International Digital Marketing

Facebook has a lot to prove. The much hyped Facebook IPO turned to be a fiasco, as the company and bankers evaluated the social network to be worth $100 billion while investors did not. Despite the little peak ($45 share) during the launch on May 18^th 2012,  the Facebook share price has dropped from the opening price of $38 to about $28 this morning.

So, what went wrong?

Too high and optimistic expectations

First of all, let’s look at the numbers. There is an impressive quantity of users in Facebook and the social network has been predicted to reach billion users this year. But does it justify that Facebook was being valued at almost 100 times last year’s profits? This is much higher than tech companies Apple and Google, who in fact make much more money.

In addition to above, in February 2012 Facebook admitted that it did “not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue” from mobile even if more than 425 million monthly active users, representing 50% of the total MAUs, were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has serious implications, which probably were not bypassed by the investors.

What comes to the launch itself, there were too many shares in the market. Also it did not help either that Facebook insiders, such as Facebook board member Peter Thiel, increased the amount of shares they wanted to sell. This raised suspicions – what did they know, that normal public did not?

Is it time to make Facebook users pay?

Facebook has launched a test in New Zealand to see whether it would be possible to make profit also with the users. According to CNET, the social media platform has recently tested out a new service that permits users to make their status updates more prominent in exchange for some money. The new service works like the premium ads to businesses. By paying $1.80 New Zealand dollars ($1.42 U.S. dollars), Facebook users can promote their status update and assure it remains in their friend’s news feed.

If this business model would result successful, Facebook could possibly make a nice profit and gain investors’ trust back. As the user’s friend base, likes, groups, and applications grow, user’s status updates are likely to get lost in the middle of it all. Facebook users also love friends’ “likes” and comments, especially if we are talking about top influencers, and sometimes they have something important to say that is worth highlighting, such as a lost mobile or an item on sale.

On the other hand, the hidden/not seen status updates are mainly caused by Facebook’s own features, issues and sorting algorithm, that sets up the top stories as default and makes everything very cluttered. It highlights stories such as the games people play, music they listen to, apps they use and articles they read – and do not forget to add the brand communications and ads on top. The social media platform has already been pushing its luck, and it is to be seen if this will provoke users to leave the site.

To be honest, I am interested to see how this works out and what users’ reaction will be. How important showing status update is for users? How much are they ready to pay to be “liked”? And if they are ready to pay to be “liked”, are they ready to pay to access the platform in the future? Maybe this is just the first step towards a Facebook membership fee.

Pinterest. Surprise, surprise – another new social network everyone talks about. There is a lot of hype around the platform, but is it really necessary to invest again money, time and resources in another social network?

Yes. There is actually a very good reason why Pinterest should not be ignored: the total number of global unique visitors in Pinterest increased 2,702.2% since May 2011 reaching 11,716,000 visitors by January 2012. It has 1,36 million visitors a day.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social photo sharing network that allows people and brands to create image collections, Pinboards, based on their interests, hobbies, products, beliefs, humour, art, events and more. The idea is to connect people through the things they find interesting and get inspired by. Users are able to browse other users’ collections, re-pin images for their own Pinboard, follow other users, and like their photos. Pinterest allows users to share pins also on other social networks, which increases the social visibility.

Pinterest – user demographics and engagement

The average Pinterest user spends almost 16 minutes on the site per visit compared to 16.4 min. in Youtube, 12.1 min. in Facebook, and 3.3 min. in Twitter. Surprisingly, Pinterest provides more referral traffic to other sites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined together, and the apparel retailer referral traffic from Pinterest increased 289% between July and December 2011.

50% of the Pinterest users have children, almost 70% of Pinterest users are female, and 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women. Instead of teenagers and young adults, the platform seems to appeal most for the older age groups: largest age group is 25-34 year olds (27.4%) followed by 35-44 year old users (22.1%). Interestingly 45-54 year old users represent 17.9% of the user base, which is a high number compared to other social networks.

Pinterest in Europe

In Europe Pinterest has grown exponentially since May 2011 becoming the fastest growing social network. According to Comscore, in January 2012 the UK had the highest number of unique visitors in Europe (245,000), Germany had 67,000 unique visitors, and Spain had 62,000 unique visitors. What comes to the growth, from May 2011 to January 2012 Germany had the highest growth rate of 2956% in Pinterest, followed by Spain (1348%), and Italy (794%).

