As Google Fellow Amit Singhal noted on the Official Google Blog: “We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” This is one of those paradigm shifts that takes us into territory where no man (or search engine) has gone before.

The implications are simply mind-blowing — and transform Google Plus from what some people might consider YASNY (“Yet Another Social Network — Yawn”) into a vital component of Search Optimisation.

Here’s what we know so far:

1. Rolling out NOW, around the world: if you’re logged in to your Google account, you get to choose whether to see search results that are shaped by your PERSONAL networks or not.

2. If you opt for Personal Results:

Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. With your world in search, you can find:

• Google+ posts. You can find relevant Google+ posts from friends talking about an amazing trip they just took, whether they’ve shared privately with you or publicly. You’ll find links shared by your friends, such as activities, restaurants and other things they enjoyed on their trip.
• Photos. You can find beautiful vacation photos from your friends right in your search results page. You can also find your own private photos from Google+ and Picasa, based on captions, comments and album title.

Watch the video to see how this new feature works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Profiles in Search

Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results.

Now, typing just the first few letters of your friend’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in autocomplete. Selecting a predicted profile takes you to a results page for your friend, which includes information from their Google+ profile and relevant web results that may be related to them. And you can have this personal experience instantaneously, thanks to Google Instant. So when I search for [ben smith], I now find my dear friend Ben every time, instead of the hundreds of other Ben Smiths out there (no offense to all of them!).

4. People and Pages

Starting today, if you search for a topic like [music] or [baseball], you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page. You can connect with them on Google+, strike up meaningful conversations and discover entire communities in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

Google is also introducing a prominent new toggle on the upper right of the results page where you can see what your search results look like without personal content. With a single click, you can see an unpersonalized view of search results.

• We’re currently digesting the implications of these unprecedented developments and will update the materials in our next Marketing Through Google Plus course (starting January 25, click on the link for registration details and our Early Bird Offer for bookings received by next Wednesday).

We really can’t overstate the importance of this latest development. What do YOU think? Share your comments below.

Most marketers are confident in their ability to prepare a brief for a poster or a billboard or a television commercial. But should the brief for a social media campaign be pretty much the same?

Two answers:

1. Yes, it can be — but what you’ll get as a result, unless you’re very, very lucky, is an advertising campaign masquerading as a social media programme.
2. No, no, no — social media can be so much more, as long as you give an effective social media brief to those actually executing the social media programme.

So how do you prepare an effective social media brief?

The need for a comprehensive answer to that question has led us to create a brand new four-module course covering the topic.

Here’s what the course covers:

Module One: Setting Social Objectives

What exactly do you and your organisation want to achieve through social media? We review possible answers to that question — taking into account not merely the obvious communications objectives that organisations typically set, but also those distinctly social attributes that most marketers overlook.

We show you how to review your own brand’s story and personality and how that will colour your social media efforts. We encourage you to re-examine your existing customers and prospects and determine what they might hope to hear from you through social media (and how frequently). And we take a look at social media objectives set by other organisations, for inspiration and guidance (and, in a few cases, as cautionary tales of what not to do in social media).

As a result of this module, you’ll be able to provide those who will be operating your social media programme with clear, agreed social objectives that (a) reflect your organisation, its heritage and the interests of its customers; and (b) take advantages of the rich possibilities inherent in social media.

Module Two: Agreeing Social Strategies & Tactics

Once your objectives are in place, it’s time to consider possible strategies to communicate through social media. Strategy in this context means figuring out what you want to be different after you’re done implementing your social media marketing — and that evaluation process should NOT be left to those carrying out the programme (because they’re seldom in a position to determine the relative priorities for an organisation). Is the appropriate primary strategy based around reputation management, customer service or just getting people talking about your products? Or are you looking for specific leads or even sales (and how should you do that in social media without offending everyone)?

Once the strategic possibilities have been winnowed down to a chosen few, then it’s time to look at tactics to turn those strategies into reality. Most of the tactical decisions can be carried out at an operational level — but it’s still very much worth your while understanding the sorts of tactics that are relevant in the social space. That information may shape your views on decisions such as who is the most appropriate team to implement your social media programme as well as identifying the people within your organisation who should be points of contact for the programme (it won’t be just you).

