Is Twitter Selling Out?
Twitter is about to roll out its much coveted brand pages, but only if you can fork out $25,000. Sadly enough, some companies are doing it.
The first round of testers just completed the first phase of this rollout. Reportedly, these companies – companies like Coca Cola and Disney – paid $2 million, minimum, for the privilege of being the first 20 companies to use Twitter’s brand pages. Seriously?
Typically, when a company has a private beta, they don’t charge users for using the service. They simply roll it out and ask for feedback. But this Twitter rollout is different. Does anyone know why?
I think it’s because Twitter is planning to charge businesses for any level of participation in its brand pages. When it completes the current phase and has received the revenue it expects to generate from the $25,000 price, Twitter will likely open up brand pages to the general public. But what will those cost? $1,000? $5,000? $500? It’s anyone’s guess.
Here’s the problem with that. Not everyone is going to be able to afford a Twitter brand page. They could set the price at $100 and some small business owners are just not going to be able to buy in.
But what if they instituted a monthly fee? What would it be? $10/month? $20? $50?
The higher the price tag the more likely more businesses will not be able to opt in. Worse, let’s say you do buy a Twitter brand page initially at the stated buy-in price, then you decide later than you don’t want to participate. Or, let’s say, you miss a payment. What happens to your brand page? Does it go away or sit their in limbo until you decide to buy back in?
One thing is for sure, Twitter will be beholden to the companies that pay the most for their brand pages. Twitter brand page policies will undoubtedly be set by those companies who paid $2 million at the outset. Do you think they’d use their power to shut out competition? It sounds like they already have.
The new brand pages will be available on February 1st – if you have $25,000.
Google+ Is Moving Ahead
Since its birth last summer, Google+ has made small (and large) steps to make it a platform worthy of consideration for serious marketers. Its latest innovation – not really an innovation, but it’s a big step forward for webmasters – is more options for the Google+ badge.
So what’s a “badge?”
A badge is a graphic icon you can display on your website to encourage your site visitors to take some action. Facebook has the Like button, or badge. Twitter has the Tweet/Retweet badge. Google has the +1 badge.
It was announced yesterday afternoon that the Google+ badge now has more options. You can configure your Google+ badge to fit the width of your website, which is a very nice feature, or change its color to white so that it is more visible on dark backgrounds. Who wouldn’t want that?
Another great feature is you can show the number of circles you’ve been included in on your badge. That’s real social proof that can work in your favor if you choose to use it.
Google+ has become the first true social search engine. With search results now coming primarily from users’ social graph, or friend base, you’ll see different results for your search queries based on whether you are logged into your Google account or not. This provides an incentive for business owners to make their customers their online social friends. And vice-versa.
By organizing its search results in this manner, Google hoped to make social connections are a part of its search algorithm. It looks like this is the future of search.
If you’re serious about search engine marketing, add a Google+ badge to your website.
Should You Use Quora Boards?
Quora is an online question and answer website. You show up, ask questions and other people answer them. Or you answer questions that other people ask. Simple, right?
Well, it just got better. Now, Quora has a service it calls Boards. You can set up a Board around any topic you like and post links and leave comments about that topic on your Board. You can also invite other Quora users to post to the Board. As administrator, you can make them authors or co-owners.
So what’s this got to do with your business? A lot. Since you run a business that caters to a particular clientele or provides a particular service, you can set up a Board that is all about that topic or covering topics that are important to your clientele.
You can’t monetize a Quora board. But you can use it to build links to your web properties. Every time you write a blog post, post it to Quora. When you find something interesting about your topic that your audience would find relevant, post it to Quora. You can essentially use it just like any other social bookmarking website except that you can also post to your Quora Board the same way you’d post to Twitter or Facebook.
What it looks like is a cross between Facebook and Pinterest. Photos are great for Quora Boards. You catch people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you can send people anywhere you want on the web.
Cool, huh?
Twittering For Your Company? Get A Contract
Social media law has no precedence. And when you add complications that come from normal social media activity, then things can get a little murky. Or a lot murky.
One former employee of a company called PhoneDog Media is finding out the hard way.
This lawsuit is complicated by several facts that are hard to define by the law:
- It is a personal account, not a business account
- The account name does have the company name in it
- The account was managed by the employee, not the company
- It has amassed a huge following
- During the time period in question, the Twitter account holder tweeted personal items and business items for his employer
- Upon leaving employment, the company allegedly told the employer that he could keep the account in exchange for tweeting on behalf of the company “occasionally”
It’s hard to say what any court will weigh as most important in this case. One other point that needs clarification, as pointed out by intellectual property attorney Henry J. Cittone, is why the account was started.
So what’s the lesson in all of this? If you are a company looking to establish a social media presence and you want an employee to manage the account for you, then put your terms in writing. The same goes for an employee. Agree before you start just what the account is for and who is responsible for what. Don’t leave anything to chance – or a handshake.
Do You Have Social Influence?
An article on Marketing Pilgrim highlights a new study that suggests that social media influence is largely a myth.
You can’t really argue with this paragraph from the article:
If the Harvard Study is right and “peer influence is virtually nonexistent,” that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the social media towel. All it means is that you may need to adjust your thinking. Instead of pushing to bring new lambs into the fold, sell to the ones you already have corralled.
The idea that you should sell to your current customers before attempting to sell to prospective customers isn’t new. Every businessperson knows it’s easier to keep the client you have than acquire a new one. But what about social media?
The study cited indicates that people become friends on social media because they have similar interests rather than people influencing their social media friends to take up new interests. Again, isn’t that a lot like real life?
