This post is by Marissa McNoughton for the Realtime Report Google+ Content Engagement Up 65% for Top Brands **Six months after Google+ opened up to brands, 64 of the Interbrand Top 100 Brands are now on Google’s social network and overall activity is on the rise **according to a recent study by Simply Measured. Content engagement is up 65%, and average weekly circler engagement is up 112% since February. Some additional highlights from the report: **22% of the brands now have over 100,000 Google+ users in their circles up from 13% in February **the total number of circlers (those who’ve added brands to their circles) increased by 138% since February **the top 3 brands (by number of circlers) are: Ferrari (730,831) H&M (684,670) and Gucci (585,129) **the vast majority of Google+ activity takes place during the work day See full engagement study here: Google+ Brand Adoption and Engagement are on the Rise Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/M75kvY] 
This post was written by Mark Traphagen for Windmillnetworking and I selected it because there's some very good information to help you be effective on Google+. Here are some highlights: Content Marketing can be blog posts, videos, slide shows, white papers, podcasts, ebooks Here are a few things Good content marketing can do for your brand: **Build your image as a trusted authority **Develop loyal followers **Enhance the likelihood that you & your business will easily be found in search engines Why Use Google+ in your Content Marketing
**Google+ has a significant effect on Google search When people are searching they usually have an immediate need, if your product or service is infront of themn, they are more likely to use you. **G+ public posts get indexed by Google search and they have the proven power to rank for keywords significant to your business **Google+ allows a variety of content options - you can post, text, photos, & videos and even record a video post using your webcam right in a G+ share box Google+ offers more options on formatting than any other social network **Google+ enables you to create "rich" posts. You can take advantage of G+ post formatting to create posts more likely to get read, clicked and re-shared Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/IHmZ77] 
inShare3 We already know that Google has a pretty strong grasp on a chunk of our personal information but it also appears that the search engine giant may be out to steal our brains as well. And the scary thing is that Google doesn’t have to do a thing to take control of our gray matter since we’re willingly serving it up on a silver platter. Have a look at the following infographic from Forensic Psychology explaining what happens to our brains on internet. Never mind that it looks a little like the doodling on the back of your old high school note book. There’s an important message in here and it’s clearly that The Walking Dead has nothing on Google when it comes to creating hordes of insatiable zombies. 
This piece is from socialmediatoday, I selected it because there are some very interesting insights and questions about the future of google+ and their ability to build and maintain a strong social network and community. Here are some highlights: **Social networks are fundamentally different from communities **the two models are commonly interechanged and the fact that they are two very different models is often lost or overlooked **a community can form within a social network & visa versa it's very difficult for a social network to force or facilitate community and for a community to force or facilitate a social network **Social networks are interested in community as community tends to generate significant amounts of content
**The reason content is king is because when combined with demographic and behavioral information it provides unmatched opportunities for targeting based on a users digital body language. **Social network and community operators are essentially the brokers between advertisers and consumers. **It is at the point these two parties meet that revenue opportunities exist **‘networked community’ for want of a better term is unchartered waters **it does provide a myriad of new opportunities and benefits to Google. **Combine these with Google’s other well-adopted product lines such as Search, Gmail not forgetting the YouTube community and the possibilities begin to multiply. Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/JfV70a] ![Google Plus for Business [infographic] | GOOGLE+ Watch | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/WL4DITLwWcCtqzRcjQPaKjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
Google Plus for Business Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus, sometimes abbreviated as G+) is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc. 
Robin Good: Here is a truly comprehensive Google+ SEO guide which covers every aspect of Google+ and how it impacts your visibility inside search results.
Key sections in this guide include:
Three key takeaways:
1) Google+ search results are personalized but through some crowdsourcing I’ve been able to determine the search signals. The most important signal is whether the query term appears in the Introduction, Employment, Education or Places lived section of your profile. Danny Sullivan rarely shows up in a search for SEO because he doesn’t have the term in any of those fields.
2) People and Pages are defined, curated lists of people by topic. That means there’s nothing you can really do to optimize for these slots.
3) Panda separated low-quality and high-quality sites. AuthorRank would do the same for people and their associated content. As the tidal wave of digital content roars in Google’s ears finding ways to sort the good from the bad quickly will be of increasing importance. Content without Authorship could become a second-class citizen.