Even if the unique visitors decreased in France and the UK between December 2011 and January 2012, engagement on Pinterest increased by 1740% and 20%, respectively.

Is Pinterest worth investing?

Pinterest is currently the fastest growing social network in the US and Europe, and it is very interesting from a brand perspective. You have a possibility to target people according to their interests in real time without being their “friends”, provoke a stronger response with images as people are very visual, and obtain social recommendations when people “pin” or like your image. With a proper preparation, the social photo sharing platform may be very beneficial for sales,  and looking at the demographics, it is great especially if you are targeting women and more mature demographics.

How brands can use Pinterest? For example, ecommerce sites and brands can use Pinterest to pin their products (fashion, clothes, shoes, accessories, interior designs, household items, wedding items, baby products, etc), travel companies and hotels can pin location pictures, food manufacturers can pin beautiful dishes, pet food companies can pin cute animals, etc. etc. The list goes on, but as with other social networks stop and think before you start pinning. Pinterest has a lot of potential, but if not done properly the end result may not be what you expected. To be successful as a brand you need a proper Pinterest strategy to reach right people, and if you have a good strategy  – an image can be worth a thousand words.

With more than 425 million monthly active users utilizing Facebook mobile products in December 2011 only, the social networking platform is finally focusing on mobile and tablets in 2012. Wise decision, since not only Smartphone market is increasing, but according to a research by BI Intelligence global tablet sales will reach 500 million units per year by 2015 – exceeding the number of PCs currently sold per year (~360 million).

Facebook has mentioned that as part of its mobile monetisation strategy it will start using “sponsored stories” in mobile users news feed. But is that really all?

Facebook – more than a simple platform

Until now Facebook has been focusing on normal web strategy and constant updates that seem to make its users’ life more difficult. But hate Facebook or not, the social network is becoming much more than just a platform. Facebook is on its way to become its own Internet portal by using Facebook IDs as an online passport to various products and services hosted on its own developer platform.

Facebook’s inter-connected business model has worked well and the company has created its own successful ecosystem. The social network has made great progress especially with social gaming, and its close relationship with Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars) has been very beneficial for both.  F-commerce is also blooming with companies trying to get more touchable return on their social media investment and Facebook has even launched its own online virtual currency called Facebook credits. They allow Facebook developers to offer in-app purchases with Facebook cutting 30% of the revenue. A similar model Apple uses in its App store.

Facebook mobile monetisation strategy

Now there is the problem. Facebook needs to establish a proper mobile monetisation strategy, yet the native app store model is very restrictive. For example, Apple takes off 30% revenue of the apps sold, and insists on maintaining control of the iOS payments process. This means that Facebook cannot take advantage of ‘in-apps payments’: a revenue generated by its current ecosystem.

What comes to f-commerce, according to a study by Shopatron, most of the tablet owners find shopping with the tablet engaging, and the conversion rate from tablets is much higher than conversion rate from mobiles or even PCs. If Facebook wants to expand its F-commerce business, it needs to offer companies a way to create a tablet optimized social shopping experience, and lure them away from iPad apps.

Will Facebook abandon App store?

Probably not. The social network is not likely to ditch the existing native apps, because they already have a large user base and work well with the different OS. However, Facebook has a team (so called Project Spartan) playing with HTML5 technology, which is a coding language that allows companies to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system. According to a research firm Strategy Analytics, 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones are to be shipped in 2013(up from 336 million in 2011), which brings interesting possibilities.

If the company starts creating its own apps without registration fees and payment restrictions, it is free to monetise via Facebook Credit and in-apps payments. Quite a significant move, since if Facebook starts developing HTML5 apps many companies and its partners are likely to follow. Which certainly will not make Apple happy.

We will see. There are many other possibilities for Facebook in mobile space, such as augmented reality with facial recognition, and the company also needs to consider very well whether it is worth making another powerful enemy, especially when iPad3 is coming up. If Facebook starts competing with Apple’s App store, their relationship status is likely to become “complicated”.

Will 2012 be the year of Google?  Android continues eating Apple’s pie across the world, Facebook’s constant changes drive frustrated top influencers to Google+, Google analytics is  the most widely used web analytics tool with market share of 80%, and Google continues in its no. 1 position in search.

Google search: where are we right now?

