Should You Cut Google+ Out of Your Marketing Strategy?

Google is in the headlines again after creating new parent company Alphabet, and its recent distancing of the company from lackluster social network Google+. YouTube accounts aren’t forcibly linked to Plus anymore, and the new focus on ‘stand-alone’ companies within the Alphabet banner had many debating whether Plus would be left to live or die on its own merit. That chatter has also forced many analysts to re-examine whether Plus is a worthwhile marketing platform, or if companies would just be wasting their time. Personally, I do think Plus may still have a place in social marketing – it’ll just be much more specialized.

Micro-Networking

Plus was billed as a Facebook killer, but then didn’t do anything to distinguish itself from Facebook. A lot of people just signed up because it was attached to Google and then stopped using it. But, interestingly, the best section of the site was reminiscent of one of the oldest parts of the internet – forums. Google called theirs communities, and they were easy to find, navigate, and share content to. You may not find your friends on Google+, but you could find plenty of people with shared interests to talk to in these communities. These could be Plus’s redemption if the site focuses on, and bolsters, this feature. Industry experts have rightly pointed out that, while communities are active, they still represent a very small user base. Further, to effectively use inbound marketing in these communities, you have to be an active member and monitor what’s being talked about. A company can’t just post everything it writes into different communities and expect to see any sort of activity. Whoever is behind the company page has to actually, and actively, engage with people, which is fine when there’s a ton of active users. But until, or unless, Plus can get more users into these communities, it may not be worth the effort.

Photos

Back in May, Google announced its new Photos app, and industry commentators discussed how that was the first step in re-focusing Plus. I feel like they’re right on the money with that, and though I don’t think they’re attempting to make a Pinterest clone, Google knows what works on Plus, so they’re going to make that feature more integral to the network. Image-based marketing, then, could be a great way to use the site if images already work for you. Product and brand driven businesses - like clothing boutiques, restaurants, or antiquers -  should like the combination of images and interest-based communities. But if you run or represent a business that can’t effectively use visual marketing, then it’s pointless to use Photos.

SEO and Local Results

Google has taken steps that show it will separate local listings from Google+. Earlier this month users reported that local results would, occasionally, not have links to the company’s plus profiles. Google removing the impact of Plus activity on local listings would, in my opinion, make Plus pointless for most small to mid-size businesses. 50% of mobile users who look up a local business on Google Maps visit that store within a day, and Plus used to be a way to stand out. That said, Google is not going to alienate potential advertisers, and Google My Business is a pretty solid service. It seems, then, that Google may try to move companies and marketers off of Plus, and perhaps may even use that fact to distinguish itself from Facebook or Twitter.

I like Google+, and I have been trying to make the company page more active in relevant communities. That is where the service shines. But, likely in an attempt to “purify” these redeeming parts of the network, and attract more users, Google is experimenting with moving Google My Business and company pages away from Plus. So is it worth keeping Plus as part of your marketing strategy? Probably not. The only companies I can see marketing well in the new Plus are built around personal brands and products – photographers, wedding planners, authors, artists, chefs, even marketers themselves, if they’re thought-leaders within the industry. Basically if you have talent enough for people to want to see what you produce, or seek out your advice. Otherwise, just follow Google My Business wherever it goes, and use it to maintain your listings and reviews like in the old days of Google Local. 

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Social media 101

Social media has been accused of everything from killing conversation to making us lonely. But if you do it right it can do the complete opposite. Greg Dixon, a social media dummy, has six pieces of advice for other social media dummies.

Photo / Thinkstock

The backlash starts here. Or maybe the backlash ends here. It is very hard to keep up - not that it matters. The biggest obsession of our age, social media, so long the target of earnest bores and moaning middle-aged journalists (that would be me), has long since bested the backlashes and vanquished its foes.

Now so ubiquitous, so influential and so woven into so many lives, it is well beyond the slings, arrows and wild accusation of its detractors who have accused social networks like Facebook of everything from making us lonely and anxious to destroying relationships and careers and reducing attention spans, along with encouraging narcissism.

