What seems to be pretty clear is that Google didn’t announce earth shattering products in a bunch of new categories.  There were Google Glass, jumping out of airplane moments, but they were a ton of upgrade announcements.   It was definitely more about the data and technologies that Google has at it’s fingertips and how they are leveraging this data and technologies for a unified set or services and products.  There were big announcements on Search, Maps, Music, Hangouts, Google Now and developer tools and even an incredible speech and question and answer session by co-founder Larry Page.  He talked about the importance of technology and it’s overwhelming ability for it to truly improve people’s lives.

Google Maps

Google has redesigned the Maps experience for both desktop and mobile to make maps smarter and more visually compelling as well as increasingly more personalized.  The new Google Maps draws you a tailored map for every search and click you make. So whatever you’re trying to find or wherever you’re trying to go, you’ll always have a map highlighting the things that matter most.  The entire map is now interactive. Clicking anywhere will focus the map on that location and show you helpful things, like related places and the best ways to get there.  From outer space down to the streets, the new Google Maps gathers all the imagery of a location into one spot, making it easy to explore your world from every angle.  As you search the map, star places you like and leave reviews, the map starts to adapt and can suggest things like restaurants you might enjoy or the quickest way home. In other words, the more you use the new Google Maps, the more helpful it becomes.

The new Google Maps search for places and see them, along with recommendations, directly on the map interface.  For example, you can search for a Sushi restaurant and see which ones your friends like. Click on a restaurant, and a card pops up in the corner with images. From there, you can get a 360-degree view of its interior. Such 3D views are built in throughout the new Maps. When you go to various locations, you’ll see 360-degree photos, indoor or outdoor, uploaded from users.

Google Maps is now more personalized to you.  It lets you highlight specific spots and create landmarks like, say, your favorite coffee shops or where you had your first date.  Click one and it opens a new map with related places to explore.

Navigation directions also got a facelift. Click a spot on a map to route from one place to another, and Google Maps gives you driving, public transit, walking and biking directions. For public transit an easy-to-compare schedule viewer shows you when the next buses and subways are stopping near you, with an overlay of necessary transfers on the map.

But Google Maps isn’t just about finding, seeing and getting to places. It’s also about perspective. The team showed off a zoomed out view of the entire earth from space, making the stars, sun and universe visible. And the clouds you see surrounding the earth: Those are real-time.

You can get a preview of Google Maps here.

Google+ Upgrades

The upgraded, redesigned social platform looks like a cross between current G+, Pinterest and maybe a little Facebook thrown in.  It has a new three-column look that gets a lot more information in front of users, but it’s really what’s behind the new information that’s interesting.

Google talked about how Google+ can show you more about whatever is included on your G+ page, even if there is not a description.  They showed a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and literally behind it, because these new “cards” flip over, is more relevant Knowledge Graph-guided information about the landmark.  Google also announced “Related Hashtags” in Google+.  These analyze the contents of any post and  add the hashtags Google thinks you need.  They did say what Google “thinks.”  This intelligence is also evident in Google’s new photo tools.  No one really thinks “Google” when they think of photos or photo editing, but that may change with the smorgasbord of hosting, sharing, and editing features added to Google+ today.  One new edition, Highlight, sifts through your photos and tosses out the crappy ones, because it can do things like recognize if a photo is blurry or has terrible exposure. It also can identify landmarks, search for smiling people in images and ID photos featuring your friends and family. Invasive? Maybe. Useful? Definitely. Perfect for sorting through the morass of photos you accumulate after a vacation.  It is more evidence of what Larry spoke of, “Technology should do the hard work so that people can get on with doing the things that make them happiest in life.”  Lastly, a feature called “Auto-Awesome” identifies those pics in a series and stitches them together for the best possible shot. In other words, it makes an aggregate photo using all the best elements of the pics in the series.  So it “sees” things like similar photos shot in a burst to find all the smiling faces so that it can create one composite where everyone is smiling.   You also can string them together to create an animated GIF.  Awesome can also create HDR shots, or stitch multiple pictures of a landscape into a panorama.

Since Google knows these things could freak some people out, it’s included the ability for anyone to opt out of  these new features.