Google has come a long way. Few years back the search giant was reluctant to invest in social, especially after not so successful attempts with Orkut and Google Buzz. Yet step by step the company has become more ambitious and seen the potential social has.

• 2009: Personalized Search : Ranking based on user’s history, clicks and location
• 2009: Social Search : Results based on user’s social connections
• 2010: Google Real time:  Integration of Twitter feed into the results
• 2011: Google Plus: Google social network + addition of Google+ pages for business
• 2012: Search plus your world: Personalized, Social, G+ and authors in the search result

What is “Search plus your world”?

Search plus your world is Google’s attempt to finally unify the search, social and its own G+. It means that Google has integrated the algorithm of social search, personal search and personalized search in one algorithm. This latest addition in search mix finds the content that the users shared in Google plus (photos, videos, posts, articles, etc.) together with the traditional web content. To search information of a contact, you only need to search for it in Google and you will get the social network results first.

The change to the algorithm has already been implemented, but at the moment it is only visible for people who are logged in Google.com and do their search in English. Google is planning to roll it out shortly to the rest of the world.

How Search plus your world will influence SEO?

Let’s be honest. Google owns 90% of the global search market so if Google says jump, we jump. So if Google says we need +1 buttons and a G+ page to improve our ranking, so be it. Logically, not only Google will show personal Google+ results for users, but the search engine ranks higher the pages that feature +1 recommendations and +1 also appears both in the paid and natural listings. As with Facebook “like” button, +1 is a social proof that the content is worth seeing and sharing. More recommendations you have, more likely users are going to click your page (and more likely Google is going to like it…sorry I mean “plus” it).

A very important change in the new search is that the personal results will appear first. How does this affect traditional search? Well, let’s say that if first 10 results are personal, they will already kick the traditional search results from the first page. Annoying!

What comes to Adwords, some experts say that Google is stupid to play with its biggest income channel and the change may be negative for the search giant. Yet when you think about it – if your real ranking is out of your control and depends on random users and their opinions, how much are you ready to pay to secure your place on top? The change might actually  push the Adwords bids very high creating more income for Google.

Regarding Adwords’ look and feel, I am curious to see what Google will do because the way they appear right now is likely to be different compared to the personal results. Maybe Google will create its own version of Facebook’s “sponsored stories”. Let’s see.

Goodbye Google ranking?

 Some people say that this is the death of Google ranking. Not necessarily, but it means that we have to stop focusing only in numbers, excel sheets, visits, clicks, conversions and results.We have to start concentrating also in people.

It is true that right now the effect is still very small, since penetration of Google plus is still low. You may think that it does not really matter that people see personal, social results when at the moment not so many of the users are in Google+. Maybe, but in the future it will. Therefore it is a good idea to start thinking about your Google+ strategy, to set up a Google+ page for your brand, and to start building your fan circle. Once the social results start to matter, you already will have a fan base and plenty of +1 recommendations to stay on the first page.

Meanwhile, it is not worth ditching the current SEO strategy and efforts. Google’s search project sounds good, but at the same time it has few downfalls. First of all: privacy issues. With the new search whatever we do in Google+ is visible in Google search for our family and friends, and if people add Google+ friends as carelessly as Facebook friends this might have serious implications. Secondly, Google is about relevancy, but what my friends (bless them) say in Social Media is not always very useful. This might alienate users from Google search and they might start preferring other search engines.

Let’s see if Google’s sneaky plan to integrate personalization, social and G+ into search will be successful, or whether it will be like many of its projects: ambitious … but rubbish.

Back in the days it all seemed very easy. By identifying where people were in the purchase funnel (awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase and loyalty), marketers were able to identify cool, warm and hot prospects and lead them down the funnel to the sale. Clear step by step customer acquisition journey that made sense. A basic marketing rule that has been respected for decades.

But let’s face it: the world we knew back then has changed. With the exponential growth in technology, mobiles, Internet, social media and search, even the way we look at the world has changed. We marketers have changed, consumers have changed and the ways brands engage with the consumers have changed.

So why the way consumers buy our products would not have changed?

Different consumer decision journey

 According to consulting firm McKinsey, traditional funnel is dead and has been replaced with a different model called Consumer Decision Journey.

“It’s taking a fundamentally different view of what’s going on in consumer behavior”, claims David Edelman, partner and co-leader of McKinsey’s global digital marketing strategy, “What we have seen in sector after sector is that this [funnel] is not what’s going on; we need to reframe the consumer decision journey to something more iterative, circular and more about what the consumer is actually doing. And marketing needs to be about helping customers through that journey.”

