Why Google +1 Stinks For Social, Business, Ranking or Otherwise
The latest hot topic is the launch of Google’s +1 feature. While some are singing the Facebook ‘Like’ killer song, others are professing it to be a smart business tactic and others are having blackhat dreams. Of course, not long after it was announced, I received an invite to a Facebook question on the subject.
This poll led to some great discussion and I added my two cents as well (I’ll let Mike tell you about that on his blog) . The truth is, I’m just not that excited about it. I don’t see it doing well, and while it may rope a few businesses, and a number of sites will likely use it, it just doesn’t have the power.
Is +1 Really a Social Thing? No, but Yes
When people originally started picturing +1, they compared it to the Facebook ‘Like’ feature. There’s no denying the similarities, at least not after it is out in the wild and on your favourite sites.
Unfortunately, for social media lovers, +1 is missing a key feature known as aggregation and conversation. Facebook does this, and does it well. So, other than seeing an ad that some guy from Tuktoyaktuk I know through Twitter clicked or +1′d (which is a social failure all on its own), it has no real purpose.
That isn’t the only role +1 is speculated to have on the Web, however. And really, iIt isn’t exactly meant to be social.
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+1 As a Business Thing and Cash Grab
Not long after it launched, Search Engine Watch published several speculations about the real purpose behind +1. Aaron Wall and Loren Baker said it’s purely a business thing, created specifically to push Adsense ads, Google Accounts, and other features. I completely believe it. Anyone who read the Adwords blog that day would too, and let’s not forget Google is in this to make money.
By launching +1, it can push businesses to use Place pages and other local, business specific features it has been known to monetize in the past. This is fully their right, and just may work, but I highly doubt they’ll be successful.
Ruud Hein of Search Engine People also spent some time speculating how the data gathered through +1 could be used for ranking purposes. Ok, I could maybe see that working too, but…
Google Forgets About One Important Thing
There is no doubt in my mind that, if business owners see their ads will be found more easily because someone clicked a button, they’ll pay to opt into the feature. This side of the feature will likely fly.
What they did forget about, however, is that people actually have to click and use the +1 feature, and they have to be in your social network. Will people really use it? I honestly can’t see it.
Facebook’s ‘Like’ and Twitter buttons already do this and have already been adopted by users. Why would they switch now? I sure wouldn’t. Right now, I have two groups of people I share things with. Business associates, with whom I share things on Twitter, and family/friends, who I share with on Facebook. What incentive or benefit do people have to switch?
The other issue is that people actually have to go back to the SERP at this point to +1 something. Now, I don’t know about you, but I spend a fair amount of time wandering online. I jump from link to link, switch tabs, and do a fair bit of digging. Why in the world would I waste time researching something or pressing the back button repeatedly to find a stupid button that may or may not be seen. Others, such as Lee Odden and Jon Henshaw have expressed similar concerns.
Here’s another conundrum Google has: I have three distinct social circles: 1) Friends and family who don’t know and don’t care about what I’m mumbling about, using, and sharing online because it’s usually work related. 2) Work related people who actually may be interested in the things I share. 3) Friends and acquaintances, who understand and may be interested in the odd tidbit, but really could care less for the most part.
Why would I share personal things I like with group #2? Why would I share work related things with group #3? In the SERPs, they get it all, even if it’s research for a client project. On my social networks, I can share it with people who are already looking at what I have to say. If it’s personal, I share it on Facebook. Work related stuff gets shared on Twitter. Why would I need a third?
I would also like to add that what I find relevant, quality, and interesting is only shared by a small percentage of my social connections. Many times, I pass up the links they share elsewhere because they simply aren’t that valuable, in my opinion. Having these same links show up in the SERPs isn’t going to make me any more interested.
What Google Needs To Do If It Ever Hopes To Go Social In Any Way
I think marketers and Web-savvy people pretty much agree that Google sucks at anything social. They just don’t seem to grasp the concept, and either mimic things other companies already do well, or create something so disjointed it’s essentially useless as a collaboration or social tool. Google has yet to decide where it stands in a world out of its control.
The way I see it, businesses are jumping into social media with both feet and figuring out what to do with it all afterward. Many of them post without any real central location or any way to access it all. They fail to create a hub of value.