The numbers mean all resistance is futile. Worldwide, the tally of active users of social media is now over two billion. That's close to a third of the global population and over 40 per cent of everyone with an internet connection. Facebook alone has a reach greater than any of history's greatest empires, with active global users at more than 1.3 billion, larger than the population of the world's most populous country, China. According to the biannual tracking of New Zealanders' use of the internet by AUT University for the World Internet Project, four out of five Kiwis with an internet connection have a social media account and 87 per cent of those are with Facebook.

And, as a rule, we Kiwis are very active social media users too, spending more time each month on social networks than Australians or Americans. Why? Mostly because it's a giggle with like-minded people, says Jono And Ben At Ten comedian and prolific tweeter Guy Williams.

"I love Twitter - basically it's like texting but better because you don't need any friends to do it! It's a lot of fun talking online because you basically qualify for a better quality of friends. I've been at some depressing flats where there's eight people sitting around a TV and all of them are looking at their phones reading what American comedians have to say about the Oscars," he says.

This might explain why market research company TNS Global, in its 2014 Connected Life report, found that nearly three-quarters of us use a social network at least once a week - and just over half of us use social media every day.

However, the most astonishing figure in the report wasn't about doing social networking, but about not doing it: just 13 per cent of those surveyed said they had never used social media.

I, for one, am surprised it's not more. Anecdotally, I still know quite a few - mainly middled-aged and older folks - who do next to no social networking or none at all.

Yet if you are one of those who don't like social media or still don't get it, then you may as well loathe the air that you breathe. Like it or not, there's no escaping social media's clout. You must surely have noticed the mainstream news media now routinely use social networks for finding or sourcing stories, meaning that the wildfires that break out on Twitter or Facebook find their way into the media and into your everyday conversation, whether you know how to tweet or not.


Facebook alone has a reach greater than any of history's greatest empires, with active global users at more than 1.3 billion. Photo / AP

Social media is a place of business too, with almost every company you deal with pleading with you to like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Businesses are now customarily speaking to their clients, dealing with complaints and announcing offers and deals through these sites. It's still a work in progress, but social media is increasingly becoming one of the most important marketing conduits, as well as a way for central and local government, non-governmental organisations, charities and community groups to get their messages out too.

Such ubiquity surely suggests that there is benefit in understanding social media, not only for what it is, but also in how to do it well.

For those with a social media account (or accounts), practice can make perfect but a little guidance is always good. And if you are a doubter or a hater, well perhaps it might be a good idea to start viewing social media in the same way you view other burdensome but inescapable social interactions like, say, those stop-and-chats with old but rarely seen acquaintances or family Christmases: something to get better at and maybe even get to like.

Before we get to how to be a cut-price social networking guru, let's deal with the negative. Smart people have eloquently argued, sometimes with evidence, sometimes without, that it's changing our brains, making kids narcissistic, is destroying privacy and is rife with bullying. Some of this might be true. However, the most repeated accusation seems to be it doesn't do what it says on the box, that it's actually driving us apart, it's really anti-social media.

Psychologist and M.I.T. professor Sherry Turkle argued in an essay in the New York Times that social media has seen us sacrifice conversation for mere connection and suggested we are raising kids to treat technology and social media as a companion.

"We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely," she wrote. "The opposite is true. If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely. If we don't teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely."

Meanwhile writer Stephen Marche wrote around the same time a long feature with the headline "Is Facebook making us lonely?" in The Atlantic magazine, in which he concluded that "what Facebook has revealed about human nature - and this is not a minor revelation - is that connection is not he same thing as bond". He may be right.

However, I'm now inclined towards the arguments of Zeynep Tufekci, a US academic and longtime tweeter who says that if anything, social media is a counterweight to the ongoing devaluation of human lives. "Social media's rapid rise is a loud, desperate, emerging attempt by people everywhere to connect with 'each other' in the face of all the obstacles that modernity imposes on our lives ... every time I read one of these 'let's panic' articles about social media (and there are many), I want to shout: Look at TV! Look at commutes! Look at suburbs! Look at long work hours!".

Actually, Tufekci says, while social media is easy to dismiss from afar, up close it's alive and "brimming with humanity".

Certainly for its dedicated users, social media does exactly what it supposed to.

Bridget Roper, a mother and part-time librarian in rural Taranaki, says social media - she's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Pinterest - is a "great connection" to the wider world and to different perspectives.

