With over 40 million users already signed up, compared to Zuckenberg’s 800 million, in Google+ Improvements for Brand Pages: What are they? What do they mean for your business?, we explored how Google+ is attempting to entice brands away from Facebook.

Nikesh Arora, Google’s chief business officer, said he didn’t see Google+ as social network however:

“It is a platform which allows us to bring social elements into all the services and products that we offer. We are trying to make sure we use social signals across all of our products… It’s not just about getting people together on one site and calling it a social network.”

Good point Mr Arora, but how exactly do you build Google+ into your social media strategy? We run through some key points to consider before diving straight in:

Claim your page, but know why:

Ensure you know why and even if your resources are best spent on Google+, as opposed to alternative networks. Stake a claim to secure your business’s brand name and then get familiar with the platform before becoming inventive. Some brands may find it more beneficial to promote their services on Facebook or Twitter for example, due to the types of customers already using that particular network.

Google+ is rife with its own targeted demographic of early adopters and tech-savvy bloggers, start-ups, entrepreneurs and marketers – if this fits the philosophies of your brands, great; if not then confirm the reason why you’re creating a page to avoid wasting time and resources creating content to be left unread and unappreciated.

Combat digital waste and get consumers to truly engage:

A recent Digital Life survey found that Britons believe brands are polluting social networks with ‘digital waste’ – irrelevant or spammy content that clogs up users’ news feeds and brand profiles, of no real value to the user.

TNS’s survey is based on the views of 72,000 people in 60 countries, and found that globally half of all businesses’ efforts are wasted. In the UK, 61 per cent said they did not “do not want to engage with brands via social media”.

Just a third of Britons comment on brands online, compared to 74 per cent of Chinese. Google+’s introduction of brand pages may be just the answer to revert this opinion by pinpointing content that has been effective and successfully spread across networks.

Get closer to your consumers:

Google+’s four pronged areas: Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and Huddles are customisable features that can be used inline with what suits the brand.

The Muppets, Dell and The New York Times  have recently used Hangouts to directly interact with their audience via video or Q&A sessions. About as close a connection you can make with people when online, Hangouts will be ideal for some businesses to offer feedback and build deep connections.

Check out the Muppets hangout in full:

Track key influencers for your brand:

Due to the wealth of Google’s other tools and products, Google+ for brands offers insightful features that let you track key influencers in your sector, a feat that neither Facebook or Twitter have yet managed to master. Sharing links from Google+ to other networks will help you rank in search results and may let you discover content before anyone else, like Twitter in the ‘old days’.

Known as ripples, take any post that has been shared and a timeline can be viewed of not just people sharing that content, but to pinpoint exactly who influenced that sharing. Such tools are key to widening your distribution, maximising reach of posts and targeting key taste-makers to develop stronger relationships on other social networks and beyond.

Maximise Google+’s tools for market research:

Google’s ethos is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful. By having a social network based on these principles, the outcome for brands can only be positive. With greater access to research and insight connected to search, like its other products, Google+ will reward businesses who utilise its functionality to maximum effect.

Google+ is developing itself into a data hungry research tool taking your information to add a social element to the power of internet search. Due to Google’s hold over the search market, although determined to try, this is something that Facebook can only hope to achieve.

Google+ vs Facebook, the verdict:

Google+ has no desire to be the ‘new Facebook’ and consequently should not be directly compared. Instead it aims to attract the media-minded and tech-savvy amongst us to an outlet to socially share content in a measurable way, as the social element to Google’s stock of services.

Unless brands take heed and understand the segmentation of Google+ users as specific types of consumers before forging a presence, expect to see a lot stuttering before the Google+ engine really kicks into life for brands. For some, managing a presence on Facebook and Twitter is already enough.

The Telegraph’s digital media editor, Emma Barnett, hits the nail on the head: “I’m a bit tired of joining new things”.