Google Play All Access

As anticipated, Google released it’s new $9.99 per month streaming music service called All Access.   All Access takes Google’s interwebz smarts and puts it toward finding music you’ll like. You can create personalized radio stations from your favorite songs or artists, a la Pandora, or browse recommendations from Google’s expert music team. You also can explore by genre. Songs are available with a single tap. And if All Access pulls up a ditty you dislike, you can banish it with a swipe.  What really interested me was that Google instantly delivered custom “radio stations” based on your interest.  It’s what Google seems to be doing, using what it knows about the world, you and content to make something new.  For whatever service it wants to create, Google can leverage a enormous amount of highly organized data and bundle it all together to create something ridiculously useful  albeit possibly creepy depending on your perspective.

It’s not just about the data, however.  Mountains and mountains of data are meaningless if you can’t dive deep into that data and see every single critical relationship on the fly.  Google’s incredible work on building out Knowledge Graph is obviously at work in almost everything Google is doing today.

Google Now

Google’s Voice Search (think Siri, but possibly more intelligent) has already existed on Android phones but is now making the jump to the desktop, via Google’s Chrome browser.  Google Now gives you exactly what you are looking for, as soon as you ask.  And now, you don’t even have to ask.   As Google’s Knowledge Graph-based search continues to get smarter and smarter, surfacing the most useful and relevant results for your queries, Google Now now anticipates information you haven’t even asked for yet.

If you search for the population of a country, for example, it’ll pull up that information, along with a graph and stats on how that population compares with other countries it is most often stacked against. This was demonstrated in yesterday’s keynote with a search for India’s population.  And if you opt into a Google Search trial, Google Now gets even smarter. When you search for something, it also searches your email and calendar, so you can search for things like your next trip, or when your next appointment is. You can even compose emails or schedule reminders straight from that search bar.

On top of that, you can search (and get results spoken back to you) on any platform — mobile or web.  Apple can certainly do all these things with Siri, but not necessarily to the same depth as Google. Google simply knows more about you, and if you’ve signed in to Google and Google+, multiply that knowledge by a factor of 10.  So again, the most impressive part of all of the flawless demos yesterday was Google’s data, what it knows about you and then what to do with it.

The almost four hour ordeal was then brought to a close by the appearance and speech of Larry Page, despite his vocal aliments, which he spoke briefly about.  He spoke inspired about Google’s direction and how technology continues to change the world and Google should be affecting us.  Then he embarked on a question and answer session with the audience to end the event.  For me, it was a very human and refreshing way to end an event that is typically laden with formulaic “nerd-speak” and new technologies.

One of the most profound moments for me was when he said “Despite the faster change we have in the industry, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities that we have.  And some of that I think is due to the negativity.  You know, every story I read about Google is kind of us versus some other company or some stupid thing and I just don’t find that very interesting.  We should all be building great things that don’t exist, right?  And our being negative is not how we make progress and most important things are not zero sum.  There’s a lot of opportunity out there.  We use technology to make really new and really important things to make people’s lives better.”

We are living in the On-Demand world.  We all have so much at our fingertips, that we expect everything now.  A lot can happen in a very short amount of time.  Say, in 6 seconds.  A legendary high five, texting a friend, reading an email…But can you create a lasting impression in 6 seconds?  Twitter and many early-adopter, creative marketers think so and have already begun using vine for business.

What is Vine?

Vine is a mobile app that was founded by Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov in June 2012 and purchased by Twitter in October of 2012.  According to wikipedia, debuted on 24 January 2013^[ as a free iOS app.    Vine enables users to create and share short videos with a maximum length of 6 seconds, which compliments the 140 character limit concision that is Twitter.  The app allows you to start and stop filming so quickly that you can create stop-motion-effect videos.  And because the videos play in a loop, you can create an animated GIF-like video that opens the door to creativity.

According to Vine’s blog:

“Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger. They’re little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life. They’re quirky, and we think that’s part of what makes them so special.”

A 6 second video definitely caters to our diminishing attention spans.  Just about anyone can pay attention for 6 seconds, but are you as a business owner or marketer prepared to tell a compelling story in that short span?