Google, one the other hand, has already been including features such as tweets and status updates in the search results. What it really needs to do is aggregate all social content and serve it up much like it does in the search results already. However, give users an option to filter it globally, within their social circles, and divided by lists.
Give users a global dashboard, much like some social apps already do, where they can see all of their social networks at once, search their content, and find what they need. Create a hub that consumers can use to see a company’s social interactions and reviews all in one place.
Greplin is already very much like this for your own social stuff, and Trunkly is great for aggregating several sites into one place, but they both still have a long way to go, if they intend to become an aggregated social hub. Sadly, they need access, power, and money. Sort of like what Google already has, but has dedicated mostly to neat toys. In short, Google needs to stick to what it does best: search.
The other thing Google needs to do is connect all of its services together so that they play nice with each other. My Motorola ATRIX phone automatically picks up all of my contacts, including those stored in Google contacts, and puts them all together in one central location where all of my apps can access and use them. Why doesn’t Google do that?
Of course, I’m not sure I’d want Google having quite that much information about me, but it already has way more information about me than any other company on the planet, most of which it can gather without permission or a password. Make things like Google Docs easily sharable and workable right from the major social networks. I’d love to be able to share a calendar or item from Google Docs with a quick push of a button or two, or define groups for collaborative work, without having to set up each site separately. Remove the repetition! And for goodness sakes, make sure all it’s current offerings are integrated and work together!
They have true potential here, and simply are failing to use it.
Creating A User Generated Content Strategy
While I am a copywriter, I find that most of my time is spent creating various types of content strategies. Of those, user-generated content (UGC) strategy requests are coming up more and more frequently and there’s several reasons for this. For me, one of the biggest reasons is the popularity of social networks and the enjoyment we get from them. If we like them, everyone else will too right?
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Well, there’s more to it than just saying ‘we’ll do a little bit of x, y, and z’. Your UGC needs to match your marketing plan and business goals, but it also needs to cater to the needs and desires of your client base. In short, the strategy must satisfy everyone involved and provide value on one side of the conversion process or the other.
User-Generated Content Basics
You’ve been hearing the chatter about this type of content for months, so I’m not going to go into the basics. If you’d like to know more on those, you’ll find some great posts on TopRank (stats and integration), WiseGeek (nitty-gritty, point form ABCs), and Chris Grannell (Psychology of User Generated Content PDF).
We’ll add a great slide presentation here, too:
The Strategy’s Target
While it’s tempting to do it all with one strategy, you have to decide which product or service is most important. Which one needs the most attention and will hopefully leave you open to integrate other offerings? You can offer multiple opportunities at some point, but focus on one main goal at a time.
There’s a bit of a trick to this. If you get too granular, you will have to push really hard to get user-generated content and run the risk of not getting any at all. Not to mention, the views and interest in the subject will be lower. If you get too broad, your message and the purpose gets too muddled and diluted to be effective.
If you’ve become too general, you’ll have to start creating multiple sections, complex systems, and lots of rules or hands-on editing to keep it going. And while this is occasionally pulled off with flare, it usually just makes the system difficult for everyone. If you make it difficult, people just won’t bother using it.
Here are a few examples: An auto sales website might focus on Fords or used vehicles. A web designer can likely get away with pushing website designs or logos. If you are a shoe manufacturer that only creates one type of shoe, on the other hand, you can get away with pushing the shoe type and cover the entire site.
Gathering the Ideas For Your UGC Strategy
Every time I create a user-generated content strategy, I have to start be creating pools of information that we can manipulate and tweak in order to generate the ideas that we can either ditch, use, or put on hold. Sounds simple right? Just start listing off ideas, right? Well, not quite. Not saying that you won’t get lucky and hit a winner, but it’s not exactly a methodical approach.
To get this pool of ideas, I create lists of information we can pull from users and how those things can be integrated into a website.
Pre-Sales Funnel Needs — What do users need before purchasing your product or service? What do they have? What do they need to know if they’re going to buy from you?
Product Needs — What do users need while using your product or service? What sorts of things do they use with it? What can they do or use to get more from the things they purchase from you?