"I've met lots of people I would never meet in the course of my regular life, and have connected with them in ways that I wouldn't have otherwise. It's a great icebreaker. It's given me employment opportunities and some very cool experiences. Most importantly, it's given me some really meaningful friendships."


"I love Twitter ... it's like texting but better, because you don't need any friends to do it" - Guy Williams.

Troy Rawhiti-Forbes, a communications manager who is head of social media at Spark, says Twitter in particular is like a great bar conversation that never ends. "It moves with events, it moves with the news and sometimes it can move with absolutely nothing at all. That's one of the great equalising forces with it, that anyone can drop in and say or share something that sparks things alight - and that's true no matter whether it's an eyewitness in the midst of the Arab spring or the first person to get a bottle of high-end chocolate milk."

The question, of course, is how to do it well. If you're in business, there is no shortage of online and real world advice - plenty of it from "snake oil merchants", according to Rawhiti-Forbes - for how to do social media as part of your marketing strategy. But for the private user, particularly the inexperienced or detached private user who isn't 20-something and isn't hip (that would be me, again) there is little guidance to be found anywhere about how do it well. So I decided to find out.

Rule number 1 is really important: choose the social media platforms that suit your personality. Pick the wrong one and it's like wearing the wrong-sized shoes.

Now this may seem obvious to you, but it wasn't to me. I figured they all seemed to be about the same thing, connecting and sharing, and one was more or less the same as the next. So, of course, I signed up to Facebook; its very popularity would suggest you're a fool not to be on it. However, I figured after a year or two it wasn't really my thing, and closed my account. To be frank, it bored me.

"Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg's gift to people who are really into holiday slideshows," Rawhiti-Forbes deadpans.

Generally speaking - but, of course, 80 per cent of you should already know this - if you want unlimited space to share your thoughts and photos, Facebook is a no-brainer. But it's important to think of it as time machine as well as a sharing machine too.

There is also great benefit, Rawhiti-Forbes believes, in "knowing where your memories are". But it also works best if you're prepared to take the time to work with the settings (privacy and otherwise) so that you get the Facebook you want. "It's no good for impatient people, I think," he says.

Twitter, on the other hand, is good for impatient people - 140-character messages and all that - but oddly enough Twitter can be the most difficult of the social media platforms to get used to, requiring some patience until you have.

Louise Blakely, marketing and communications manager for Dunedin-based cloud software company Timely, says she wasn't a fan of Twitter initially. "Until I realised how powerful it can be for connecting with people. I had an account for years and I never touched it, couldn't understand why people tweeted. Now I'm a Twitter convert I think."

Rawhiti-Forbes reckons one of Twitter's biggest barriers for newbies is they literally cannot make sense of what looks like a roaring torrent of information with no context whatsoever. His advice is to sign up, follow people you know and who interest you and lurk until you get used to the Twitter feed - and to the rough and tumble that tweeting can involve.

For those wanting something more friendly, the picture-driven Instagram and the video-loop app Vine offer more touchy-feely, empathic and creative places to network using your smartphone, while Pinterest offers something similar on (mainly) PC and tablet. Blakely says LinkedIn is a must if you're career oriented, while Roper favours the "tick-tick-tick" of Twitter and Instagram.

"I'm a bit of a magpie so I like pretty pictures and cool fonts," she says.

Rule number 2, though Rawhiti-Forbes makes this his number one - is don't be a dick. "It starts and ends with 'do not be a dick'," he says. "Because if you're not, and if the person on the other side is not, well great, there's a little more peace." One of the things the former social media editor for nzherald.co.nz dislikes about social media is the increasing number of people "who wake up in the morning and go 'right, what's going to piss me off today?'" and then lie in wait until they see something and then jump on it. "That always kind of disappoints me," Rawhiti-Forbes says.

Not being a dick is also about not being completely self-absorbed, according to Williams. "I often think Facebook and Instagram are just long lists of micro brags as people feel the need to advertise how wicked their weekend was or how awesome lunch was! My theory is that if you were really having fun you wouldn't have time to stop and take a photo of how much fun you're having."

Blakey's version of dicks are people who air personal laundry on social media or post openers like "I'm so angry right now".

"It's just totally attention-seeking behaviour because they're asking people to say 'oh, what's wrong?'. I really don't like that - and everybody can tell what you're doing."