We have gathered 15 lessons on using Vine for Business.  Here are some of our favorite “attention getters” and what is so compelling about their 6 seconds.

1.  User Generated Content - Ask customers to submit Vine videos of themselves using your product, and perhaps even compile the best into a longer-form ad used on another platform.

The Cavendish Hotel in London @cavendish_hotel did just that for Valentine’s Day and created a contest for it’s fans.

Cadbury Chocolate @CadburyUK achieved this too.  Sometimes it can hard to get people excited about your contests, because if the “fans” you’re promoting to aren’t already customers, they may not know enough about your product to know they want it.  Cadbury grabbed everyone’s sweet tooth by using Vine to show off their new confectionery creation and then invited fans to win a sample.

Check out our #EggNSpoon Unboxing Vine then retweet for a chance to win a box of both flavours by Tuesday’s end: vine.co/v/b1ej2K29Q0u

— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) February 10, 2013

2.  Engage Customers With Creative Specials – Mendmark, whose goal is to communicate the message of love through the sale of products that serve as visual reminders of the greatest lover in history, are celebrating the launch of their new spring line by announcing a one week 35% OFF sale…with a twist.  They hid a discount code creatively in a 6 second vine video.

To celebrate our new Spring line I hid a 6 letter coupon code in this vine for 35% off any @mendmark order. vine.co/v/bpmbITXv1EH

— Hunter Harrison (@hunrharrison) March 17, 2013

3.  Educate - Whenever you have the opportunity to educate your audience with something fascinating, you should.  The San Francisco Zoo @sfzoo stirves to get new visitors by exhibiting their amazing residents through educational Vine videos.

Poison dart frog eating fruit flies. Notice the toe twitching used to stimulate their prey. #frog #animals #… vine.co/v/bv5ZeQjY352

— San Francisco Zoo (@sfzoo) February 10, 2013

4.  Showcase Your Brand’s Story - Spend some time thinking about how you can communicate your brand’s history; things that will show that you know you products, services AND customers inside and out.  Gap ‏@Gap did a magnificent job showcasing their brand from their very first pair of jeans all the way through the evolution of denim up to today.

From the past to present, the labels tell the story of our 1969 jeans. #denimevolved vine.co/v/bvP0zgpe9Oa

— Gap (@Gap) February 12, 2013

5.  Find A Creative Way To Engage Your Audience In A Conversation - brandin6 ‏@Brand_in_6 showcases his take on the “Magic 8 Ball” for Starbucks by creating the “Order Assistant.”  With Vine, any user can tap their screen (or in the case below, click on anywhere on the video) to stop the video.  With this creativity, Brandin6 created something to help Starbucks customers play a russian roulette of sorts when they don’t know what to order.  It could even spark a customer to go to a local Strabucks and order something new, so this kind of update is great use of vine for business for engagement and sales too!  What could you come up with for your product or service that could drive similar engagement and sales potential in 6 seconds?

#starbucks order assistant. Not sure what to order?Tap the screen. vine.co/v/bwm7QxO2DZm

— brandin6 (@Brand_in_6) March 8, 2013

6. Celebrate Holidays or Tribute Special Days - You can get into the holiday spirit throughout the year with a little corporate branding.  You could either create a fun holiday video or make marketing related videos that feature your holiday promotions.  Either way, fans that are celebrating these holidays will certainly respond positively.  One of my favorites that I have seen thus far, comes from Khoa @lazybearkhoa.

A tribute to Dr. Seuss – Happy Birthday! vine.co/v/bX2Hbq6BQpE

— Khoa (@lazybearkhoa) March 2, 2013

7.  Bring People Into Your Store - Local businesses can take advantage of Vine for their business by showing their fans how cool it is to be inside their store or restaurant.  Urban Outfitters does a great job of this by using their Twitter account to highlight new products (like this one) as well as events that they are holding in their stores.

Mix and match swim. #urbanoutfitters #loop vine.co/v/bHrtedidprX

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) March 5, 2013

8.  Showcase How To Use Your Product Or Service - Short, how-to videos for products that can use either an extra hand in educating the public on how it’s used, or to showcase creative ideas for how to use a product that may not come immediately to mind can be very effective.  In this example, Lee Murrell uses his 6 seconds to highlight one of his favorite recipes from his dessert cookbook.

