Game on, Facebook.
Enter the newest (albeit considerably tardy) player into the arena of social networks – Google+. My first reaction was one of unbridled excitement at the fact that Google had finally decided to wake up and fight it out. The war has been long and ugly, with no one likely to forget the “furtive and creepy” smear tactics employed by Facebook against Google anytime soon.
Even if Facebook has already achieved a considerable head start (750 million users, counting last), it’s important to remember that it replaced several other networks like MySpace, Orkut and Hi5. Cyberspace is constantly evolving and it’s too early to tell whether Google’s efforts signal the demise of Facebook. However, it does indeed ensure that the nature of communication does not stay static, instead morphing continuously.
After joining and exploring, here are some major features that stood out at the moment to me :
The introduction of ‘Circles’ : Simply enough, you can sort your contacts on the network into different groups and most importantly, actively constrain the information you publish/post to selected circles – essentially giving the user complete control over who sees what, something that Facebook has had considerable trouble with. You can still eavesdrop on conversations (if the people involved let you), though, not to worry. Importantly, your colleagues no longer need to know that you’re skipping drinks with them to go bandstand busking.
It’s already managed to create quite the ‘buzz’ in the media (couldn’t resist reminding you of the disaster that was Google Buzz) and a noteworthy trend is that journalists are writing about it by directly sourcing posts on it by prominent public profiles, such as those of Christian Oeslin , the ‘Ads Guy’ for Google+. He has said that
“Google believes how individuals communicate with one another is “different from how they communicate with brands, and we want to create an optimal experience for both”
- important information for those waiting to see the marketing potential it can offer. It’s changing how journalists are using social networks too, as Mashable reports.
However, as of now, positioning itself as people- focused, privacy conscious and friendly, Google+ has removed most business and company profiles from the network, only keeping a few for the ongoing testing phase.
Another interesting point- the fact that nearly everyone with Internet access has a Google account makes the threat more tangible. Why? Think about it. Most of us use Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Google maps, Picasa, Google latitude, Google Reader etc. Some of us even have iGoogle as our homepage. When these separate entities get integrated into Google+, the need to use a separate networking site like Facebook becomes redundant. It’s the same analogy as with a smartphone – the integration provided on one single device makes it more convenient for users – who needs a separate camera, a laptop, a copy of the A-Z anymore if they own a smartphone?
Of course, the robust counter argument to this is that we don’t want a Googleopoly and herald an Orwellian future. Do we? Or will we succumb to it? And quite a lot of us have only just managed to figure out the features on Facebook. Can we really handle yet another networking site? Some wars are long and some are short. We’ll just have to wait and see how this one ends.
Social networks? Watch out for friends’ posts while you are searching for information online
Last week Google announced that it was planning to implement changes to its Google Social Search platform to include posts from people’s online friends into its standard search results. The social search results, which previously appeared at the bottom of the page, will now be mixed throughout the list of results based on their relevance. Another interesting change in the search engine functionality is that users will be prompted to connect their social networking accounts any time Google’s algorithms find a public account that might belong to the same user.
As social networking profiles become more interconnected, people will be able to see publicly shared links posted by online ‘friends’ and connect their Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or Quora accounts. However, the upgraded social search engine will not include posts from the social networking giant Facebook. This does not come as a surprise as the two companies have a long history of trying to ‘steal’ each other’s market share with Google tapping into social media and Facebook developing its own email platform.
Despite excluding Facebook, Google’s Social Search platform will offer access to much more information about users than it was previously available. Some people will question whether this is entirely a good idea. Google seems sensitive to the privacy issues and allows users to opt out of the social sharing service by not connecting their online accounts to the search platform. However, if any of your online friends is ‘connected’ and shares or retweets your posts, they will become publicly available in the search results. Moreover, it remains uncertain how you would be able to control who sees to your online posts once you have connected your social networking profiles to Google.
Overall these changes highlight a number of trends which will potentially impact social media PR and marketing. As social networks are increasingly woven into online search engines and online profiles can be easily linked, businesses will be able to reach wider audiences and niche customer segments. SEO practices will be adjusted to take into account the rising importance of social networks for placing content in the top ranking of people’s search results. This will result in more intricate and subtle integration of social media tools into PR and marketing campaigns and will place higher importance on online networks.
Have you Reddit?
What do you look for when you are aimlessly searching the internet? It could be information about friend’s current status’, worldwide news or even just a random fact. One thing everyone can relate to online is good comedy and opinionated articles, I have found these in abundance at reddit.com. With the recent fall of Digg.com, reddit has grown in community followers by 14% and is obviously on the way up.
Although it has a retro page look, reddit is more on the pulse with regards to everyday social news than Mashable or Digg. By the time Mashable has released pictures of a new film in production, reddit has parodies of the actors on the set. Everyday news has a more varied worldwide opinion spin on it that other sites lack.
As a technology fiend I want all the best and latest information, but I also want a website with a good sense of humour and interaction. Another reason I like reddit.com is the self posts which are written by redditors with issues they want discussed by the community and help with. These posts not only bring you closer to the users of this website but restore your “faith in humanity”. Whatever you are searching for I would recommend a look at reddit as it expands as a social news website.
Embracing social media – different paces abound
We have all embraced social media in a big way – particularly in PR where it is such a natural fit for us – it’s pretty much second nature after all, we are so used to having dialogues with journalists, sharing stories and having on-going conversations with all types of people.
So it’s easy to forget, perhaps, that social media is still evolving at a rapid rate and that businesses aren’t all embracing it at the same pace.
Just in the past few days, I’ve heard of two global brands who are way behind the curve. One has flatly refused to have anything to do with social media and the other, is ‘way behind’ in their social media conversations according to an inhouse marketeer. For those kind of brands struggling to persuade directors to embrace social media – here’s a useful post from an interesting US online publication, ‘the social media examiner’, ‘9 ways to sell social media to your boss’.
And then of course, there’s the other problem that businesses are online but don’t know what the guidelines are. The rules are still evolving and changing, again at a pretty rapid rate. Twitter is still largely unregulated and businesses are still learning and experimenting with it. Here’s some latest guidelines that have come out of oatmeal.com. They are not necessarily right, in fact I would question many on the list, but it’s interesting to see guidelines attempted to be set.
And then of course, there’s the fact that Facebook is only just starting to be used as a valuable marketing tool for businesses. The largest social media tool on the planet provides a huge opportunity to businesses – the social media examiner has lots of ideas on how to maximise your Facebook profile to generate interest among customers and prospects as well as some great recent campaigns that have really worked for brands.
So as we all move at different paces, and standards and guidelines continue to evolve as time passes, once the revolution is over, it’ll be great to see what transpires.
Copy and Paste Culture of Social Networks
Mashable.com confirmed today the rumour that MySpace has begun demoing a completely redesigned version of its profile pages to select users. Despite a couple of nice new features (well new to MySpace anyway) is this really enough to turn things around?
Site analytics show the site has been in steady decline for the past 12 months and recent departures from the senior management imply a lack of clear vision moving forward. Facebook continues to lure away MySpace users whilst the rumoured entrance of Google into the space should also be cause for concern.
Although the introduction of these new features may interest a few users and capture some headlines this is unlikely to change the fortunes of the company. We have already seen this exact same scenario play out in the mobile handset world, where handset manufacturers look to emulate the features of the market leader (ok then, copy) instead of innovating and differentiating their product. It’s not they are bad, it’s just their competitors do it first and often do it better.
Facebook won’t be around forever and the next “big thing” is probably being developed in a garage somewhere right now, but with this copy and paste culture it’s unlikely to be from MySpace.
