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Using Google+ and +1 button is a Quick Trip to Higher Advertising Rankings

During its gradual roll-out, Google social platform was not living up to its much-hyped expectations. General public continued using Facebook as a forum for social interactions, and the businesses did not have incentives to use Google+ as a marketing platform. Moreover, +1 button did not have meaningful functionality.

Recently, however, +1 button got a boost – it allows you to share! While it is similar in action to the Facebook Like button, it’s very different in result.

A Facebook Like Button will post what you’ve shared to your profile on Facebook for your “friends” will see it, so it is limiting in its area of influence. Results shared through the +1 button will show up on the Google search for everyone who uses Google, not just your “friends”. Thus, it’s much more powerful. People prefer using Google to Facebook for their web searches, and the +1 button will help them to optimized the results.

That’s why every company should add the +1 button to their website.

Google+ has its own benefits. If you are on Google+ and you are friends with a certain company, this company’s result will show up at the top of your relevant search results.

For example, if you are friends with Ford on Google+ and you are looking for a car, Ford’s listings will be at the top of your Google car searches. Facebook does not have this feature.  That’s why the companies must be present on Google+. To get the most out of Google+ they need to have as many friends as possible, and then their search will be optimized.

Of course, the Google+ users must have the company in their circles for this optimization to work. How do companies give a good reason for people to become friends with them? Same way as on Facebook. Users must want to be associated with the brand, so the brand needs to be appealing; users must want to follow the posts and participate in conversations, so there should be engaging content.

Few companies use Google+ for marketing services. Even the two speakers in my eMarketing class, who are at the forefront of social media utilization, acknowledged that they did not see much use for the Google+ platform. In addition to asking for the customers to “like” their company on Facebook, the businesses should encourage the consumers to add them to their circles, and their search rankings will get a lift.

Many businesses have Facebook pages and online followers. Few organizations can boast mobilized and productive online communities that help them achieve their business goals. As the result, much value that could be created from connecting community to the business, is lost in the community’s internal chatter.

In the article “Mobilize Your Online Community!” the author identifies ways of how online community can facilitate the growth of the business:

-       Identifying solutions to common problems
-       Solicit innovative ideas
-       Manage company reputation
-       Increase non-community participation in events

Additional benefits include:

-       Increased sales through information sharing among the community members
-       Increased membership in the business’ program
-       Increased brand awareness that may lead to additional sales

It is not easy to energize online community. To start the movement, the author of the article recommends having dedicated customers interacting on the site, incentivizing active community members, committing organizational resources to support online community activities.

It is also important to appoint social media-savvy staff to manage online community interactions. These are the people who know what’s going on in the social medial world, who use the tools, and can understand what’s important for the customers.

Sometimes, companies use the element of surprise or even “shock” to engage their online membership. Linked-in, for example, came up with “You are a Brand” strategy that prompts people to complete a survey that categorizes them according to four brands:

-       Global Guru–that’s the Googles, Apples, Coca-Colas, Nikes and Starbucks of this world
-       Rebel with a Cause–Audi, Nutella, Red Bull and Harley Davidson
-       Alternative Thinker–Uniqlo, Innocent, Diesel, Tesla and Muji
-       Multibrand–that’s Unilever, Dupont, LVMH, Starwood and Virgin

After completing the survey, the respondents receive recommendations on marketing themselves and improve job prospects. While the campaign served its purpose and increased the Linked-in membership, the site did not allow the users to customize their wallpaper so that their newly determined brand could stand out, so the effects of this promotion were not sustained.

Nutella, on the other hand, is a case study for engaging online community. Consumers compose songs about the delicious hazelnut product, they share their first-Nutella experiences on Youtube:

The friend count on Facebook is nearing 12 million. Nutella’s questions on Facebook such as “All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. Who said this?” generate 441 comments in two days, most of them unrelated to the question, and the question “The first time I tried Nutella I was… “ prompted 4,200 responses in a week.

Marketers are still debating how Nutella achieved such as success. It wasn’t a smart and sophisticated marketing campaign put together by Fererro that brought such a huge response from the Nutella fan base. It the grassroots movement, when the dedicated users launched Twitter and then Facebook crusade to endorse their beloved product and sing odes to it. The Ferrero marketing team only jumped into the online conversations later. Nutella is the product and brand management everybody should be looking up to!

The SocialVibe wants to offer free internet “from FarmVille credits and Internet Wi-Fi, to unlimited Pandora streaming” to the users willing to participate in lengthy, interactive advertisements.

SocialVibe’s advertising platform has been successful in creating engaging content for the users. Engagement usually involves interactivity (clicking or typing answers), sharing on social channels, interesting content (emotional, informative, thought-provoking).