#Pecan #Nut #Brownies #howto #Cooking #Baking – A #MichelRoux recipe from his inspirational #Desserts book…. vine.co/v/b5dwBuW016P

— Lee Murrell (@LeeMurrell) January 24, 2013

9.  Promote Your Product or Service On The Heels Of Current Events - Pop culture and media are at an all time high.  People seem to have exposure to everything and know all about what’s going on.  Use this as an opportunity to creatively exploit your product or service around those times.  In preperation for Super Bowl 2013, Malibu Rum made their own play using some of America’s favorite game day snacks, as well as promoting their star players Malibu and Malibu Black! Who wouldn’t want to spend the Super Bowl with their favorite drink and snack?

Stocking up for the #BigGame tomorrow? Here’s how to get it done – #Malibu style. #vinevine.co/v/b11uhXlFKb1

— Malibu Rum (@Malibu_Rum) February 2, 201

10.  Behind The Scenes Glimpses - Finding a way to get your fans engaged in your brand is more than just about promoting your products and services.  Give them a little glimpse of what’s happens behind the scenes.  Many brands already have different versions of the same video ad for different formats (such as a shortened pre-roll ad for Internet video edited from a longer-form TV ad). Vine can further complement this by making snippets of behind-the-scenes footage available where appropriate.  Some of the more prolific “viners” are sports teams.  Some of the videos may be a little mundane to those who aren’t interested in sports, but it gives a glimpse behind the scenes.  Here the Los Angeles Lakers, who update their account with amazing regularity and have over 3 million followers on twitter, use Vine to show things fans usually don’t get to see.

Ready to roll. #GoLakers #LosLakers vine.co/v/bHalt9p93Lx

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) March 4, 2013

11.  Offer Up Relevant Fun Facts -Not everything has to be about business. General Electric shares some historical trivia related to their industry that their fans might find interesting.  General Electric took the opportunity to reach out for early interest in science and it’s magical.  You can also take the opportunity to get some engagement from your audience and post a trivia question first, then answer it with a Vine video.

What happens when you combine milk, food coloring and dish soap? #howto #6secondscience vine.co/v/bXJAmFLBaat

— General Electric (@generalelectric) February 28, 2013

12.  Highlight Advocates For Your Brand - What’s even better than advertising one of your products on a Vine video? Have one of your fans do it for you.  GoPro highlights a fan’s Vine video made with his GoPro camera. This is a great example of how businesses can get their customers to market their product by encouraging them to create great Vine videos.  We recommend creating and attaching them to a branded hashtag.

6 seconds of #GoPro love with fan @iambronx and @vineapp. ow.ly/hH9uv

— GoPro® (@GoPro) February 17, 2013

13.  Display The Work You’ve Done For A Client - You can get creative and not just have a static portfolio on your website.  This is a great example of how even small businesses can take full advantage of Vine.  Create an animated portfolio on social media like OneNine Design has done in this video displaying the packaging they created for a client.

Packaging we designed for our client BAR AU CHOCOLAT #packaging #chocolate #design #foilstamped #japanesewrap vine.co/v/bnurH3YYqLL

— OneNine Design (@OneNineDesign) February 4, 2013

14.  Get People Excited About A New Product Launch - Sometimes visual inspiration can really get people excited about a new product you have in the works.  Businesses can show products outright or use Vine videos as teasers to get their audience excited about what’s coming up next. Or better yet, this could make for another great contest where one person who retweets the Vine teaser or product preview wins the product!  Rolling Stone Magazine uses this every month to give a preview of who’s on next month’s Cover.

Guess who is on the cover vine.co/v/bv2zFHt93gZ

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) February 12, 2013

Nintendo uses Vine to give fans a preview of their upcoming video game package.

Check out what you get with the Wii U ZombiU Deluxe Set, coming to US/Can on 2/17! (MSRP $389.99) #Nintendo … vine.co/v/brMzY35nuha

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 14, 2013

15.  Bring People In To Your Office - Businesses and brands have the ability to humanize themselves on social media, and what better way to do that than by taking people inside your office?  {Warning – shameful plug coming} Xcite Media Group does this in a Vine video showing off our newly hand-painted logo on our office wall.  (Thanks Felicia!)

