Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Google+: It's A Matter of Trust" plus 5 more |
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| Google+: It's A Matter of Trust Posted: 21 Sep 2011 04:45 AM PDT
I was in Denmark (among other places) the last couple of weeks and I had a chance to sit down with an old friend from IBM, who once wrote a comment on one of my blog posts that reminded me of something that I sometimes forget. Trust is relative. Trusting someone to answer a question isn't the same as trusting him to watch your two-year-old. In marketing, we talk a lot about gaining customer trust, but it isn't a blanket thing. For some purchases (buying a car), we need a lot of trust and for others (buying a coffee), not so much. But then there are those times when you just can't figure out how much trust you need to decide something. I bring this up because I don't know whether to trust Google+. I got one of those precious early invites, like a zillion other cool people like me. And I signed up right away. And I started getting notifications that people were adding me to circles. So I added them to my circles. I have a few dozen circles now. Lots of people in them. There's just one problem. OK, two problems. Problem one is that I have never posted anything to Google+. Problem two is that I have never paid any attention to anything anyone else has ever posted. Those are two kind of major problems, actually, in terms of me being a Google+ user. I don't have anything against Google+, honestly. I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, so I guess I should be on Google+, too. But what I am learning is that I need a higher level of trust to be a Google+ user. I need to make a commitment that I am somehow not ready to make. A commitment of my time. You see, I have been two-timing all the other social networks. I haven't really made a time commitment to any of them. What I have done is to have each one alert me by e-mail when anyone says something to me or about me. Then I can respond to them. So my time commitment is to e-mail, not the social networks.
That's half the equation. The other half is posting. I've got that wired, too. I post everything on Twitter and have it automatically mirrored to LinkedIn and Facebook. So anyone can use whatever social network they want and if they want to see what I am saying, they can. But I'm not committed to any of them—I can switch whenever I want. It was all working great until Google+ came along. I can't just mirror my tweets to Google+ because of this circle thing. So it means that I need to actually make a commitment to updating Google+ on top of my tweeting—which means a commitment of time that, so far, I have not been willing to make. So, I started thinking. What if I start posting everything to Google+, but use one circle to mirror to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn—my public circle? But then that trust thing comes back. Do I trust Google not to pull the plug on Google+, the way they have on Buzz and Wave? Do I trust my own judgment on whether Google+ will attract enough of the right people for the conversation to be as lively as on Twitter? Can I trust that if I start posting on Google+ that it won't take more of my time? Or do I trust that if it takes more time, that it would be worth it? I like to tell people to do it wrong quickly, but sometimes there is no easy way to do that. Right now I just don't have the trust to change what I am doing with Twitter. And people keep adding me to circles and I haven't given them anything to see.
Author of the acclaimed book on Internet marketing, Do It Wrong Quickly, on the heels of the best-selling Search Engine Marketing, Inc., Mike Moran led many initiatives on IBM's Web site for eight years, including IBM's original search marketing strategy. Mike holds an Advanced Certificate in Market Management Practice from the Royal UK Charter Institute of Marketing, is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, and regularly teaches at Rutgers, UC Irvine, and UCLA. In addition to his contributions to Biznology, Mike is a regular columnist for Search Engine Guide. He also frequently keynotes conferences worldwide on digital marketing for marketers, public relations specialists, market researchers, and technologists, and serves as Chief Strategist for Converseon, a leading digital media marketing agency. Prior to joining Converseon, Mike worked for IBM for 30 years, rising to the level of Distinguished Engineer. Mike can be reached through his Web site (mikemoran.com).
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| Google Using Home Page to Remind Users of Google+ Posted: 21 Sep 2011 04:43 AM PDT It's a rare moment when Google's iconic home page is used for promoting something let a lone a Google product. Well, they obviously want you to be reminded that Google+ is an option for you. Of course I had to be told this was happening since I never search from the home page but when the little blue arrow gets drawn for you it's pretty effective. It looks like the social media wars between Facebook and Google are on in earnest now with Facebook updating everything and Google opening the doors to Google+ for everyone. Isn't this fun?!
So the question for you is: Where are you going to land? Are you going to be using both services? Will you cut the cord on Facebook for Google+ or sit tight with Facebook? What about businesses? Can a business afford not to be in one place (once Google+ gets its act together around businesses)?
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| Stop Thinking Now! Facebook Knows What Is Most Important To You! Posted: 20 Sep 2011 09:26 PM PDT
Here is a picture of the visual cue that will help you not think about what is important to yourself because hey we're just too busy to bother with that kind of stuff.
What is never even broached in this post is just HOW Facebook determines what you deem to be important. Will it be posts from your family first or is Facebook running an anti-family campaign and putting your close friends ahead of your family members? OK so I crossed the line but you get the point. It is reported that you can tell Facebook whether something was or wasn't important but this exercise seems like more work than it's worth because what's important to someone is relative. It changes over time so do we have to keep updating Facebook so it can update us about what we want to be updated about?
As with everything that is just released in the Internet space it is too early to tell much of anything but out of the gate this seems a bit odd. If you think it's OK for Facebook to determine what is important to you, you may have bigger issues. There are other new features that have been introduced. Fortunately Facebook is continuing its cute little habit of copying everything Google does these days. This has resulted in the following video description of Top Story and other features including the new real time ticker. Enjoy!
