Are you thinking about incorporating Google+ into your social media strategy but haven’t made the leap yet? There are a few important advantages to participation you need to consider. But first, some background.

What is Google+, really?

For the uninitiated, it’s a social network. For those in the know, it’s a Facebook clone (that’s a tongue-in-cheek comment but it’s partially true). Google is understandably avoiding making any comparisons to existing social networks. If I were forced to do so then Facebook would be the most likely comparison. As you think through both this post and your strategy, Facebook will do if you absolutely need a point of comparison (at least for now).

Something to keep in mind is that Google+ is not +1. They are two separate names to two related but very different things. For those that don’t spend their professional time geeking out on social networks (I do) the terms can be confusing. That’s completely understandable. As discussed above, Google+ is Google’s social network. The +1 is their equivalent of the Facebook Like (to stretch the comparison a bit further). So when you “+1” something you are giving Google a signal that you like the page/link/ad (Yes, you can +1 an ad. Who does that?!!?).

To add further confusion to the understanding of Google+ terminology, Google is now aggregating +1 and Circle activity for business pages. I’m not even going to go there right now (see the footnote for an explanation¹).

Why should you consider incorporating Google+ into your social media strategy?

As marketing practitioners we all need “another social network”, right? Well, under other circumstances I would relegate Google+ to a second tier network, monitor it for any activity about my brand and respond as appropriate. Then I would move on with my life. But this is Google and, while their network is still nascent, it does require more attention than you would give other burgeoning social networks.

These are the important and distinctive advantages to using Google+:

• Google allows for long form content (somewhere around 100,000 characters if you would like to personally test it). You can post long status messages like this entire blog post or even a novella (literally).  Sure.  Sure.  Facebook recently also increased their character count on posts to 63,206 (Facebook … Face Boo K … hex(FACE) – K … 64206 – 1000 = 63206) but it wouldn’t flow or feel right if you used all characters.  The Facebook community is not used to long posts.  The Google+ community see long form content regularly.
• Google+ posts can be referenced through unique links and shared publicly. There is no need to worry about whether or not someone has a Google+ account. Everyone can view your public content regardless of their Google+ account status. This is not a distinct advantage in and of itself but when combined with the next point it is important to consider.
• Google+ posts perform extremely well in the search results. Some prominent bloggers have used anecdotal evidence to support the idea that, while their blog post performs well in the Google SERPs, a Google+ post about the original blog post performs better. See this note from a former Google Apps product management lead as an example of said anecdotal evidence.
• Google “Search plus Your World” (a.k.a. social search) is a significant change to their algorithm in which social signals (mostly the +1) are incorporated into Google’s search results. Currently, signals from Twitter and Facebook are not being included in these results so activity on Google+ is the only way to increase your chances of being seen (there has been plenty written about this already). This is a complex advantage so lets look at some pretty pictures.

Look at these screenshots for an example of how social search is affecting results even today. They are both for the search term “SOPA” (an extremely egregious and disgusting bill making its way through Congress). The results are very different when social search is triggered and the difference does not have anything to do with proper SEO. It’s almost entirely based on your Google+ Circles and +1 activity.

Based on the incorporation of these new social results, there has been some healthy discussion about how traditional SEO is not important (see an excellent argument from Ed Kless about SEO and social search). I think this conversation is great because we are in a transition phase. SEO is still extremely important for your digital marketing efforts if your goal is to be seen by more people.  It’s difficult to tell if SEO will continue to deliver the same results using the same formula as social search becomes more prominent. My educated guess is that it will not.

The carrot and the stick

The advantages listed above are all carrots. That is, they are the positive benefits of having bought into participation on Google+ for your brand or business. Here’s the stick:

Not only do Google+ posts rank highly in their search algorithm but activity around the +1 will directly impact your cost per click advertising costs. Stay with me here because this is the most important part of the post (Yes.  I buried the lead). Based on the 2011 Search Marketing Report from MarketingSherpa, the paid search click through rate of social media users compared to non-users (the 3 of you left out there) is double. Double. Let’s put that in terms a bit easier to understand. The more your Google AdWords ads get clicked, the higher your quality score. The higher your quality score the less you pay for ads. In my best mafia voice, “Capisce?”

