SXSW chat about Google+

http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP100078
Really interesting interview at this address about Google+ from a senior vice President of Google Vic Gundotra, at sxsw

MBA ONLINE: A Case Study in Socail Media Demographics

Facebook

845 million active users
43% male
57% female

Age
0-24 14%
25-34 18%
35-44 22%
45+ 46%

Twitter

127 million active users
41% male
59% female

Age
0-24 19%
25-34 23%
35-44 25%
45+ 33%

Google+
90 Million active users
71% male
29& female

Age
0-24 50%
25-34 28%
35-44 11%
45+ 11%

Pinterest
21 million Unique VisitorS
18% male
82% female

Age
0-24 10%
25-34 26%
35-44 29%
45+ 35%

CONTENT AND MOTION: Some more infographics

CONTENT AND MOTION: Pineterst

see the original

WALL BLOG: 50% of people feel overwhelmed by brand messages on social media

Toluna C&M Social Media Marketing Best Practise Guide

View more presentations from Content and Motion

by Polly Becker, posted on 12 March, 2012
See original

Summary:
1. Traditional media isn’t dead
2. People are overwhelmed by too much brand activity at times
3. But they’re very much on board with brands being part of their social media life
4. Success lies in smart, creative execution – and an understanding of why folks use social media in the first place
5. Sensible planning and expectation setting is key to delivering successful campaigns
6. A lack of sanity and charisma can and will be fatal

50% of people feel overwhelmed by brand messages on social media
* 75% of folks feel 1-2 brand messages a day is too much
But there’s also plenty to cheer about if you’re a brand marketing manager. For instance…
* 45% of people choose to interact with brands on social media channels
* of those folks 60% are happy to share brand messages and 27% like to share info about brand purchases

HBR BLOG: Pinterest as Free Market Research

here
GRANT MCCRACKEN 17th Feb 2012

Categories are interesting to anthropologists. They are the "buckets" into which we organize the world. More exactly, they are the buckets with which we read the world. We have a bucket called "bird." Inside that is a bucket called "Robin." As spring approaches, we see winged creatures on our lawn and the buckets leap to the ready. Robin! Bird! Spring! This is culture in action.

From this point of view, Pinterest is a treasure. It's a chance to see American culture as if from a glass-bottom boat. Yes, some of it is a little reductive. But sometimes what people stuff into the categories is a chance for us to see exactly what they mean. Pinterest is a little Rosetta Stone, a table of equivalencies. Oh, so that's what YOU mean by home. Here's what I mean. In a culture that flowers with an increasingly diverse variety, this is useful.

Pinterest founders Ben Silbermann, and Evan Sharp are mapping American culture. Mapping not just the categories but the movements of our culture.

For some time now, and certainly since Clay Shirky's great work, we have been on notice that the new digital technology makes new categories and new cultural order possible. Pinterest helps us build and share these categories and to specify what we mean in a medium more telling than language. And this makes Pinterest an observation platform from which to study a culture that becomes ever more liquid, responsive, crowd-sourced and generally speaking dynamic. And this potentially makes Pinterest a place to detect early changes and to get early warnings, a pretty useful thing as our culture accelerates.

There has been some regrettable chatter online that Phoebe Connelly characterizes as "hating on the ladies." Specifically, some appear to think that Pinterest is a consumer wish list for women. One hater goes so far as to suggest that Pinterest is for "women who wish they were still planning their wedding." This is sexist drivel and deserves the contempt Connelly shows for it. It misses much of what makes Pinterest exceptional and especially the way it can serve users as an opportunity for self-exploration/self-expression and the rest of us as a particularly rich view of a culture under construction.

MEMEBURN: Facebook to become ‘your personalised newspaper’ with Interest Lists

9th March 2012

Facebook has introduced a new product that it claims is “a whole new way to keep up with stuff you care about and tidy up your experience on Facebook”.
The new feature, called Interest Lists, is basically a way for you to tidy up your news feed into sections determined by you.
Facebook claims that doing so turns the social network into “your own personalised newspaper, with special sections—or feeds—for topics that matter to you”.
In fact, the company has taken this traditional news feel a step further by including sections like Business, Sports and Style.
You could also get a lot more personalised though and include stuff like “Tech News, Football Players, and Rock Journalists”.
The feature ranks the content from your lists such that only the top stories from each interest appear in your news feed. You can, however, “click through to read more posts,” Facebook claims.
In the next few weeks people will see an “Add Interests” link in their left-hand bookmarks. From there, they can subscribe to a pre-set interest list.

Hm! Sound anything like circles?

Vitro Agency's vision for Google+ Brand Pages

In the race to win the social media game, Google+ has dropped to the back of the pack. Google needs to kick its horse square in the haunches, now, if the platform is going to survive. Brand participation may be that kick. Google+ Brand Pages haven’t been launched yet, but here’s one agency’s take on how Plus could be the perfect platform for brands, and the functionality that will challenge the current Facebook and Twitter reign.

COLLABORATION
The Potential of Public Circles
“A primary gripe among Facebook and Twitter users is that brands bombard them with messages they don’t want or care to see,” said Colin Murphy. “In its current form, Plus doesn’t solve that problem, but Plus Brand Pages might, if they implement Public Circles.”Let’s use MINI as an example, and let’s say you’re a MINI Countryman fan. You visit the MINI Google+ page, and you join the Countryman circle, from among the Clubman, Convertible and Hardtop circles. Later, when you’re perusing your Google+ feed, you’ll see Countryman content in your feed – not Clubman content, not Hardtop content, just Countryman.

This level of selectivity isn’t possible on Facebook or even Twitter, unless of course you are a fan or follow the specific product you’re interested in — but there’s a major drawback to that method because the user has to seek out content streams. With Google+ it’s all in one place, and the all the admin has to do is feed pertinent content to the appropriate circles.The effect of this highly selective environment is it allows brands to tip toe ever closer to the elusive one-to-one relationship, and promotes micro-communication – which, if done right, is about as close to a brand ‘being human’ as we’ve come so far.

Understanding the Participants
Selectivity is the key here, and we see the use of Private Circles playing into that. For example, if a certain group of Plus users are particularly energetic about a certain topic, the admin may organize them into a group and target specific content at them. The same applies to journalists and bloggers, influencers, product experts (ie mechanics in MINI’s case) and even negative commenters.

Additionally, like with Facebook, Google+ will be a great resource for understanding what content is most interesting to fans. One advantage Google has is the user data will be very rich because more will be know about who is digesting the brand’s content (in particular, the brand will know which of their products the user is interested in because the user has chosen to follow the circle pertaining to that product).

The primary takeaway here is that your users will give you better feedback regarding your content strategy based on how they digest it. In this way, the relationship is far more collaborative than on Facebook, where content is thrown out into the ether like a farmer throwing corn to the chickens.

GOOGLE INTEGRATION
Google searches represent about 80% of all search activity, according to Stat Counter, so it makes sense for Google to connect Plus to search results. Here’s how that might work, along with a few other ways for Google to integrate.

Unpaid Search
Last week Google announced the integration of live search results within Google+. Basically, when you search within Google+, the most current results available from the more than 40 million Plus users will populate your results. Currently, when a person searches using Google.com, and is logged into Google, search results will include content shared by their Plus contacts. We believe it’s only a matter of time before all public Plus activity appears within Google search results.

Paid Search
In the same way Google search revolutionized web exploration, Google AdWords revolutionized web advertising, and it’s safe to assume Google is working on a platform that rolls Google+ into the AdWords matrix. In our example, MINI has purchased the keyword “convertible”, and when the user hits “search” a section of the results (the blue area on the top right) has been reserved for, as we’ve called it, “Promoted Pages”. Of course, paid results are probably less effective than organic results, but if a brand is running a broader marketing campaign, a targeted AdWords buy is a safe bet with a low cost barrier to entry.

Both paid and unpaid search represent an untapped resource for bringing outsiders into the platform, and since Facebook pages and Twitter accounts don’t populate search results until a few pages in, there’s a coup in the making for Plus via these tactics.

Other Google Products
We already know Hangouts are part of the mix. Our only recommendation there is that Plus Brand Pages allow more than 8 viewers in at a time. Likewise, chat is rolled in, and what better way for a brand admin to communicate directly to someone with a question than directly? Normal customer service practices apply, of course.

But what about Maps, Translate, and other Google products? Taking the MINI example again, let’s talk Maps first. When searching for “mini” (and tons of other terms, mind you) via the usual Maps function, it’s frustratingly common to get results with lots of businesses using that term somewhere in their services. On a Google+ Brand Page, the admin would be able to enter the exact addresses of the brand’s brick and mortar locations, so when a user clicks the Locations button within Plus, he sees exactly where he needs to go, no questions asked.

With regard to Translate, countless dollars are spent on translation services for Facebook. And while Google Translate isn’t absolutely perfect, it’s a great service to get a brand off the ground, making their content accessible to people for whom English is not a strong point (or whatever language the page is written in).

Now that we’ve set up how we see Brand Pages working, let’s take a look at what automaker MINI might look like in Google+.

This is what a Google Hangout looks like. Google Hangouts allows brands to collaborate live and/or give community members an exclusive seat at events. The best part is that Google built the service seemlessly within Google+. In order to make Hangouts work really well for brands, Google should make the service available for more than 8 users at a time (which is the current limit).

Private Circles will allow you to distribute content to specific groups as well as categorize and monitor community members, based on their activity, sentiment and interests. Like the current functionality, these monikers will not be visible to the public.

For Plus, integration could be the ingredient that makes the potion. One example of the rich integration potential is search. A brand will buy Google ad space bases on keywords, and the user will see Google+ Promotes Pages in his search results. In our example, the ads show up in the top right portion of the page. Though this feature doesn't exist (that we know of), hypothetically it would provide brands an 

MBA ONLINE: A day on the internet

Created by: MBA Online

http://www.mbaonline.com/a-day-in-the-internet/

GIDEON ROSENBLATT: Google+ the interest and influence graph

Google+ is not a social network: its a graph/map of your interests and influence, which helps serve you relivant search and adverts! according to Gideon Rosenblatt

5th march 2012

Shared interest graph

View more presentations from gideonro

MASHABLE: The Future of Sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

February 15, 2012 by Zoe Fox

Users of social networks are getting tired of sharing — but that doesn’t mean sharing is on the decline. A new study analyzes sharing behaviors on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and makes predictions for the future of sharing.

Digital agency Beyond released the study for Social Media Week, along with the below infographic. Beyond makes six predictions about where sharing is headed based on the responses of 2,000 social media users in the U.S. and UK, between ages 16 and 40, who are active on either Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Among those users, 98% were active on Facebook, 60% of whom log in several times daily.

First, sharing to selective lists — the Google+ Circles model — is on the rise. While only 40% of social media users have grouped their friends and followers into lists, the concept appeals to 62% of users.

Second, frictionless sharing — Spotify songs shared to Facebook, for example — is on the rise. Some 67% of social media users have allowed an app to post to their profile, listened to a song that was automatically shared to their profile or read an article that was automatically shared to their profile.

Third, discounts and giveaways will spur sharing of branded content. People are more willing to share content if there are incentives. Some 60% of social media users say they would opt to post about a product or service if they were offered a discount or deal.

Fourth, the rate of social sharing will plateau as Facebook reaches the majority of the world’s population. New users are more excited than seasoned users to share content, and as all users become veterans they will be less frequent sharers.

Fifth, sharing will become personal again, as it was in the early days of social networking for many of us. New apps will focus on personal achievements and actions.

Sixth, the same three factors — informing friends, expressing an opinion and humor — will continue to drive us to share content. Some 88% of users update their status and 85% add photos multiple times per month.

Beyond suggests that the “billion dollar opportunity” for brands will be to win at frictionless and incentivized sharing.

Unthink: new social network

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011 SARAH PEREZ techcrunch

Scrappy outsider startup Unthink.com, which bills itself as the “anti-Facebook,” is opening up its doors today, allowing in its first round of beta testers. The Tampa-based company with $2.5 million in funding from DouglasBay Capital sees itself as a more open, more honest form of social networking – one where its users are the owners of their data, and not the product being sold to advertisers.

Unthink is the kind of startup that could only come from outside of traditional tech hotspots like Silicon Valley or New York, as there’s a certain level of audacity, and perhaps even ignorance, that you need in order to think you have a shot at displacing social networking giant Facebook and all of its 800 million users.

And taking down Facebook is the core of Unthink’s marketing campaign. In fact, the majority of Unthink’s message is about what it is not: it’s not another social network, it’s a social revolution. Unthinkers are not users, they’re owners. Unthink is not in control, you are. And so on. It even has its own manifesto, deeds and covenants.

http://unthink.com/

G+ BLOG: Google+ stream visualiser

http://googleplusblog.co.uk/tag/google-plus-ripples/

February 23, 2012 The State of the Social Sphere: Usual Suspects and Surprises

Adweek just published this really insights info graphic produced by Carlos Monteiro that combines data from Experian Hitwise, Forrester Research and PQ Media to provide a snapshot of the leaders in the social media sphere (excluding mobile data). There’s so much to discover but here are a few things that jumped out at me:
Facebook captures over 90% of all social media visits and 3/4 are outside the U.S.
Newcomer Pinterest just outstripped LinkedIn for traffic despite the recent surge.
The absolute explosion of mobile advertising revenue expected by 2016 (144.2 billion).
China and India boast the most vocal critics including those that protest against brands, services and products.
The average person now spends around 100 hours a year on social networks.
What else jumps out to you?