While influencing others on social media does happen, it is a rare occurrence. But that doesn’t mean social media marketing is ineffective or a waste of money. Rather, it means you might alter your approach to focus more on your existing customers rather than trying to win new ones.
Do You Have Your Facebook Timeline?
Facebook announced in September that it would roll out a new concept in social media. They call it the Timeline. As of yesterday, Timeline is now available to the public.
You can get your Timeline right now just by going to Introducing Timeline and clicking the green button at the bottom of the page labeled “Get Timeline.” Alternatively, you can wait for the Timeline announcement to appear on your Facebook profile. Some Facebook users already have Timeline.
You can see a sample Timeline right here.
If you notice, this is the Timeline of an author/publisher. You can see how he uses it for his business. Photos, videos, messages, everything on the page serves to promote his business as well as his personal interests. It looks as if the Facebook Timeline will be the perfect tool for independent businesses, entrepreneurs, sole proprietors, freelancers, and other independent businessperson’s looking to promote themselves online.
It won’t be long before everyone will have a Timeline. I’m pretty certain the current profiles will disappear.
If you opt to start your Timeline right away you’ll have 7 days to review it and remove anything you don’t want to be public. After that, you’re stuck with your life. Edit liberally.
Otherwise, get ready for the new social media.
Is Google+ Pushing For More User Control?
An article at Search Engine Watch seems to imply that Google+ power users will soon be able to control more of the content they see in their streams.
The article doesn’t go into detail about how this will work exactly, but there are some subtle clues about how it might work.
“Noise control” will soon be added to the social site, and “we have a team figuring out how to do it right now,” Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the Le Web conference in Paris.
Noise control seems to imply to me that Google+ is planning to implement filters that will get rid of extemporaneous content or unwanted content in users’ streams, and they seem to want to tackle that issue with algorithms.
However, Schmidt argued that Google is in a good position to filter content for social network users, as essentially it is a “ranking company.” He said in his view the filtering should be based on algorithms, which would promote certain content above others.
The question is, what will this filtering algorithm be based on? The names of their circles? The content of the people in their circles? The +1s on their profile? The kind of content they share and re-share themselves? The article doesn’t say.
“For the average person this filtering would be seamless,” Schmidt said. “But more technically sophisticated people would be able to manage their own filters.”
So … is Schmidt saying that Google+ users will be able to tell the service what kind of content to stream, thereby narrowing the circle content even further?
This would be an interesting concept. You have a circle devoted to SEO content in which you have over 100 “friends” who share content related to the topic. But you tell Google+ – through its “filter management system” – not to include content about link building or mobile marketing. Then, if people in your circles share content related to those two topics Google+ will filter it out.
Am I reading that right?
How Many Brand Pages Do You Need?
If you’ve been using social media for any amount of time you probably have a Facebook business page. They’ve called them fan pages, business pages, and brand pages. If you’re on Facebook, you likely have one – whatever you want to call it.
Google+ rolled out this summer and not long after going into public beta they rolled out brand pages.
Now, it’s Twitter’s turn.
Twitter’s doing it a little different, though. Google+ seems to have rushed to get its brand pages into the public sphere. Maybe that was because Twitter’s been rumored to be working on brand pages since April and Google+ wanted to beat them to the punch. Whatever it was, Twitter has decided that now is the time to bring out the brand pages.
Except that they’re only available to certain big brands. Not small businesses.
But I suspect that Twitter will roll out its brand pages to small businesses as soon as they get feedback from the large corporations and make the necessary tweaks to make those pages worthwhile for all business. That could be six months, a year, or who knows? Twitter never gets in a hurry.
At any rate, you can count on some point in the near future to have three different brand pages to manage. Twitter will be one of them.
Which Social Media Site Is Most Effective?
Social media has quite a reputation. Both good and bad. Some people swear by it and others swear at it. But somebody is using it effectively if you listen to a survey recently written about on Marketing Pilgrim.
The interesting thing is that Facebook is considered the most effective social media site for small businesses and the site that Facebook replaced, MySpace, is considered the least effective. Is anyone surprised?
But even more telling is what you’ll find occupying the middle ground.
Twitter, for instance, is in second place. But only 14% of survey respondents said that Twitter is very effective. Another 32% said it was moderately effective.
When it comes to Google+, 70% of small businesses aren’t even using it. And more small businesses are using Google+ than are using local deals and daily deals websites.
A real surprise are the findings on review sites. Only 7% of small businesses find them very effective. Another 12% find them moderately effective. But 65% of the small businesses surveyed don’t even use them.
So, the question: How can you judge the effectiveness of these sites that few people are using? Maybe there is something in the story line that can’t be told. But for now, it seems that Facebook is your best bet for social media. Can you live with that?
Social Extensions Improve Your PPC
Currently, if you haven’t turned social extensions on in your Google AdWords account, then you will only able to see how many people have +1ed your landing pages. But if you turn those social extensions on, then you can see how many people +1 your PPC ads.
A +1 is the Google+ equivalent to a Facebook Like. Social extensions allow you to view a completely new metric and judge how effective your marketing is overall.
They’re for more than just PPC ads too. Social extensions can be used as a metric for your website and your social results too.
Consider that 71% of online shoppers rely on the recommendations of their friends and family. That’s a good reason to use Google+, but it’s an even better reason to turn on social extensions so you can see, and searchers can see, how many people have +1ed your ads and organic search results.
Human psychology is an interesting thing. The more +1s you get the more +1 you are likely to get. That’s because when your content is perceived as valuable, more people will take notice of it and either +1 it or click on the links.
I believe social extensions could become a key marketing metric in the future. Start with your PPC campaigns and your Google+ account.