A video of your office can not just show how much fun your employees have on their downtime, it shows that employees are happy to be a part of the team.  

Also for local businesses, one of the biggest advantages of Vine over other video platforms—most notably YouTube—is that it more easily adds geo location data to posts and is easy to share.  This can get real interesting for local restaurants or other vendors looking to Vine as a way to draw in customers in the immediate vicinity… something to keep in mind when creating a Vine video.

Our new logo on the wall! vine.co/v/bHhFBA6tmzT

— Xcite Media Group (@XciteMediaGroup) March 4, 2013

Why Should I Care?

There are sure to be other examples and lessons as Vine matures as a platform over time.  It is, for all practical purposes, still an infant, but with more than 500 million registered Twitter users, any experiment is sure to generate useful data for informing future best practices.

There have been many other companies attempting apps for video sharing in the recent past.  Vine has solved two of the biggest problems that stopped other video apps from achieving mainstream success: accessibility and community. Vine makes the video creation process as intuitive as possible — sacrificing a bit of flexibility and flair in the process — and it was able to scale up its community of users quickly thanks to the power of Twitter, both of which make it an attractive app for users. But there is a third obstacle Vine has yet to completely overcome: stickiness.  If the Vine community doesn’t share worthwhile videos on a regular basis, then there’s less incentive for Vine users to make a habit of checking the app on a regular basis.

So should you care?  In my opinion, the short answer is yes.  It is definitely a new, creative, simple way to engage your audience, but whether or not Vine will be “sticky” and be around a while remains to be seen.  Also, Vine should NOT be your only foray into the world of video marketing. (something that should be a big priority for all businesses in 2013, big or small)

If you would like help with Vine creativity or any other questions regarding marketing your business online, please use our contact form on the left of this article and we will gladly set up a time to speak with you.

If you’d like some more information about content structure and strategy for your website, fell free to fill out our website analysis form and we will gladly schedule a time to talk with you about where you’re at and where you’d like to go with your internet strategy.

easel.ly

Denver, CO (February 5, 2013) – Xcite Media Group is pleased to announce a new partnership with SoMedia Networks, a North American leader of advanced video production services and technologies.  The partnership enables Xcite Media Group to extend its online marketing services by offering high-quality professional video production services to its clients.

Xcite Media Group plans to offer the video production services separately as well as offering it bundled directly into existing services.  Through its new partnership, Xcite Media Group will now offer business videos of all types, including company profiles, customer testimonial videos, scripted ads, video news releases and featured news stories.

Video drives search results and has proven to be one of the most effective ways to get a front page Google result.  In fact, according to Forrester, video increases the chance of a front-page Google result by 53 times.  In addition, videos in universal search results have a 41 percent higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts.  This tells us that using online video to drive search results and higher click through rates is integral for businesses trying to make a large impact in their market.

“We know high quality video content drives more traffic and improves conversion rates,” said Klint J. Rudolph, Partner at Xcite Media Group.  “Now we can easily offer HD video production services to our clients at a very reasonable cost.  In today’s ever changing search climate with numerous devices at our fingertips at any given moment, high quality video content must be integrated into every businesses digital marketing strategy.  The production process is incredibly simple and hassle-free, making it much easier for our clients to achieve great results!”

ABOUT XCITE MEDIA GROUP

Xcite Media Group is focused on search marketing integration and staying on top of the latest search engine trends, techniques and algorithm changes to ensure its clients success.  Xcite Media Group’s services include Search Engine Marketing, PPC Management, Social Media Development and Management, Search Engine Optimization, Web and Mobile App Development and Video Production Services.

