[Updated 8/11/11] Google Plus for Marketers: Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations

Google+ for Marketing Executives:
Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations

Summary
We believe G+ will take its place among a small group of critical social networks for marketers within next 1-2 years
G+ incorporates best of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. and attempts toevolve the breed
Increases usage and usefulness of other Google services(Chrome, AdWords, Google Apps, Android OS, Picasa, etc.)
Will use user data from all above services to provide transformative opportunities to marketers
Brands must be prepared to leverage G+ when business pages become available in late September / early October 2011, esp. in regard to legal and compliance
Image credit: http://www.zurmat.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-growth-vs-other-social-networks/

What is Google+?
G+ is a collection of different social products:
Profile (similar to a Facebook profile)
Stream (a newsfeed on the default page)
Sparks (a recommendation engine)
Hangouts (a video chat service)
Huddle (a group texting service)
Circles (a friend management service)
Photos (a photo sharing service)
Coming Soon:
Games
Questions
Business Profiles

Stream (this is the Default view)

Stream
Stream allows users to view news feeds for Circles either one at a time or all at once at the click of a mouse, allowing for easier filtering/browsing than Facebook, which presumes to know what you’ll like either via “Most Recent” or “Top News”

Circles
Circles enables you to sort contacts into relevant groups

Sparks (Landing Page)
Sparks are search-term driven. Landing page is a “semi-curated” results page for a few pre-selected topics. You can also manually find things by entering terms in the search box.

Sparks
Sparks allow you to find and follow items of interest on the web. They don’t find G+ posts. It’s not social search. It does make following keywords similar to following people (via Stream).

Sparks
When create a Spark item, you “bookmark” that search term’s results so you can easily view them later. Useful for curation, market research, keeping up with news, etc.

Chat
Chats can be enabled only for Circles or individuals – lets you control who can see your online status and initiate a chat with you (not possible w/Facebook)

Hangout
Hangout is live group chat. You can invite as many as you want, but only video chat with up to 10 people at a time.

Hangout (Pop-up)
Hangout occurrences are posted to Streams and are pre-set to be inherently viral and visible - but that also makes it impossible to control who can participate. Note the chat window alongside.

Photos
Photos is designed to work most seamlessly with Android OS phones. Seeks to encourage upload and sharing with high levels of virality. Default screen shows photos from your circles

Photos
Photos is a social networking app like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook. Photos carefully mimics most effective functions of Facebook photo, like tagging, uploading, albums, etc.

Photos
Photos is different in that you can share photos or albums only to certain circles or individuals if desired. “Photos of you” is its own default category, making it easier to manage your visual identity inside G+

Huddles
Not a new idea - very similar to Groupme and many other startups offering group SMS texting
Only available on Android or iPhone via the G+ app (don’t look for it on the website!)
Can include anyone – not just G+ users

Key Characteristics of G+
Circles
Assumes people run in multiple social circles and would prefer to communicate with each one differently
Users group contacts into segments (Circles) and publish / share / engage selectively
Asymmetric: Users can follow and engage with people who don’t follow them back (more like Twitter, less like FB)
Viral: Users can share with ANYONE who has put themin their circles

G+ Key Characteristics
Data and Privacy
First social net to let users download ALL their social data
Settings page is easier to understand and use than FB
Easy to see when and how info is shared, esp. photos (more sensitive)

Key Characteristics of G+
Post distribution & notifications
Extremely viral andconversation-friendly
Users comment more often
Comments highly visible in G+
Probably due to default notification settings, which notify of EVERYTHING by Gmail and in notifications on the black nav bar (above right)
Also likely due to early G+ user population dominated by popular influencers/power users
…and appear to do so more readily – comments often stretch into 50s or more for a single post – rare in Facebook

Issues…
Too many notifications
No way to distinguish between worthwhile notifications and useless ones (e.g, an inane or glib comment isindistinguishable from a useful one)
How do you sift through100s of comments?
Cries for “better filtering”, etc. appear frequently

Why Google is serious about G+

G+ potential to “turn the tide”
The “Black Nav Bar” – shows how Google properties are now more present and interconnected (communication, network, search, productivity, collaboration)
G+ is an important missing ingredient to Google mix: a driver of longer and more frequent visits/sessions
Has potential to make Google properties once again the most popular online destination

The “ ”
Similar to - but an expansion on - Facebook
Is a tacit endorsement to your social network of:
Content (example: an article or video)
URL (example: in search results or on website)
Google+ post (example: a status update)

