Unconventional Wisdom - The Tuvel Communications Blog

Engaging Your Customers in Unconventional Ways

Header Right

Tools

Google+ Pages for Business Launches: First Thoughts

by

Since Google+ first launched in June, the question on the minds of many people (especially those of us in the social media “biz”) was when they would launch a platform for businesses to compete with Facebook pages. Google sure didn’t wait long. Less than 2 weeks after announcing that Google+ Pages would be launched in November, they rolled it out in rather quick fashion – within just a day. Sure, it was slightly haphazard (this page led many to believe they could create their page, when in fact it hadn’t been rolled out to them yet); but Google really didn’t muck around.

We’ve created a Google+ Page for Tuvel Communications, so I’ll be playing around with it a bit more in the coming days. I talked about Google+ as a big social media trend to watch in 2012 at a recent seminar we gave, and even though it’s still early days, I’m excited to see what the future will bring for business pages. Google still has some work to do, though.

I really like the idea of being able to share content with targeted Circles of people, which really brings content and marketing relevancy to a new level in social media. If you were able to get your customers on Google+ and then add them to Circles based on their purchases, interests, industry, etc., you’d have a strong content delivery platform at your fingertips. Not to mention the ability to create Hangouts (basically live video chats) with your circles.

I’ve noticed that a business cannot add people to a Circle until they’ve added the business first, which I think is a bit of a speedbump. The Google+ crowd is still very much comprised of early adopters, so businesses have to clear two hurdles in order to deliver content to their customers – first, getting them on Google+, and second, getting them to add the business to a Circle. A third potential hurdle is getting people to actually use Google+ once they’re on it. Social media fatigue might cause many to wonder why they need to join yet another social network, and it won’t be just so a business can bombard them with more marketing messages. As Google+ grows, marketers will begin to figure out how to best utilize Google+ Pages and deliver value to their customers in a new way.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Google+ Pages will become the next big social network that brands and businesses must be a part of, or is Facebook too much to compete with?

Presentation from “Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012”

by

We gave 2 seminars today at the Foundation Center-Washington called Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012 – the first time they’ve held 2 sessions on one of their technology seminars in one day. The attendees were very inquisitive and we had some great interactions with them! In fact, a few of the questions that were asked will make for some interesting blog posts – so stay tuned for those in the very near future.

Here is the presentation we gave, including a full appendix of tools (with links) we discussed. Big thanks to everyone at the Foundation Center (Pat, Laura and Jereme) who helped to make it happen!

 

Doing More With Less: Social Media Trends and Tips for 2012

LinkedIn’s New Features: 2 BIG Missed Opportunities

by

LinkedIn New FeaturesI’ve been very excited to see the new features LinkedIn is rolling out for companies. For a long time, they were missing the social media boat in so many ways in an effort to stay true to it’s business networking and job search roots. In the past year, they’ve made strides at creating a more social hub for members, and now their latest features aim to increase value to marketers and brands. But my question is: why have they been so slow on the uptake?

While I’m not complaining about their latest changes for the better, I think there are still major missed opportunities:

  • Make company pages more dynamic: We have apps for profiles, why not apps for company pages? As LinkedIn continues to build and roll out new features for company pages, they should think about ways to make them more dynamic and spotlight content such as videos, presentations and upcoming events.
  • Pay as much attention to event pages as they are to companies and individual profiles: Not much has been done to change the way event pages work on LinkedIn. Perhaps this has to do with a lack of traffic to those pages – members just don’t use them as much as other areas of the website. However, therein lies an opportunity to make them more interactive and valuable to event organizers, marketers and event attendees alike.  Ways this could be done include embedded videos, Twitter streams, links to event social outposts, and even discussions from a related event group on LinkedIn. Also, why not allow event page admins to send messages to those who have RSVP’d – with the ability to segment by who’s attending and who’s interested, industry, even title.

Perhaps with LinkedIn’s new Certified Developer Program we’ll begin to see changes like these come down the pike. What do you think and what do you want to see on LinkedIn?