Rule number 3 is whatever you do, don't take it (or yourself on the platforms) too seriously. "We shouldn't take social media seriously!" Williams tells me. "So many people write things like, 'These opinions are my own and not those of my employer' - as if your employer would want any of your opinions on Beyonce's dress at the VMAs!"

But on the hand, don't treat social media as a complete joke either. It's a lot more than photos of cats and people whining about their jobs, Roper says.

"People are having really vigorous and informed discussions about things, and they're changing people's perspectives. People are choosing which brands they prefer based on the banter and response on social media. People are engaged and sharing petitions and campaigns and recruiting to their causes.

"People are sharing good and bad experiences and they're remembering those experiences when they're making decisions, from the small things like choosing organic milk to the big things like joining political parties out of frustration at feeling unrepresented. People are having meaningful and life changing relationships."

Rule number 4 is be tenacious. Blakely, who in the past has provided social media advice to small businesses, says she advised her clients to post frequently, every day if possible. The same holds for the individual. "Don't be put off if you don't get a reaction to a post," says Blakely. "I'd definitely say persistence is [important]."

But not too much persistence. Williams' advice is not to post too much - though he also advises not to listen to advice on social media.

Rule number 5 is not to worry about the number of followers or friends you have - or don't have. And most of all, don't get upset if people unfriend or unfollow you. Have a sense of humour about it. "When I started out [on Twitter] I checked one of those 'who unfollowed me' sites," says Williams. "And that was a very bad idea. I get sad when people unfollow me. And those people will never know how sad I am because they don't follow me - and that is real tragedy."

Rule number 6 is that you, and only you, are in control. "What a lot of people forget, even those who are veteran users, is that, yes, it is an open conversation that anyone can participate in, but you can take steps to make it a little more you," says Rawhiti-Forbes.

"Remember you, and no one but you, is in control of your environment, no one else is in control of the list of people you follow and that you let follow you, but you. This is your time, your experience and you have every right to make it as safe as possible and if that means shutting the door on someone who is ruining it for you, then by all means [shut the door] because you're missing out on great opportunities for talking and learning if you take yourself out of the picture rather than just doing an edit job."

Roper feels the same: "I just unfollow or mute anything I don't want to see. What you post is your business, what I follow is mine. Block, delete, unfollow, mute. I don't want to pretend social media is a wonderland of kittens and people with good intentions. People can be dicks ... [but] social media broadens not just my mind, but also my perception of things I can do."

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10 Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch Out for in 2015 (Infographic)

It was a little over five years ago when MySpace was still popular and Facebook just rolled out the now iconic “Like” button. Since then, social media grew into a huge worldwide phenomena with more than 1,730,000,000 users uploading 20 thousand pictures on Tumblr, 104 thousand images on snapchat and 2.46 million posts on Facebook every minute.

These figures are expected to grow substantially next year, with a projected 2.44 billion users networking with friends and family on their favorite social networks. Such figures attest to how influential social media can be in how people communicate and engage with others online, as well as how they do business and commerce.

As much as 97% of marketers use social media, with up to 92% acknowledging the importance of this tool for their businesses. The following provides an overview of new trends, highlights and things to watch out for next year so you can prepare yourself and your business for what’s in store for social media in 2015.

1. Content Marketing Gets More Social – The strength of content marketing relies not only on the creation of an Epic content but on how you can effectively distribute this content for your targeted audiences.

2. Real Time Social Media Marketing will Be a Buzzword - By monitoring and responding promptly to their targeted audiences’ needs, business owners and digital marketers can generate better engagement that drives conversions and sales.

3. Audio and Video Will Dominate Social Content - Just like any other digital marketing channel, audio and video elements evolved to become powerful visual tools that generate better engagements and positive responses.

4. Steady Shift towards Mobile Social Media – With experts projecting that more than one billion people in 2015 will access the Internet only through their mobile gadgets, focusing on mobile social media will be a very logical thing to start right here right now.

5. The Continued Rise of Paid Social Media Advertising – The organic or natural reach of a typical Facebook post will only be a mere 0.073 percent. If you really want to get more mileage from all your social media efforts, then it would be wise to consider paid social media advertising.