Visit http://xcitemediagroup.com

ABOUT SOMEDIA NETWORKS

SoMedia Networks is a pioneer of cloud-based video content production platforms and massive scale video production services.  They provide resale, white-label, and on-demand video production services to web services companies, digital publishers, corporate brands and broadcasters across North America.  For more information please visit http://somedia.net

To learn more about Xcite Media Group please contact,

Klint J. Rudolph

4401 S. Quebec St. Suite 250

Denver, CO 80237

Office – 720-288-0539

In today’s ever changing search climate with numerous devices at our fingertips at any given moment, high quality video content must be integrated into every businesses digital marketing strategy.  Traditionally, marketing is about getting your message out to potential clients.  According to Wikipedia, “Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. Marketing might sometimes be interpreted as the art of selling products, but sales is only one part of marketing.”  When we think about marketing for our websites, most will say SEO (search engine optimization) is at the top of their list.  Typically, the first thing that comes to mind when we think of SEO is writing pages of keyword optimized pages for our site.  It’s the written word that was the only key to success when it came to rising in the SERPs (search engine results pages).  While the written word is still very important, today SEO encompasses much more.  We are living in the content marketing world.  Where generating great content,  social media interaction, page speed, link profiles, are all a cohesive part of the SEO game.  Today, we will spend a little time talking about the value video holds in that never ending journey to dominance for your website.

The reason video is a great tool is that the search engines desire is to deliver their end user, the searcher, the best possible experience to find the results they are looking for.  The search engines know that their customers, the searchers, are keen on watching online video as a source for the content they are looking for.  We are a busy society and it’s no secret that we love visuals.  We don’t always want to spend the time it takes to read through paragraph after paragraph for information or rely on the simplicity of a basic image or two.  With all of the different devices we have at any given moment, video offers the convenience of getting the content we desire in way that is simple, immediate and effective.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages video holds in search and conversion.

Video is one of the fastest growing types of content on the Internet. According to comScore, 181 million viewers watched 37 billion videos in March 2012 and video ads topped 8 billion for the first time ever! With so many videos being consumed online, the value of video as a marketing tool is paramount. It drives search results, engages customers, builds trust and increases conversion rates.

Video Drives Search Results

Video is 53x more likely to appear in a front-page Google result (Forrester)
Search results matter.  In fact, videos in universal search results are said to have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts (ReelSEO). Clearly commanding so much attention from the average search user, businesses are increasingly adding video to their marketing mix.

Video Influences Engagement & Discovery

Landing pages with professional video generate 4-7x more engagement and response rates (SearchEngineWatch)
Today customers are only interested in engaging and interactive content. They expect that content to be highly intelligent, intuitive and useful. Online video delivers all of that in a quick and concise way. It’s less expensive than TV yet still offers editorial and production values that are just as high. It’s an innovative, engaging and non-intrusive way of marketing to your customer.

Video Increases Conversions

85% of customers are more likely to purchase after watching a product video (eMarketer)
While a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, a product video can be worth a thousand sales.  In fact, a moving picture is the most compelling way to tell your story. People greatly prefer watching video over reading text for its ability to engage and this spans just about every industry. When it comes to engagement, online video is 5.33 times more effective than text. Video is really one of the few strategies that work well regardless of the vertical in which it is used.

A video showcasing your product or service is a great way to help your customers feel more comfortable with their purchase. Not only do videos immensely increase online sales, they encourage visitors to engage and stay on your site longer. Site visitors who view video stay two minutes longer on average and are 64% closer to purchase (Comscore). With stats like these, using online video to improve conversion rates is really a no-brainer. 

Video Drives Effective Marketing

Video in email marketing has been shown to increase click-through rates by over 96% (Implix Email Marketing Trends)
Among other forms of marketing, online video greatly improves email marketing effectiveness. The number of marketers planning to use video in email campaigns has increased 5x in the past year (Implix 2010 Email Marketing Trends Survey). This is because videos are pervasive, valuable and an integral way of communicating a variety of messages to customers.  Business spending on video is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2015 (Interactive Media Strategies).

Differentiate your company with HD Video

If you`re not already communicating your stories via online video, you are missing out on an opportunity to talk to a large and engaged audience, improve your online visibility, generate leads, earn credibility and drive sales.

Xcite Media Group Launches Video Production Services across North America!

At Xcite Media Group, we’re excited to introduce a new partnership with SoMedia Networks, a pioneer of cloud-based video content production and massive scale video production services, to bring high quality, low cost video production services to our clients – anywhere in North America.

