There’s been a lot of speculation about the future of Google+ since it launched last June. Recently, we heard about their strong December showing with a hefty increase in sign ups, but the jury is still out on whether this offering will end as a flop or resounding success.

After going public in September, the nascent social network now has around 50 million active users. Some estimates put the number over 60 million, with still others going as high as 150 million. The approach so far has been to emphasize the use of Circles which allows users to easily control what they share with members of their network. This, along with Hangouts, has formed their core value proposition thus far. While it may not be destined to overtake Facebook as the king of the social world, it may be able to carve out its own niche and help Google stay relevant in an increasingly “social” world. One can only imagine how targeted Google could make its ads once it pulls in a user’s Google+ info.

Either it will be a huge success or it’ll suffer the fate of Buzz and countless other failed pet projects the internet giant has launched in the past. The new network certainly has several things going for it, so this could be a case where the final ruling lies somewhere in the middle.

Brands Can Augment Paid Search and SEO Efforts

With the introduction of Google+ pages for businesses, one trend we have noticed is that Google+ pages are enjoying increased visibility within organic search results. As reported by multiple sources, many top brands now have Google + pages which now appear in organic results, taking up a decent amount of real estate to boot. This could serve as a clear sign to businesses that setting up a Google+ page is akin to an investment in SEO, allowing them greater presence on and potential dominance of the search results page.

Integration with Android Devices

The latest generation of Android smartphones are now optimized for Google+, allowing the social network to grow along with the Android platform. The Android OS already owns about half of the US smartphone market. As adoption grows, Google+ will come along for the ride, enjoying the benefits of Android’s success. With the activation of every new Android device, Google+ will be given the opportunity to increase its ranks.

Google’s Acquisition of 200+ IBM Patents

Google’s recent move to purchase patents from IBM was undoubtedly an effort to bolster its defenses against litigation of the intellectual property variety threatening Android. Yet, there were some curious patents in its latest haul that could hint at new products/innovations. Perhaps the most interesting was a patent detailing the analysis of user-generated content to ascertain potential interests and preferences. The system would use semantic cues from user posts to identify individuals who may be interested in particular topics without having to rely on self-reported interests. This would allow Google+ to connect its users with other individuals who may share their interests based on their behavior within the Google+ community and would also allow for even more relevant search results.

Since we all know Google is in the business of providing results that are as relevant as possible (read: those most likely to be clicked), this validates the purchase of these patents. Also, the benefit to advertisers cannot be ignored, as this could serve as an invaluable tool allowing for more precise targeting of potential customers.

If Google+ is to survive, it will need to distinguish itself. Given their preeminence in search, the continued growth of the Android platform, and any potential innovations they may have planned (whether related to newly acquired patents or not), Google may carve out a truly unique identity for its little social network that could. They will need to continue highlighting the benefits of Google+ and how it differs from its competitors, so that users are motivated enough to try yet another social network. The road ahead will be a long one, but if they arrive at their desired destination, it will be well worth the effort.

Following the 2010 acquisition of travel software company ITA Software, Google has been actively rolling out ‘experiments’ in the travel space such as Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder which are an attempt at providing “travel tools that provide faster, more flexible, and more useful results to online travel searches.”

Google’s latest experiment builds on the Hotel Finder tool and is known as a Google Hotel Comparison ad. Given the ad’s prominence within the premium ad space and the potential impact on Hotel advertisers, the Razorfish search team has pulled together a brief POV that should provide some deeper details on what a Hotel Comparison ad is as well as potential implications on the Hotel Industry.

Background

• Google Hotel Finder, the destination of Hotel Comparison ads is designed to maximize the travel consumers experience from discovery to booking
• Google Hotel Finder launched July 2011, an online hotel tool that lets users add Hotels to a short list, isolate desired neighborhoods, select travel dates, view user ratings & reviews, price compare and book through Hotel Price Ads (via reseller or suppliers)
• Hotel Comparison Ads were first introduced Fall 2011 and were eligible on <5% of queries-recently scaling to an unknown number of queries on Google.com

What is Google Hotel Comparison Ad?