In Summary

Google+ was officially launched on June 28, 2011. Just prior to that the +1 button was launched but didn’t have much of a purpose without the accompanying social network. In other words, it hasn’t been that long (Leo Laporte asked an excellent question on his TWiT podcast recently, “How many internet years is represented by a real year if a dog year is 7 years?”). You can clearly see Google’s focus here and their desire to make this product successful. Personally, I’m in. The conversations on Google+ are intelligent and in-depth. I really enjoy it. From a business perspective it’s hard for me to argue against the points above. Get your pencils sharp and dust off your thinking caps. It’s time to focus some of your effort on Google+.

¹Footnote: Just like on Facebook, you can like a brand or business on Google+. This is done through the +1 and, for comparison’s sake, it matches the Facebook Like perfectly. You can Like a status update. You can +1 a status update. You can Like a brand or business. You can +1 a brand or business. If we look at the Los Angeles Times business page on Google+ we can see that “14,127 have +1’d or added to circles”. Wait. What? Yes, if you Circle a brand on Google+ you are counted in their aggregate influence number (What are we calling that number, anyway?). Breaking down the number, 13,986 have the Los Angeles Times in a Circle which means that only 141 have +1’d the venerable west coast publisher of news and information. I’ve seen similar trends skewed in favor of Circles for other brands as well. I’m not sure why Google is aggregating these numbers but it can create a small amount of confusion as you are measuring the success of your efforts.

Google+ pages (launched recently) now provide an opportunity for businesses, and not just individuals, to participate in the still nascent social network. Along with this feature launch from Google came myriad articles and how-to guides all geared at bringing people up to speed quickly. There are a few key features that are showing great potential and also a few features that are glaringly absent.

First, the drawbacks:

1. Page administration – This is the biggest current drawback. Business pages on Google+ can only be administered by one person. Google prefers you be a “real” person to participate on Google+ as an individual. Further, only individuals (a “real” person as Google sees it) can create business pages. So once a business page is setup by an employee only that employee can do anything with the account because it is tied to their Google+ profile (and their Gmail account by extension). Trying to get around this requirement is risky as Google has proactively closed many accounts of personal profiles that were not genuinely tied to “real” people.

[Update: This is the single largest feature currently being requested by business users of the Google+ platform.  Given the highly iterative nature of Google it is natural to assume they are working on this.]

2. Notifications – Business pages do not receive notifications via email or in the notification bar. Everything is still manual.

Advantages:

1. Search, of course. Google+ pages, the +1 button and Direct Connect (more on that below) are all geared at providing Google with more intelligence.  This will help to improve search results and also search advertising.

2. Message segmentation – The Circles feature in G+ allows you to segment your audience. Once done, you can also segment your messaging (very similar to segmentation when sending email marketing messages). One big caveat is that creating Circles is currently a manual process and can be very (very) time consuming.

3. Direct Connect – This feature allows G+ pages to show up as the first result in Google search when using the “+” qualifier. Visit Google.com and type “+a”. Experiment with different letters and you will see the companies that are currently participating.

Those are the big advantages/disadvantages out of the gate.  This platform will change fast.  What’s clear to me is that Google has moved beyond a remedial understanding of social media.  They get it now.  They’ve spent critical time thinking about how to build out a social network and the most compelling issue for marketers to consider is how G+ activities will affect their search marketing (including advertising) results.  Pay attention here and stay ahead of the game.

[UPDATED] Mashable reports that multi-admin capability is coming soon.

Facebook buried the lead during Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote. Yes, music sharing is fun (announcement number 1) and your new Timeline (replacing the personal profile) is visually pleasing (announcement number 2) but the changes they have made in enhancing the open graph trump everything else.

The new open graph will allow application developers to share your activity on third-party sites (or within applications) without restriction and without continuous approval. Sign in via Facebook, agree to the level of sharing and you’re done. This is being called “frictionless sharing” by many because, once setup, you will share everything from a third-party site or application with Facebook without needing to take action every time (Was hitting the “Like” button REALLY that hard?). All activity from these open graph applications and websites will feed back into the Ticker (you know, the thing on the right that looks a lot like Twitter).  The two big examples today are music and news. Sign in to a supported third-party music app and Facebook will share every song you listen to in the app. Sign in to a supported third-party news site and Facebook will share every article you read with your friends.

Privacy implications aside, thinking about this from a product development perspective is interesting. I’m sure we will see some very creative frictionless sharing examples from Facebook developers in the coming weeks and months.

Frankly, I don’t care.