Until Google+ is  completely baked-in as an integrated process, moving away from the bolt on service it currently feels, expect to see a host of brands jumping on the Google+ ship only to fall overboad, ending up surfing through the sludge of their own digital waste, whilst average users stick to the likes of Facebook where the rest of their friends are.

Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora also this week claimed the company did not see Google+ as simply a social network: ‘It is a platform which allows us to bring social elements into all the services and products that we offer. So you have seen YouTube come into Google+; you’ve seen Google+ with ‘direct connect’ go into our search business,’ he told the Telegraph.

‘We are trying to make sure we use social signals across all of our products… It’s not just about getting people together on one site and calling it a social network.’

Visualising Return On Influence (ROIn):

Allowing brands to easily visualise where, when and how their content is being shared enables companies to highlight key social influencers in their network. Unlocking powerful Return On Influence (ROIn) this means brands cam begin to monetise social media, one of the greatest challenges in the social media marketing sphere.

We take a quick run through the four key improvements for brand pages and what these will mean for your business.

1. Post Editing – Even the most diligent community manager has posted a typo or wrong information. Yes, it should never happen but it does. On Google+ brand pages added an edit function much to the rejoice of community managers.

2. Segmenting Likers – Large communities are diverse things. Among thousands of Followers/Likers, there is a wide array of interest. Google+ allows you to segment your community so that your posts are as relevant as possible.

3. Hangout with your Fans – Face-to-face connections are about as close a connection you can make with people when online. The Hangouts function gives community managers an excellent way to make a deep connection with their community. Expect to see weekly hangouts where members and managers meet and discuss how to improve the community.

4. Frozen Photo Strip – This one is a simple shift. In Facebook, the photo stream moves around. You can’t designate an order to them and it drives some people nuts. Google made them static. It’s a small change that can really add to the branding and image of a page.

Google+ Niggles and No-gos:

Despite the changes there are  still, some would say, shortfalls of the service. Apart from specific developer niggles we explain what Google+ currently cannot do:

1. Places – Considering the strength of Google Maps and in light of big scope for location based searches, you would assume that Google would implement to easily silence Facebook comparison critics.

2. Ownership of brand pages – Considering many people may be working on a page at any one time, still only one person can “own” or “post to” an account. There’s no way for a social media team, or a customer service team, to split up duties or on the other hand identify who is posting to the account. Google, take heed and creating a hierarchy of logins with certain privileges, please as trusting the sacred Google password to an entire social media team may just be too much for developers to bear.

3. Brand circles – Some argue Google have missed a trick not tackling the brand page as an alternative implementation of Circles, to combat irrelevant content for users. Rather than adding a brand to one of your circles, there was a suggestion that you would add yourself to one or many of a company’s circles that you found relevant.

The use of Direct Connect may overcome this. Tying Google search and Google+ pages together, Direct Connect allows users to easily find brands and pages they want to follow. Simply by adding ‘+’ to the front of the keyword in the search bar, companies can direct traffic to their Google+ brand page, which also helps the index of  your brand raising  it within search rankings as a result.

The verdict?

If brands are going to create a presence for themselves on Google+ they should claim their brand page ASAP. Owning a brand page can not only help elevate results in Google search, but by creating a unique page using the scrapbook icons – fixable, thereby avoiding Facebook’s pesky floating problem – A mention of your brand page from these key figures will and you’ll gain traction with influential bloggers and opinion leaders for true value amongst early adopters.

Google+’s main feat for brands, pitching themselves way ahead of Facebook, is the ability to track leaders of influence and points at which content or topics sparked discussion, via timelines. Utilising the services provided, brands should view Google+ as a professional platform as a thinking man’s Facebook or LinkedIn on dress-down Friday. Only by understanding how Google+ works will brands be able to create true value from  the platform.

The following quote was found from a study into mobile commerce by Harris Interactive on behalf of Tealeaf Technology:

“63 percent of all online adults surveyed said they would be less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels if they experienced a problem conducting a mobile transaction.”