Source: McKinsey & Co

Social media, consumer forums and brand advocates play a very important role in this purchase process model. Consumer tries or buys a product, tells the world about it, and triggers other consumers interests who will then evaluate different options on and offline and compare brands before buying the product.

What is interesting in this model is that since consumers are constantly evaluating different possibilities, they are in a continuous journey where they regularly add and drop brands. It is a loop, which means that the communication should not only focus on awareness and end sale, but also in consumer engagement and consumer loyalty. More happy customers the brand has, more advocates, positive comments and evaluations it has. Which then lead to more potential customers.

How to engage with the customers during their journey?

McKinsey has identified four ways companies could use to engage consumers during their journey:

1. Align – instead of using all resources for “consider” and “buy” stages, companies need also to focus on “advocate” and “evaluate” stages. This means that marketers need to stop ignoring consumer forums and encourage clients to rate their product/service or write their opinion about it. Amazon is a great example of the power consumer opinions and data brings.
2. Link – Communication and brand message across all channels from offline to online needs to be consistent. If the core message and brand identity differs, consumers get confused. And confused customers are not happy customers.
3. Lock – Companies should “lock in” a customer’s attention via direct, opt-in channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, email and apps. It does not mean sales talk, people who follow you are usually your fans and deserve interesting and relevant content. Other consumers following you are all potential customers who also deserve engaging content that does not only push sales, but asks their opinion and makes them feel special at every stage of their journey.
4. Loop – As mentioned, the journey is a loop. To improve the loop it is very important to measure data and evaluate the response to the content. If you do not know the results, how can you improve your marketing strategy and communication?

Is traditional purchase funnel dead?

Dead is a strong word. I think the consumer purchase journey has only transformed and become more advanced and adapted to the modern times. The basics steps are similar, but the model highlights the importance brand advocacy has especially on these disloyal times. We are surrounded by excessive choice, have become suspicious and picky, and search for other consumers advice before choosing the right product for us.

Word of mouth and post-purchase customer service have always been important, but often forgotten from the marketing mix. Yet the truth is that ever since consumer was able to speak with the world via Internet and reach not only his family but hundreds of thousands of people, his power has skyrocketed. It would be foolish to ignore it.

Whether you call it customer decision journey or purchase “loop”, this model should be an eye opener for those who stick to the old world and the old models. The world has changed. Welcome to 2012.

Social Media, Social Networks, Social Commerce … there is no escaping social these days especially after the launch of Google+. We communicate with the consumers via wall posts and tweets, build our business network in LinkedIn instead of meeting face-to-face and handle customer service via Twitter. But maybe we are right to become so obsessed with Social Media.

According to an European comScore MobiLens study, the mobile social networking has increased  44% in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK during 2011. What is even more interesting is that more than 40% of the European Mobile Social Networking users are engaging with brands.

 Snapshot of the 2011 European mobile market

•  UK and Spain are leading countries in Smartphone usage with 46.9% and 46.3% penetration respectively, compared to the European average of 40.1%. Germany has the lowest Smartphone penetration with 33%.
• British and Spanish mobile users also use non pre-installed apps above European average of 34.5%, UK with 44.9% and Spain with 35.4%. Germans have the lowest percentage with 30.4%.
• 46.9% of the mobile users in the UK and 35.3% in France use browser, compared to the European average of 35%. Germans users browse the least with 28.4%.
• 33.8% of the British , 30.1% of the Italian and 28.7% of the Spanish users play mobile games, compared to the European average of 26.5%. French users play games the least with 15.6%.
• Sending text messages is the most popular mobile activity across all five European markets, the average reaching 82.9%.
• 32.6% of the Spanish mobile users listen to music, above European average of 25.9%. Only 23.3% of the French use mobile to listen to music.
• 35.1% of the UK mobile users access news, way above European average of 18.5%. Germans are the least interested on news, with 15.7%.
• 35.1% of the UK mobile users access social networks and blogs well above average of 23.5%. Germans were the least social with 17.3%

 Increasing mobile social network addiction

 55.1 million European mobile users accessed social networks or blogs via mobile devices in September 2011 only, representing 23.5% of the total mobile audience. Not only did the mobile social media usage nearly double, but 47% of the users accessed social networks and blogs daily.