Post-Purchase Needs — What sorts of needs do they have after using your product or service? What’s their next step? What sorts of materials do they have to offer after use?
Website/Marketing Capabilities — What sorts of mediums do you have at your disposal that would make use of the previous three lists?
Under each of these, I just start listing all of the things that fit including information, products, services, ideas, and problems users will encounter at each stage. Then, I wander through various target-rich environments and see what the chatter is all about, what questions they’re asking, and what they’re praising. These get added to the lists, and by the time I’m done, I’ve got massive lists of ideas I can pull from.
In your last list, mark down the types of mediums or concepts your website either currently handles, or could handle with a reasonable amount of tweaking. Photo albums, membership areas, video uploading, audio collections, user-generated blogs…the list is endless. At this point, list them all. You never know when something odd will become a unique streak of brilliance. (Hey, it happens!)
Associate a Need, Want, Or Desire With an Idea
Here’s where your creativity, cleverness, and insanity come in handy. Look at each item and think about how you could present that information to others. While I’m in the middle of the process, I give myself extra brownie points if I can come up with something that will make people laugh, prompt a trip down memory lane, go ‘aaaahhh how cute’, or drive (healthy) controversy. You’ll also want to give yourself extra brownie points for any ideas that naturally show off the benefits or traits you’d like to highlight in your products and services.
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Consider User Habits, Interests, and Preferences
Hopefully, by now, you’ve already profiled your target audience, your complementary businesses, and vendors (and know which of these three you’re focusing on here). This should be a complete profile which includes everything from demographics, beliefs, habits, economic situation, and any other little tidbits you can gather together.
Then, compare these details to the ideas you generated in the previous step, tossing out anything that might be offensive or otherwise unusable. Next, mark anything that’s likely ineffective because of these same traits and move them to the bottom of the list.
Choose the Best Concept
At this point, I’d move the ideas with the most brownie points to the top of your list, go through them, and try to find reasons to keep or discard each one. Be ruthless! (Oh, and do yourself a favor and write them down. Trust me. You only have to forget once to figure out why.)
Don’t toss out the ideas you didn’t use. You’d be amazed how many of these simple ideas can fit together. Also, if your idea *gulp* fails, you’ll have plenty of other ideas to fall back on.
Go ahead! Try it!
Content VS Context — Which Is More Important?
Is the material more important than where you publish & promote it? Or is your priority the other way around? Should you worry about where your content appears rather than what you’re actually publishing? Can crap content be successful if it’s advertised in the right space?
A short while ago, Charlie Southwell of the soon-to-launch Screendrip asked these same questions. I certainly don’t claim to have answers he was seeking, but I do think the answers are subjective. I think the right answer depends on how you look at the situation.
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Content Is More Important
As humans, our instinct is to judge and assess everything we encounter. Our brains automatically want to identify friend from foe, good from bad, and helpful from harmful. Since the days of cave dwelling and spear throwing, our ability to assess our surroundings and place everyone on the scale from 1 to 10 contributes or harms our chance of success and survival.
When you meet a complete stranger for the first time, you use all the information you receive about that person consciously and subconsciously to form an impression of them. Their bad fashion sense, for example, will influence your opinion just as much as, if not more than, their posture and the way they carry themselves.
By the time the stranger opens his mouth and extends his hand, you are already 80% sure of where he fits in your mind. If he speaks poorly or says something distasteful, it will surely lock him into a lowly position in your mind. If, contrary to his appearance, he speaks positively and impresses you, you’re likely to reassess him. The stranger will stick out in your mind, at the very least, just like lawyers with long hair and hippie clothes or the clean business suit-wearing punk rocker.
Think of your site as the stranger. His clothes are your design, his posture, your navigation and layout, and his words are your content. The hand he extends? Your comment system and contact information. If you routinely say things (produce content) no one wants to read, use, or enjoy, the visitor’s opinion of you is going to decline sharply regardless of where you put it.
The bullshit posts on Techcrunch or the poorly researched content CNN has published in the past are good examples. If this happens too often, it will severely damage their credibility, if it hasn’t already.
