OlegIlin.com

Google made a lot of mistakes while launching its previous social networks- Google Wave and Google Buzz. Google Wave was not easy to use and Google Buzz… well, suffice to say that it’s not really buzzing.

Google tried to quickly grow Google Buzz by automatically enrolling everyone who has gmail account into this program. It backfired. People don’t want to be included in any group without giving prior consent. Just look at Facebook Groups. It’s one of the least popular features on Facebook so far.

As a result, there were a lot of negative reactions throughout blogosphere and social space about privacy invasion, the freedom of choice, etc. And though Google tried to rectify the situation, damage was already done. Some mistakes you could recover from, others are fatal. It looks like for Google Buzz quick non-volunteer enrollment was the latter.

It’s safe to say that Google learned its lessons. Its newest social network, Google+ is on a roll. There are many reasons why it’s growing so fast.
But in my opinion the most important are:

• Exclusivity
• Influence on SERPs rankings
• Google Circles

Let’s take a closer look at each factor that helped to skyrocket Google+ growth.

Google+ Exclusivity
Learning from Google Buzz mistake, when launching Google + Google decided to go an opposite direction –instead of inviting everyone, give this newest social network a sense of exclusivity, make sure people want to join.

You can become the member of Google+ only through private invitation. In other words, one of your friends should already be a part of this network, and should send you an invitation, otherwise you can’t get in. (Yes, sure, you can go to Google+ and ask for the invitation directly, but I am not sure how long will it take to actually receive this invitation. My guess is you would have to wait at least several months).

I applaud to whoever came up with this brilliant social media strategy, my hat is off to bright Google minds.
People were fighting to get an invitation, Google+ was featured everywhere, in every even slightly important blog or social network.

Not surprisingly, Google + grew to 20 million members in a record time.

Google+ Influences Google SERPs results
Though Google introduced its equivalent of Facebook “like” button (which is called “+1” button) a while ago it was not really that popular. Then Google made it abundantly clear that the number of “+1” you get for your posts actually affects your Google rankings. Google provided a channel to harvest those “+1” from your social buddies. Do you want to guess what is this channel called? Good guess. Yes, it’s a Google+.

The more posts (your own and from people you respect) you share and “+1”, the better would be your rankings on Google SERPs. There is only one little problem (or actually, it is a big one).

You have to manually go to Google+ in order to share your posts or the posts of your friends. There is no way to post from some other social network and get it automatically distributed to Google+ (or at least I haven’t found one). I don’t see any option to embed custom RSS feeds in the Google + either, hence no luck with distributing content directly from your blogs through RSS.

In comparison, I can post to blogs and get the content automatically distributed to Twitter, Facebook and hundreds of other social networks in a matter of seconds but Google+ demands a lot of extra time. And if you jump to Google+, you probably won’t have as much time to stay on Facebook either.

I seriously doubt that inability to embed custom RSS feeds in G+ sream is just Google’s oversight. More likely it’s a crucial part of Google strategy to get most tech-savvy social networkers from Facebook into G+. Which brings us to the last significant element of initial success for Google+:

Google Circles
Google recognized that Facebook’s friends structure is very rigid. Yes, you can add them to lists but this doesn’t give you the ability to effectively sort your social friends. In Google Circles, you can easily sort people based on any criteria – you can put friends in one circle, family members in another one, and your social friends in a third one. You can then be as granular as you want sorting those friends by their interests. And you can add them to more than 1 circle. For example, your social friend could also be your client – then place him in both circles.

And when sharing a post or image, you now can share it not with a whole group of your social friends, but with ones that you know for sure are interested in this topic. So you can send message to a very refined group who will be glad to receive it. Of course the ability to provide video conferences between the members of the circle doesn’t hurt either.
So do you choose Google+ and the ability to influence Google rankings through increased “+1” or Facebook, its 700 million members and the ability of mass-distribution through other social networks?

The decision is yours but obviously it will depend on your audience and your goals.
—-
Opening image from pvantees on Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.

What is social media management?

Image via Wikipedia

The answer depends on which type of social media management you are talking about. There are two types -amateurish management and professional social media management.

Virtually everyone who has account on Twitter, Facebook or other social networks is already involved in this process. People post updates to social networks once in a while or interact with their friends, read inbox/direct messages from friends, post something on the walls, grade pictures, post comments, send friend requests and accept new friends, etc.

Unfortunately, the majority of the users are doing it all wrong. So it would be more appropriate to call what they are doing a ”lousy social media management” or “what-not-to-do-in-social-media-management”.

Don’t get me wrong. If you want to use social media sites to communicate with your family and friends, it’s totally fine, and you don’t have to have any strategy for such type of networking.

You can post an update once-in-a-blue-moon and share what you eat, when you go to sleep, what you are doing at this very moment, etc. And it’s OK.

Just don’t think that this type of social media “activities” will also work for your business. It won’t.

If you want to use social media for business, you will need a drastically different approach.

Here is a bitter truth. 99% of users are doing it wrong. And by “users” I mean not only individual accounts, but also business accounts of big corporations.

It amazes me that these corporations spend millions dollars on branding strategies yet manage to completely neglect their social media accounts. In a best scenario, they post some info to their accounts from time to time. And maybe they respond to aggravated client once in a while. But that’s basically it.

There is no social media strategy whatsoever. They don’t know what to do with their social media accounts, and they certainly have no idea how to make sure their social media presence strengthens their brand, serve as effective customer service and online reputation management tool.

• What are your short term and long term goals in social media?
• What is the most effective way of utilizing social management procedures for your business growth?
• Have you identified the preferred type of conversion for your social media channels?
  Did you create a funnel for your business?
• Did you test all the elements of this funnel?
• Did you find what’s working for your particular business and which elements should be changed?
• Do you know what programs to use to monitor your progress in social media?
• What is your strategy for managing brand reputation in social media?
• Did you find which social media channels produce better results for your industry and for your business?

All those questions and many more should be answered if you want social media to work for your business.

And if you don’t know how to answer these questions, take a look at our social media management and consulting services, and let us help you make social media work for your business.