6. Payment Features Using Social Media Wallets – The phenomenal rise of mobile usage have driven major online tech players like Paypal and Apple to take action and grab a good hold of the mobile payment space.

7. The Rise of the Social Media Commerce – Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are capitalizing on this by testing their eCommerce “buy” buttons that will eventually roll out next year in full swing.

8. Social Media Becomes Smarter and Analytical - Experts from Gartner and SocialCode all agree that the way businesses use social media will become smarter and more analytical in 2015 and beyond.

9. Social Media and the B2B Market – In 2014, Facebook still stood on top as the main social network used by marketers in the B2B arena, with a high 89% usage rate. LinkedIn however is following at a close second at 88%.

10. The Rise of New Social Networks - Among the more prominent of these new social networks include Ello which claims providing an ad-free social network that will not sell vital user data to third parties, Yik Yak which focuses on anonymous post exchanges on physically adjacent people. Others includes Tsu which offers revenue sharing on popular posts.

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5 Most Important Roadblocks for Real-Time Social Media Engagement

Social media is about being able to engage with your audience, and replying in real-time to your customers’ issues and complaints.

For quite a number of brands, bringing this about is still a mystery. What is holding brands back? Which roadblocks prevent them from living up to their customers’ expectations?

Take a look at our most important roadblocks for real-time social media engagement:

1. Not Making Sense of Social Media Data

Who is talking about my brand? Do I really know my customer?

Brands often use social media simply to broadcast marketing messages, and therefore, leave crucial customer concerns unattended. However, social media is an important sounding board for valuable customer feedback. Although brands have access to that pool of information about their customers, they fail to make sense of the data.

2. Handling Large Volumes of Incoming Social Media Messages

Brands often fail to take the right actions due to the large volume of incoming social media mentions. Unfortunately, they aren’t pulling the right data and get distracted by the incoming ‘noise’. Moreover, it’s often the case of not passing on responsibilities to the right person, which leaves them with large quantities of unattended messages.

3. Fully Maximizing Social Media Impact

Brands are using multiple, basic tools at once which makes it quite difficult to maximize their impact on social media. The actual decision-making process of purchasing new software is often in the hands of top-level management who still need to be educated on the value of new, more expensive software. Important requirements for social media tools, like user-friendliness, are often neglected. However, brands should be able to set the right priorities when it comes to investing in these tools.

4. Involving the Entire Company

Interactions on social media are an important part of the customer journey. Social media agents should truly make an effort to provide consistency throughout this customer journey. For example, in-store touch points should not differ from conversations on social. In multiple cases, however, brands don’t have the right resources (team and skills) in place to manage a global social media presence and deliver consistency.

Social media isn’t simply the responsibility of a single social media team: customer support teams and social media teams should work closely together. Moreover, PR, Security (in case of hacking), etc. are commonly ignored departments. As a result, departments are working in silos.

5. Creating an Online Support Center

Brand's online support centers lack the right information or aren’t regularly updated in order to seamlessly hand over the right information to their customers. They are often clueless when it comes to the different types of customer questions they receive through social media.

Want to learn how to actually master real-time social media engagement? Take a look a these solutions to overcome the roadblocks.

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Social Media Marketing in 2015: The Year of Quality Over Quantity

Social media is now solidly at the center of the communications industry. A diverse and vast landscape of social networks, each with its nuances and demographic makeups, means that there is something for every type of business, marketing campaign, and sales pipeline. Below we share some advice that will help businesses, both large and small, accelerate their 2015 growth through social media platforms.

Facebook still rules, and content still matters
Despite reports that Facebook is struggling to appeal to newer generations, it still is the biggest social network out there, with 1.35 billion monthly active users as of September 2014 (YouTube takes second with 1 billion). The increase in average age of Facebook users may actually be a blessing for marketers, with users' spending power increasing as they grow older.

Content on Facebook remains the focal component of the product. Changes in their Edge Rank algorithm, which governs which content is displayed on feeds, have consistently been geared to squash out cheap marketing content, pushing marketers to get more creative and produce rich, engaging content.

Fortunately there is a form of rich content that will help marketers succeed on Facebook this year: video. Facebook auto-play is going to define content strategies on this platform in 2015. 
To illustrate how powerful this feature is, let's take a look at the success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge was launched shortly after FB rolled out auto-play, which starts playing videos on your newsfeed without any prompt. It therefore became impossible to ignore your half-naked friend dumping a bucket of water on him or herself. Although there are many other valid reasons behind the challenge's success, this feature is certainly one of them. Since the feature was rolled out a little over a year ago, the number of users watching videos on Facebook has more than doubled.

There will be a lot more Twitter ads
Twitter's growing revenue is certainly due to an increase in ad money spent on this platform, but we believe marketers still haven't realized the platform's true potential. Ads on Twitter can be incredibly powerful, and here's why: Twitter's public API makes it possible to easily create lists of users that are discussing a certain topic. Marketers can even identify users with specific intentions, by using search terms such as: "I want [enter any product type]". Lists of usernames can then be uploaded to Twitter Ads to create custom audiences to which marketers can communicate highly tailored messages. Conversely to Facebook, Twitter has not spoon-fed us targeting tools, but they have maintained an open culture that greatly empowers savvy markers. This blog post is a really good resource for getting better at targeting Twitter ads. In addition, Twitter cards now allow marketers to increase conversions and display more rich and engaging content than a mere 140 characters.

Keep an eye out for Snapchat
Snapchat's growth has been incredible to witness. As of May 2014, over 700 million photos and videos were being shared per day on this platform. Although they have not released how many monthly active users they have, such large traffic would suggest they could be larger than Instagram, which currently has 300 Monthly active users. With the introduction of Snapcash, Snapchat's Venmo-like money transfer service, Snapchat has at the very least shown that it will evolve considerably in the near future. One year from now, Snapchat is likely to have significantly more and diverse features than it has now. Marketers that are capable of capturing a significant audience on this platform will likely gain considerable returns.

Creative Data Collection will be key
There are a surprisingly large and growing number of tools that empower non-coders to collect data and insight about online behaviors, and most of them are free. In the past month alone, for example, we have used this Google Spreadsheets add-on to append number of followers to a list of Twitter users. We have used the Kimono Labs Chrome extension to scrape a list of accounts from a landing page. And we have used IFTTT recipes in more ways than we can remember. All of these are free tools that require no developer knowledge. Successful marketers will be those who can think creatively about ways to learn more about their target audiences by efficiently collecting data.

What does this all sum up to? The role of the marketer is shifting quickly to encompass far more than it traditionally has. In addition to effective communication, marketers will be called to understand new and changing platforms, collect and analyze data, and find new tools to work more efficiently.

High-quality, rich content will win over quantity, and informed, data-driven decisions will determine success.

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How to Break Through the Social Media Clutter

Social media use is growing by leaps and bounds every day and popular networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are among some of the most crowded corners of the internet. Let’s look at some stats:

●     Social media spam rose 355 percent in the first half of 2013

●     Between 5 and 11 percent of Facebook accounts are fake

●     Twitter adds 11 new accounts per second every day

●     YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video of every minute of each day

With so much happening so quickly on social media networks, is it even possible for brands to stand out and get noticed? Yes! And it’s easier than you think with these four proven tips:

1. Keep it real. Make sure your content is a reflection of your brand’s image and tone, but don’t let the message get lost by posting a constant stream of marketing-speak. Make sure you engage with followers on a personal level and let them see the personality of your brand. Respond to mentions, answer questions, and talk with customers about what’s on their mind. Use your social channels as an extension of your customer service strategy.

Your social media fans expect to see some ads and sales messages in your timeline, but they’ll quickly tune you out if everything you post is an attempt to part them from their hard-earned money. Use data analytics to determine what’s most important to your customers and make sure to talk about those things on social media. Your followers will appreciate knowing you’re tuned in to the things they care about and not just looking to make a quick buck. 

2. Give as much as you take. People follow their favorite brands to stay on top of sales, get coupons, and find out about new products. Smart brands maximize that attention by providing extra added value to customers across social channels. They share tips and best practices, offer advice, and point customers to new ways of using their product or service.

Clever brands also take the time to pen thought pieces designed to discuss or educate on topics related to their industry. For instance, a snack company may go viral with a thought-provoking essay on living gluten-free or a video on how to bake delicious vegan cookies. Be sure to give back to customers at least as much as you hope they’ll give you.