Will this approach be widely adopted? Will companies trade their paid products for getting user information, generated by the interactive surveys?

In addition to giving free products to the users, engagement advertising offers the following benefits aimed at increasing brand awareness:

-       people like giving their opinions, so they’ll spend more time with the ad
-       users appreciate the brand that gave them paid service for free, this appreciation can evolve into loyalty
-       sharing option on Twitter and Facebook will allow respondents inform their networks of a new brand/product

Why some people/companies may not participate in interactive ads?

-       value of  the person’s time (40 seconds) is  higher than price of the product they will get for free
-       companies may not see the ROI in engagement advertising
-       lack of engaging content will drive the users away

Still, there is a high probability that engaging advertising will be wide-spread soon. A couple of teenagers told me with conviction that they were willing to complete an interactive online survey and get their internet products (games) for free. I received similar response from middle-age people, and senior citizens. It mainly goes back to people wanting to give their opinions on different topics and getting free products for it.

It can be expected that companies will turn to interactive ads. According to eMarketer,  “Encouraging brand engagement is a key reason why marketers use online video advertising” instead of traditional advertising channels. Interactive ads offer solid engagement measurements including:

-       time spent with the ad
-       interactions with the ads
-       sharing of content
-       purchases

So stay tuned for more interactive ads from SocialVibe or other providers saving you from paying for internet services.

Not every company chooses to transfer it’s quirkiness from offline to online world.

“Most brands are like needy teenagers, desperately trying to blend in with the crowd”. This line from the article “Injecting Some Serious Swagger into Your Brand Personality” by J. Linkner captured my attention.  This is a very insightful comment. As a mother of a twelve-year old boy, I can attest that most of the teenagers try to avoid embarrassment at all costs.

The businesses’ cautious, guarded messaging (i.e. professional and friendly) to all customer segments aims at pleasing all segments, but often results in commodity products that delight no one.

Kulula Airline has taken a different approach in its communications with passengers. The low cost South African airline uses swagger to stand out from its competitors. The widely-distributed sayings of their flight attendants include:

“There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out
of this airplane.”

“Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.” 

“Your seats cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an
emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.”

I was curious to see if the company’s edgy personality is reflected in its virtual image. There must be numerous ways to carry over the eccentricity of the company’s culture to the social medial world.

Kulula's cheeky planes

The Kulula’s websites, Facebook page left me disappointed. The company presented generic information about its products and services. It offered pictures of beautiful destinations and photos of its staff in costumes. The twitter stream was a flurry of customer-friendly messages. The youtube account had a line up of funny ads that could be confused with IKEA’s.

Kulula’s originality, wittiness and fun-loving culture is lost in the social medial channels. The company’s Facebook page isn’t engaging travellers in a dialogue or to share their experiences from recent trips. Compared to Nutealla’s page, which is one of the top ranked pages on Facebook, there were no thought- or answer- provoking questions on Kulula’s wall.

Was it done on purpose? Is Kulula trying to play it safe online and relying on its offline interaction with the customers to cement its brand personality? Or is it a limitation of the social media channels? I think it’s Kulula’s choice. The Southwest Airline Facebook page is more engaging, colourful and in tune with its culture.

My recommendation for Kulula is to ask questions, publicize fresh funny jokes, connect people and create a distinct online character. They need to mobilize online community and gain evangelists who will help them to take their success to the next level.

Decision Funnel Affects Companies’ Online Presence

Review of the article by H. Eisen “Save money, increase productivity, enter new markets? No thanks”, Backbone, Oct 2011: http://www.backbonemag.com/Magazine/2011-10/canadian-smes-use-of-technology.aspx

In her article, which is mainly a compilation of ideas from various sources, Hailey Eisen points out that many Canadian businesses do not adopt information and communication technology (ICT) as effectively as they could. There are numerous ways for the companies to boost their productivity, cut costs and enter new markets using social media channels, e-commerce and cloud computing. Still, according to Google Canada, “more than one-third of Canadian small businesses have no online presence whatsoever” at the time when close to 80% of the customers use internet to search for products and services.

Eisen emphasizes the benefits of ICT for all kinds of small and big businesses, she shares tips on how to maximize companies sites’ potential, and endorses the free “Get Your Business Online” tool by Google (gybo.ca), which is also supported by one of the “Dragons” – Kevin O’Leary.

Sounds simple: just develop your website on gybo.com and follow the tips: keep your site simple, have a specific call to action on your homepage, keep content fresh and updated, drive traffic to your site. However, I think that this article is one-sided and does not speak to the difficulty in developing and maintaing quality websites.

But the question is – do all businesses require virtual presence? In addition to being listed in the online yellow pages, and such review websites as urbanspoon.com, yelp.ca? Should all companies have their own standalone sites that must be maintained and that should offer high quality of 7Cs (content, context, interactive communication, commerce, customization, connection, community)?

I believe that the choice “to be or not to be” online depends on company’s decision funnel (P. Cubbon, BAMA 513 eMarketing MBA elective, P6, 2011 – http://blogs.ubc.ca/paulcubbon/).

Many small businesses focus on offering incentives to buy, repeat and recommend. Their decision funnel is shaped like Trumpet (A), and they focus on getting the referrals and repeat customers. For such companies, investing in sophisticated websites is not worth the effort.

The businesses that target as large a pool of prospective customers as possible, use the Magician Hat’s approach (B). It is these companies that require intensive use of ICT. The same is true to a degree for the companies that use C and D method.

While creating the website should be relatively easy using gybo (see my recently created and blank website: http://www.elenabobyreva.ca), and the site can help generate the buzz in the virtual world, many small business owners do not have technical savvy to maintain their websites and leverage all the tools it can offer. Their websites will likely get out-of-date and make a poor impression on the prospective clients. The owners won’t know how to use search engine optimization (this elusive tool that everyone brags about it, but uses it mostly inefficiently) or how to manage negative comments from the viewers.

According to Industry Canada 2009 report, 600,000 small businesses have between 1-4 employees – they simply do not have resources to spend on ICT.

In addition, brand is not what the company is trying to push on their consumers. It is what the consumers make of the company. If the clients are happy with the services or products, they will find a way to spread a good word on Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels (approach A – trumpet). If they are not happy, they will use exactly the same avenues to express their negative feelings.

There is no doubt that e-commerce can help to save money and increase company’s profitability. However, it is false to assume that every business’ goal is expansion or profit maximization. Often, the strategy is focused on earning reasonable returns, maintaining family and/or environment-friendly culture, and retaining family control. Many owners do not aspire to turn their businesses into franchises.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for the well-developed websites that are like the hikes to the mountains: with every turn (or click) the view from the mountain gets better (the website value proposition stronger).

But bad websites may become company’s liability since they may turn the clients away. Just browse some of the bad websites here: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/.

Therefore, my answer to Hailey Eisen’s article is that GYBO and other online tools work for the businesses that can use them effectively. If the business does not have the resources to maintain their online identity on their own, they should rely on the means they are using in the offline world – word of mouth – and the digital communities will help them in the virtual reality as well as the real customers helps them now in the offline world.

Would you use your social media credentials to leave a comment or make a purchase on a website? I won’t – until the companies learn the social media etiquette.

Social Login offers the visitors to sign in to the websites with their social media account to make a purchase, leave a comment or access restricted content. The HBR article “Social Login Offers New ROI from Social Media” outlines indisputable benefits of Social Login for businesses:

• viewers don’t have to come up with separate usernames and passwords for different websites and are less likely to leave the site without registering
• businesses collect invaluable segmentation data on their consumers
•  “social sharing” allows businesses to generate unprecedented “word of mouth” advertising, especially if the users not only “like” the product, but also tell their network what they’ve done on the website and review the offering.

But what do the visitors get from giving up their social media identification? I think this business — user equation is lopsided and the consumers are often taken for a ride.

Let me illustrate my point. I am a big fan of the Nike Training Club (NTC) iPhone app. This free mobile program offers fitness routines from the leading Nike athletes. The app is very well-done: the athletes walk users through the exercises that are grouped into four categories (Get Lean, Get Toned, Get Strong, Get Focused). I highly recommend NTC app to everyone!

I was using my regular email to register for this program and, up until I decided to “like” the NTC Facebook, my Facebook life was under my control. After I “liked” the NTC Facebook page, I decided to allow Nike to access my information and post on my behalf. I thought they’d be reasonable about it – they are a respectable company after all!

Not being an active Facebook user, I checked my account a week later, and I was shocked to discover that Nike had been posting 3-5 announcements on my wall daily about workouts, clothing line, interviews with NTC users and athletes. I had to quickly revoke my permission from Nike to post on my behalf. I was disappointed with the volume of information that they pushed on to my network. I spammed my friends’ Facebook walls.

Of course, there is a way around Social Login – create a fake account on Facebook or Twitter and use it to access the websites. However, if the companies plan to meaningfully connect with consumers, they should recognize that accessing their clients’ network is a privilege that cannot be abused. Otherwise, the companies will not only lose their clients’ network, but they will ruin the Social Login idea for other businesses because the consumers will be very cautious about using their social identifications.