Posts Tagged ‘google’

Google Puts Feet on the Street

Posted on: March 6th, 2012 by Geoff Livingston 9 Comments

Lovebugs
Google’s DC Office Featured Love Bugs on Valentine’s Day

The Wall Street Journal slammed Google last week for launching another social network when one wasn’t needed (um, yeah, that’s why Pinterest is doing so poorly, right?). Meanwhile, Google has quietly been deploying its local offices to meet with businesses and internet aficionados. The company wants to humanize the Google brand, and personally help people use Google+ and other products.

This is a smart move, one that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have yet to match. Google is literally investing in relationships one by one, and putting faces to what has often seemed a distant and monolithic company.

So many of today’s untrained marketers believe that social media is the primary form of grassroots communications. In reality, they form just one component of a strong word of mouth strategy. Great word of mouth includes personal interactions through meetings like these, small events, local outreach, strong email management, and core stakeholder loyalty development programs.
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The Great Fracture

Posted on: January 24th, 2012 by Geoff Livingston 23 Comments

Petermann Glacier September 2008 [High Res]
Image by NASA

Every mature market experiences rising competition that carves off specialized pieces of the leaders’ established footprint. It’s how Southwest, JetBlue and others brought the major traditional airlines to their knees (and bankruptcy). For social networking leaders, the great fracture is upon them. Those of us on the front line are left to pick networks and tools.

Facebook has run away with the race. Twitter, LinkedIn, and a host of smaller social networks have taken their seats behind the leader. Yet as time continues, more and more niche networks like Tumblr, Instagram, shiny object du jour Pinterest, Reddit and others carve off their piece of the pie.

The phenomena of so many social media choices has moved from creating to social media fatigue for the most faithful to full-on overload. Even the most tech savvy people find themselves making tough choices.

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Why You Should Care About Twitter vs. Google+

Posted on: January 17th, 2012 by Geoff Livingston 21 Comments

Google+ Enters PageRank Algorithm

Perhaps you saw the epic war of words last week between Twitter and Google. The conflict revolves around Google’s inclusion of Plus activity into its search algorithm. Called “Search Plus Your World,” this addition of the Google+ data has far ranging implications for online marketers. It dramatically increases the value of Google+ activity in comparison to its primary competitors Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and, of course, Facebook.

Consider how prominent this change is. In the above screen capture, personalized results are featured right above the top search result for “crux.” Also one of my Google+ posts is featured as the third result.

Search Plus impacts both traditional search marketing and social media. First of all, Google still dominates search with roughly 66 percent of all web based inquiries going through its site.

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