• A “house ad” placement that does not participate in the auction, serves in “Top Promotional” spot above the white line within sponsored listings and drives to Hotel Finder

• Does not impact other ads ranking on the page
• Does not impact the number of eligible ads that can appear on the page ensuring all impressions and positions are available to advertisers
• Does occupy the most desirable real-estate within paid results indirectly impacting the value of the available positions (e.g. pushing down the paid listings)
• Hotel Comparison ad is only eligible for hotel-related queries, appears to be serving on unbranded and US only at this time

Implications:

• Google has no immediate plans to iterate to a reseller or supplier ad opportunity at this time

• Geared towards driving traffic to Hotel Finder and ultimately Hotel Price Ads
• With user traction Google has opportunity to emerge as one-stop research and booking platform
• Organic property link is displayed within Hotel Price Ads at point of the Booking, additional paid link opportunity exists through participation in Hotel Price Ads via API integration
• Pushes down paid real-estate available to advertisers through the auction

Additional Reading:

• http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-hotel-finder-as-comparison-ad-104661
• http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hotel-ads-14458.html

We would love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of Google’s new experiment or even discover how this experiment has impacted your campaigns. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below, on Facebook or on Twitter @searchshots.

The Razorfish Search team would like to wish you a healthy and happy new year! We hope that you are enjoying a fantastic holiday weekend, and are gearing up for all the great things to come in 2012!

FACEBOOK INSIGHTS OVERVIEW

As of December 15, 2011 current Facebook Insights will no longer be updated or supported (the “old” data will even be deleted in early 2012). Facebook Brand Page metrics will now come from the new engagement-based analytics, released at F8 this year. This Facebook Insights POV will review the major changes to the way brands can track Facebook efforts and provide implications of each.

• Engagement becomes an even more important variable in the somewhat mysterious Facebook newsfeed algorithms.
• Facebook has adjusted the way it tracks and reports on your page and content to better focus on this shift.
• Smart marketers will use this new data to optimize content publishing for maximum engagement and resulting buzz

THE (NEW) MAIN DASHBOARD

Total Likes: The number of unique users that Like the page. (Fans)

Friends of Fans: The number of unique users that are friends with the users that currently like the page. (Total potential reach)

People Talking About This: The number of unique users that have created a story (spread the word) about the page through Likes (of the page or content), comments, shares, wall posts, photo tags, etc. Stories are created through the various types of Facebook engagement that will become more diverse when more “actions” (read, ate, ran, etc.) are allowed to be incorporated into more apps.

Weekly Total Reach: The number of unique users who have seen content within a seven day date range. This number includes Ads and Sponsored stories.

Effects on Social Marketing: Growing new page Likes via organic means via current fans has always a brand goal. Friends of Fans and People Talking About This help quantify that goal; however the emphasis on sharing and interaction with posts provide new opportunities for brands to connect with users. When brands focus campaigns on Word of Mouth, they are now provided a calculable metric.

INDIVIDUAL POST METRICS

Say goodbye to Impressions and Feedback. Their successors are Reach and Virality, respectively. Joined by the metrics Engaged Users and Talking About This, brands can further analyze individual pieces of content, optimizing their content calendars for reach and gather insights on what makes content spreadable on Facebook. Also notable: These new post performance metrics only graph the first 28 days after a post’s publication. However, you can can all historical data via a data export.

Reach: The number of unique users that have seen a specific post. More on this in a moment.

Engaged Users: The number of users who have clicked on a specific post.*

Talking About This: The number of unique users that created a story about the page through Likes (of the page or content), comments, shares, wall posts, photo tags, etc. *

Virality: The percentage of users (from the Reach) that created a story about the post.

*Engaged Users includes users who click on a specific post. This does not necessarily mean the user commented, liked or interacted with the post.

Effects on Social Marketing: The previously missing metric, Engaged Users, bridges Reach and Talking About This. Feedback Score was based solely on Likes and Comments on pieces of content. However it overlooked what Engaged Users now addresses: the users who took the time to read and engage with the comment but did not interact further. In addition, Virality provides a metric to assess which posts resonated most with users. After all, how many users read specific blog posts but do not leave comments on the thread?

