Tag: Google+

Just Facebook and Nothing Else?

Facebook on iphone

 

In the distant future … like 18 months from now … we may look back fondly on this year as the time when we went to places on the internet other than Facebook.

We may also get a sense of nostalgia about other apps on our phones that are not Facebook or owned by Facebook.

Will we need anything else? Maybe not. And perhaps we’re already closer than you may think to a Just Facebook world:

Facebook Entity:                                           What It’s Replaced / Replacing:

Facebook Messenger                                  Texting

Facebook’s What’s App                              Texting

Facebook Ads                                                   Advertising anywhere else

Facebook’s Instagram                                 Snapchat

Facebook’s Workplace                                Slack, Instant Messaging, Your intranet

Facebook Marketplace                                eBay

Facebook Live                                                   Periscope, YouTube

and most importantly:

Posts from your Business Page                Website for your brand

Posts from your Locations’ Pages             All web pages for your entire organization

 

Website? What’s a Website?

If you serve up the right content to your customers in their own Facebook newsfeed, the need for them to click through to your website is minimized.

Are you trying to build traffic to your website or traffic into your business? Too many marketers have focused on web traffic for the sake of web traffic and sidestepped the obvious need to also make the cash register ring.

Some people will still click through to your site or landing page to confirm, but that’s fine. They are going to call / order / stop in / purchase anyway, so let them do so in the manner which makes them most comfortable.

 

The One Page That Will Still Matter: Google SERP

A similar argument may be made to grab those potential customers who search for the services you offer. If your phone number, hours, food menu, and map to your storefront are all on the Google search engine results page, do they really need to go to your website?
 
I’m not at all suggesting that you pull the plug on your website or ignore the need to keep it relevant. I suggest the opposite; good, fresh content on your site is more essential than ever to ensure that you show up on Google in the first place and have a full online experience for those who want more than Just Facebook.

 

 

 

The 2016 Model of Google +

GooglePlus-logos-02

 

Like an aging car model, Google+ has a fresh new look for the coming new year.

I was a huge proponent of G+ for many years. Since its inception, I have told countless peers, friends, clients, and all marketers that they must get on Google+ now, share your brand’s content, and engage! 

With the new model of Google+, I can tell you now that I’m not so sure how to tell a brand’s story there. And, the chances of engaging with customers are nearly nonexistent.

Of course, there’s still an important SEO factor. But this will be replaced by search results showing consumers your Google My Business page, Google Places page, and your brand’s website. (Until 2017 when we make all websites irrelevant and just drive people to your Facebook page. But I digress…)

Through the lens of content sharing and engaging, Google has succeeded in taking the social out of social media marketing. There’s just no one engaging. And most of all, I don’t see a path for marketers to pull in new fans and customers to G+ pages and compel them to “follow” the pages, when the pages are now harder than even to find. 

 

Recommendations for using G+

I recommend not spending much time or many resources on Google+. However, sometimes when everyone else is going another way on social media, it just might be worth hedging a bit and trying one more time, perhaps from another angle.

So if you’re marketer who’s not yet ready to give up on Google+, or if you’re true Social Geek and want to check out Google+ again, here are a few recommendations and tips:

G+ Tip: Use the mobile version only

It’s mobile or nothing. Maybe you’ll want to use the desktop version to set some things set up but then walk away.  There are just too many areas to make the desktop version usable by anyone. People? Well, business pages are here too. Pages? My business? All of the confusing navigation from the desktop version is missing in the mobile version – and I’m glad!

In the mobile version, there are only 3 areas:

1. Home – feed of updates from your friends and brands you follow (just like Facebook, and just like the “old” Google+).

2. Communities – like a more visual Facebook or LinkedIn Group.

G+ Tip: By sharing things here, we can reach and engage with people without “friending” them and letting them into our personal lives (what many are hesitant to do on Facebook).

3. Collections – like Pinterest or Instagram; you’re sharing images of your favorite things.

G+ Tip: When you add a post to Communities or Collections, it also adds to your timeline with an indicator that it’s also part of the other group. No need to add twice!

G+ Tip: share photos and text from the mobile version, try to avoid sharing links for now. An early glitch shows that when saving a link to a blog post, the photo I chose to be the thumbnail does not appear in the mobile version of the same post.

 

For further discussion on the new Google+, please check out this week’s Social Geek Radio podcast!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Twitter a Place to Engage Anymore?

Twitter woman

Search or Social?

