Why Are We On Google+ When Google Top Management Isn’t?!

The first principle of marketing is that you market what you believe in and what you use yourself. Michael DeGusta recently did an analysis of Google+ and how frequently the senior management at Google uses it. The statistics are shocking because no one would expect the web giant to be so presumptuous about its own offering.

Let’s start right at the top of the hierarchy. Whereas Zuckerberg spends all day on Facebook and Twitter CEO tweets up to even 30 times a day, stats show that since the launch of Google+ in June 2011, Google CEO, Larry Page, has only put up 7 public posts till now.

Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt can’t even claim to that number–he has never posted at all! Several board members have never posted at all either. So much for being leaders!

Of the 6 SVPs, 4 have not posted since August and between them they have only 9 posts in all!

Out of the 18 senior most people who oversee Google, 11 haven’t even joined or have never posted even once, while 5 have hardly used Google+ at all.

With such statistics, one wonders—if Google management does not like or use its own product, should we?! The product simply did not look convincing enough right from the start…a quasi-Facebook attempt, and though it had some features which gave us some hope that Facebook might finally have something to contend with, people just weren’t convinced enough about Google+. Now that we know Google’s top management isn’t either, we know we were right all along!

Facebook Set To Change User Experience…Again!

Facebook is out to give Google Plus a run for its money….once more!! An overhaul of user profiles is in the offing which is beyond anything Facebook has done so far.

What is going to go–

–The single column wall post display will go for good!

–No more divided panels of Facebook profile pages

–No more scratching your head over how to view what a friend was doing a few years ago, what he/she looked like, etc.

What you will see–

–A lineup of tiles that exhibit status updates, photos, links, videos, etc., in a dual column arrangement

–A wide open space at the top of your profile where you can post your favorite image—it’s all about you!

Tunnel into history–

–Browsing posts and updates from anything more than a few months ago is tedious and near impossible on the current Facebook chronological structure

–A virtual timeline on your profile allows anyone clicking on it to go back to any year and view updates or content

Dynamic history–

–FB timeline will allow you to insert events, pictures, etc., for events you missed in the past but wanted to share

Apps galore—

–On viewing your timeline profile, friends can look at a set of new apps through which they get to know which movies you go to, which songs you love, or even your favorite activities

Works great on mobile as well as on desktop–

–It adapts well to mobile devices and their respective screen sizes and looks just as good as on desktops.

Access coming soon for all–

–Right now developers can get access by signing up. However, Facebook is going to launch it for the common user over the next weeks too!

What’s Your Twitter Traffic Quotient?

Twitter has come to the rescue of website owners, social media marketers, news organizations, and the like, who want to keep track of how much referral traffic they get from Twitter with the announcement of a new Web Analytics tool, last week.

This tool is currently free and is in beta. It will help website owners determine three basic sets of information:

1.)    How much of their website content is being shared across Twitter

2.)    How much traffic comes from Twitter to their site

3.)    Gauge effectiveness of their Tweet Buttons.

The tool will initially be accessible to a select group of partners and go on to be available to all website owners in just a few weeks, reported Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman.

Twitter has over a 100 million users most of whom “tweet” on Twitter with the aim of increasing traffic to their websites, blogs, etc. Right now there are only a few options available for websites to analyze their Twitter-driven traffic, and what is available is not only pricey but seldom effective or reliable. Third party products like bit.ly enterprise, Radian6, etc., disappoint at best! So this new tool from Twitter comes as some respite for all!

MySpace was sold for a reported $35 million

Facebook has managed to leapfrog MySpace by a mile and a double with over 700 million members, 157 million visitors in the month of May alone, and an ad revenue of $2.2 billion!

How did it happen that a business which started in a Harvard dorm room overpowered and brought down to its knees another that was started long before and even had corporate backing?

a) One theory goes that “Facebook was more effectively designed to appeal to young Internet users than MySpace was.”b) Another theory is that News Corp. simply “did not understand the Internet well enough to steer MySpace toward regular Internet users, and instead tried to use the social network as an instrument to promote its Fox products.”c) Or was it the advertising clutter on MySpace that did it in? MySpace struck an advertising deal with Google and since then the site was replete with marketing messages.

What do you think it was?

New +1 Button in Google Search

Google\’s new +1 buttonGoogle has taken its commitment to making its searches user-friendly to another level with the introduction of a new “+1” feature that is currently in the experimental mode. Appearing in quick succession after the implementation of their “website blocking” service, this one (similar to the Facebook “like” button) is their first step in the world of social media on their search engine platform.

“Today we’re taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1—the digital shorthand for ‘this is pretty cool.’ To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful,” says an insider from Google.

To check out this feature, you need to sign in to your Google account and sign up for their “experimental search site.” Once you do that, you will get to see the “+1” tab next to the search result. Then you can recommend a particular website to others on your Google “contacts” list by simply hitting the +1 sign. For instance, if you have +1’ed  www.promodirect.com after signing into your account, whenever anyone in your contacts is looking for promotional products on the net, Promo Direct will show “+1 like” from you and consequently will be recommend to your friends and contacts.

Google spokesman says, “The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results).”

 

So we want to know what this means for online businesses. Here is how it will impact them:

  • User power and website ranking: With the +1 feature and easy means to block the website, Google has given power over the fate of online businesses to its users. If your website is not preferred by users, you run the risk of getting blocked or not getting a much-coveted +1 preference, thereby affecting traffic and sales.
  • +1, a part of Google Algorithm: Google plans to make +1 feature a part of their algorithm. They believe that if the users like a particular website, it gives them a good reason to rank it higher than others. So one more thing to keep you on your toes while worrying about where you rank in Google searches.

Google’s +1 feature promises to create a great user experience for its loyalists, though websites and businesses might have another take on it! Let’s wait and watch…

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