There is an abundance of content being published around the interwebz this week all around the latest piece of social glue known as Google+
Unless you have been living inside your computer rather than right next to it these past few weeks, you no doubt know that Google+ has hit and it, according to the big G themselves at least, seems to be doing very well indeed.
We have our opinions on the service here at @1000heads (which I’m sure we’ll come back to another day) however, for today, all we want to know is this very simple two-part question:
Have you used it yet and what do you think?
We’d love to get opinions from all of you; journalists, social media analysts, fellow agencies, clients, readers passing by. Where did you hear about it? Are you on it? What have you done with it? Will you be sticking with it?
Google dropped this blog post last week detailing a recent piece of US research they conducted with the KellerFay group to help understand the impact that the internet has had on offline word of mouth.
Everyday in the US, there are currently 3.3 billion brand mentions. 2.4 billion conversations involve a brand each day which equates to approximately 1.4 impressions per conversation.
While the majority of conversations that involve a mention of a brand (WOM conversations) occur offline, the internet is now the primary source of information stimulating such conversations and it is the leading source for consumers to find information during and after a WOM conversation.
In more than 15% of WOM conversations, search engines are used to find additional information. Search websites have also been shown to be the number one place that consumers visit in order to take further action.
Those kind folk have even gone ahead and put together a (naturally rather google-esque) video for us also:
The best thing about this research (for us anyway), is that it was conducted by KellerFay and, as seems only fitting, the world’s leading offline word of mouth research and consulting group just so happen to use our London offices as their UK base of operations.
I grabbed Steve Thomson, MD KellerFay UK, at his desk just now and asked him for some comments about this new research:
“Ah, yes! I wondered when you’d ask me about that. The findings of that report are a stark reminder that buzz is not just about social media; search proved to be a powerful trigger of brand conversations. And brand marketers at some point want conversation to turn into actions, and for many consumers, search is still the go-to place when they’re ready to make a move.
Going forward, as more and more digital activity takes place in a mobile environment, we’ll need to learn better how online and offline conversations and actions interact and stimulate each other; social media and other online activities are not occurring in a vacuum among people holed up in their bedroom or chained to a desk.”
Steve’s right, buzz is not just about social media and search is, commonly, the place where everyone goes to make that move. However, , I’m not sure about the ‘search led’ stat, as in – sure if propensity to purchase is increased when search is referenced, but what content is that person reading once the search is complete? Is it social media? Is it a review site? Is it even an ad?
Either way, the figures in this video (as well as the accompanying study) are hard to ignore and, in the worlds biggest western market, it’s good to see that word of mouth is considered to be an important part of the overall marketing mix.
Hell, one might argue that it is the most important part…
I remember when Google surprised everyone who was attending one of their conferences that had to do with Android with a free smartphone that had the current Android OS installed on it. They did the same thing when the Nexus was launched much to the delight of the attendees.
At no time when this was happening did anyone do anything but cheer Google on for coming up with a great marketing idea and ya it was a great idea.
I say it again: it’s an interesting dilemma and I consider the two examples to be slightly different; on one side you have a large global search/software company (dressed up as Android) trying to get its (at the time still relatively new) operating system into the homes of developers globally and on the other you’ve got a big gaming brand trying to make the biggest splash at the world’s largest electronic entertainment expo (E3).
Who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong?
Ethics are a constant discussion point here at 1000heads and I’m proud to say that ALL of our staff work hard (and often argue passionately) about what is right and what is wrong.
In the case of Microsoft v Google, where do you stand?
Stan Schroeder at Mashable begins his post ‘Twitter search to become real search’ by stating that we already know the micro-blogging platforms search engine is often “faster and more relevant” than any other. Nevertheless, it is “very limited search engine”.
Change is a-coming though. Twitter’s new VP of Operations, Santosh Jayaram, in conversation with CNET has revealed that rather than just searching the text contained in tweets the search “will soon begin to crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages.”
The system will also include a ranking algorithm, which will give Twitter the real possibility of competing with Google. As Stan says, “even if Twitter’s search proves to be superior in just a portion of the search market – and it already looks that way in certain cases – it will be a very important dent in Google’s seemingly impenetrable armor.”
This is a development that is going to be well worth keeping an eye on – head to Mashable for all the details.
“Google provides a platform and a network that enables others to succeed – and when they succeed, so does Google. That is a millennium apart from the centralised, controlling ways of business past.”
He goes on to cite beta testing as a great example of how a brand can turn the fear of offering an imperfect product on its head, by letting consumers into the design process at an incomplete stage:
“unthinkable under old rules and expectations”.
There’s certainly been a bit of beta backlash by now – we’re fed up with half-arsed offerings pleading special status – but the psychology holds true.
Ways of fostering brand loyalty and engagement have transformed from the days of the Mad Men – we don’t want a reassuring Big Daddy any more, we want to feel we’re running the show. But open source agoraphobia is extremely common amongst brands. Faced with the seeming chaos and irreverence of word of mouth and social media, their instinct is usually to try and find ever more cunning and self-protective ways to maintain control. Seeing vulnerability as a virtue is very difficult when you consider marketing as a tool for projecting a flawless façade to the world.
This doesn’t mean that brands abandon all control; the trick is to facilitate positive and creative open source sharing and collaboration in a spirit of progress and playfulness. But when user generated content is predicted to make up 70% of online material by 2010, the only thing they can’t do is pretend this behaviour is something they can or should suppress or ignore.