With a huge focus on mobile CRM solutions, consumer expectations of mobile services are rising. What does this mean for brands? What should brands be doing to avoid problems with m-commerce transactions?

Firstly, the buying process should be quick, with the shortest route to checkout possible on the least amount of click-through screens. By making sign-up processes easier, through postponement or complete eradication, brands can minimise the risk of basket abandonment on mobile devices.

Sites should invest in mobile optimised browsing with fully functional but condensed content pages that enable easy menu navigation in simple formatting. Finally, m-commerce sites should include image galleries that offer scrollable, swipable or slide-able navigation or even easily playable videos; visuals are key to the m-commerce experience.

The Tealeaf Technology study also revealed that 85% of clients expect their experience on mobile devices to be better or equal to that online at a desktop or laptop. To illustrate this point, we bring you companies doing m-commerce well:

• Marks & Spencer topped the recent m-commerce benchmark study from eDigitalResearch for the second time offering condensed but fully-functioning page versions for mobile devices
• John Lewis leapfrogged into the number 2 slot after a sharp focus on m-commerce  increased security measures and branding
• ASOS’s incorporation of Facebook into their m-commerce offering allows customers to shop for products without leaving Facebook
• New Look’s revenue increased by 45% as a result of their m-commerce site launched in April, including an 800% increase in site visits

Marks & Spencer's mobile site topped eDigital's Benchmark Mcommerce study

Other e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Google, Ebay (via Paypal) and Apple translate their offer to mobile by offering one-click transactions. While shortening time spent on mobile devices this however requires users to pre-enter credit card details; a factor that some users may not be totally comfortable with.

Derek Eccleston, research director at eDigitalResearch comments on the research findings and future of m-commerce; “Comments indicate that shoppers are less forgiving of bad mobile experiences as they come to expect more and more from the growing possibilities of mobile technology. With the m-commerce revolution in full swing – where the consumer now holds the power to shop when, where and how they want – it has never been more important to provide a seamless mobile customer experience.”

“Our consumer research shows that more and more consumers will be heading onto their mobiles to browse, however far fewer are confident to make a purchase. Top mobile sites therefore need to provide all the functionality, information and details that a mobile consumer needs and expects to encourage them to shop”.

Smartphones and Smarter Shoppers

In reality, customers access m-commerce sites on a spur of the moment; on a whim based on a need at a specific place and time. Brands have to maximise on this need by offering consumers the quickest, hassle free route to what they want. Otherwise, as the study from Harris Interactive on behalf of Tealeaf Technology presents, brand reputation can be damaged discouraging customers from returning, not just to mobile but to the brand’s other purchase channels.

It seems as though Facebook is pulling out pretty much all the stops as competition begins to intensify in a fierce attempt to stay put at the top. Have you noticed any of the new changes on the social network? The giant has recently announced an overwhelming plethora of sharing and privacy updates (amidst a number of recent changes already made) to fend off threats from the up and coming Google+.

Google, the top dog of all search engines certainly has its heart set on stealing the social networking crown from Facebook, just as Facebook killed off Myspace. The site hasn’t officially been made available to the general public, however a limited field test entitled the Google+ Project has been ongoing since its pre-debut on 5th July this year. Even though it is not the finished article, it has already been dubbed as the “fastest growing social network in history” with around 25 million unique visits and 20 million users received in less than a month after launch. In just 16 days Google+ reached 10 million users, a benchmark that took both Facebook and Twitter over 2 years to reach. Google have managed to step-up their game despite two previous attempts with Google Buzz and Google Profiles. There has even been talk of how Facebook have tried to sabotage Google+ invitations by limiting its distribution within its platform.