We’re now offering our clients the ability to purchase high quality video products including company profiles, customer testimonials and scripted ads to use on websites, social channels and as part of other marketing initiatives.  All videos are professionally shot in HD and are delivered in Web, Mobile and TV-ready formats.

For more information about our new Video Production Services click here.

Matt Cutts describes the pitfall of creating “fresh” unique content for a site that doesn’t call for QDF content.  Rather work hard on your “evergreen” steady content that stands the test of time.  For most small business websites, the “freshness” signal doesn’t necessarily affect the ranking of your site because for most of us, the content on our sites about who we are and what we do that was good yesterday is still relevant and “good” today.  If we aren’t in news/events/tech updates, we probably don’t have Queries that Deserve Freshness very often.

Andrei Broder wrote quite a while ago describing the types of queries people make.

In the web context the “need behind the query” is often not informational in nature. We classify web
queries according to their intent into 3 classes:

1. Navigational. The immediate intent is to reach a particular site, i.e. brand searches like Best Buy
2. Informational. The intent is to acquire some information assumed to be present on one or
more web pages, i.e. how to fix a broken toilet or set my default printer in Chrome
3. Transactional. The intent is to perform some web-mediated activity, i.e. shopping  or looking for products

If we can think of our website in terms of where we fall in the type of search being performed to find us and what we do, then we will be better equipped to answer the question of how often and how important is the “freshness” signal for my content.  Just because we update the content of our website by adding new content, or changing the wording of our content doesn’t mean we should be ranking out higher.

Check out Matt’s Video here:

Also, to my knowledge, the last time Google officially published any numbers was in December of last year.  At that time, they said 8 million businesses had claimed their Google + Local Pages (then called Google Place Pages).  Based on Google’s numbers at that time, that’s about 1 million Local pages being claimed every five months or so.  If that rate remained consistent, Google + Local Pages would be about 9 and a half million now. (plus or minus)

For me, this isn’t really a huge surprise.  When we sit down and discuss with our clients where they are at in their internet strategy, most of them speak and know of the need to be more active on Facebook, few understand anything about their Google + Local Pages in terms of “claiming” them.  They often ask how to correct the “wrong” information Google has about them.

Although I believe in and see value in both, there is definitely a priority in my mind.  A completed and well optimized Google + Local Page with over 20 reviews should be at the top of any small businesses internet priorities.  More information on Listings and Reputation Management here.

Whether these numbers are exactly correct or not, isn’t necessarily the point.  It’s definitely an interesting debate to start.  Which are you more familiar with?  Which are you more concerned about?  Which do you care about?  Which do you think has more value as a small business?  Please comment with your thoughts on any of our platforms!

What are Google Business Photos, you say?  Xcite Media Group now has a virtual tour of our office that you can walk through and see our place.  It’s a pretty amazing technology and we are extremely “Xcited” (sorry, couldn’t resist) to be able to offer this now through our partnership with Google Trusted Photographer, Dave Wright.

Google has launched a new program called Google Business Photos.  They use the same technology in Street View to allow viewers to virtually walk around and tour your office.  The same Street View technology used in streets around the world – for your business. Create a high-quality, interactive, 360-degree experience.  Our Google Trusted Photographers work with you to schedule and shoot your business. Photo shoots are quick, non-disruptive, and personalized.  This interactive feature allows your customers who find you online to walk-through, explore, and take a closer look at your business.  This is a big advantage for converting your website visitors into customers!  It also makes your Google + Local Page (formerly called Google Places) on Google Maps stand out from the crowd.  This changes Local search engine optimization (SEO)  dramatically.  This is a new Google program that they are very excited about.  Our customers usually experience a substantial increase in local Search Engine Marketing (SEO) results.  Visit our website for more information on Google Business Photos or fill out our request for a consultation.