That being said, the value of content is subjective; how much content is worth varies from person to person and depends specifically on the individual’s knowledge base and situation. For a small business owner new to the Web, a guide to creating a successful website would be worth its weight in cold. For the Internet marketer who has been online since the mid 1990s, it’s redundant, old news, and wasting his time.
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Context Is More Important
Have you ever come across an amazing tool, a great resource, a smart individual, or a wonderful business and thought it was a shame that no one else knows about it? Or, thought about how sad it is that it’s on an unusable or horribly ugly platform? This is a case of bad context taking away from the value of the content.
It’s sort of like handing out $100 bills to everyone who walks passed you. If you were to offer me a $100 bill with no strings attached, you can bet your bonnet I’d take it. I wouldn’t think twice. What’s it worth? $100!
For me, that money has value. It would pay my power bill, put food on the table, or pay my son’s school fees. If you were to do the same thing in the middle of the cow pasture, however, it’s not going to work out quite how you’d like it to. To the cow, that $100 bill is getting in the way of what he really values: Food!
If you were to create a comprehensive travel guide on Antarctica, this bit of information would be priceless on a travel site. This information isn’t exactly widely available, and for travelers interested in going somewhere different, it would certainly fit the bill. If you were to promote this content on the financial social site Tip’d and publish it on CNN Money, however, most visitors would be disappointed in the content, if not annoyed.
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Great Content, Publishing and Marketing Go Hand In Hand
The way I see it, you can’t create content without considering where you’re going to publish it and where you’re going to market it. You also can’t decide where you’re going to market the content or where you’re going to publish it without considering the content itself. It’s sort of like trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without bread, peanut butter, or jelly. You have to consider all three, at the same time, by putting each element in priority.
If you want to market in a particular place, you need to choose a host for your content that performs well on that platform or in that niche. You also need to create content the visitors there are interested in and would find valuable.
If you have a particularly great piece of homeless content, you need to identify the right site to host it. You also need to determine which social site or marketing platform that content would do well on. The same can be said for your host. If you’re asked to create content for a specific site, find the right marketing platform and determine which content would be best.
Which is most important for you? Content or context?
The Fine Art Of Creating a Guest Posting Strategy
When was the last time you created a guest posting strategy? How carefully do you choose the destination sites for your content?
Guest blogging or content placement is one of my favorite ways to build good links, expand a company’s reach, build authority, and bring more traffic to a site.
Guest posts can also be a smart alternative to paid links — many believe the links acquired through guest posting are worth more because they’re located in the content rather than in a sidebar or list of links. They’re less likely to disappear, they have a one-time cost, and give you the most bang for your buck.
If you want all this, however, you can’t just drop guest posts on the first site you come across. You have to choose the destination sites very carefully.
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Find Authority Sites To Guest Post On
Social Media Today recently published a post that listed 10 Places To Find Blogs To Guest Post On. In it, the author listed several places that upkeep collections of authority sites. And while this is excellent advice and works well, you can’t rely on this alone.
First, let’s not forget about search. After all, these sites just don’t have a complete, comprehensive list. Advanced search queries are a powerful way to find good guest posting opportunities. You can find out more about advanced search queries here:
- Google Search Basics — Google’s Web Search Help
- Link Building Search Queries Collection — Search Engine Journal
- 21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries — Search Engine Land
- Long List of Link Searches — SEOmoz
- Link Building Tools and Content-Based Link Opportunity Analysis– Ontolo
- Link Search Tool — Solo SEO
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Sort the Great Guest Posting Opportunities From the Good Ones
Finding the best places to guest post involves more than just locating authority sites on a related topic. In fact, if you focus purely on the link value of guest blogging, you’re missing out on the real SEO and marketing value that can come out of this practice.
You need to find a spot to guest post that matches your goals and attracts your specific target audience. It should reflect the skills or strengths of your business and possibly even open the door to future opportunities.
Being a copywriter, you’d think I’d post mostly on copywriting sites. This isn’t true. Instead, you’ll find I frequent SEO, Social Media, and Internet marketing sites as well as various industry-specific sites. Why? While there are plenty of authority sites in the copywriting industry, there is little value in it for me:
- I’m rarely hired by other copywriters.