No, really.  I don’t care because it’s not a winner takes all competition.  There is room for multiple social networks and we (collectively) will learn how to use them to our advantage over time.  The use of a specific social network is a personal preference at this point.  Not for brands, that is.  They play by different rules.  For the individual, it’s your choice.  If Google+ doesn’t work for you, I’m not sure that’s the end of the world.  Likewise for Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Ultimately, I think you should end up choosing a social network based on three questions:

• Where are my friends?
• Where is the best source of information for my personal interests?
• Where can I find information about my profession?

The answer to these 3 questions will not always be the same social network.  Lets break down my personal habits to demonstrate.

• Where are my friends?  That’s an easy one.  I suspect for the large majority the answer is Facebook.  Fair enough.
• Where is the best source of information for my personal interests?  Your “friend” social graph is not necessarily aligned with your personal interests.  I found the answer to this question is a mixture of Twitter and Facebook.
• Where can I find information about my profession?  For me, that’s LinkedIn and Google+.   Google’s efforts are still in their infancy and many of the people I have circled are posting information about social media related topics.  Intelligent conversations ensue.

From my personal example hopefully you can find a takeaway.  Pick the social networks that work for your interests and needs.  This is not an all or none choice and I’m afraid many treat it as such.  For example, “I already have a Facebook account.  Why should I sign up for XYZ social network?”  That’s a fair question if you are only looking to answer one of the 3 questions above.  Diversify and you’ll find the information streams across these networks are much richer when used for specific purposes.

The following is an adaptation from an article I wrote recently for the Sage Channel Marketing Newsletter.

With over 100 million registered members, LinkedIn is the largest professional social network. Sure, it is true that Facebook is approaching 800 million registered users (wow!) but they are not specifically focused on the business professional. This gives LinkedIn a distinct advantage, particularly when it comes to sourcing higher quality leads.

Follow these steps to build out a strong presence on LinkedIn and start connecting with the right people for your lead generation efforts.

1. Manage Your Profile – Keeping your profile complete and up to date is the first thing you should do before any other activities on LinkedIn. Potential leads (and even minor connections) will check out your profile. An accurate and current profile on LinkedIn will give everyone who looks at it a very good sense for what you do and how you can help. For extra points, consider including a professional head shot as your profile picture (or at least a picture that looks professional).

2. Grow Your Network – Once your profile is up to date you can begin to grow your LinkedIn network by connecting with current and past business associates. LinkedIn provides a basic message when you send an invitation to connect with someone. It typically says, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” This is largely a missed opportunity as most people accept the default message and hit send. Make it personal! It will only take a few moments to write a more personal note. Don’t miss this opportunity to make a truly warm introduction. Another way to grow your network on LinkedIn is by using the “people you may know” feature. LinkedIn provides a list of people you may know based on your current connections. Scroll through the list and start sending invitations to those you have done business with in the past.

3. Use Company Pages to Your Advantage – Using the company profile pages on LinkedIn you can collect information on target companies. Do you have connections that work at a target company? Who have they hired recently and into what type of role? The LinkedIn company pages will tell you the answers to these questions.

4. Your Profile Views – Monitoring who has viewed your profile on a regular basis will help you to measure interest in your business and products. An updated profile attracts interested people and, based on the data LinkedIn provides, allows you to source leads directly from that list. There is one caveat in this case. LinkedIn provides full access to this data as a paid service. The free version is not nearly as useful.

5. LinkedIn Groups – The groups product from LinkedIn remains one of the most active areas of the site. Join the groups where potential customers gather (you can see this on their profile pages) and begin posting relevant content. Over time you can build credibility with the group and begin to influence the buying decision. If you are already posting to other blogs and writing industry articles then be sure to repurpose this information for the LinkedIn groups you join.

6. BONUS ITEM: LinkedIn Answers: Not for the technically faint of heart, LinkedIn Answers is easy enough to figure out on the surface. Ask a question, get an answer. If you’re the expert, then start answering questions. Over time, you will be effectively voted up and viewed as an expert resource. Answers can be a difficult product to monitor based on the lack of detailed search features (for example, there is no way to monitor all questions about social media). Using the Answers search product, get as specific as you can. Grab the resulting RSS feed, bring it into Yahoo! Pipes, set a search term on top of it, and bring the resulting RSS feed into your Reader of choice. Kludgy? Probably, but there is not an easier way right now to sift through the noise. Here is the Pipe I built to monitor questions about social media on LinkedIn Answers.

There are a few experiential lessons to consider when investing your time in a more active LinkedIn presence for lead generation purposes.