The escalating success of Google+ has not gone unnoticed, Mark Zuckerberg’s team of Facebook developers have been working frantically to establish as many new “friend management” improvements as possible, all of which are being rolled out as we speak. This is possibly due to the declining number of Facebook users in the last few months. According to a report by Insider Facebook, the number of users on the social networking site has decreased in the U.S. by 4%, accounting for 6 million of the population; from 155.2 million in early May, to 149.4 million by the end of the month. For Canada, the U.K. and Norway, the Facebook user count has also dropped, albeit in much smaller proportions.  That said, U.K. users in particular, have fallen by approximately 100,000 users to 29.8 million (from May to June) and have been lessening for several months in a row.

In their defence, Facebook have argued that, “Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn’t designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook.We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day.”

Even though early adopting countries are logging out of their Facebook accounts permanently, traffic to the site is at an all time high.  Google owned ad network Double-click claims Facebook peaked at an immense 1 trillion page views in June 2011, however comScore’s findings beg to differ. They claim Facebook achieved 467 billion page views for June, either way it is a staggering amount by anyones standards. The sheer power that Facebook wields has stirred up anxiety from people who continue to question Facebook’s privacy settings, especially with many users unaware of just how much of their personal information is stored online and Facebook’s ability to leverage that data. The latest Facebook changes certainly address such security concerns as well as enhance the relationship interaction experience. The following (hefty) list breaks down what to expect/can already be seen on a Facebook dashboard near you:

- Online profile/sharing controls

- Profile tag review

- Content tag review

- “View profile as…”

- Word change: “Everyone” to “Public”

- Change your mind after you post? (Edit/delete options)

- Tag who you’re with or what you want to talk about

- Tag locations in posts

- Bigger and faster photos

- Remove tags or content from Facebook

- Tag people, places and things

- Tell people about stuff they’re in

- Help tag things other people have missed

- Removing and reporting tags

- New left-hand Navigation

- Promote It

- Facebook’s messenger app

- Newly designed chat bar

- Expectant parents can add unborn children under friends and family

- Topic groups

- Old status updates from 2010/2009

Facebook is evolving at an ever increasing rate in order to give their 750+ million users enough reasons to not switch to other new-kids-on-the-social-networking-block. Google+ has upped the ante and this can only be a good thing for marketers. Forrester researchers have proposed that U.S. interactive marketing spending is expected to reach $76.6 billion by 2016, more than what is currently spent on TV, with social media spending predicted to rise to $4.9 billion.  According to their report, $1.59 billion has been spent on social media this year. This total is predicted to ascend to around $2.1 billion by next year and over $2.7 billion by 2013.

Google+ has been quick off the starting blocks, with an impressive record-breaking uptake of users, but how long can we expect this to last for? No official date has yet been confirmed for the official launch of Google+ brand pages, however word on the tweets is that it is likely to be within the next month or so. In comparison, brands on Facebook have invested considerable resources and effort into their communities, plus with Facebook media expenditure forecasted at $4.05 billion worldwide for 2011, Facebook is still the dominant “go-to” social network for brands across the globe to engage and build relationships with their target audiences. Thanks to loyal users who have invested much of their lives into the social networking site, and as the numbers have revealed, Facebook is still the king. Long live the king!

The number one priority for search is to offer the best possible customer experience, and more often than not this leads consumers to informal sources of information for peer reviews and ratings. So it becomes pretty clear that most companies aren’t supplying anywhere near enough information for their customers. Here at Neoco we appreciate the value in providing a one-stop shop for consumers. One of our clients, Sony, has collaborated with independent authenticated review providers, Reevoo to do just that. By enabling customers access to product reviews and ratings on their own website, Sony is providing consumers with all the relevant information they need to make their purchase decision in the one place.

Now this obviously opens companies up to having negative content on their websites, but what is the alternative? Thanks to Google Instants, users are already confronted with a ‘warts and all’ presentation of your brand. A recent Economist study** showed how social media content was increasingly a key traffic generator, which makes sense when you consider the high percentage of user-generated content available online and the fact that Google now includes Facebook and Twitter as ranking criteria. For this reason it’s crucial for companies to supervise their search response and manage it appropriately through social conversations on Twitter, Facebook, forums, reviews and sites like Yahoo answers.