Google’s inclusion of Twitter in search results continues to expand. Last week Tweets began appearing in the Google search results for desktop users in the UK.

The reality is that Twitter is already primarily a search engine. It searches a massive link library that also happens to be called Twitter. This library now also holds images and videos. Faster access to this library will eventually be available to everyone via Google.

This will lead to an increase of importance of your Tweets, and a decrease in the need to ever go to Twitter.

 

tweetsearchshot copy

 

 

Social Engagement (or Lack of…)

What about engagement with your loyal followers? And those who you follow? Let’s face it – no one is really following those they follow. People and brands pay attention to mentions of their own name or brand.

Outside self-monitoring, content on Twitter is only consumed when a user runs a search, either by using the search box or clicking on a hashtag. Tweets will soon be consumed mostly by those who are no longer even on Twitter, but Google instead.

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Who you follow: does not matter at all

Who follows you: does not matter at all

Your Tweets being seen in search results: ALL THAT MATTERS

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There is something genuine and sensible about this. It doesn’t matter how many followers you acquire. If you don’t post anything of interest, no one will see it! If your brand is not Tweeting a constant cadence of quality content, you’re going to miss out on opportunities to be found via Google.

What’s next? If Google is replacing Twitter.com as the place to see Tweets, could Twitter replace Google+ as Google’s real-time publishing area?

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The 3 Best Things I Heard at Google

SGR at Google
Social Geek Radio on the Wall at Google HQ!

Thanks to Google’s franchise team for hosting several Franchise brands, Google partners, and other marketers at last week’s Google International Franchise Assembly Summit.

We saw many fantastic presentations from Google at GIFA. Here are my 3 favorite speakers, along with a favorite quote:

  1. Monica Plaza, Consumer Surveys Head of Sales:
    “You Are Not Your Target Market.”
     .
  2. Gopi Kallayil, Chief Evangelist, Brand Marketing: 
    “Don’t be afraid to experiment in digital marketing!”
     .
  3. Todd Rowe, Director, Global Head of Channel Partnerships:
    “Are your industry’s emerging experts promoting YOUR brand? Or your competitor’s?”

For more on GIFA, tune in to Social Geek Radio Wednesday 5/20 at 8pm ET as Deb Evans and I welcome back Brandi Kloostra and Leah Stewart of Service Brands International to review everything GIFA!

Social Geek Radio’s 5th Anniv. Show – Live at Google!

GIFA

It’s Social Geek Radio’s 5th Anniversary – This Wednesday Night!

Please join us  for the broadcast & podcast Live at the GIFA Summit at Google Headquarters.

Listen live: http://bit.ly/GIFA2015

Or download on iTunes right after the show!

Interstate 5 SGR

IFA Digital Marketing & Technology Summit Roundtables

IFA logo 2014

One of my favorite parts of each International Franchise Association Convention is participating in the Marketing and Technology Roundtables. Here’s the info for this year’s Summit:

Digital Marketing & Technology Summit
Sunday, February 23
9:00 am – 12:00 noon           

The feature presentation, Innovative Lead Generation for Your Entire Franchise System, includes speakers Christine Merritt, Head of Business Development, Google and Lana Khavinson, Group Product Marketing Manager, LinkedIn. Ken Colburn, President/CEO, Data Doctors Franchise Systems, Inc will moderate this discussion.

After the presentation, participants will have the opportunity to share ideas and strategies on a variety of technology-related topics at roundtables led by experts in the field.

Please join me for my Roundtable, Facebook Contests and Coupons. We will discuss promotional offerings on brand and franchisee Facebook pages for contests, coupons, and other tactics for driving customers into your franchisees’ locations. 

Facebook-Contests

4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2013

lego jetpack

 

 

1. 2013 is year we stop saying “Social Media”. 

It’s just media … messages … communications. We’re putting too much emphasis on “how social” something is. It’s losing its meaning quickly. Also, the faster we can stop saying “viral video” when describing every video online, the better!

    

2. 2013 is the year of Google+.

Sure, some say Google+ is the perpetual also-ran to Facebook.

Will you use it as much in your personal life as you use Facebook? No.

But, when potential customers search for information, will they see the content you put on your Facebook Fan Page or the content you put on your Google+ profile? Yep, it’s called Google+ for a reason. Get on board now!

 

3. 2013 is the year Public Relations steps up.

After 5 years of complaining that we’re once again not at the executive table, PR professionals will take a leadership role within most organizations to manage the messaging and manage the relationships with the audiences.