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| Facebook Readies Read, Watch, Listen Posted: 20 Sep 2011 12:09 PM PDT
It's called "Read. Watch. Listen." and it could be the biggest shift we've seen in Facebook in a long time. The concept is all about content — video, music, books and movies. The New York Times says that Facebook's new platform and partnership deals will allow users to share their favorite songs, TV shows and movies right from their profile pages. On the listen end, Spotify and Rhapsody are both rumored to be on board. One is a freemium service and one is paid and that's a tricky problem for Facebook. The idea is to encourage sharing, but what if I want to share the songs on my paid service to a friend who doesn't want to pay? As for the read, it's sounding like The Wall Street Journal is jumping in on that but I've yet to see any speculation on who is handling the "watch" part of the equation.
TechCrunch is reporting a new list of buttons to go along with the changes. Instead of just liking something, you'll be able to label content as "Read," "Watched" or "Listened." This reminds me of GoodReads.com, where you can label the books in your collection by whether you've read or are currently reading them. It's also shades of GetGlue, with "watched" being the option you choose after your check-in. I'm not a big fan of Facebook, but if this goes the way the reporters are reporting, I could end up spending more time on the site. I am a fan of all kinds of entertainment and if I can get new book recommendations and follow TV show discussions in my newsfeed, I'm there. What's funny, is that this is a move that would take them deeper into the branded space and further away from the personal chit-chat that the site was originally designed to handle. You can tell me that presenting the latest CD from my favorite band is just part of the service, but we all know it's an effective way to get me to buy said CD. I'm excited and that's not something I say often, when it comes to Facebook. How about you?
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| Incentivized Advertising Raises Brand Awareness Posted: 20 Sep 2011 11:17 AM PDT
So it's no wonder that consumers are willing to give a little more of themselves to a brand, as long as there's a prize at the end. SocialVibe and KN Dimestore recently conducted a survey to discover just how helpful incentives can be. They placed interactive ads on sites such as Causes.com and Pandora and on games like Farmville. Visitors were asked to play a branded game or take a survey and in return they'd receive an appropriate reward. For Farmville it was game credits, air-time without ads on Pandora and donations on Causes.com. What they found was that 91% of people pay attention to the brand message when they interact with an ad. 48% said that they may have initially gone in just to get the reward, but ended up staying for the messaging anyway. They also found that more people came away with a positive feeling about a brand after participating in an interactive activity. This positive feeling carried over into purchase intent with one product seeing a 56% lift as compared to the control group. And how about this one:
The survey also proves that incentives equal conversions by monitoring ticket sales after participants interacted with an incentivized movie campaign. Sales were 22% higher than those who were not given an incentive to view the ad. Jay Samit, CEO for SocialVibe says,
It's also interesting to note that the value of the incentive doesn't have to be very high in order to get a positive outcome. You don't have to hand out cash in order to get people to participate. Virtual merchandise and coupons are both very popular, inexpensive options. Your customer's time is valuable, so why not give them a little something special just for paying attention? If SocialVibe is right, it will come back to you two-fold in the end.
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| Google Throws Open the Google+ Doors for All and Adds Search Posted: 20 Sep 2011 09:34 AM PDT
While I was running today I was thinking about some of the near ambivalence being shown toward Google+ outside of the over active geek crowd. I was wondering when Google was going to open the floodgates to let anyone in because the longer they wait the less likely people are going to care to join. Well, little did I know that today was indeed the day that Google+ would be opened to the public and this should be interesting. The announcement comes from the Google blog
The 99th feature that appeared just before this was about the search feature which many have been clamoring for. This was a glaring omission in the service considering who Google is. We'll see just how well they have been able to figure out search for the social world they are creating.
There are other features that have been rolled out around Hangouts and my recommendation is that you visit the blog post to get the details. As for Google+ being open to everyone? This will tell an awful lot about whether this service has any legs. Of course, announcing this right before Facebook's f8 conference is part of the gamesmanship that continues to go on between Google and Facebook but that's just a distraction. Oh and Google will be making an appearance this week in Washington, DC regarding claims of anti-trust activities. What better way to take away from that chatter by saying you are just trying to compete with Facebook who owns social media.
Another thing I was thinking during my run was just who would get involved in Google+ once everything was opened to the public. Honestly, I had a hard time imagining many "regular" people making the jump to Google+ from Facebook because the "upgrades" are really more geek friendly than anything else. I think Google would be best served rolling out a well thought out and developed strategy for businesses on Google+ because people will follow brands and that could be the real impetus for someone to at least explore Google+ as a social media option. If there is a Google+ sticker in all businesses that people go to then they will figure they should be there or they may be missing something. On their own, however, I am not convinced we will see people moving to Google+ in any real numbers. Of course, it is WAY too early to have any real idea of what will happen. Anything thought or said right now is speculation so it's about as valuable as the bits and bytes it takes up.Doesn't mean we won't be busy predicting the success or imminent failure of the one service that could put a dent in Facebook. So what do you think? Will Google pull this off?
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