If you’re still not convinced, consider this; people have always feared innovation and change. The concerns around social media are nothing new and echo the considerations every time there’s a seismic shift in the technology between business and customers. Telephone and email hardly brought on the demise of business – far from it, and in reality the same thing applies to Social Media. Over 50% of companies admit to limiting employee access to social media and yet have much more relaxed policies relating to email and phone usage.** This is entirely the wrong approach; companies should be empowering employees as ambassadors of their brand.

This all leads to one conclusion – companies need to get more involved. If they observe word of mouth conversations, facilitate them within their own assets, and join the discussion, they will drastically increase their visibility (Search) and their brand value. Ignoring Social Media just isn’t an option and with the current trend of power shifting from corporate companies to consumers, there has never been a better time to embrace Social Media.

Sources:
* Seyd Ali, Reevoo, WOMMA UK, How Word of Mouth Impacts on Search
** Simon McDonald, Insites Consulting, WOMMA UK, How Word of Mouth Impacts on Search

Google have yet to announce it, so it is still in the early stages. However we particularly like the new search icon, a little heart.

Looking out the windows of Neoco HQ, thunder seemed an appropriate search topic; check out the results page below to get an idea how it works:

So go give it a try, What do you love?

How dear is your old email account to you?

Here are a few considerations that are being flagged up by Facebook lovers as well as the critics across the blogosphere today:

+ Instant access and ease to use. This is a key thing, considering how many people have Facebook, the app, they are logged in, and now they have another good reason not to log off!

+ All those who regularly use Facebook (which actually equals most of us…) can now do more within the same platform, so saving the hassle from setting up various email accounts on the smart phone, logging in and out of Gmail and Hotmail.

+ Non-Facebook friends can message you, so opening up the channel to those of your contacts (dinosaurs) who are not on Facebook.

- You can’t delete single messages, unless you delete entire threads of conversations. No more cheeky suggestions or drunken messages thrown into those work conversations then…

- There are no subject lines (just imagine how complicated this could turn out, especially if used for work related stuff!) adding a more chatty/funky/instant and possibly confusing feel to it all.

- You are letting Facebook get control of even more of your personal life, data, you name it. I can think of loads of pros and cons on the back of that, I’m sure you can too…

What’s your take on this? Will you sign up?

If we got together we could make brown babies

There is a tabletop game called Risk! I cannot quite remember all the territories but I think the most difficult to win with was the Russians. Fighting a war on so many fronts was a costly business and often the death of many a player. It’s seems clear that Google never played Risk! as their purchase of YouTube was much like buying the Russian territory in the game – a relentless battle on many fronts that drains resources. But if there was ever an organisation with a war chest big enough to to take the ‘risk’ then it would have to be Google. With some of the brightest minds pouring over the YouTube business looking for revenue models, they have done well to at least stem some of the flow if not plug it entirely. With that we’ve also seen an ascent (?) taking YouTube from ‘Poacher to Gamekeeper‘ and this continues with the (very discreet) launch of their new video rental service.

This is a HUGE piece of news due to the potential impact of this business model succeeding.

last seen wearing a T-shirt that read "I killed Blockbuster Video"

First, there is the competitive marketplace that already exists in this sector. Netflix is the major player here but there are many more like LoveFilm (UK) or the new Hulu service. The issue for those guys is the sheer size of YouTube’s audience which should steam roll them and mean it starts with a significant advantage.

