. In fact, the reality is that it’s almost impossible to prevent personal information from showing up, for the entire online world to see.

Personal Information That Is Visible Online
Are you curious about how much of your information is visible online? To find out, just do a quick search on Google using your name (in quotes) and a location. You may be surprised to see that not only does your name show up in the Google search results page, it’s likely that additional information such as your friends names, your home address, the year of your high school graduation, your personal email, and much more are there as well. What’s really amazing is to see just how much personal information there is online.

If you’ve registered on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or Classmates.com, you may find that much of the personal information provided has now been indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo. In fact you may discover that a lot of personal information is actually displayed in the search results page itself, whether or not someone has access to your password protected information.

How To Reduce Online Privacy Concerns
What can be done to prevent the display of private information online? Well, there’s no way to guarantee that you’ll be able to completely prevent this information from showing up online. But, there are some steps that you can take that should help reduce the amount of information that can be seen online. The following are a few suggestion to do so:

1. On a monthly basis, search the Internet for your name and location to see if there’s any information about you online. If it is information that you do not want there, contact the website and ask them how to remove this information.
2. Using the same search keywords, setup a Google Alert to notify you any time new information about you shows up in the Google search index.
3. Use one or two social sites (like Facebook or LinkeIn) as your primary source of online personal information. When you are asked for this same information on other social networking sites, try to create a link to the main profile sites so that your information is centralized and more easy to update.
4. Carefully read the Privacy Policy for each web site that you register on. Many will say something like “Privacy is our number one concern…” but then further down the page state something like “your information may appear in the results of searches conducted on Internet search engines.” If you don’t want this to happen, don’t create a profile on that site.
5. If you are using a social networking site like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., double check your privacy settings. Many sites allow you to hide your name, age, email address, etc. Some sites have defaults where all of this information is displayed unless you change the settings.
6. Be aware that any information you place online could be seen by anyone in the present OR in the future.

Although none of these steps are 100% guaranteed to work, if you follow these guidelines you should see results. Just remember that it could take a couple of month for many of these changes to take effect in the search engines.

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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