 

4. 2013 is the last year a CEO thinks Social Media is about reaching “the kids”.

I hope.

  

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FranCamp 2012: Mapping Your Customer’s Route to Your Store

As we’re winding down the summer and gearing up for a big retail season, I thought I would share my presentation from Franchise Social Media Camp (FranCamp) from back in May. The topic was leveraging social platforms for Franchise systems.

One slide (#6) that lead to some good discussions with attendees is the view of social platforms compared to your franchisees’ stores.  Think of it as a map. What platforms are you using as roads to get to other platforms? And, more importantly, what’s the route to get foot traffic in the stores? Are you sharing links on Twitter to draw consumers to an app on Facebook for coupons that drive store traffic? Are you using Google+ or Facebook start a discussion and then sharing video that lives on YouTube that has a great call to action? There are many more combinations than there are platforms! Remember, some channels may be a better or faster route for your customers than other routes.

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/JackMonson/francamp-2012&#8243; title=”FranCamp 2012″ target=”_blank”>FranCamp 2012</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/JackMonson&#8221; target=”_blank”>JackMonson</a></s

Google Cookies That Are Hard To Swallow

Here’s a guest post from my friend Jack Campisi – Thanks JC!

Riding home from New York on the train yesterday I noticed something interesting. The signs on the train always catch my eye for the first few minutes. They range from scotch ads to airlines and investment firms. But this time it was different. It was four different ads for Google. Google has been hitting the airwaves on TV a lot lately, so I figured this would be along those lines. You know, look at all you can do with the Google suite of sites and platforms. 

But when I took a closer look, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was basically a description of cookies… what they are, why they are used and best of all, how to delete them. The gist was that cookies help a site remember you so you don’t have to start all over each time you visit.

I have to admit, I felt a little weird standing up, walking over and snapping a picture of the sign, but I did not care. I had to do it. And it’s not THAT uncommon these days, I guess.

I had to get a picture because of all the times I have had to explain cookies to people and then how to delete them. Not only did I want to steal some of their wording, but I thought it was a fascinating commentary on the current internet climate.

If you are on YouTube or Google you probably have seen the overt messages about the upcoming privacy policy changes. Or maybe you’ve read one of the countless articles retweeted on Twitter recently that explain and comment on it. If you have not, you should read up. There are going to be a lot more eyes on your information, particularly your Gmail, that you will want to be aware of.

Whether the new Google changes are good or bad, I am not here to comment on. I just thought that it was an amazing case of education, proactive damage control and PR to help deal with the potential backlash that will come when this all goes live.

Cookies are one of those things that many people don’t fully understand and instantly instill an aura of distrust. It’s funny that a word like “cookie”, that had always been such a happy term, has morphed into the poster child of the Big Brother Era.

  

Google+ for Brands

Google+
Last week at Social Media Breakfast Chicago, I was pleased to lead a lively discussion with several smart marketers and community managers on Google+. Everyone is in the planning stages and waiting to see exactly what Google has in store for brands hopefully still this year!

It feels like Google+ is moving forward ever so methodically. There is now an API available though it’s limited to public data at the moment. In fact, this week I connected my Google+ profile to my Engage121 account.

The group relayed stories how their brands and clients are anxiously waiting for the business pages to be rolled out. Here is a list of things you can do now to prepare.

1. Get in and use it as a personal profile now to get the feel.

2. Get your colleagues and valued connections from other platforms to join now and learn together. Share some posts with each other or start a Hangout (my favorite function!).

3. Start setting up circles of your brand’s communities. Think of segmenting them just like you would segment targeted mailing lists. We are assuming that one could share circles built in one’s personal profile over to the brand, so much of your targeting prep work can be done here and now.

4. Start collecting Google+ profiles now of your customers, industry experts, and other important influencers – just like Twitter handles in 2009 or phone numbers in 1940.

5. Get your photo to show up in Google searches. This is a great little tip I found from the always-informative marketing blog by Jim Connolly.

6. Watch what the beta test brands are doing. Check out Ford.

7. Connect with me on Google+ and we’ll all figure it out together!

This Saturday at FranCamp in Nashville, I will be leading a roundtable lunch discussion on Google+ for Franchise Systems with my friend Deb Evans. If you’re in the area and interested n social marketing or franchising – or just want a good reason to go spend a day in Music City – please join us! Agenda and registration details below: