Google +

Google PlusPotential Impact on SEO and Social

Media Marketing

BySaumya Aggarwal

Agenda Introduction How to use Plus one button: How it works What Will be the Impact of +1? Did Social Media and SEO Just Merge? Internet Marketing in the Google+ Era Google+ User Stats Google+ Facts

Introducing the Google+

The latest addition to the social network ecosystem is Google+, and Google hopes to change the social networking game with this latest project's innovations.

How to use Google+ Features

Circles: share what matters, with the people who matter most

Ways of grouping contacts by association. The defaults are family, friends, acquaintances. It's possible to put one contact in multiple Circles You can Create your own Circles.

The main advantage of Circles is the ability to share things with a specific group of people instead of everyone. Just select the appropriate Circle.

Hangouts and Huddles

Like group chats. Create a Hangout and specify who is welcome. Friends can jump in and chat via video. Can even watch YouTube videos or movies together Huddles work in much the same way but are text-

only group chats Huddles can be organized with specific people or

entire Circles.

Sparks:strike up a conversation, about pretty much anything

Enter terms or keywords you're interested in. Google+ will pull in current articles, news

stories and relevant sites and keep them updated.

Sparks make it easy to keep track of your interests and find new things to share.

Sparks delivers a feed of highly contagious content from across the Internet. On any topic you want, in over 40 languages.

You’ll always have something to watch, read and share—with just the right circle of friends.

Location

Places we visit shape many conversations in lots of meaningful ways. If we call from the airport, people will ask about our trip. Or if we texts from a nearby restaurant, people might join us. With Google+ you can add your location to every post. (Or not. It’s always up to you.)

Mobile: share what’s around, right now, without any hassle

All these features are available on the Google+ mobile apps, which are available for Android and forthcoming for Apple and BlackBerry. The Google+ app seems to integrate perfectly with its Web counterpart, allowing smartphone owners to view their Stream, post photos and videos and modify their accounts.

Instant Upload

Getting photos off your phone is a huge pain, so most of us don't even bother. Of course pictures are meant to be shared, not stranded, so Instant Upload help you never leave a photo behind. While you're snapping pictures, and with your permission, Google+ adds your photos to a private album in the cloud. This way they're always available across your devices—ready to share as you see fit.

Google Brand/Business Pages

Due to overwhelming demand from businesses, Google+ will introduce an early version of its Brand Pages.

Initially, Google removed business-related pages only to invite them into a test phase that will officially welcome a manageable stable of companies to test and help to improve the experience.

Brands see this as a tremendous opportunity for direct-to-consumer engagement.

On Facebook, some brands have earned more than 30 million Likes creating a dedicated brand network not yet seen in previous media.

For example, the Top 20 brands by the numbers on Facebook boast impressive audiences:

1. Coca Cola (31,762,653)2. Disney (26,613,752)3. Starbucks (23,574,606)4. Oreo (21,864,091)5. Red Bull (21,220,373)6. Converse All Star (19,880,308)7. Converse (18,977,840)8. Skittles (18,386,827)9. Playstation (16,245,633)10. iTunes (15,862,234)11. Pringles (14,765,300)12. Victoria's Secret(14,384,903)13. Window's Live Messenger (13,926,945)14. Ferrero Rocher (11,676,898)15. Monster Energy (11,492,620)16. Nutella (10,696,260)17. iPod (10,530,905)18. Adidas Originals (10,433,947)19. Xbox (10,388,218)20. Dr Pepper (9,927,828)

Plus one button

How +1 Works? If you want to recommend a page, place or ad,

it’ll be as simple as clicking on a button on the site.

As long as you’re logged into your Google account, your recommendation will be noted.

Over time, the +1 data will be included in your search results. Below the normal search snippet, Google will now say specifically which of your contacts recommended that page.

As is probably obvious, having the recommendation of an actual, trusted person should make searchers much more likely to click on a link.

