As we already see on many other social networks, starting on Twitter, and now Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, etc., the hashtag will start making an appearance in Google+ updates as well.  It will also let you see other posts related to the hashtag with the click of a button! Click on the hashtag and the box will flip around to show you a stream of other recent posts using the same hashtag.

One of Google’s goals with this new visual update is to better connect the use of Google+ and online photos, making it more seamless within your account.

Google’s goal is to create an effortless flow between its products and to reveal a lot of information in a fast, easy way. Visually this new redesign seems to mimic the fluidity, function, and overall look of Pinterest. What do you think?

I’m definitely looking forward to this and other Google updates rolling out in the next few weekstoday. What are you looking forward to the most?

Google announced yesterday

While this is not exactly an increase in space – Gmail originally provided 10GB of space while Google+ and Google Drive shared a combined 5GB – it allows you to allocate the space more freely by determining exactly what you would like to use the space for. We’ve mentioned before in one of our webinars that Google is focused on the continued happiness of its users, and this is yet another step in that mission.

A pie chart on your new Google Storage Page will reveal how much space you are using and how much you still have free; and, if you need more space, you can easily upgrade to 100GB+ for as little as $4.99/month.

Google’s New Storage Status and Upgrade Page

Google’s unified storage is said to be rolling out in the upcoming few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled on the Google Drive blog to learn more!

*All images from the Google Drive Blog.

You have a New Home! …on Facebook 

Sorry iPhone users. This one is for the Android lovers. Facebook Home, launched on April 12, is specifically for Android users and replaces the cluttered home screen with an engaging, immersive and distraction free news content of your friends posts and photos. In fact, it has been summarized as a “really nice screensaver.”  When running the app, your home screen is now your  Cover Feed, featuring ‘important’ updates that you just cannot miss. Another cool app, called Chat Heads, allows you to continue messaging with friends while other apps are simultaneously running. And exciting news for the excluded iPhone users – this feature is available for you too! And, its going international.

 Goal: Let’s Be As Intrusive as Possible 

Facebook Home is running advertisements that encourage phone   use during family dinners. A young women is so immersed in  Facebook Home, that simulations of her updates are coming alive  around her. Apparently, Facebook doesn’t seem to care whether it is  encouraging ill-mannered behavior.Their focus is to foster such an immersive social media experience that full transparency is a normality. Lastly,  if none of these cool features excited you, the company also made their new logo official. Doesn’t look too different, but it is the first time the icon has been refreshed in years.

What are your thoughts on Facebook’s developments? 

                                                                                           Infographic from KISSmetrics

So, why in the heck would we write another post on the topic?

I’m actually NOT covering what new features Enhanced Campaigns are bringing. You may already have read articles that cover these changes. Rather, I’m going to introduce some tips and strategies that will help you leverage these changes from a management point of view and give you more of a tactical advantage for upgrading Enhanced Campaigns. I decided to take this different approach to help you “Get Started” while there is still time before you have to upgrade your campaigns.

Now is the time you need to prepare for these changes.

I’ll give you the readers digest version of Enhanced Campaigns in case you don’t know about them. But after that, get ready to jump into some highly actionable tips so you can prep for your shift to Enhanced Campaigns today!

Why AdWords Enhanced Campaigns?

We all live in a “constantly connected” world, jumping from one device type to another communicate, shop, consume content and play farmville on Facebook.  Google published some data (and a cool infographic) that showed that 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether that’s on smartphones, PCs, tablets or TV. So that means a consumer might start reading an email or researching something on their smartphone, but finish it up at home on the tablet or laptop.

Consumers have changed the way that they search online. Search is not tied to just one individual device anymore, they search across many different devices. Google has been paying attention to this shift and decided to “enhance” campaigns to meet this change instead of having us marketers compare several separate campaigns, reports and ad extensions to accomplish this, everything will be in one campaign.

Okay, that’s the down low. Now here are 5 tips to get you started. Let’s do it!

1.) Get With Your Google AdWords Team ASAP

Believe me, there are many little changes that come with upgrading your campaign. Though Google has produced tons of really helpful information to help you out you will definitely have more questions! So if you have a team at Google, get in touch with them right away. If you don’t get your questions answered you can’t really move forward on creating your strategy.

As an additional side tip: Reach out to your SEM agency. Agencies are awesome because they have a huge knowledge base of the industry, lots of insight across verticals and work with a wide range of clients. It’s their job to know about these kinds of changes, how they will affect your account and how to make them work for you. Get in touch with your agency to get a strong understanding of things and  develop a strategy.

2.) Start Running Some Small Tests

Log into your AdWords account and click on one of your smaller campaigns. You’ll see a box at the top that says, “This campaign will be upgraded to an Enhanced Campaigns in a few months. Or you can upgrade right now.” Underneath is a “Get Started” button. Below is a screenshot:

I highly recommend that you start out testing with a few of your small campaigns to get a feel for things. There is a lot of time right now to get comfortable, so make sure you make good use of the amount of time. Use the fact that you have lots of time to your advantage and get started early. I know I will be testing aggressively over the coming weeks.

3.) Get To Know Bids On Your Mobile and Tablet

Right now are you using separate campaigns to target mobile and tablet devices? I do. Many other advertisers do too for a good reason. Every device type performs differently. This calls for a different strategy and way to manage bids accordingly for best performance. Now that the ability to separate mobile and tablet devices by campaign is going away, your mobile and tablet bids are based on a percentage of your computer search bids.

I highly recommend that you look closely at your mobile and tablet bids so that when you transition, you are as close as possible to where you are currently bidding.

4.) Reach Out To Your SEM Platform

Are you using SEM software to help you manage your PPC? If so, make sure to reach out their team there ASAP. Understand how they plan to support Enhanced Campaigns with their tool. If you don’t like their answer then now is a good time to review other options.

There are many great platforms out there, get to know their plans for supporting Enhanced Campaigns. Its going to be really important this year that your platform adopts and supports Enhanced Campaigns with open arms. Many great SEM platforms have already been working with Google regarding Enhanced Campaigns.

5.) Share Your Game Plan With Your Team, Management And Clients

Whether you’re an in-house marketer that reports to a senior management team or you’re at an agency that reports to clients and collaborates with teammates, I strongly encourage you to educate them about Google’s new change and share your game plan to make the transition successful one.

There is no doubt that everyone will hear about Enhanced Campaigns. Make sure that you give them a strong summary of  all the changes and create confidence in your game plan.

That wraps up my tips for you, I hope they help you have a successful transition! What are your plans for getting started with AdWords Enhanced Campaigns?

What Twitter is now….

The real question that should be asked is, “what is twitter not?” It has become a platform for everything and anything, including even a toaster with 2,000 followers. For many young professionals, their twitter account is a huge component of their personal brand, and monitoring the amount and nature of their tweets is often strategic.  Twitter doesn’t have Facebook’s or LinkedIn’s levels of privatization, however, privacy isn’t its point. In fact, it’s open forum format is the secret to its universal appeal. The ability to broadcast a newsworthy (or not so worthy) story in 140 characters or less to mass public, with the click of the button… well, it’s just plain addicting!

Twitter’s Future as a Global Public Entity…

Simply put, Twitter is being strategic in its partnerships, acquisitions, and restrictions. For instance, Twitter broke off its relationship with Tumblr, believing the microblogging platform does not add to its value proposition and complicates the power it has over “interest graphs.” Essentially, Twitter realizes its unique market positioning and doesn’t want anything or anyone to interfere. Establishing strategic partnerships – like with NBC during the Summer Olympics - has only elevated Twitter to become the giant that it is today. The question remains as to how the company will continue to maintain its market share in the years to come, but for now it appears to be making smart decisions

How do you expect Twitter to have evolved by its 8th birthday?

One of this year’s themes highlighted the rise of entertainment apps. Fandango’s “Fanticipation” app tracks moviegoer interest of new movies on its mobile and web platform, prior to its weekend-box office opening. Movie lovers can gain an insight on movie performance levels without having to wait until after the weekend.

What is the trend that really took over…

But for those of you who enjoy burning calories rather than munching on popcorn at the movies, you will love The Quantified Self  trend that was a major theme at this year’s festival. The movement represents a crossbreed between data analysis and wearable technology, with a focus on the individual and his or her personalized health.

But what about apps like Livestrong? 