Why the “ ”?
2/3rds of the economy is influenced by personal recommendations.
McKinsey& Company
20% of consumers are key influencers of purchasing activities of 74% of the population.
Gartner
Consumers mention 56 brands in conversation per week.
Keller Fay
62% of these discussions are positive.
Each peer recommendation reaches 150 people on the social web.
Forrester
Less than 25% of people say they trust emails they sign up for.
1 in 3 people come to a brand through a recommendation.
Weber Shandwick
The most recommended company in any given category grows2.5x the category average.
Bain& Co.
40% of advocates answer, comment, or give opinions online several times each week.
Yahoo! and Comscore
24

The “ ”
Will appear to you, your social network, and to general public in Google’s search results
+1 button must be added to websites in order to appear
Personal recommendations drive “pre-qualified” traffic

+1’s are also stored in a tab on Google+ profiles for easy access. Users can opt to show their +1 tab, or keep it private – “micro-bookmarking”
+1 tab is intended to let users manage from a single destination
The “ ”

+1 is Google’s way of incorporating personal recommendations into search results on a massive scale
From the general public, in aggregate (example: “this has1200 +1’s”)
From your personal networks (example: “Steve, Roger, and Bill +1’d this”)
From yourself(example: “you +1’d this at some point in the past”)
+1 is a BIG DEAL because it means brands with more +1’s will get more traffic, more qualified traffic, and more conversions from Google search, which owns 85% of the market
The “ ”

How G+ Will Play into Search Results
Empiric research suggests Google organic search results are affected by whether user has added a brand to their Google+ Circles
This means the more popular your brand is in G+, the higher your SEO rankings are likely to be
Hovering over the Ford Motor Company link displays this:

Before G+
After
G+ context w/ other social nets
Image Credit: http://scalableintimacy.com/

After G+
G+ context w/ other social nets
Image Credit: http://scalableintimacy.com/

Facebook Comparison
Pages for Individuals and Businesses (called Profiles in G+)
G+ Profiles are not currently customizable yet, whereas FB pages can essentially developed as fully as websites
Posts
Format and options for posts are practically identical
News Feed…
…But G+ News Feed can be custom-filtered by users via Circles
“Liking” a post (Google calls this “+1”)… Except…
+1 only applies to posts, websites, and content - not to Profiles
+1 concept assumes user may like a user’s post without committing to holistically “Liking” the author
+1 informs search results, whereas FB Like does not
Will G+ for business include profile-level “Liking” like FB? We’ll see…

Facebook Comparison
Photos
Takes dead aim at the most-used function in Facebook
Designed to work best with Google-owned apps, OS’s, services
Careful to be BETTER than Facebook on managing privacy and sharing issues
Perfectly synced with Picasa, which should give it an advantage over both Facebook and media site sharing competitors:
Facebook, and photo sharing services from …
Apple / iPhoto
Yahoo / Flickr
Adobe / CS 5
Microsoft / Windows Live Photo Gallery

Unprecedented Growth…
Image credit:: http://www.zurmat.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-growth-vs-other-social-networks/

… But Still a Long Way to Go

What’s Next
G+ effect on Google Advertising will change the game
By now we all know that people spend more time on social websites than any other, esp. Facebook, and marketing investment has followed
Advertising in social is different because you can target based on user profiles, which are proven to generate better ads and higher return on advertising spend
Google has always been ahead in search, but not social
Google search targets based on need (keywords)
Social networks target based on profiles (identity, interest, friends)
Google+ will be able to add the power of profiles to need to provide brands with a revolutionary new targeting capability

Immediate Business Uses for Google+
Definite and obvious:
Content publishing, engaging, etc.
Use Segmentation to do focused Publishing & Engagement
Use to build awareness, esp. with influencers/early adopters
Content curation and market research (Sparks)
Traffic generation
SEO – Essential for businesses to publish/engage in G+
SEM/PPC - Target in G+ like they do on Facebook, Linkedin, etc.
Less definite, will depend on client and circumstance:
Live Meetings (Hangouts) and Chats (Huddles) for planned client/customer and brand interactions
Customer Service (Dell)
Webinar-style presentations

What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions*
Brandable ProfilesMost social networks force their own brand, not the brand of the company. Will G+ be different? We think yes.
SMMPswill be able to add G+ channel via API to facilitate G+ presence management. G+ will recognize the importance of doing this b/c brands need to manage publishing and engagement on multiple social networks and will want to just add G+ to the tool(s) they are already using
Customers may be able to post content directly onto a brand's profile/page and give brands management control so that those posts can be deleted, moderated, etc. (kind of like Wikipedia)
*Credit for some evolutions suggested: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts

What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions*
People will be able to use Sparks to watch an industry vertical or a location / region, etc. and have popular posts pushed to news feed. Sparks doesn’t integrate G+ posts now, but hopefully it will in the future. This would be a huge improvement over Twitter and Facebook.
"Hangout" features will be offered for Brands to let teams have inbound requests routed to different employees and let them moderate and split up calls. Add recording and broadcasting to Hangout so a management team could hold a press conference or an earnings call and have that shared with everyone - not just 10 participants.
Brands (and individuals) will be able to share circles like people currently share music playlists. Brands will be able to tag employees in a circle of their employees so recipient would know who to contact for different needs. (Think Sales, B2B scenarios)
*Credit for some evolutions suggested: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts

What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions (update)
As of July 25, 2011:
Integration with Google Apps: Google says that Plus for Google Apps accounts "should be available in the coming months"
Full-fledged meeting functionality: Hints in source code point to full-fledged meeting functionality, including
video and voice conferencing
screen sharing
document sharing
a whiteboard feature
http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2011/07/google-plus-for-businesses-brands.php

What Brands should be doing now
Encourage internal PR, marketing, and all other social media- or community management teams to experiment with Google+ and share insights and observations
Circles
How could your company use Circles? Think: Interest groups as circles to share information that can be public
Huddles
Group collaboration “on the go” – ideal for events and planning. Like a conference call, but via SMS
Hangouts (group video chat)
Could be used for brainstorming sessions or to connect with industry colleagues

What Brands should be doing now
Do you advertise now on Google?! Prepare to reallocate your marketing budget to accommodate:
Expanding social media activities to include G+ publishing, engagement
Developing a strategy designed to:
Drive +1’s
Attract and engage G+ followers
Testing and evaluating G+ effect on SEO/PPC performance as well as typical social KPIs and metrics, including traffic and conversions
Reevaluate Google services vs. competing services
Key: G+, AdWords, Google Analytics, Google Apps
Secondary: Online advertising mix (especially social advertising), Webinar software (various vendors), customer service platforms

End Core Content

About Gage Marketing

Marketing Solutions that Drive Behavior
Formed in 1992
Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Redmond
Ad Age / Interactive Rank: #35
Promo / Promotion Rank: #37
Blending of technology and marketing for world’s most respected brands
Promotional
Sweeps, games, contests, POP, legal
Digital
Mobile, web, media, social, dashboards
Relationship
CRM, incentive & loyalty programs, DR
Fortune 500 Client Base

Gage Social Media Ecosystem + Select Clients
Strategy & Consulting
Software Integration
Services
Custom Development
Media
SM Outpost strategy and management
Social CRM - Monitoring , Measurement, Engagement
Thought Leadership Marketing
Event Marketing (microblogging, video capture / publishing, SlideShare)
SEO media asset development, publishing, tagging
Social Media Identity Protection
SM Analytics / Dashboards
Legal Services (Campaign design, Rules, Terms & conditions)
SM Promotions (Wildfire)
eCommerce (BazaarVoice)
B2B CRM (Salesforce)
Loyalty and Community building (Pluck, Lithium)
Content Curation (Magnify, Curation Station)
Collaborative and cross-channel marketing (Spredfast, Sprinklr)
Monitoring / Social CRM(Radian6, Visible Technologies)
Viral tracking / Earned Media Measurement(Meteor)
Profiling / Retargeting / Advocacy modeling(Rapleaf, Flowtown)
Custom Loyalty / Sweepstakes, Contests, Promotions, Training, Community
Custom Facebook Applications:
Photo/Video Contests
Localization
FacebookOpenGraph API integration
Dynamic live/social content display widgets
Social Media-technology mashups (Crimson Hexagon, Google/Bing Maps, etc)
Mobile Applications Development
WAP site enablement
Cross-channel campaign design and execution
Social Media Advertising
Twitter (Tweets/handles/hashtags)
Facebook (DirectServe, PPL model, others)
LinkedIn (InMail, Display ads)
YouTube
…More

For more information
Christopher McLarenDirector - Emerging Media & StrategyGage Marketing Group
Phone: 763-242-0930
Email: chris_mclaren@gage.comConnect: http://bit.ly/cmclaren1
Please reference “G+ webinar”
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[Updated 8/11/11] Google Plus for Marketers: Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations

by Gage Marketing on Jul 21, 2011

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[Updated 8/11/11] Google Plus for Marketers: Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations — Presentation Transcript