3. Help facilitate connections. One of the best things about achieving prominence on social media is that it allows you to help others make connections. Coca-Cola’s recent marketing campaign helped ease the “first day of college nerves” by providing soft drinks with special caps to students. In order to open the beverage, people had to walk around and find someone holding a bottle with a matching cap.

Coca-Cola filmed a campus where some machines were located and the subsequent YouTube video has been viewed 8.8 million times. This is a fantastic example of a brand using its social clout to bring people together and facilitate connections.

4. See and be seen. Not all your fans and customers favor the same social media channel so make sure you have a presence on all the popular social networks so people can find you easily. Remember that it’s important to take the time to create content specific to each network. Not only do the posting Terms of Use differ from platform to platform, but users have different expectations as well. Your instagram followers expect to be wowed visually while your Facebook fans may respond better to fun quizzes.

How do you break through the social media clutter to reach your fans and followers? Let me know in the comments!

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What Will Replace Facebook? Six Considerations

A question I often receive in my classes and talks is “What will replace Facebook?”

It’s a natural question. We look to history to see the progression of upstarts replacing established companies — didn’t Facebook replace MySpace? — and of course assume there is a new idea out there somewhere waiting to unseat Facebook as the leading social network.

But that is not necessarily the case. What will replace Facebook? Here are six factors that will determine the answer to that question … and the company’s future.

1. The cool factor

Facebook’s biggest vulnerability is that it would fall out of favor with its core audience. If it ever becomes “uncool,” its marketshare will slip away quickly. This is one reason why Google+ struggled to be mainstream. It was Tom Hanks when it needs to be JayZ.

So what is hot today? Instagram. WhatsApp. Guess who owns these? Facebook. To remain relevant, Facebook will certainly build a war chest to continue to buy platforms that are siphoning off customers and ad dollars. A smart strategy.

I think it is possible to remain relevant generation to generation. Look at Coca-Cola. Without changing the product, it has remained vital across the generations for 120 years! Can Facebook stay cool? That needs to be their number one priority.

2. The switching costs

It is far easier to change houses than to change social networks. Facebook has become a convenient hub for photos, videos, games, family, and friends. It is literally a timeline of our lives. It would be hard to give that up.

To move to another network, you would have to move all of that or start over. Not easy.

Research shows that even Millennials are diversifying their social media use but not leaving Facebook entirely. The switching cost is a huge advantage for Facebook.

3. The investment

Facebook has spent billions of dollars on software development and the extraordinarily complex processes that make it work. It has billions invested in mega-datacenters.

Facebook works really well on a massive scale. Even if you don’t like HOW it is designed, you have to admit it functionally works. Duplicating that technology and infrastructure would be an immense challenge. They have such a head start … and the gap widens day by day, patent by patent.

4. The psychology of choice

In most other places in our life we enjoy having a choice. We like lots of brands in the grocery store or may shop around town to choose between different car companies.

But when it comes to social networks, we seem to only have the bandwidth for one.  We don’t need another Twitter. The one we have works fine.

We don’t need another LinkedIn. That niche has been filled.

And we don’t need another massive social network.

5. The leadership

Here are characteristics of Mark Zuckerberg that will solidify Facebook’s long-term success:

1. He knows what he doesn’t know. He is an urgent learner and can see his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities as a leader.
2. Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with outstanding business leaders, not just friends and sycophants
3. He has committed to long-term strategies and investments, even when the decisions are not popular with Wall Street
4. He is obsessed with a vision and has a unique financial arrangement to assure he will be the leader of his company long enough to see it through.

Facebook is a well-run company and it is being built to last.

6. The future

Facebook made an investment in 2014 which I predict will prove to be one of the most impactful technology alliances in history. It bought the immersive augmented reality company Oculus (not Oculus Rift which is the company’s headset).

This is a topic for an entirely different post, but let’s just say that Oculus has patents that can potentially transform the way we connect, become informed, and entertain ourselves … just as Facebook did in the last five years.

Facebook is preparing to re-invent itself in amazing new ways.

Perhaps “what will replace Facebook” is the wrong question. A more interesting question is “How is Facebook replacing itself?”  Perhaps the Era of Facebook just beginning?

What do you think?

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