Three Reasons Google Plus is Facing Difficulties

I tend to try not to be a fan-boy of any brand, technology or individual. Unless of course we are speaking about @Starbucks or @Pepsi.  All joking aside, I believe that by maintaining unbiased brand opinion in my posts is crucial to providing the best reviews and opinions to you the reader. Easier said than done, right?

I’ll admit that there are morale and belief opinions that creep into my technology preferences. Dislike for an individuals leadership and personality style (Apple) as an example. The arrogance some user groups display to others that don’t purchase the same brand due to cost, preference or lack of knowledge tend to result in my negative view of a brand or product as well. The area of emotion tends to lead my weakness surrounding remaining unbiased in my posts. I will attempt to hold true to this fact in this post, as it no doubt will have the ability to polarize some people.

As I watch the social platform space heat up again with the launch of Google Plus and the continued announcement of new niche networks, I have noticed some fragmentation of the market. I discussed this previously in a post called The Future of Social Media is Not Networks. The post discussed how we have more than enough networks in the marketplace at the moment and what is really needed are tools and platforms that help brands and social agencies better utilize the platforms that exist. Immediately following my posts, out comes Google with their competing social network.

I have refrained from putting my predictions and opinions out there about Google+ for the most part. I even originally titled this Post “Social Media Fragmentation –  You Better Focus”. But based on what I feel is happening in the market and how I feel it relates to the successful use of social media marketing, I believe I am just going to tell it like I see it. So without adding paragraphs and a ton of commentary, here is my list of crucial issues in the market as well as the reasons Google will never become a major platform.

The Three Reasons I Believe Google Plus is in for trouble:

1) Too little too late – It is so late in the social media game at this point and two previous failures means the market has mostly shaken out already.

2)  The masses – It’s true Google grew really quickly out of the chute, but here is one of biggest issues they face: My daughter, mom, dad and 750 million other Facebook users are never going to switch to Google+. Their friends are on Facebook. Many are just now getting up to speed and engaged in the site with family and friends.  They will never switch.  Furthermore, many of these “normal” users will never manage more than a single social media location.

This leads to the biggie:

3) Business challenge – Since number two above is a likely scenario, that leaves some 50 million social media marketing and tech geeks that of course will use Google Plus. But will major brands and retailers expend valuable time and resources to build yet another duplicate community which is largely made up of marketers marketing to each other. VERY unlikely.  Furthermore, social media marketers and agencies definitely don’t need yet another platform to manage.

Now before you haters start slamming my blog with harassing comments, know this… I WISH Google Plus would and could succeed. But unfortunately, Google has yet again developed too little, too late in a market that has largely solidified. Their second largest mistake was making a third attempt at competing and further fragmenting the industry, rather than developing valuable support tools for social media, where there is still huge need and where Google had a chance to succeed.

I am crossing my fingers for Plus, but as a realist, I worry for them.

Robert M. Caruso
@fondalo
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post

The Importance of Content within Social Media

Yesterday I had some interesting conversations related to Social Media marketing, analytics, strategy and performance indicators. This led to a couple comments and subsequent posts I made and I thought it would be helpful to share those more globally today.

First was my comment “Social Media Marketing requires you to be social in your actions, just as in real life. Relationships trump strategy, tactics and performance indicators, forcing business to stay inline with what social media is… Social”  I am not saying that tactics, strategy and tracking are not important to the overall mix, but that relationships are what drive social media success. Brands that realize this, are the ones that are successful within the social graph.

This led to a further discussion about how I see Social Media Marketing and the path that leads to success. I believe that everything within social media starts with content. That is any and all posts we make. From checking in at a coffee house, commenting on what we are doing now, and article we share or a photo we upload. This is where it all starts.

Understanding the importance of content as the starting point is crucial to a successful strategy. More importantly it should be what drives your strategy, activities and results. I put it this way:

Social Media Path:

Content leads to Conversation
Conversation leads to Relationships
Relationships lead to Business and
Business leads to ROI

Developing a content strategy that does the following will ensure you are on the proper path to social media ROI.

For more on how to effectively and efficiently manage your social content and to be consistent with it, join my free Webinar:

How to Manage your SocialMedia Content and Improve Results, Klout & ROI – My Webinar http://ow.ly/5ZIGi

Robert M. Caruso
@fondalo
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post

 

 

 

 

SocialMedia Trolls and Contrarians, Enter at Your Own Risk

A Guest Post By @c_pappas:

I participated in the weekly #SM121 chat (add +1 for every week so next week its #SM122) this week hosted by Peg Fitzpatrick http://www.twitter.com/PegFitzpatrick. The topic? Trolls and the art of dealing with negativity in social media. http://hashtagsocialmedia.com/blog/trolls-or-contrarians-the-food-chain-of-social-media/ Trolls? Contrarians? Huh? Who are these people and why are they associated with negativity? My mind automatically raced to social network bots but that wasn’t exactly what the chat was about.

The Difference between Good Negative and Bad Negative

The key difference between a troll and a contrarian? Intent

A troll intends to do harm to your brand by posting negative comments about your brand, your products and you while a contrarian is most likely to post something negative but in a more thought-provoking manner. Both scream negative energy through and through but one is pure spam and the other is just an honest opinion.

So what do you do when a troll or a contrarian lands on your blog, posts something on your wall or tweets something about you to your followers? My advice? Proceed with caution.

Simple way to weed out a troll is to respond back and challenge their claim. If they are in fact a troll, their brainpower ammo will not sustain the conversation and they will revert back to their original blasphemy. While I would never tell anyone to just delete negative comments for fear someone may see them *gasp*, you should absolutely respond and remove this person’s ability to post in the future once you have stamped them with the troll label.

Now a contrarian on the other hand, I think, is pretty cool. This is a person who has an opinion and is not afraid to use it. Something you or your brand said or did ignited something in them that caused them to respond. Now I don’t know about you, but I write content with the intent to get a reaction and if I get the attention of a contrarian, then I know I said something right (or wrong most likely according to them). And I want them to come to my site because I know a juicy debate will follow.

Social media has opened new doors for all of us. We can communicate freely whether in a positive or negative manner and be noticed by tens of thousands of people in seconds and the same goes for your brand. Handling negativity is no easy feat. You need to know when to edit your audience and when to let them speak their mind and fuel your conversation. It’s a fine line.

How do you handle negativity in social media? Do you treat trolls and contrarians differently?

About @c_pappas :

Christina Pappas is a Inbound Marketing Professional with a passion for content marketing, lead generation and social media. She is an avid blogger at The Content Cocktail which focuses on how to leverage a vendor agnostic approach to lead generation in order to increase conversions and bottom-line revenue. Christina is a marketing communications and lead generation professional who has spent most of her career at B2B technology companies and in the hospitality industry. Her Blog can be found at: http://thecontentcocktail.com