Decisions on tactics will lead in turn to decisions on which social tools should be used: Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, YouTube, Slideshare, the list goes on.

From Module Two, you’ll develop a solid base with which to have constructive discussions (and even perhaps robust debates) with your social media implementation team.

Module Three: Planning your Programme

What should you talk about in social media? One thing you shouldn’t be is merely reactive, responding to situations and comments as they happen. Perhaps the most neglected part of the whole social media process is planning an effective, proactive social media communications schedule. Not only do you have to provide killer content that’s relevant and engages your constituents — you also need to plan out what you’re going to say in advance, tied in to topical events, matters of the moment and your own communications programme. That’s not something that can simply be left to that nephew of the CEO who’s running your Facebook page in his spare time.

In this module, we step you through the processes you’ll need to consider when developing an effective INTEGRATED social media schedule that’s linked into your other promotional efforts. We’ll also encourage you to talk to your implementation team about Content Optimisation — identifying your customers’ hottest topics and using the most popular keywords in their posts.

Module Four: Implementation

Finally, we turn to the processes required to make all this happen. We provide you with an appropriate framework for briefing your social media supplier, allocating internal and external resources and responsibilities and agreeing how the effort will be measured.

We also suggest a timetable for reviewing and adjusting your campaign, and how to evaluate the campaign effectively — do “likes”, “+1s” and “retweets” matter, how do you measure social engagement and what does it all mean?

By the end of this course, you should be confident that you can effectively brief a supplier on social media and ensure that the results you are achieving don’t just seem good — they meet a concrete set of objectives that is consistent with your overall organisational goals.

TIMING

This new four-module programme begins on Monday January 23.

PROGRAMME CREATOR
The “How to Prepare An Effective Social Media Brief” programme has been developed by Michael Carney

INVESTMENT
This new programme is available for $397+GST.

However we offer an

EARLY-BIRD RATE of $297+GST (SAVING YOU $100)

for bookings received by next Monday January 16.

To register and pay through credit card processor PayMate, please click here

If you would prefer to pay by cheque or bank deposit, or require an invoice before making payment, please send an email to info@socialmedia.org.nz with details of your request. (The service provider will be shown as Netmarketing Services Limited in your transaction and on your credit card statement).

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
1. Your booking will be confirmed by email (if you have not received a confirmation within 24 hours, feel free to email info@socialmedia.org.nz).
2. On Monday January 23 you will be supplied by email with the first part of your How to Prepare An Effective Social Media Brief programme.
3. Follow-up lessons will be sent out over subsequent weeks (but please note that you take the course at your own pace).

Umm — they’re called “social networks” for a reason. The idea is for you to ENGAGE with your connections, not simply pour out your own thoughts and ignore them.

In fact, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm — which determines how visible your postings are to those who say they “like” you — gives priority to posts that are two-way in nature. In other words, the more engaging your content — the more your posts turn into conversations — the more visible they are to your fans and followers.

So, what can you do to engage more effectively through social networks in 2012?

Apart from the obvious — LISTEN to what your connections are saying and RESPOND in a timely manner — here are 20 ways for you to engage more, by constructing relevant, valuable, remarkable content designed to cater to the needs, wants and interests of your audience. Your aim is to add value to your followers, including outbound links to areas that could help them with their goals and purposes.

These are the criteria you need to use to shape the content:

1. Your message needs to be relevant to your audience — and to their audiences as well, if you want the content to be shared beyond the initial recipients
2. It needs to be fresh — stale news won’t get past the Delete key
3. Your news needs to be worth buzzing about
4. It needs to be exclusive — those potentially sharing the information want to be seen as ’in the know’, ahead of the pack
5. There needs to be an element of scarcity involved to drive urgency (’only 150 made’, ’only until [date]’)
6. It needs to come from a credible source
7. Your product or service needs to be the right stuff (inherently valuable)
8. Helpful – Does your content help solve problems? “Always be helping” is the new “always be closing.”
9. Timely – Can your target audience relate to it?
10. Targeted – Is the content intended to inform those “just looking”, “close to buying” or in the post-purchase phase?
11. Interruptive – Is there a captivating element that grabs and sustains attention?
12. Entertaining – Is there a novel or enjoyable aspect that is well-conceived and engaging?
13. Illuminating – will it lead to “A Ha!” moments for recipients?
14. Shareable – Does it have a viral quality? Would an influencer want to forward it, or post it?
15. Progressive – Is there a call to action or “next-steps”?
16. Versatile – Can it be leveraged across media channels?
17. Crowd-sourced – Does it involve customers or partners in the spirit of cooperation?
18. Efficient – Is it concise, perhaps in an effective list format, to offset diminished attention spans online?
19. Attractive – is it graphically interesting and will it stand out?
20. Integrated – Does it fit with your existing or upcoming marketing pieces?

You should also regularly ask questions of your constituents, seeking their opinion or input (and responding to them if they give it).

Don’t just treat social media like advertising, you won’t like the results.

PS If you need guidance in how to engage, may we direct you to our social media courses, all of which include a healthy focus on tools of engagement.

Awareness, Inc. has just released a white paper entitled “2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions”, comprising predictions, insights and advice from 34 marketing strategists, brand marketers, and leading marketing consultants. Here are ten comments that caught our eye:

1. “Social media gives us the ability to communicate instantly, yet most marketers have not developed the communication skills to address real time. Marketers have been trained with a campaign mentality, spending weeks planning, designing and executing in a sequential manner. Social marketing is changing that. We now need the ability to react instantly to breaking news, changes on our websites and negative customer feedback. Marketers need a new mentality, infrastructure and workflows to meaningfully participate in real time.” — David Meerman Scott
2. “Brands will move toward agile marketing and real-time thinking,” says Ekaterina Walter. “Gone are the days when it took us six months to develop and launch a campaign, or five days to answer a disgruntled customer. To break through the online clutter, brands will need to capitalize on current buzz to stand out. Expect increased use of real-time analytics tools that lead to agile processes that will empower teams to act on the next big thing in real or near-time. Brands will also expect their agencies to adapt, react and support them in real time.”
3. “In the world of health care, the biggest social marketing development in 2012 is the convergence between the worlds of marketing and IT,” observes Pamela Johnston of The Lahey Clinic. “These two distinct teams are learning from and about each other in ways that will make us smarter, faster and more patient-centric in the years to come. We need to combine our resources to reach patients with relevant messages on the platforms they desire.”
4. “Facebook and the open graph will provide the context to make our digital marketing efforts stick,” observes Andrew Patterson of Major League Baseball. “Offers will be much more specific and will create interactions with our customers and prospects that last.”
5. “In 2012 marketers are going to focus more on the role mobile plays in social. Facebook will reach a milestone with more than half of its users accessing it from mobile devices and that will be a major driver of interest in mobile social media,” says David Berkowitz of 360i.
6. “There is the old saying, ‘information is power.’ However, information and knowledge alone may no longer be enough,” observes Robert Collins. “Social will transform the value of ‘big data,’ providing the depth, relevancy, color, resolution, context, personality and even time-sensitive geo-dynamics that will transform the current black and white, antiquated 12-point, pixilated picture of a customer and market into a more actionable, real-time, life-engaging definition.”
7. “Brands will move beyond the question of whether to participate in social media to a new understanding how to optimize their overall approach to social media,” says Mike Lewis of Awareness, Inc. “ The biggest progression in 2012 will be around taking social data to the next level. Instead of focusing on measures such as reach and participation, brands will begin to focus and act on the insights from those metrics. Specifically, more brands will look at the details of social profiles to better target marketing offers and increase conversion rates.”
8. Tim Hayden of 44Doors sees 2012 as the year when, “We will see the practice of ‘influencer marketing’ give way to building advocates throughout a community or network, bottom-to-top and in all directions. We can no longer bet success on the volume of one person’s followers, connections and propensity to share content. This is already the manner through which many brands and agencies apply social media to customer service, and so it will be in 2012 how passive moments and impressions lead to social media engagements.”
9. “Data is of no use if you don’t know what to do with it,” says Marc Meyer. “2012 will see brands increasingly looking for social media data analysts who understand what to do with big data and how to use it for business results.”
10. “My prediction is that Google+ will play an increasingly bigger role for marketers in 2012. Twitter’s integration with IOS5 will pave the way to integrated mash-ups and symbiotic relationships that will propel our ability to connect and engage consumers,” says Andrew Patterson.