It is indeed a must-read. 9/10
Via Robin Good 
This post is from Lifehacker Here's what you need to know: "Today Google released an update to the hangouts feature of Google+, updating its design to better fit the recent design changes we've been seeing across all its web apps". When we launched Hangouts with Extras last September, we wanted to test new features and get feedback from users. We’ve learned a lot over the past few months, and today we’re rolling out a new Hangouts look and feel that incorporates some of the “extras,” and better reflects Google’s overall design (http://goo.gl/gG1NA). Highlights include: - Screensharing: share what’s on your computer screen with everyone in the hangout. This is the first of many extras we’re graduating to Hangouts proper. - Bigger video: we’ve put more emphasis on the live video itself by optimizing white space and other screen elements. Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" See full article here: [http://lifehacker.com/5875257/] ![Will Google+ Replace Facebook as the King of Social Media? [plus Infographic] | GOOGLE+ Watch | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/4ysfXVloAqJvZydJBtzLcjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
This piece was written by Jeff Bullas, who asks the question “When will Facebook be dethroned?”. He gives us both a brief history of Google+ and some compelling metrics to back up his thoughts, topping it all off with an infographic of Social Media hits and misses for 2011. To understand why Google invested $500m in its 3rd attempt at rivaling Facebook, Jeff talks about the concept of website stickiness, which is the amount of time people spend on a site. Facebook users spend more minutes on that site than Yahoo, Google, Youtube and AOL combined, and this was clearly a situation that Google could not let go, unchallenged. The growth of G+ since its launch has been quite staggering:
**The daily growth estimate is 625,000 and **It is projected that there will be 400m users by the end of 2012. Jeff suggests that the growth rate is helped by the gains being made by Android smartphones. These have a direct link to Google+ making the uploading of photos so easy that the average user uploads 5 times more photos than the average Facebook user. He sees the "ready" user base of G+ as 1.2 Bn and suggests that 2015 could be the year that G+ surpasses its rival, while establishing a strong social media duopoly in the meantime My take on this is that user growth is only a part of the equation. It is the stickiness aspect that could prove to be more of a challenge. I have not seen data on how many minutes G+ users are staying on the site, but previous data has suggested that a smaller percentage of its users are considered active. I can certainly see the network surpassing its rival among business users but am less sure of its future success with individuals. What is your take on this? I'd be very interested to hear various viewpoints. Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/AAzUW2] 
This piece was written by Marc Pitman for Socialmediaexaminer Intro: "As Google's latest foray into social media, Google+ has brought some new tools to the digital table. My personal favorite is Hangouts." Excerpt: 3 Reasons to Consider a Google Hangout Your prospects are already here! Video conferencing has been available for a while, but Google+ Hangouts takes it to where people are. Here are some ways you can use Hangouts: **#1: Part of the sales process: You could invite people who are already in your sales pipeline to hang out. Not to put a high-pressure sales speech on them. Just to further the relationship. To make it more intriguing for people to join, try naming the Hangout “Overcoming _________,” where the blank is filled in with a key problem you know your prospects tend to have. #2: Office hours: College professors have standing office hours—times students can be sure to see them at their desk. Why don’t you? You could set up a standing weekly or monthly Hangout as a way to increase customer service or to keep in touch with your staff. #3: Fireside chats: Everyone seems to want time with the CEO, so why not give it? “Town hall”–style conference calls have been popular in recent years, but they are conducted over the phone. Selected by: Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/vsrn1I] Chris Abraham wrote a piece last week, Max SEO with 8 simple Google+ steps before Google opened up G+ Brand Pages, so first go read what he wrote in the previous post(because all of the advice still applies). I selected this piece because it's information you need to know to put your stake in the ground on Google+: Excerpt: In this post, we'll work on setting up your brand page right away in the right way. If you follow these steps, you'll be as well-placed as possible. **First, did you notice that there's a new button on your Google+ profile? Go ahead and click "Create a Google+ page" and we'll get started. Your first option is to create a page. Be careful here, because it isn't simple to change the sort of page you have. Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://www.socialmedia.biz/2011/11/16/set-up-your-google-brand-page-right/] 
Modern marketers face a slew of problems: a fractured media environment, a need to target and segment messaging across platforms, a noisy marketplace. 
Post by Jeff Bullas very interesting observations "The Google+ Project has drawn the innovators and early adopters into its web and it is producing activities that have surprised myself and others." Intro: In 1962 Everett Rogers published the book “Diffusion of Innovations” where he synthesized research from over 508 diffusion studies and produced a theory that proposed 4 main elements that influence the spread of an idea. 1. The Innovation An idea, practice or object that is perceived as new 2. Communication Channels The means by which messages get from one individual to another 3. Time The relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of the social system 4. The Social System The people that are engaged in joint problem solving to achieve a common goal He also outlined the following adopter categories that reveal the percentages of the types of participants that are involved in the innovation cycle. 