The difference is, a product like BodyMedia’s is actually wearable and measured in real-time:  an armband that gathers physiological information, collects 5000 data points per minute, and converts this information into more meaningful measurements, like sleep quality, metabolic efficiency, and calories burned. Impressive, huh? This is just one example of a tracking advice that is making data more actionable by truly impacting our decisions and behaviors.

What are Google and Apple doing? 

Naturally,  Google and Apple have been players in the wearable technology game for awhile. Everyone is really excited about Google Glasses and Apple iWatch (rivalry, anyone?) and both projects are making huge headlines. Google’s other initiative, a smart watch, is rumored to potentially end smart phones – pause for reaction. With the capabilities to give direction, retrieve product information, and display e-mail notifications, everyone could be wearing these watches before we know it. It could be argued that the consumer market is ready for something different, and wearable technology could definitely be the next big hit.

How far do YOU think wearable technology will go? 

Upgrade to the new look and verify your website

If you have a business account and/or an account that lists a website, you’ll be able to “Switch to the new look.” from the top right drop down menu. In order to see Pinterest’s new look and start using their analytics dashboard, you must have a verified website. To verify your website, you will need to have editing rights to the HTML or the ability to upload files to your website’s root directory.

What the Pinterest Analytics will show you

Once you’ve successfully verified your website and switched to the new look, you’ll have access to your Pinterest analytics!

This free dashboard allows Pinterest users to view how many pinners and pins are posting content from your site, as well as how many repins and repinners that content receives. While this tool is very basic and doesn’t exactly pack a punch compared to other Pinterest analytics tools, it is a step in the right direction for Pinterest.

Photo: Pinterest (business.pinterest.com)

Have you switched over to use the new analytics platform? If so, what are your initial thoughts? Please share with us in the comments below!

Follow OttoPilot Media on Pinterest

In all seriousness, many of us were fans of Google’s feed reader and will be sad to see it go. Luckily, Google is giving us over 4 months to find a worthy RSS feed aggregator alternative. Today I’ve taken the plunge to find the best Google Reader replacement out there, and here is what I have found, along with some instructions on how to quickly and easily download and transfer your Google reader subscriptions to a new reader.

If you aren’t familiar with RSS feeds or readers, read our terminology post What is an RSS feed? to learn more!

Google Take-out

First, whether you take the steps I’ve outlined below or not, I recommend visiting Google Take-Out to download your current RSS feed subscriptions into .XML and .JSON files to store on your computer or cloud drive.

Export your RSS feed subscriptions with Google Take-Out

Simply click “Create Archive” and download the file when it is complete. This file will allow you to import your favorite website feeds into the new reader of your choice (assuming compatibility) at any point in the future.

Make sure there are no errors during the archiving process. When I first downloaded my file, the subscriptions.xml file (probably the most important file) was missing due to an error.

Select a new RSS Reader. My Choice: Feedly

While there are many feed reader alternatives to choose from, my new RSS feed reader of choice is Feedly. Its interface is very clean and minimal, similar to Google Reader, and they have made it easy to begin your switch from Google Reader to their platform.  With a similar layout to Google Reader, there isn’t too much of a learning curve!

Seamlessly transfer your Google Reader subscriptions to Feedly

Feedly started out primarily as a Google Reader web app, so they have made quick strides to make this transition quick and easy for its users, both old and new.  As long as you login to Feedly with your Google account before July 1, 2013, your feeds will be seamlessly transferred. For more information on transferring and organizing your feeds into Feedly, visit their blog.

Other Free RSS Reader Options

Even though I am a fan of Feedly, it doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily be your new reader of choice. Here are two other good options if Feedly isn’t your cup of tea.

The Old Reader

The Old Reader has set out to give you a similar look and feel to Google Reader. You can login with your Facebook or Google account and import your feeds using the files you downloaded from Google Take-out. Unfortunately due to the large influx of visitors who are attempting to import their feeds, you have to wait until there is an available slot to import your feeds. Since I haven’t been able to import my subscriptions yet, I can’t give much of a review at the moment, but I do enjoy the nostalgic layout.

Skimr

Skimr is a very clean and very minimal reader. As far as I can tell, they do not currently have an easy way to import your feeds from Google Reader, but it is a very simple interface that I am sure users will enjoy.

Have you started switching your RSS feeds over to a new reader? Please share your choice with us below!