“Over the past year we have seen social networking use grow rapidly among mobile users across Europe, driven largely by the growth in smartphone adoption, making it easier than ever for users to stay connected and engage in social activities while on-the-go,” stated Jeremy Copp, comScore Europe vice president for Mobile. “More notably, the rate of growth in daily social networking usage has surpassed even the rate of growth in total social networking adoption among mobile users, suggesting that the behavior is becoming even more ingrained into people’s daily mobile lives. As social networks continue to invest in improving the user experience on mobile devices and tablets, it will be interesting to see how social behaviours on the mobile platform further evolve.”

 Interestingly, while most of the European mobile users accessed social networking sites via browser (31.3 million), the usage of social network mobile apps doubled to 24.2 million.

Mobile Social Networking Activities

Finally good news for marketers: 44% of the mobile social networking users admitted reading posts from brands and about 27% reported receiving offers, coupons or deals on their mobiles.

 What comes to other activities, 74% of the users read posts from people they know and 62% updated their status. Peer recommendation also has an important role with 35% of the users posting links to websites and 49% of the users following posted links to websites.

Leading European mobile social networks

In 2011 Facebook increased its European mobile audience 54% up to 39 million. This represents 71% of the EU5 mobile social networking audience positioning Facebook as a clear leader. However, even if the social network gathered the most users, it did not experience as big growth as its competitors: Twitter grew its mobile audience 115% up to 8.6 million, 2.2 million unique users accessed LinkedIn increasing network’s mobile users by 134% and the Spanish social network Tuenti grew by 60% gathering 2.3 million unique users.

Go social, think local

The results highlight the importance of Social Media in European brand communication strategy. With localized mobile site and social network pages brands can increase user engagement and user referrals, and the little snapshot of the social media activities can provide some insight to the best tactics in each country. While building a game app seems to work in the UK and Spain, a mobile game might not be very successful in France.

Reaching European audience is tricky because of the different languages, cultures and customs, but for brand to engage with the European audience, social media seems like a good starting point.

After the recent launch of Google+ pages, companies and marketers around the world are debating whether it is worth investing money and time in another social network especially taking in account the effort an international social media strategy requires. On the other hand, there has also been discussion whether it would be worth ditching the website and replacing it with a Facebook page.

It takes a bit of convincing to encourage top managers to invest in social networks, but once you have started, engage successfully with your audience, and see referrals and leads coming in – are you able to stop?

Growing dependency on Social Network platforms

How dependent are we on social networks? Many companies are using Twitter for customer service, communicate with consumers through Facebook newsfeed rather than newsletters and news articles, and promote in TV commercials their Facebook page instead of the official site. Also, in place of the own database acquired via website, brands are directing the communication to databases owned by social networks.

For some companies, such as Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars), the situation is a bit more complicated. Even if the interconnected business model has allowed the social gaming company, which has 60 million active users in 166 countries, to grow faster, it is highly dependent on Facebook’s platform and user base. “We generate substantially all of our revenue and players through the Facebook platform and expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Any deterioration in our relationship with Facebook would harm our business”, says Zynga’s IPO. This means that despite Facebook policy changes that have been negative for the business, Zynga cannot leave the platform in close future even if it would try to diversify to other networks, such as Google+.

Co-dependent Business Model

According to Kevin Werbach, a Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor, Zynga’s dependency on Facebook could show a preview to a dominant business model for the future digital world, that revolves around what he calls “real-time value webs.”

“We’re seeing that model play out today with the rise of digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.com. They are offering services to customers directly, but also providing the infrastructure for ecosystems of other companies,” Werbach states. “In a digital era, everything is potentially interconnected. Companies are no longer isolated islands.”

It is not obvious whether in five years the users will still visit the company websites or whether they will only use social networks and apps to check the latest news and offers. The social networks have re-designed and developed their businesses as platforms, and offer a starting point for emerging companies willing to grow fast. The same trend goes beyond social media: app developers are reliant on iPhone OS and Android, and Japanese app developers are dependent on cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo.

Worldwide Social Network referrals

But which social network brings the most traffic? In Q3 2011 Facebook was the biggest traffic driver worldwide with 63.5% of the social network referrals, while Google owned Youtube followed it with 21.2% of the referrals.