REACH

Facebook breaks Reach down into 3 categories: Organic, Paid and Viral. Pages can now decipher where most of their engagement comes from. Overall this alters how brands must view their content. At first glance, it appears the new algorithm adversely affects Impressions. But in exchange, it provides useable insights that help identify which content is innately spreadable.

Organic: The unique users that saw page content from their News Feed, the Ticker or visited the page. These users are being served content directly from the brand or opting to view the content from the page.

Paid: The unique users that viewed page content from a Facebook ad or Sponsored Story.

Viral: The unique users that viewed content from a story published by a friend.

REACH AND FREQUENCY

Facebook also expands on reach via the paired, “old school” metrics of Reach and Frequency, sortable by All Page Content,Your Posts and Shares by Others.

EXPECTED CHANGE:

Major changes in the Facebook algorithm redefine the standard for content visibility. There appears to be a significant drop from the change in Impressions to Reach. In initial sample testing over several posts, it appears the average difference is approximately – 77%.

Conversely, there is an increase in the Feedback/Virality Score. In the old Insights, posts fought for a rating of 0.10% or higher. Now these numbers are significantly higher. Again based on initial sampling over several posts, from the initial data it is an approximate increase of 312%

Effects on Social Marketing: Brands will now have a better understanding of “engageable” content. As the brand collects data over time, posts that have high readability versus high comment and likes will make themselves apparent. Again, this helps the brand optimize and craft their future content calendars and strategy.

LIKE SOURCES

This reflects the number of times your page was liked, broken down by where the like happened; a useful tool to track the effectiveness of your (possible) multiple Like Button locations and mobile apps/sites.

Remember, Facebook Likes can come from on and off Facebook.

DEEP INFO (OR TMI?)

Although not visible via Facebook’s primary Insights dashboard, a very, very in-depth look at brand page statistics is available for download (one would hope a newer query-based interface would make for easy cross-tabulating of variables). A sample of the ways marketers can slice data:

Daily, weekly or monthly breakdowns of each metric – further broken down by location or another variable – examples include:

• Daily breakdown of users who liked your page from their mobile
• Monthly (28 days worth) number of people who saw your page posts via a story from a friend
• Weekly number of impressions of stories published by a friend about your page by story type
• The number of people your page reached broken down by how many times people saw any content about your page

Insights go as far as a noting the daily top referring external domains which send traffic to your page – broken down by site – in total, over 1,000 columns of data are available.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the new Insights help brands focus on one thing: Post Engagement. It is counter balance to the aggregated News Feed. Only relevant, engaging content will get prime placement at the top of a user’s feed. Insights provides the necessary tools to optimize in order to secure that location.

“Advertising on the web is less about hitting someone with a message… it’s about engagement.” -Mark Zuckerberg

What are your thoughts on the changes to Facebook Insights? Continue the conversation in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter @searchshots.

Hi, my name is Nicole, and I just opened a pet supply store in northern New Jersey – and I’m trying to gain awareness and traffic to my new store.   (Well, this not all true, but for all purposes of this post… it holds true).

As a small business owner, it can be hard to find the appropriate outlets for gaining awareness and foot traffic to a new store – especially when your business is in a suburban town of New Jersey (no pun intended).   One usually has to rely on word-of-mouth in order to gain exposure.  But in this age, where computers, cell phones, tablets and social media dominate – you cannot solely rely on friends of friends to get your name or brand out there.

Small businesses, like my pet supply store, are in need of exposure – exposure in the online space, that is.   That’s where search marketing comes in, specifically paid search marketing.

 

Paid Search marketing can be an extremely useful tool for small business owners, since you, the owner, can manage your own campaigns on your own.  Essentially, you can market yourself!  And yes, small businesses can compete with large businesses.   My pet supply store can play in the same advertising space as PetSmart, Petco, or even Amazon – as long as it’s done right.

Put Your “Thinking Cap” On

If you’re a small business trying to run a paid search campaign, try thinking of the following:

• First things first, Devise a Plan – What is the goal of your website?  What is the call-to-action?   It could be promoting a sale, new inventory in stock, an email sign up, or simply to drive potential new customers inside the store location

• How much money to invest?  Remember, this is a pay-per-click model, meaning each person who clicks your ad, will charge your business – or better yet…you!

