You are here: Home / Archives for Google

(Google +) = (- Interest)

April 23, 2012 By

My self-imposed break from Facebook and Twitter is over.

As part of a one man (not so social) experiment, for the last week I haven’t logged in to either social platform as I endeavoured to become a Google+ convert.  To be honest, this little experiment was long overdue having ‘upgraded’ (current Google users don’t ‘join, but upgrade to G+) when it first launched, but never done anything with my ‘account’.

So, spurred on by reading about Google+ undergoing a revamp and boasting of its 170m users, I decided it was time to see what it was all about.

Whilst I understand (and Google later reiterated to me in person) that G+ isn’t supposed to be a like for like replacement for Facebook or Twitter, I felt the best way to truly appreciate what the platform could offer would be to give it my exclusive “social attention”.  Google + Google Plus

I chose to treat using G+ as any other punter would (as opposed to scrutinising it as a Digital Planner might) and to be honest the first few days passed without incident – literally.  Given that only a handful of my friends outside of work are on G+, my ‘stream’ remained unchanged.  Ok, so Mashable and Richard Branson had plenty to say – but to be honest that isn’t what I want in my personal social space.

I asked people in my ‘circles’ if anyone else was using Google+ “No – I don’t get it” and “Yes, but only because you sent me a message” came 2 responses.  I was starting to feel a little isolated and was wondering what has happening on Facebook.

As the experiment went into days 3 and 4, what did become apparent was how engrained the other social platforms had become into the social ecosystem.  I felt like I was cheating on Google when I checked my LinkedIn account to be confronted with Twitter updates from my contacts and everywhere I went I was being asked to ‘share this on Facebook’, or ‘login in using Facebook’ – but I couldn’t.

By chance on the 5th day of the experiment I was at an industry conference where a guy called Kerem Atasoy  (+kerem atasoy) spoke about how Google+ can be used by retailers and to be honest he did very little to convince me that Google’s dabble in the social world is going to be the soaring a success.  I collared Kerem at the end of the conference and outlined how I had been solely using Google+ for the past few days and asked if he could tell me how many other people in the UK only were using it – “Only Larry (The Lamb? Grayson?) knows that” was the response.  (Out of interest Kerem himself has only posted on Google+ 3 times in the last 3 months).

My interest was waning and I found myself digesting more than my average amount of daily digital news as I found that this (outside of a handful of brand pages) was the only real content I could find of interest.  Yes, a lot of big (and some smaller) brands (H&M, Burberry, Intel, Manchester United) have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, have lots of people in their circles and appear to be making a fair fist of things – but it felt very much as if I was an outsider looking in, rather than it being the social/interactive platform I was hoping for.

Many of these brands have gone to great lengths to make some really attractive looking pages and update regularly, giving those people that are interested much to digest – but at the moment it just isn’t mainstream enough to be of interest to the mainstream – clearly seen by the lack of responses to most posts.

In summary, Google will be the first to admit they are behind the curve when it comes to social.  Facebook and Twitter stole a march on them some time ago and they are now trying to play catch up.

Whilst Google+ has some nice features (Circles and Hangouts especially), I think they are going to struggle to compete with Facebook and become a social media tool that is used by the masses.  The current awareness campaign they are running may help turn a few heads and increase uptake amongst a few (hundred?) thousand of the more curious and tech savvy amongst us but I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to being as widely used as Facebook.

Admittedly for fans (and employees) of Google, G+ does help close the loop on their many product extensions but in my view it just feels a bit too complicated for the average online user – there is too much for people to get their heads around and I think this counts against it.  If you look at how simple other social platforms are to set up, understand and use, it just feels that Google have overcooked it a bit.

For brands that have the know-how and budgets, it is bound offer rewards if it is managed properly  – as no doubt Google+ brand pages will rank better in natural search and see other social platforms slide down into oblivion and it may well be this fact that many brands will consider when looking at their brand pages.  But on the flipside, this is yet another social platform that requires upkeep and moderation – putting extra pressure on all but the most socially active and well-resourced brands.

I’d like to say that I will continue to use Google+, but until less of the digital pluralists and more of my friends and the brands I am interested in are signed up – I won’t be.

Feel free to see what I don’t get up to :- +john kimbell

 

Useful links :-

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/hm-google-plus-brand-pages/

http://on.mash.to/xWVjIb

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/google_is_fiddling_with_the_google_plus_stats/

 

 

 

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

I must use Google+. I must use Google+. I must use Google+. I must use Google+.

January 31, 2012 By

At the start of 2012 the majority of people I asked about their New Year’s resolutions came back with the usual responses ”go to the gym more”, “drink less booze”, “cut out chocolate” etc etc. However I am pretty confident that my two personal resolutions for the year are pretty unique:- 1. By the end of the year to be able to ‘do’ the splits. 2. Increase my use of Google+. As this is a digital blog I’ll choose to focus on my second resolution in more depth…

I signed up to Google+ last year during the invitation-only phase and admittedly didn’t return too often in 2011 with the key reason being that I did not understand what I would get out of it. The two main social platforms in my life are Facebook and Twitter and they both have a separate use in my life; Facebook is used to connect and share with my friends and family with Twitter being used to keep up to date with people/topics/companies I find interesting. The question is how will Google+ add to and enrich my social experiences online? The only way to find out is to use it more which is what I have been doing since the start of the year.