Twitter and StumbleUpon followed with 6.3% of the social media referrals each, Reddit drove 1% of the traffic to the websites, but Google+ only reached 0.2%. However, to put it in perspective, even if the new social network was launched just few months ago, Google+ brings 2 times more referrals than Delicious, 4 times more referrals than Flickr and 6 times more referrals than Mashable.

The small amount of Google+ referrals might also be due to the lack of brand presence and brand pages on the platform, and the situation may change in few months since Google has now enabled Google+ pages for companies. The power balance is likely to get even more interesting, since according to Spotify investor and former Facebook President Sean Parker, the influencers are now leaving Facebook and moving to other social networks.

Dependency between Social Networks

Despite of the fierce competition between different social platforms, interestingly there seems to be also certain dependency between the  networks. For example, 28% of the traffic to Google+ comes from other social networks. To put this in context, 6% of the users go to Facebook from other social platforms and 22% of the traffic arriving to YouTube comes from social. Twitter has the highest dependency compared to other social sites with 32% of its traffic coming from the other social networks.

It might be that in the future companies and social networks become so interconnected that neither can survive without each other. Or then we hopefully find a more convenient business model.

Google+ with user base of over 40 million people and growing has finally opened the doors for businesses. Since the launch there has been a lot of speculation whether Google would keep its promise to create business pages for brands and finally the wait is over. The launch of Google+ pages enables brands to connect with customers and fans while improving their search ranking as well as SEO campaigns.

A couple of brand pages are already available, including +Angry Birds, +Pepsi, +Toyota and +Barcelona Football club (you can create your own Google+ page here). If you already have played with your personal Google+ profile, the features Google+ page offers are familiar. For example, the page works through the Google+ mobile app, your brand can have live video conversations with the customers or fans, and you can place people in different circles – a feature which enables you to target better.

However, there are certain differences: brand page cannot send messages to a user who has not added them yet in their circle and the content on a Google+ page defaults to public (unlike personal profiles). Pages also cannot share with extended circles.

Google+ demographics

But who actually uses Google+? According to a Comscore study, Google+ has currently over 40 million users and 20 million active visitors across the world.

Top Google+ 10 countries:

• US: 5.31 million
• India: 2.85 million
• U.K: 0.87 million
• Canada: 0.86 million
• Germany: 0.71 million
• Brazil: 0.62 million
• Taiwan: 0.52 million
• France: 0.5 million
• Turkey: 0.37 million
• Spain: 0.37 million:

Unique visitors in Google+ are in average between 25-34-years-old. The Google+ audience tends to be more affluent, 54% earning a household income of $30k and over, and 12% earning $150k and up. 72% of the Google+ population is male and 78% of the professions in top 100 list consists of different developers, engineers and designers.

But despite the very interesting user base, is it really worth creating yet another social network page, even if it is Google+?

Google+ page benefits for brands

Besides of being an additional channel for user engagement, Google+ page allows you to have a different conversation with different circles increasing the effectiveness and relevancy of your message. With pages people are as well able to recommend a brand, not only separate sites, articles or ads.

What comes to the SEO,+1 recommendations have a positive effect in search ranking as well as search and display ads increasing their performance. Also, not only does Google include Google+ pages in search results, but it also is experimenting with a feature called Direct Connect. The latter enables user to navigate quickly to a brand Google+ page via typing + and the brand name. For example, if the user searches for +angry birds or +youtube he will be taken directly to the Angry Birds or Youtube Google+ page and he has a possibility to add the page to his circle. To become eligible for Direct Connect, Google suggests linking from your Google+ page to your homepage and vice versa. This also allows Google to determine your site relevancy in normal search, which means your pages are likely to index faster and have a better ranking than competitor pages without Google+.

Google+ replacing Facebook?

Once Google+ was launched I was playing with the possibility of Google+ threatening Facebook. 40 million and growing is still far away from the 800 million Facebook users, however it seems like influencers might be leaving Facebook.

Improved SEO and power influencers? Sounds good to me.

“Our goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience. Circles let you choose with precision who you are sharing with. Not surprisingly this has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people.”

Larry Page, CEO, Google

Google+, the new social networking service by Google, has already 10 million registrations two weeks after its launch even if it is invite only. Google +1 button itself was available since early June and its adoption rate is leaving Twitter behind. According to a study by BrightEdge, 4.5% of the analyzed sites have adopted the Google +1 plugin while Twitter Share was only adopted by 2.1% and Twitter Instant Follow by 1.3%.