For the full collection, head to awarenessnetworks.com, fill out the form and get yourself a free copy of the White Paper.

As you might imagine, there was an instant outcry from businesses (especially those with more than one employee), requesting the ability to share page management.

Initially Google suggested the feature would be added during Q1 2012. After further hubbub, that date was revised to “by the end of this year”.

Good news — the feature arrived earlier this week. Now here’s a video on what it offers and how to put it into practice:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The answer is a resounding YES, if that additional social network is Google Plus (also known as Google+) — and here are seven compelling reasons why YOU need to be using Google Plus for YOUR business NOW:

1. It will improve your ranking on Google Search.
   Google is already “experimenting” with making clicks on +1 buttons one of the more than 200 signals informing its search algorithm, according to a company spokesperson. But it could go much further and factor in the number and size of your “circles” — the pools of Google+ users following a brand — as well as how widely its Google+ content is being shared. YOUR challenge is to build a worthwhile presence on Google Plus NOW, ahead of Google’s search expansion.
   
2. Early Adopters get the most benefit
   Just imagine how much more effective a profile you’d now have on Facebook if you could have been there from the very beginning, attracting followers and building relationships! Leading brands have been very quick to set up Google plus pages; their worry is that early adopters will reap the search benefits, while others will be buried by those who have collected more +1s. If you hurry, YOU can be a fast follower too.
   
3. Google Plus is the fastest growing social network ever
   According to comScore, Google+, launched by the Internet search and advertising giant on June 28, had 25 million unique visitors within a month.In comparison, it took other social networks much longer to reach 25 million users: 22 months for Myspace, 33 months for Twitter and 37 months for Facebook. And that runaway growth continues. How fast are YOU at seizing the day before Google Plus gets too crowded?
   
4. Google is adding a “social layer” to everything it does
   Google CEO Larry Page just changed the rules. He recognised that social has become the most popular game in town, with users spending much more time on their social networking than they do on searching. Google needs to go social or risk daming its revenue streams; so now a quarter of every Google staffer’s bonus depends on the company’s success or failure in social media. That’s why they’re throwing everything they’ve got into Google Plus — and why YOU need to be firmly embedded in that social layer as well.
   
5. The Customer is now In Control
   All the surveys are saying the same thing: consumers trust each other more than they trust you. 90% trust recommendations from people they know, according to a Nielsen global study, whilst 70% are prepared to believe consumer opinions posted online — the same as Brand Websites and ahead of TV advertising (62%) or online banner ads (33%). If you don’t start to build social relationships with your customers wherever you can, how can you be sure they will recommend YOU when the time comes?
   
6. Content Can Be Shared
   If you’re going to the trouble of creating content for your blog, Facebook or Twitter, it’s copy-and-paste easy to share it on Google Plus as well. Sometimes, all you have to do is paste the link and Google Plus takes care of the rest. So why wouldn’t you connect with as many people through as many social networks as possible?
   
7. Social Can Be Slow
   According to research conducted by Marshall Sponder of WebMetricsGuru, the average social media campaign takes between three months and a year to show results. So what are you waiting for? The best time to get started is RIGHT NOW.

Not sure how to get started? Head here for the details of our online training course: http://socialmedia.org.nz/ecourses/marketing-through-google-plus-pages/

Once again we’re seeing a gold rush mentality on the internet, as brands rush to claim their social identity on Google+.

AdAge Digital reports on the rush, and the motivation behind this latest lemming-like stampede:

Google has long told marketers that though buying AdWords won’t help them in natural search results, creating great, well-linked content will.

But some marketers are preparing for another shift: Google’s incorporation of social signals from Google+ in its rankings. Brands aren’t waiting for the giant to make it official, which is a big reason they’re investing in Google+ pages. Their worry is that early adopters will reap the search benefits, while others will be buried by those who have collected more +1s.

