[Updated 8/11/11] Google Plus for Marketers: Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations

1. Google+ for Marketing Executives: Summary, Review, Implications and Recommendations

2. Summary We believe G+ will take its place among a small group of critical social networks for marketers within next 1-2 years G+ incorporates best of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. and attempts toevolve the breed Increases usage and usefulness of other Google services(Chrome, AdWords, Google Apps, Android OS, Picasa, etc.) Will use user data from all above services to provide transformative opportunities to marketers Brands must be prepared to leverage G+ when business pages become available in late September / early October 2011, esp. in regard to legal and compliance Image credit: http://www.zurmat.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-growth-vs-other-social-networks/

3. What is Google+? G+ is a collection of different social products: Profile (similar to a Facebook profile) Stream (a newsfeed on the default page) Sparks (a recommendation engine) Hangouts (a video chat service) Huddle (a group texting service) Circles (a friend management service) Photos (a photo sharing service) Coming Soon: Games Questions Business Profiles

4. Stream (this is the Default view)

5. Stream Stream allows users to view news feeds for Circles either one at a time or all at once at the click of a mouse, allowing for easier filtering/browsing than Facebook, which presumes to know what you’ll like either via “Most Recent” or “Top News”

6. Circles Circles enables you to sort contacts into relevant groups

7. Sparks (Landing Page) Sparks are search-term driven. Landing page is a “semi-curated” results page for a few pre-selected topics. You can also manually find things by entering terms in the search box.

8. Sparks Sparks allow you to find and follow items of interest on the web. They don’t find G+ posts. It’s not social search. It does make following keywords similar to following people (via Stream).

9. Sparks When create a Spark item, you “bookmark” that search term’s results so you can easily view them later. Useful for curation, market research, keeping up with news, etc.

10. Chat Chats can be enabled only for Circles or individuals – lets you control who can see your online status and initiate a chat with you (not possible w/Facebook)

11. Hangout Hangout is live group chat. You can invite as many as you want, but only video chat with up to 10 people at a time.

12. Hangout (Pop-up) Hangout occurrences are posted to Streams and are pre-set to be inherently viral and visible - but that also makes it impossible to control who can participate. Note the chat window alongside.

13. Photos Photos is designed to work most seamlessly with Android OS phones. Seeks to encourage upload and sharing with high levels of virality. Default screen shows photos from your circles

14. Photos Photos is a social networking app like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook. Photos carefully mimics most effective functions of Facebook photo, like tagging, uploading, albums, etc.

15. Photos Photos is different in that you can share photos or albums only to certain circles or individuals if desired. “Photos of you” is its own default category, making it easier to manage your visual identity inside G+

16. Huddles Not a new idea - very similar to Groupme and many other startups offering group SMS texting Only available on Android or iPhone via the G+ app (don’t look for it on the website!) Can include anyone – not just G+ users

17. Key Characteristics of G+ Circles Assumes people run in multiple social circles and would prefer to communicate with each one differently Users group contacts into segments (Circles) and publish / share / engage selectively Asymmetric: Users can follow and engage with people who don’t follow them back (more like Twitter, less like FB) Viral: Users can share with ANYONE who has put themin their circles

18. G+ Key Characteristics Data and Privacy First social net to let users download ALL their social data Settings page is easier to understand and use than FB Easy to see when and how info is shared, esp. photos (more sensitive)

19. Key Characteristics of G+ Post distribution & notifications Extremely viral andconversation-friendly Users comment more often Comments highly visible in G+ Probably due to default notification settings, which notify of EVERYTHING by Gmail and in notifications on the black nav bar (above right) Also likely due to early G+ user population dominated by popular influencers/power users …and appear to do so more readily – comments often stretch into 50s or more for a single post – rare in Facebook

20. G+ Key Characteristics Issues… Too many notifications No way to distinguish between worthwhile notifications and useless ones (e.g, an inane or glib comment isindistinguishable from a useful one) How do you sift through100s of comments? Cries for “better filtering”, etc. appear frequently

21. Why Google is serious about G+

22. G+ potential to “turn the tide” The “Black Nav Bar” – shows how Google properties are now more present and interconnected (communication, network, search, productivity, collaboration) G+ is an important missing ingredient to Google mix: a driver of longer and more frequent visits/sessions Has potential to make Google properties once again the most popular online destination

24. Is a tacit endorsement to your social network of:

25. Content (example: an article or video)

26. URL (example: in search results or on website)

29. +1 button must be added to websites in order to appear

31. +1 tab is intended to let users manage from a single destinationThe “ ”

33. From the general public, in aggregate (example: “this has1200 +1’s”)

34. From your personal networks (example: “Steve, Roger, and Bill +1’d this”)

35. From yourself(example: “you +1’d this at some point in the past”)

36. +1 is a BIG DEAL because it means brands with more +1’s will get more traffic, more qualified traffic, and more conversions from Google search, which owns 85% of the marketThe “ ”

37. G+ Key Characteristics How G+ Will Play into Search Results Empiric research suggests Google organic search results are affected by whether user has added a brand to their Google+ Circles This means the more popular your brand is in G+, the higher your SEO rankings are likely to be Hovering over the Ford Motor Company link displays this:

38. Before G+ After G+ context w/ other social nets Image Credit: http://scalableintimacy.com/

39. After G+ G+ context w/ other social nets Image Credit: http://scalableintimacy.com/

40. Facebook Comparison Pages for Individuals and Businesses (called Profiles in G+) G+ Profiles are not currently customizable yet, whereas FB pages can essentially developed as fully as websites Posts Format and options for posts are practically identical News Feed… …But G+ News Feed can be custom-filtered by users via Circles “Liking” a post (Google calls this “+1”)… Except… +1 only applies to posts, websites, and content - not to Profiles +1 concept assumes user may like a user’s post without committing to holistically “Liking” the author +1 informs search results, whereas FB Like does not Will G+ for business include profile-level “Liking” like FB? We’ll see…

41. Facebook Comparison Photos Takes dead aim at the most-used function in Facebook Designed to work best with Google-owned apps, OS’s, services Careful to be BETTER than Facebook on managing privacy and sharing issues Perfectly synced with Picasa, which should give it an advantage over both Facebook and media site sharing competitors: Facebook, and photo sharing services from … Apple / iPhoto Yahoo / Flickr Adobe / CS 5 Microsoft / Windows Live Photo Gallery

42. Unprecedented Growth… Image credit:: http://www.zurmat.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-growth-vs-other-social-networks/

43. … But Still a Long Way to Go

44. What’s Next G+ effect on Google Advertising will change the game By now we all know that people spend more time on social websites than any other, esp. Facebook, and marketing investment has followed Advertising in social is different because you can target based on user profiles, which are proven to generate better ads and higher return on advertising spend Google has always been ahead in search, but not social Google search targets based on need (keywords) Social networks target based on profiles (identity, interest, friends) Google+ will be able to add the power of profiles to need to provide brands with a revolutionary new targeting capability

45. Immediate Business Uses for Google+ Definite and obvious: Content publishing, engaging, etc. Use Segmentation to do focused Publishing & Engagement Use to build awareness, esp. with influencers/early adopters Content curation and market research (Sparks) Traffic generation SEO – Essential for businesses to publish/engage in G+ SEM/PPC - Target in G+ like they do on Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Less definite, will depend on client and circumstance: Live Meetings (Hangouts) and Chats (Huddles) for planned client/customer and brand interactions Customer Service (Dell) Webinar-style presentations

46. What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions* Brandable ProfilesMost social networks force their own brand, not the brand of the company. Will G+ be different? We think yes. SMMPswill be able to add G+ channel via API to facilitate G+ presence management. G+ will recognize the importance of doing this b/c brands need to manage publishing and engagement on multiple social networks and will want to just add G+ to the tool(s) they are already using Customers may be able to post content directly onto a brand's profile/page and give brands management control so that those posts can be deleted, moderated, etc. (kind of like Wikipedia) *Credit for some evolutions suggested: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts

47. What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions* People will be able to use Sparks to watch an industry vertical or a location / region, etc. and have popular posts pushed to news feed. Sparks doesn’t integrate G+ posts now, but hopefully it will in the future. This would be a huge improvement over Twitter and Facebook. "Hangout" features will be offered for Brands to let teams have inbound requests routed to different employees and let them moderate and split up calls. Add recording and broadcasting to Hangout so a management team could hold a press conference or an earnings call and have that shared with everyone - not just 10 participants. Brands (and individuals) will be able to share circles like people currently share music playlists. Brands will be able to tag employees in a circle of their employees so recipient would know who to contact for different needs. (Think Sales, B2B scenarios) *Credit for some evolutions suggested: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts

48. What’s Next for G+: Likely evolutions (update) As of July 25, 2011: Integration with Google Apps: Google says that Plus for Google Apps accounts "should be available in the coming months" Full-fledged meeting functionality: Hints in source code point to full-fledged meeting functionality, including video and voice conferencing screen sharing document sharing a whiteboard feature http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2011/07/google-plus-for-businesses-brands.php

51. End Core Content

52. About Gage Marketing

53. Marketing Solutions that Drive Behavior Formed in 1992 Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Redmond Ad Age / Interactive Rank: #35 Promo / Promotion Rank: #37 Blending of technology and marketing for world’s most respected brands Promotional Sweeps, games, contests, POP, legal Digital Mobile, web, media, social, dashboards Relationship CRM, incentive & loyalty programs, DR Fortune 500 Client Base

55. Social CRM - Monitoring , Measurement, Engagement

56. Thought Leadership Marketing

57. Event Marketing (microblogging, video capture / publishing, SlideShare)

58. SEO media asset development, publishing, tagging

59. Social Media Identity Protection

60. SM Analytics / Dashboards

61. Legal Services (Campaign design, Rules, Terms & conditions)

62. SM Promotions (Wildfire)

63. eCommerce (BazaarVoice)

64. B2B CRM (Salesforce)

65. Loyalty and Community building (Pluck, Lithium)

66. Content Curation (Magnify, Curation Station)

67. Collaborative and cross-channel marketing (Spredfast, Sprinklr)

68. Monitoring / Social CRM(Radian6, Visible Technologies)

69. Viral tracking / Earned Media Measurement(Meteor)

70. Profiling / Retargeting / Advocacy modeling(Rapleaf, Flowtown)

71. Custom Loyalty / Sweepstakes, Contests, Promotions, Training, Community

72. Custom Facebook Applications:

73. Photo/Video Contests

74. Localization

75. FacebookOpenGraph API integration

76. Dynamic live/social content display widgets

77. Social Media-technology mashups (Crimson Hexagon, Google/Bing Maps, etc)

78. Mobile Applications Development

79. WAP site enablement

80. Cross-channel campaign design and execution

81. Social Media Advertising

82. Twitter (Tweets/handles/hashtags)

83. Facebook (DirectServe, PPL model, others)

84. LinkedIn (InMail, Display ads)

85. YouTube