This is an insightful piece by Jon Evans for Techcrunch Intro: He asks..... "Is this a contrarian view? I can't even tell any more. On one hand, Google Plus now has 40 million users, it's the fastest-growing social-networking site in history, and its users have uploaded 3.4 billion photos." Here's what caught my attention: Can Facebook seamlessly do both, and be all things to all people? Maybe, but that’s not the direction they’re going. ****Ironically, they’re doing things “the Google way,” betting on sweeping algorithmic solutions with their Smart Lists and Top Stories, ****while Google seems to be building G+ “the Facebook way,” ****around personal curation and social selection. ****The key difference is that, as moot aka Christopher Poole said the other day, ****our identities — and our relationships — are prisms rather than mirrors, multi-faceted rather than black & white. Google Plus acknowledges this in a way Facebook doesn’t, and that’s a big part of why I believe it will ultimately succeed. Curated by JanLGordon covering "Google+ Watch" |
Since Google introduced "Search Plus Your World," most Google Search users have seen results that add more emphasis to sites shared on Google+.
It turns out having Google+ followers boosts the ranking the most, while a "+1" still does way more for your search ranking than Facebook or Twitter.
Twitter actually ranks the lowest — which, given the bickering between Google and Twitter, isn't all that surprising either.
Read more: http://read.bi/KBnIwo ; Via Steven Healey, John van den Brink ![4 Tips To Creatively Style Your Google+ Posts [Infographic] | GOOGLE+ Watch | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/XJcnvlovdh9wSWEybOEuBTl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
One thing most social networking services have in common is the inability to do something creative with your posts. is there any social networking service out there that allows styling in the approach that word processors use? Well yes there is! As a matter of fact, one of the newest and most rapidly growing sites is actually doing just that. Google+ has some “brackets” that you can use to style your posts, however it seems most people don’t know about them. **There are 3 ways you can style your posts, and Simon Heyes put them together together a small guide for you all. Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read article and see full infographic here: [http://bit.ly/HYLUU8] 
The best tricks to add a stunning cover photo on your Google+ profile and and boost your circle count. You can add two kinds of images on your Google+ profile. One is your profile image and the other is a cover photo. The profile image is your Google+ identity for posts and the cover photo is what makes your profile stand out and win more friends & circles. Adding or changing a cover photo is simple - go to your profile page, click "Edit Profile", choose a layout and then click "Change Cover Photo". Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" 
I selected this piece by Adam Barber for Content Marketing Institute because it's important to know how to use google+ effectively. He has a real feel for this enviornment. In this article Adam asks us to take a look at a couple of examples of popular and engaging Google+ pages. Learn how two well-known companies, Dell and Wired are making the most of this new marketing tool". Intro: "If you're still figuring out how to make Google+ part of your content marketing strategy, you might be more enthusiastic when you see who's on here and how the audience is growing. Here's why you should not neglect this great social network: Google+ numbers To give you an idea of the growing impact and influence of Google+, here are a few stats: 90 million – total number of Google+ members as of last month (Larry Page, Google CEO) 20 million – unique visitors to Google+ during December 2010 (Compete.com) 576,798 – Dell and Wired’s combined Google+ footprint, March 2012 (Google+) 69.2% - percentage of Google+ users who are men (SocialStatistics.com) 3.86% - percentage of Google+ users living in the world’s Google+ capital, Bangalore, India (NetworkWorld) 3.3 minutes – average time users spent on Google+ during January (comScore) Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google Plus Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/GUOzQS] 
Robin Good: If you are looking to improve your reputation / visibility / branding online, Ann Smarty has a great report up on MarketinPilgrim, which has lots of great advice, information and helpful tools.
1. Verify the Authorship of Your Articles
2. Create a Master Feed of Your Contributions
3. Claim Your Brand Name in Major Social Networks"
In the article Ann provides lots of detailed suggestions, examples and references while also providing specific free tools to use to execute each one of these steps.
Recommended reading. 9/10
Full article: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/02/3-must-take-steps-to-brand-search-results-for-your-name.html Via Robin Good
This piece was written by Pamela Vaughn on Hubspot
Google is forcing Google+ on the world, and why marketers can't turn their back on the search and social giant. Excerpt: Previously, anyone who wished to register for YouTube, Gmail, or other Google products were only required to provide an existing email address or set up a Gmail account. **Now, new Gmail registrants must also provide their name, birthday, and gender, and a Google+ account is automatically created with these other signups. **The updated registration form even includes an opted-in checkbox that allows Google to use users' account information for personalization purposes. **After new users complete the form, they are then taken to a profile set-up page, which confirms that new users will also be added to the social network.