Facebook still has a stronger presence than its competitors. Facebook like button was adopted by 10.8%, Like box 6.1%, Facebook connect 1.9% and Facebook Recommendations 1.2%.

What makes all this even more interesting is that the partnership between Google and Twitter allowing Google to integrate tweets into search results expired and it has not been renewed yet.

How to use Google+?

I discovered a very nice Google+ cheat sheet with small instructions on how to use the platform:

How does Google+ impact marketing and SEO?

Google owns 90% of the global search market and it is very important to appear high in the search results. Logically Google ranks higher the pages that feature +1 recommendations and +1 also appears both in the paid and natural listings. As with Facebook like button, +1 is a social proof the content is worth seeing and sharing, and more recommendations you have more likely users are going to click your page. Adding +1 button across your site will encourage content sharing and improve your ranking in Google. You are able to get the native button code here.

Please note that it only works in search for users who have their Google profile switched on at that moment, yet +1 buttons are visible in websites, logged in or not.

Google+ also has a mobile app for Android, iPhone OS, Nokia/Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. What surprises me is that +1 button does not appear in mobile search or websites accessed through mobile even if Google owns 98% of the global mobile search market and currently Google’s gross revenue from mobile advertising is over 1 billion dollars per year. Facebook like button and tweet button are visible.

Google +1 measurement

For marketers to measure Google +1 interactions Google has launched two additional tools:

1. Webmaster Tools support

A new set of menus “+1 metrics” within Webmaster tools.

2. Google Analytics social engagement report

The new Google Analytics Beta has a Social Engagement report showing the impact of different social media elements on your site. You are able to see which pages were viewed and which actions were taken. To set the report up, have a look at Google’s instructions. It shows how Google Analytics has setup interfaces for both Twitter and Facebook so for example Facebook Likes and Tweets can be recorded and viewed within Google Analytics.

Can Google+ take over Twitter and Facebook?

It is still very early to say what impact Google+ has over Facebook and Twitter. The launch has been very successful, but it is to be seen how many active users stay after the novelty value has been worn off. Right now Facebook is starting to get out of fashion among young people since parents, aunties and grandparents are joining the platform, yet I am not sure if Google+ will be used by the young generation or if it will be used more professionally. This is why I would love to see some Google+ demographics.

Anyhow, Google+ is an active network, which is intuitive and easy to manage. It has a simple and functional design and it is integrated with all the Google tools. Facebook basic functions such as “wall” are intuitive, but to be honest to manage which contacts have access to which content you need to be an expert. Google has created a friend classification system which is much more intuitive than what Twitter and Facebook have and user has a full control who they are sharing their things with.

Yet in the end everything depends on where your friends are, because if there is no one to share content with there is no point using the platform. If the adoption rate remains high and users recommend Google+ to their friends Facebook might become the new MySpace.

“In three to five years, 10 percent to 15 percent of total consumer spending in developed countries may go through sites such as Facebook”

Mike Fauscette, Analyst, IDC Consulting

There has been a lot of debate whether Facebook can be used for pure sales purposes or if brands should only concentrate on increasing brand awareness and engagement.

Dr Paul Marsden, Syzygy’s Social Media specialist, published recently a very interesting white paper ‘F-commerce; Selling on Facebook, The Opportunity for Consumer Brands’. The report is based on an 18-month study tracking the emerging trend of f-commerce and provides an overview of consumer brand f-commerce identifying the key risks and opportunities setting up a shop on Facebook brings.

Interestingly the report does not only focus on ‘social consumer’, but talks about ‘SoLoMo consumer’. A consumer who connects with brands not only through social, but also location-aware and mobile technology. With emerge of these new technologies, the way consumers engage with brands has changed during years. Users want information in real-time, on-demand and on-the-go. Taking advantage of different channels, SoLoMo consumers have built their own trusted networks of friends and experts and are less likely to be influenced by advertising or marketing messages. This is where F-commerce kicks in – it offers brands a way to move away from the pure marketing messages towards building a real brand advocacy.

However, only setting up a large e-commerce store on Facebook would not work. Instead, by focusing on the three key ‘advocacy activators’ ( Experience; Involvement; Incentives), brand can reach SoLoMo consumers and use f-commerce to drive sales and activate brand advocacy.

I would recommend downloading the white paper  – it gives a great insight and information on the f-commerce sales and brand advocacy (and it is free!)