Google + is Open, Can your business use it?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by admin

Earlier this week Google + opened the doors officially. They completed a 90 day trial period, where users could only have a Google+ account, if they were given an invite.

During the 90 day trial period, Google made about 91 improvements to the new social networking site. No doubt as the result from analytic and stats they were gathering.

A little interesting that it just opened the week that Facebook made its major updates (that everyone is hating).

Google+ for Business

The full application for Google plus has not been realized yet. I would love to go and say…”Yes, add Google+ to your site right now”, but that is simply not the case.

We need to give it some time. What will help is thinking about some of the features on Google plus. How might you adapt the features to increase sales or improve customer service?

The Features

Screensharing
A feature that allows Hangout users to view your screen.

Sketchpad
A feature that gives users the ability to doodle and draw together in Hangouts.

Google Docs
A feature you might be familiar with, but it can now be used in Hangouts to write, plan or present something with others.

Named Hangouts
A feature that allows users to join or create a public hangout about a certain topic or subject.

Search in Google+
The search engine giant brings search to its social network, which will provide relevant people, posts and content to search queries. I think this will be very powerful.

What do you think?

There are a lot of features here. It will take some time before we can even become familiar with them. So play around, get the juices flowing. I see several business interaction opportunities here.

Visit Google Plus for More Information: Google Plus

Facebook Chasing Google Plus with Privacy Changes

Posted on August 30, 2011 by admin

Many have been watching Facebook to see how they respond to the Google Plus popularity. Though Google Plus has not taken off many non-tech users (according to various reports), those who have used it cannot deny they like many of it’s capabilities and features.

This is mainly in it’s “Circles” function. We won’t go too much into that, but we will look at what Facebook is doing that is similar and talk about it’s new privacy settings.

The Details

First, some of the privacy controls are now “inline”, or available when users are actually creating a post. So now users can decide who will be able to view specific posts with a dropdown menu. Users can control the post going to everyone, friends of friends, friends or they can customize in detail who sees the posts.

Now this is really cool. Users now have the ability to approve photos they have been tagged in before they are shown to everyone. No more surprises.

After you have played with your privacy settings, you can then use the new “View Profile As” feature in the top right to see how your profile looks to one of your friends. This might be useful if you’re a FB friend with your Boss, but you have restrictions applied.

Lastly, locations can now be associated to just about anything. They can even be assigned to past posts. This was previously only available when using Facebook via a smart phone.

Overall

We may have missed some, but that is certainly the bulk of the changes. It will be interesting to see how users respond to the changes and if it affects any migration towards Google Plus.

Personally, I think Facebook is to be commended for listening to the people, and implementing changes so fast. No doubt they had wind of some of the Google Plus features. I am concerned that they released many changes at the same time. FB users are now getting hammered with popups telling them about the new features.

Does Googles +1 Button Impact SEO?

Posted on August 12, 2011 by admin

It’s a good question and one that has had everyone guessing since Google’s latest creation has launched.

The answer is…it might

I have read several articles that claim that an SEO management company (Conductor) is claiming the +1 button DOES indeed impact organic results. Why do they say this? One reason is that they have Google +1 and SEO been conducting studies and found that the top five companies or brands that show up organically have about 3 times as many +1′s.

They also found that these companies or brands had about twice as many Facebook Likes. In fact, overall, they found that about 90 percent of the time, the sites ranking at the top organically had the most Google +1′s and Facebook Likes.

Of course there is no absolute proof that this is the case. But it is clear that social engagement overall does have an impact on your search engine rankings.

It may sound a little strange, but I have always thought that Google talks to itself and says “Wow, this person is really active on the web…I like that, I am going to help them rank better”.

The Question For You

Do you have Google +1 on your site? It is not going away and it is not a fade. If the above is true, you want to make sure your not left behind and forced to catch up.