Here's a takeaway: **Google+ is obviously impacting search, but it's also giving Google the leverage it needs to dominate the web. **Even if just for the search component, businesses can't afford not to jump on the Google+ bandwagon. **If you haven't already done so, create your Google+ business page today and start optimizing your business' Google+ presence. Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch"
This piece is from Socialbaker - they're addressing top brands on Google+ and saying they're in the highest growth acceleration. ****Socialbakers’ statistical comparison of the biggest brands in the most popular social networking platforms show that Google+ brands are growing their fan base even faster than brands on Twitter. What is the reason behind it and will this trend continue so Google+ can finally overtake the second position after Facebook? To find out the answers we made a comparison of top 40 brand and media pages across Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. As we mentioned in our previous findings, there’re different dynamics of fans liking and engaging with social brands versus social media. Google+ obviously provides better platform for photos and more room for message, which we believe is the major driving factor of more fans coming and liking this platform. Nevertheless, the same brands on Google+ started to stagnate in their fan growth as we pointed out two days ago on our blog. In contrast, Twitter (note: in it’s old look) is better positioned to spread short news mostly conveyed by media pages – therefore the significant increase of fans on Twitter. Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" ****Read about Socialbakers social media statistics here: [http://bit.ly/xdwsTB] (to compare top brands and media and their fan increase as of the last 30 days). ****To learn more about each brand and compare its performance on Facebook and Twitter go for Socialbakers Analytics PRO, where you can compare fan growth, response rate, engagement rate and many more metrics on daily basis. ![Who’s Actually Using Google Plus? [Infographic] | GOOGLE+ Watch | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/3xzyPJpIqxkOlXQF7Cwxfzl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
Who’s Actually Using Google Plus?[Infographic]...83% of Users Are Inactive You’ve probably visited Google Plus, and since any Google user is automatically signed up, you probably already have an account. Now, whether you’ve ever been back to the service is a question I can’t answer (I suspect the answer may be no), but the fine folks over at Flowtown have done a little research to find out just who has gone back to the service. Probably the most interesting statistic on here is that only 17% of the current 40 million users are active and frequent Google+ users. **The infographic also contains some interesting research on the International breakdown, showing India as the #2 user of the service. Orkut was also big in India for a long time — somehow Google does something right over there. Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" See Full article and infographic here: [http://bit.ly/u6FVIn] 
This guest post is by Neil Patel of KISSmetrics. Google+ had a hot start, but has since cooled down. For ... Lots of good suggestions - here's the takeaway: Whether Google+ takes off or not, you can still use it to accomplish many productive and profitable things for your business. Besides, in the long run I believe that Google+ will play a large part in Google’s search algorithm, and when it does you’ll be ahead of the game! What productive ways are you using Google+ to promote your business, your blog, and yourself? Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/s0upHV] 
Google quietly added a trending topics section to Google+ last night which now shows up when you perform a search on the social network. Google quietly added a trending topics section to Google+ last night which now shows up when you perform a search on the social network. The new “Trends” section appears on the right-hand side of the page, and currently lists the top 10 items under heavy discussion like “Natalie Wood” and “Breaking Dawn,” for example. The feature was first spotted by Richard Lusk who posted a screenshot to Google+ and tweeted about the update. Because the feature only appears after you perform a search, Lusk and others are suggesting that “Trends” should appear next to the homepage’s main stream, where the feature would be more obvious. That’s probably not a bad idea, but for now that space is used to prompt users to add more friends via “Suggestions” and “Send Invitations.” Since Google+ is still trying to grow its user base, it may not be ready to give up that key spot just yet. Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Google+ Watch" Read full article here: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/18/like-twitter-google-now-has-trending-topics/] 
Well folks, it’s finally happened—YouTube has arrived in Google Plus! How does it work? Just hover over the YouTube icon on the right side of your screen and it will scroll open to ask you, “What would you like to play?” You can enter a topic, like “dogs” (woof!), or a musician, like “Kenny G” (of course!), and a playlist of related videos starts playing automatically. Of course you’re invited to +1 or ‘Share’ any of the videos with your network on Google+. 
Tiffany Monhollon wrote this piece for B2C Community Lots of developments on Google Plus Intro: Since the launch of Google Plus earlier this year, the site has rapidly grown to over 40 million users, according to company executives. Here are a few things that caught my attention: Share Your Circles – Google Plus also rolled out the ability for users to share circles, enabling people to curate and share groups based on different topics. You can easily select a circle, click on “share,” add a comment, and then share it through the Google Plus status updates feature. This will only share who was in the circle at the moment in time you choose to share it, and any changes will remain private until you choose to share your circle again. ****This is a great opportunity to promote other Google Plus users you enjoy following and build relationships with other users. Hashtags – With the launch of real-time search, Google also improved its support for hashtags, which when clicked, take the user to a search results page for the term. The search results page includes other posts that contain the hashtag, along with general search results for that topic. ****This new feature not only allows you to follow different topics on Google Plus, but you can also include hashtags that you may already be promoting on a site like Twitter on your Google Plus posts to create campaign consistency. Curated by JanLGordon covering "Google+Watch" Read more....... |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |  |
6 |
|
Next |