Taking a bite out of Apple

Then there is the already existing rental service of iTunes. This is a big player too but Apple benefits from a large community of advocates (sometimes against reason) who will remain loyal. But this is not the biggest fear for Apple or potential ‘win’ for Google. That comes when we move to future technology. Let’s consider the YouTube rental service does well and picks up momentum. It would be very logical to build a YouTube Android phone…

take me to your iPhone

Android is already hotly tipped to take over the iPhone as the number one smartphone. There is no doubt it can win on units but what about the service. I’ve long said that Apple stands head and shoulders over it’s rivals because of the iTunes platform. It is more reliable, intuitive and ‘ingrained’ with the audience than any other store (including Ovi). But a YouTube Android phone changes that game. Imagine YouTube start serving all music (with optional videos) too. Now with an API on my phone (or dedicated handset) I could stream (on tether to my phone) a massive library of my music and video content. This becomes a major selling point for Google (and their partners like HTC) whilst really eating in to the iTunes dependency of some user. Consider, that I could then also easily share my playlists with friends or arrange to watch a movie at the same time (in different locations) and chat or skype too. There are a lot of possibilities here and it’s very exciting to see where things go.

argg, me hearties. I love's a good Googlin' on the high seas!

Finally, there is the irony element. Forget the potential here, let’s look at the service being a success and YouTube creating original content for their audience. Pretty much every online video service has done this at one point or another. You then have to consider the irony of YouTube creating original content which will be ripped and pirated by the audience and uploaded for free around the web – maybe even on another future YouTube. And is that the point when we recognise YouTube has finally come of age?

NB. I couldn’t put all this in and not mention Blockbuster Video. What has happened to them and where will this leave them?

"I used to be a somebody..."

We personally hate slow loading sites – and now – so does Google. Since the 9th April 2010 Google has started taking site loading speed into account when deciding where to list your site in their search results. So why is this important? In short, it’s time to take a long hard look at your hosting.

Good hosting is a critical component to ensuring your site loads as quickly as possible. Far too often we hear something along the lines of “Why should we pay you that much for hosting? Company X will do it for half that price, plus give us all of these amazzzzing features and will even dry-clean my cat!”. Well – here’s why…

In general the number of sites hosted on a single server goes up as the cost of the hosting goes down. And more sites on a server means that when a user (and now Google) visits your site, there is a larger number of other sites all scrambling for the servers attention. This – inevitably – results in your site having to wait its turn before the page is finally delivered to the user. End result – an irritated user who will most likely take their precious browsing time elsewhere. In other words: #fail.

Stay tuned for other fascinating reasons why you should perhaps put just a little more thought into your hosting…

interaction vs proximity graph

Brands are no longer able pitch the credentials of their products to the current social media generation. Push is almost out, but pull is sky rocketing in. Buyers and consumers want trusted and real information from people like themselves and know where to go, to get it. They need it stamped as trustworthy and good for usage (with extra features) not by any company that dreamed up the slogan at a coffee shop meeting, but by the members of a social network that they can see, interact with, and most importantly something that they chose to join. They all have an appetite for the real interaction that generate buzz in which they are a part of. Facebook’s 350 million user posts and its shared 3.5 Billion different content per week, is what these consumers want.

Talk about a lot of possible brand awareness and brand management. People know the members of their social media networks and trust what they have to say. They can access all this information quickly and easily to help them learn about the product, and step into a shop knowing more about the goods compared to the shopkeeper himself.

Social media is about investing in relationships that create more economic value than they cost. It is about engaging with the people who decide whether to buy or not buy what you are selling, like it or dislike it, recommend it or trash it, and even to mould it or to throw it out the window.

A great (and very fun) way to show the power of social media marketing is to enter “(BRAND NAME) sucks” into Google. Put into consideration the fact that around 80% of the information read on the Internet today is not read on the site that it was originally published, but through social media, the word is spread to different websites, blogs, forums and networks. It is no longer just a fad for kids or a way to spread the word about your fart app; social media is evolving as a powerful and a fast paced low-cost, high-reward tool for making the sales, turning profits and taking home the big prize.  The price tag is appealing and it is no holds barred.