- If you are looking for groups to join the most important factor to consider is not how many members the group has. It is more important to consider the activity level of the current members. Are they engaged and actively participating? Pick groups with active members as opposed to groups with large member counts and little participation.

- Use your existing sales and marketing collateral (white papers, webinars and articles) as a part of the conversation. Do not sell directly as this has a tendency to elicit a negative response. However, it is perfectly appropriate to ask for feedback on an article you have written recently or a webinar that was conducted. The difference between selling directly and asking for feedback is subtle but important.

- Quality can be an issue on LinkedIn. There are many job seekers and independent consultants looking for work involved in the conversation. This is an important part of the LinkedIn community but is not necessarily important for your lead generation activities.

For continued reading, please reference these articles:
http://mlcwideangle.exbdblogs.com/?p=4175
http://b2bleadblog.com/2009/04/5-steps-for-using-linkedin-as-lead-generation-tool.html
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31315#

Any attendee at Sage Summit can go to a session and then provide immediate feedback about the speaker and the content. Using the RFID tags and computer-based surveys, the Events Team at Sage Summit is able to immediately adjust the next speaking session. Seriously, that’s amazing. Think about it for a minute. If you attend a session at Sage Summit and you feel the speaker needs to dive deeper on a particular topic you can use the RFID reader and a computer-based survey to tell the Events Team. They will reach out to the speaker immediately and make sure things are adjusted for the next session.

Real time iteration of session content based on attendee feedback is a wonderful thing. Ultimately, it helps to make sure everyone gets the most value out of their time here at Sage Summit.

While the space shuttle doesn’t hold 3,000 people, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum does! On Wednesday, July 13th, Sage is hosting an exclusive “Night at the Museum” for its Sage Summit conference attendees.

In the span of 1-hour, an orchestrated mass move will effectively transfer 3,000 persons from the Gaylord Hotel to the National Air & Space Museum. How? The failsafe, old-fashioned way of course: By locomotive….I mean….space shuttle….no, wait! By alphabet! Starting at 6:55 p.m., Sage customers will board and depart the Gaylord at a rate of 400 persons every 10 minutes. Alpha boarding by firm name in leiu of last name allows those from the same firm to board together rather than splitting them apart.

Communicating the boarding schedule is the key and will be done by print, signs, live announcements, social media, text messaging and by human directional (a.k.a. people standing at important places and pointing). The trade show will be open throughout the boarding period so customers, partners and exhibitors can continue to network until it’s their turn to board.

Speaking of networking, Sage business partners and Sage employees are exempt from the alpha boarding timelines. They may board at any time they choose so they can accompany their customer for this spectacular evening. It would be naïve to think this plan will eliminate lines and frustration but we’re certainly doing what we can to steamline….I mean, streamline it!

{image courtesy of LKO Railroad, “A Railroad with Relevance”}

Sage Summit 2011 is sure to fill your business brain with lots of exciting ideas. While a business conference might not be on par with a show from your favorite band (Or is it? More on the Fire and Ice party later!), this year you will be able to capture your excitement through one of the video kiosks in the main hall.

Walk over to the kiosk (conveniently located near the Twitter feeds on the big screen), push the record button and off you go. It really is that simple and now you can take your ideas, and your excitement, with you after Sage Summit 2011 is done.

Are you going to be at Sage Summit 2011?  Check out the Wiffiti technology here.

What do you do with it once you get back to the home office?  You throw it away.  It’s nuts.  I know.

Enter a great idea….

Sage Summit 2011 will feature a virtual totebag.  The Virtual Totebag will allow conference attendees to “shop” for product literature, white papers, event materials, during and after the conference.  As an attendee, that’s fantastic.

Sage will pre-populate the totebag with relevant materials for registered Summit attendees.  You will also get early access to the materials so you can plan your days (shuttle schedules are included).  Now that’s pretty handy.  For Sage Summit 2011 attendess your virtual totebag will be accessible for 30-days post conference as well so you can continually check for new materials as added.  Or if you saw something while at Sage Summit that was of interest, you can return home and browse the Virtual Totebag to get a hold of more information.

Sage has confirmed to me that they are limiting documents on the Virtual Totebag to only Sage product or conference materials.  The Sage Summit Virtual Totebag will be accessible to attendees and customers on June 27th and will be notified by email with details.

I, for one, would like to welcome conference and tradeshow materials to the 21st century.  We’ve been waiting for you.