Beyond just displaying that information, however, Google has explicitly stated that these recommendations will have an appreciable impact in how sites are ranked within results. Sites with uncommonly high numbers of recommendations will almost certainly begin to rise to the top of search results for everybody. On top of that–and this is one of the most interesting prospects–search results will be tailored for individual users. So even if a site has very few recommendations and a somewhat weak link profile, it will still have a chance to reach you if several of your own contacts have ‘plus one’d’ it.

What Will be the Impact of +1?

+1 could become a major part of the SEO mix. While social media signals have been a component to how Google ranks sites for a while now, the increased visibility and importance of recommendations could mean that quality content is even more important than ever. Providing engaging content to interested users will have an even greater impact on search rankings than ever before.

Did Social Media and SEO Just Merge?

GOOGLE PLUS & SEARCH The potential that Google Plus has, if it truly uses the

power already built by Google, is tremendous, and brands may not have the luxury to wait around and decide to get involved. And not just because of its potential as a social media tool that can unseat Facebook, but because of its potential to impact search engine rankings in unexpected ways.

Brands would almost be forced to get involved or risk losing everything their SEO initiatives achieved.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has gone on record stating that all Google products and services will eventually be completely integrated with Google+.

GOOGLE PLUS & SOCIAL MARKETING

One of the very intriguing things from a marketing perspective would be the targeting capabilities of messaging using the fundamental building block of Plus called Circles.

As a marketer, being able to pick and choose certain subsets of consumers to target a specific message is something that is lacking in the current options, but is a feature with a lot of potential. While Facebook does allow you to target through their ad platform, you cannot target updates or status messages to a specific group. Imagine if you could send coupon and discount messages for kids clothing only to your consumers who you knew had kids. This would avoid a lot of irrelevant messages going to your community and would allow a complete personalization of content.

Internet Marketing in the Google+ Era

* Provide high-quality content – Unless people actually enjoy your site, you aren’t going to get anywhere in social media

* Include widgets for users to interact with your site – Make it easy for users to share your site with friends

* Keep track of what works with Google+ – Do some kinds of content attract more user interaction? Pump more of that out!

Make the most of Google+ for SEO

How to Promote a Local Business on Google+:

Groups of friends are very likely to share similar tastes in restaurants, bars, retail locations, and virtually every other type of local business.

* Ask your customers – Either directly or indirectly, reminding happy customers to give you a ‘+1′ will likely have a huge effect on local rankings

* Take care of your listings – Customers can’t promote you if you don’t promote yourself; make sure that your profile is claimed in Google Places

* Provide ‘likable’ service to customers – At the end of the day, happy customers are obviously the most important thing for your business – online and off

Google + User Stats Larry Page of Google announced that Google had surpassed 10 million users. We are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day. Our +1 button is already all over the web. It’s being served 2.3 billion times a day.

As per recent statistics, India is the second country (of course, after US) when it comes to adoption of Google plus.

- Top 4 Countries are: United States 49%, India 6%, Sri Lanka 5% and Nepal 3%!

- Men constitute 73.70% of Google+ users!

1. It has been confirmed that later in the year, there will be a business version of Google Plus.

2. Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) joined Google+ just after its launch and he has more followers than Larry Page (founder of Google), who currently has the second most followers on G+.

3. Based on over twenty-two thousand Google+ users, 87% of them are male!

Google+ Facts

4. Unlike Twitter, it's unclear as to who the real celebrities are on Google+, they will be having a verification system soon where real celebrity accounts will be clearly pointed out.

5. Google+ has a video chat feature, known as hangouts, in which up to ten people can be included in a video call, the sad thing is that this doesn't work on mobile devices yet.

6. The Google+ Hangouts work with Google Translate to make multi-language communication possible instantly. Skype doesn't support this, nor does the new Facebook Video Calling.

Google+ Facts Cont.

Google+ Facts Cont.

7. With a G+ account, you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa, instead of the 1GB storage

you get without a G+ account.

8. Google plus was developed under the code name 'Emerald Sea'.

9. Unlike Facebook, there are no ads displayed over Google's social network site, making the

load time faster and overall keeping users from getting confused.

10. There is a 5000 maximum friend limit on every Google+ profile.

Source: http://socialstatistics.com/