- My customers rarely read sites focused on copywriters.
- My business and I are painted into a corner. If I only post on copywriting sites, I’m perceived as being strictly a good writer, and while I do have excellent copywriting skills, I’m much more than that. To be a great copywriter, you need to know about much more than just having good spelling and grammar. In reality, copywriting online involves SEO, Social Media, conversion optimization, branding, business, marketing, usability, buyer behavior, and much more.
- There’s little opportunity for growth if I stay within the copywriting niche.
- I have more competition within the industry. This isn’t to say other copywriters disappear once you leave the industry, but unless you’re willing to get out there and stand out, you’ll blend in.
When I guest post, I focus on helping others see the value in quality copywriting and showing them how to use it to their advantage. I help others understand how to integrate content into their businesses and websites, how to create winning content strategies, and how to achieve and surpass their goals because, ultimately, that’s what my products and services do.
In return, my guest posts have earned award nominations, become a recommended resource for governments and university professors, generated clients, and opened the door to opportunities I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. This is all in addition to the link juice, buzz, traffic, and additional links the practice initially created. This would have been much more difficult to accomplish if I had stayed on my own blog.
I would say these types of benefits are worth the time invested in choosing guest post destinations, and far more valuable than a $2,000 paid link, don’t you think?
You can and should do the same with your guest posting strategy. To get started:
- Make a list of authority blogs and content-based sites.
- Study their style, direction and audience.
- Make connections with the site owners.
- Craft and publish your content.
That’s it!
Do you have a guest posting strategy?
Competitor Analysis: How Your Competitors Make Your Online Marketing Better
How can you play a game when you don’t know the rules? Like a good game of Risk, you need to measure up your opponents, their strengths, their weaknesses, and decide exactly what kind of a stand you’re going to make in order to claim your portion of the market share.
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Identify Your Competitors
Sit down and make a list of all the websites and/or businesses you would consider your biggest competition. If your customers aren’t turning to you, who are they turning to? Keep in mind this may not even be something in your direct niche.
For instance, one of my clients produced videos and taught classes on how to type in a healthy manner on various devices. They didn’t really have much in terms of direct competition, but what they were competing with is the many ergonomic devices out there. This made their competitor market huge.
So, yes, even if they don’t seem like direct competitors, if your target audience might choose someone else, you have to include them in your plans.
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List Their Strengths and Weaknesses
You need to know what it is your competitors do well and where they need to improve. So, make a list of strengths and weaknesses for each one. This will become your ‘power list’.
One you’ve recorded everything, go through, item by item and list how you’re better than that competitor and how you outperform them. Once you have this, you’ll be able to lay the groundwork for your copywriting, your marketing plan, your business model, and almost every element of your business.
Layout Each Competitor’s Marketing Strategy
The marketing strategy your competitors use can tell you a lot about your market and how best to find them. By listing out the main way each of your competitors generate business, you’ll be able to use the same concepts and ideas yourself. Keep in mind that this doesn’t necessarily mean copying them! Doing that will also mean you’ll copy their mistakes!
As an added bonus, you’ll be able to analyze each competitor’s marketing plan and identify areas, segments, and concepts they’ve missed. This will give you years of information and ideas for years to come, particularly if you refresh your competitor analysis on a regular basis.
Find out what types of places their using to generate traffic. Where are they advertising? What kind of referrers do they have for their website? What sorts of keywords are they using? Which audience segments are they targeting? Particular regions they’re performing well in?
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Competitor Content Analysis
Take a wander through your competitor’s content strategy. Start on their home page, go through their product/services pages, look through their blog posts, their guest posts, social media content, everything.
As you go through, make note of:
- What features and benefits do they place an emphasis on?
- What style and tone do they use?
- How have they structured their content? Does it work? Why or why not?
- Have they used link bait or buzz content? Was it successful, and if so, why and who did it attract?
- Have they been using specific social networks? Which ones? How?
- Where have they been placing content?
- Have they been focusing on certain target audiences, uses, products, or ideas?
At this point, you already have the framework for a comprehensive and effective marketing plan. You simply need to incorporate your own goals, priorities, ideas, and needs.