My immediate thoughts are that the platform feels more visual with a key emphasis on users connecting with one another through photos and ‘hangouts’. To get a feel for the platform I have been adding people I know (which is predominately people from within the industry) along with brands and celebrities I find interesting. I believe that the success of Google+ in the future will stem from their focus on the latter – celebrities. Using high profile names will push the platform into the mainstream subconcious and allow Google+ to move beyond just the so-called early adopter members. It already has David Beckham and Lady Gaga using the platform which are two people who are arguably at the top of their profession and will only make more people aware of it. Larry Page announced earlier this month that Google+ has 90 million users which is double what they had three months ago. However the question remains how many of these users are engaging daily or weekly (for which a definitive figure was not provided).

So after my first full month of using the platform, I am still confused as to how it will enrich my social experiences online. Ultimately the success of the platform will be driven by the people who join and nobody I know from outside the digital industry is a member making it hard for me to comment on what my Google+ account adds to my life. In its current state it is something that I am using  in conjunction with other social platforms and it is allowing me to connect with people within the digital world alongside other people I am interested in. My experiences will change as others share more on Google+ so I’ll be sure to share my thoughts as they evolve!

If you want to add me to your Google+ circle then feel free to do so…

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With:

The digital world in April

May 6, 2011 By

There are a number of daily digital developments and internally we always look to keep up to date with important and interesting stories within the digital and marketing space. We know that it isn’t always possible for everyone to keep a track of the key stories so every month we will compile what we feel are the top stories of the past month and post them on our blog to share in case anyone missed any notable developments. There are obviously hundreds and hundreds of stories but below is just a selection of key stories for the month of April.

Google launched their new +1 social search service as their major attempt to become more social. Here is a useful video explaining what it is and our thoughts on the development are here. Critically this will benefit consumers who search via their Google Accounts to  ‘leave their seal of approval’ on relevant ads for their friends to see.

Facebook have turned their attention to marketers and developed Facebook Studio as a platform to showcase creativity. Here is our take on it  and we are hopeful that it will lead to a greater pool of knowledge but it remains to be seen…

Behavioural targeting was once again thrust into the limelight as EU legislation is due to come into play later in May. To summarise, it essentially means that businesses who collect and store cookie data from visitors to their websites should gain consent for this moving forward – with the ultimate aim to protect consumers online. This is likely to have an impact on behavioural advertising moving forward and the Online Behavioural Advertising Framework has been launched as a self regulatory initiative. There are sure to be many developments over the coming weeks and here is our view on it.

The BBC have united with a number of commercial radio stations to launch an unified Radio Player that allows users to search by station, location, programme, presenter and interest on one site rather than having to go to each individual site to change the station. This will by no means be a challenge to offline radio but the ultimate aim is to make consumption of online radio easier. In terms of online advertising for the player, we still need to go to each sales house as there is no unified sales point as yet. The player is in its infancy but it will be interesting to monitor developments and listening figures over the first year to see how it evolves.

Online music service Spotify announced that users of its free service would be restricted to ten hours of listening a month with songs playable up to five times only free of charge. The move comes as they look to move people to their premium subscription account (in which there is access to exclusive tracks and also unlimited streaming) and as they also announced their plans to rival iTunes. The move coincided with this week’s nmain which research shows only 3% of people subscribe to music streaming services and shows the reluctance to pay for online content.

And finally, this last story isn’t a digital development but it is a campaign we came across and liked. Air France recently took to the streets of Manhattan with a free food gourmet truck which was promoted via their social media platforms and just demonstrated how brands can cross the bridge between online and offline ‘social’ campaigns

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Google Plus One

March 31, 2011 By

Google has introduced Plus One which is a way for users and their friends to find recommended content online. The aim of Plus One is to publicly give content a personal stamp of approval.This could be a recipe, an article or an ad. Appearing as a small clickable icon next to each search result and text ad, the user is provided with the ability to share recommendations with their Gmail address book, Google Reader, Buzz contacts and eventually Twitter (no mention of Facebook yet).

The Plus One button provides further integration of social and search and is a direct competitor to the Facebook “like” button.  Google have developed search results not only based on relevancy but also on relationships. This benefits the searcher because the recommendation comes from the people that matter at an appropriate time (when they are searching). The time relevancy of the recommended content is what sets Plus One apart from the Facebook like button. The like button provides recommended content to friends however, it does not provide them with this recommended content when they require it. How many irrelevant “likes” have you been annoyingly notified of?

The integration of the Plus One button should affect Pay Per Click search (PPC) clicks. A user that sees an ad that has a high volume of Plus One recommendations will be more inclined to click. This will improve the Ad click through rate improving Quality Score and therefore help lower the cost per click.

Google is slowly rolling out Plus One starting in English on Google.com. If you want to be one of the first to start using Plus One visit the experimental search site to sign up to the Plus One experiment.

Filed Under: Search Marketing Tagged With: ,