Last week I wrote about the introduction of Google’s Knowledge Graph, a monumental change in the way we will search. This week, Google again dominates my thoughts with the roll out of their Google+ Local Pages. For the past few years, social, local, and mobile have been areas of intense interest to Google. Google has become a mobile powerhouse and has invested heavily in location data through Google Maps and related services such as Google Places.Google hasn’t done as well with social data, at least compared to Facebook. This may explain its crusade to make Google+ inescapable across its services. By wedding Google+ to services that people actually want to use, Google hopes to make its social network more vibrant and vital.When Google+ and Google+ Pages for business were introduced a little less than a year ago many people in local search began anticipating the day when Google would integrate Google Places and Google+ Pages. That project began yesterday, when Google announced the roll out of Google+ Local on it’s Google For Business Blog. “With the release of Google+ Local, rolling out today, we are bringing the community of Google+ to local business owners around the world. We aim to improve the way people discover new businesses, rediscover places they love, and share them with their friends across the web.”

This Google+ Local integration into Search, Maps, and mobile, fulfills the goals Google VP of consumer products Marissa Mayer outlined a year ago. Marissa Mayer described Google’s social strategy as: “Our social strategy is to help users connect with each other.” Google Places pages have been entirely replaced by new Google+ Local pages. As of Wednesday, roughly 80 million Google Place pages worldwide have been automatically converted into Google+ Local pages, according to Google’s Marissa Mayer. It’s a dramatic change (for the better) though it will undoubtedly disorient some users and business owners. Also, in typical Google fashion, we see the integration of a past acquisition come into play as well. Almost a year ago, Google acquired Zagat and at that time said that “Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights…” Google director of product management Avni Shah said Google is using Zagat’s reviews to improve access to quality local information. “Each place you see in Google+ Local will now be scored using Zagat’s 30-point scale, which tells you all about the various aspects of a place so you can make the best decisions.”

Marissa Mayer says that Zagat scores can express much more differentiation and nuance because they contain separate scores for food, service and atmosphere vs. a five star scale, which is forced to factor all those considerations into a single rating. The greater, 30-point spread, also prevents everything from converging at 3.5 stars. This may be one of the more dramatic changes that I have seen in recent years, at least as far as it’s impact on local business owners and marketers.

Some Of The Changes That Have Been Implemented

• Implementation of new Google+ Local pages for Google Places pages
• The integration and free availability of the entire archive of Zagat reviews

• The appearance of a “Local” tab within Google+

• The integration of Google+ Local pages across Google properties (search, Maps, mobile)

• Integration of a circles filter to find reviews/recommendations from friends/family/colleagues

The old static Google Places pages are replaced by more dynamic Google+ Local Pages. Google’s star rating system is being replaced by Zagat’s 30 point scale.

Questions For Maintaining Your Business Through These Changes

A Google Community Manager, Venessa Schneider , started a thread on Google Forums answering questions about the management of Google+ Local Pages. Some of the important responses so far have been:

• Your verified Google Places listing will not display a checkmark on Google+ Local. Google is working on this.

• You can no longer upload videos or use the Post to Place page feature. (Although, this feature will be coming with the integration of your Google+Business page)

• You should still manage your business listing at Google Places for now

• Reviews from Google and Zagat users will live on your local Google+ page and attributed to “A Google User” or “A Zagat user” until the user chooses to attribute their name with the review. (Meaning, you will no longer be able to view all the reviews of anonymous persons unless they attach their name to their Google+ profile. Moving forward, Reviewers need to be logged in to Google+ to leave a review. The review will be public and attributed to their Google+ name.)

• In your Places dashboard, the “See your listing on Google Maps” is currently directing you to the old Google Places page. Google is working to update that link so that it redirects to the new local Google+ page. Stay tuned.

• Google will be combining any Google+ page you may have created with any matching upgraded Google Places listing

  So should I still create a Google+ page?

  With regards to your Business Google+ Page, there are a few options:

  1. You may create a Google+ page to try out the social features in Google+. Be sure to choose the Local category so that we can bring your multiple pages together to create one listing later on.

     2.  Go to this form — give us your email address, and we’ll let you know when we merge your pages in to a single page — like the ones we feature on the Google and Your Business blog post (http://goo.gl/lhF6S).

     3.  Sit tight, and as we mentioned in the blog post, we’re going to have a solution for everyone that’s verified today that will make upgrading to the full local Google+ page experience seamless and easy.

   Google has also posted an FAQ’s page that is being updated pretty consistently. Check it out HERE.

  Consistency Is The Key