Google is already “experimenting” with making a click on +1 buttons one of the more than 200 signals informing its search algorithm, according to a company spokesperson. But it could go much further and factor in the number and size of a “circles” — the pools of Google+ users following a brand — as well as how widely its Google+ content is being shared. That could give brands an incentive to be active on the platform and get fans to engage with content there.

“Google’s trump card in social is if they make Google+ an extremely strong signal in their ranking algorithm, and basically they can force every brand to push it because of the impact it would have on Google search results,” said Group M Search CEO Chris Copeland.

Neil Vidyarthi makes some pertinent points on SocialTimes.com when he asks “what can Google Plus possibly do to make you switch from Facebook?”

Google Plus was in fact the first major, concerted social product released after CEO Larry Page tied every single employee’s bonuses to the success of social.  This is why I think the network is here to stay, and that’s why I believe that the people who call it a failure already may be speaking prematurely — but what can they do to steal users from Facebook?

I won’t go into detail about the many powerful features of G+, like Circles, Hangouts (a personal favorite) or the integration with YouTube and other Google services, because what I want to emphasize is that Google is pulling out all the stops to try to get you to switch over.  They’re integrating new services almost every week, and simplifying their user interface across all their services in a very positive way.  My theory is that with a company like Google, it’s only a matter of time before they hit some killer feature that has users — many of whom already have accounts — flocking back to the service in just a few clicks to try out.

Actually, we think the killer app is already here (and there and everywhere): Google is planning to integrate elements of Google+ across all its properties, adding a SOCIAL LAYER to virtually everything Google does(oh, little things like Search, YouTube, Picasa, Adwords, that kind of thing).

Why, it’s a troll.

It’s one of the sad facts of cyberlife — trolls (negative, obstinate or just plain ignorant commenters) gather wherever there’s an online crowd, proudly strutting their lack of knowledge, diplomacy or common sense. Some are in it for the money, happily sp@mming away and wasting everyone’s time, others just like to hear the sound of their own keyboards.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reckons that most of us now need professional moderators to clean up our social pages:

In a cabana in Progreso, Mexico, overlooking the blue waters of the Gulf, Canadian Chuck Dueckcracks open his laptop and logs into the comment forums of several news websites.  …

One by one, Dueck, a professional online moderator, deletes [offensive] comments, scolds the people behind them (either on the forum or over e-mail), and, if things really get out of hand—say, in the case of repeat offenders—bans their accounts. Over the course of each day he chips away at the cussing and swearing, the spammers, haters, and trolls, temporarily restoring civility to his corner of the Internet.

Since the first messages were posted on bulletin boards some three decades back, comments and free discussion between anonymous users have been a central part of the Internet’s appeal. Sites such as Gawker and the Huffington Post built their empires on page clicks driven by endless streams of commenters and flame wars. But what’s good for Gawker isn’t always great for established brands, and as companies have embraced the Web and eagerly interacted with their customers, they’ve often been overwhelmed by the response. A lethal combination of anonymity, opinion, and the safety of typing from a remote location all but guarantees that comment forums get out of hand, falling prey to the Hobbesian tirades of the Web’s most nasty, brutish, and vocal denizens—hence, the increasing need for moderators such as Dueck to intervene and sanitize sites’ comment boards.

If you’re facing similar problems, check out the story for some useful advice (and the names of professional moderators).

When the village launched its Facebook page, it carried a video showing the mayor, who promised that anyone who ‘liked’ Obermutten would have their profile picture posted on the village’s official notice board. [Nearly 10,000] people so far have become fans of the village; the campaign has been reported in over [32] countries and was even reported on a main news bulletin in South Korea. (Meanwhile the notice board is full up, so the village has resorted to posting the pictures on barn walls).

The campaign has already attracted hundreds of real-world travellers, with thousands more promising to visit in person.

The downside of this popularity? The person-power (and colour cartridges) required to print out and post the Facebook profile photos of all these people – the village only has 79 residents.

If you think this is an idea worth stealing for your cause, head to Creativity Online and watch the video. Just be careful what you wish for.