• Is my website ready?   Do I have flash on my website? Is my site user-friendly?  Is there enough useful information on my site which I can build an effective campaign/ keywords?

• Be Relevant! –What are the most relevant pages to direct the user to visit? – and from here, how can I build out keyword lists/ ad groups/ ads campaigns that ties in with the page.

Those are just some of things to think about before and during creating a paid search campaign for your small business.   Of course, there are several other components that make up a paid search campaign, but these are just some ideas to think of.

Benefits of Paid Search for Small Businesses

The benefits.  Paid search is a useful tool that can be beneficial to not only small businesses, but any business that wants to establish a name for itself.   Here are some (definitely not all) of the benefits small businesses can gain from paid search marketing.

• Budgeting – As mentioned earlier, since paid search uses a CPC model (more often than CPM), you only accrue cost when someone clicks on your ad.  Therefore, the key to a successful paid search ad/ campaign is to be (once again) relevant.   Through paid search, the advertiser is also able to set daily caps, so that the engine would not go over a daily allotted budget.  The advertiser is also given the flexibility of changing caps whenever it’s necessary.

• Day-Parting – Day-parting is a nice strategic move for small businesses with limited budget, or for those who wish to only display ads during certain hours of the day.  The advertiser is able set up the time of day and/or day of week which they want their ads to be appear on SERPs. (i.e. I can set my ads to run only during 7am – 11pm Tuesday – Saturday and pause at all other times.)

• Location Targeting – Another strategic and also cost savings tactic.  Advertisers are able to have control on what areas of the world their ads are shown.   Since I have a small business in northern New Jersey, chances are, I only want to reach people in surrounding towns of my shop.  I don’t care to advertise to people in California or Tennessee, since they are least likely to visit my store.

• Customizing & Sitelinks/ Rich Ads – Probably the best part of paid search marketing is the abilty to customize ad copy and tailor it to your business.   The advertiser is able to create ad copy they want (as long as it abides by the Engine’s policies).   And now, Google and Bing/ Yahoo offer advertisers the ability to add sublinks to their ads.   Google Sitelinks or Yahoo! RAIS can help small businesses (or any business for the matter) display several links within an ad, driving users to more relevant pages based on the sublink.  For instance, I can have 4 sublinks driving to different pages (1) Sale (2) Email Sign Up (3) New Arrivals (4) Contest Sweepstake.   (*An important takeaway of sitelinks is that sitelinks (at least on Google) have been proven to show a lift in CTR for many industry verticals.   And of course, an increase in CTR can bring lower CPCs and higher average position.  Meaning, my small business has a great chance of showing in top positions alongside large name brands or possibly in the top position spot).

Of course, there are many more reasons as to why paid search is a viable tool for small businesses, but this is just a taste of the greatness that paid search can do for small businesses.

Paid Search for Large Businesses

Enough about the small – let’s talk about the big picture…

Like small businesses, paid search is probably even more crucial for large businesses.  Why?  Because everyone’s doing it!  It’s like a scenario of peer pressure in high school – everyone’s doing it, so you should, too!

Because of the complexity of large businesses, many either hire an internal team to manage their paid search initiatives or hire outside agencies (ah-hem, Razorfish).

Time to Use Your Noggin & Think BIG!

Much like small businesses, you should think of the following when creating Paid Search campaigns for large businesses:

• The Goal – What is it that the brand offers? What does the company want to sell to the user?  Maybe the large business is a department store that sells shoes, clothing and furniture.   Do you want to focus on all departments the store offers?  Or just a single segment?

• Budget – What is the brand budget?  How much is the company willing to spend on agency fees (if hiring external help)?

• Landing Page – What pages will the users go to?  Because of the complexity of larger businesses – there will usually be several campaigns and sometimes accounts in order to segment the different categories of items the department sells/ or business caters to.

As mentioned earlier, the main idea of managing paid search campaigns for small and large businesses does not differ by much.  However, if you are managing for a larger business – you are managing at a grander scale – with larger budgets, etc. which requires more attention (usually by several people).   Since many large businesses are using paid search as a tactic, this makes it even more of a reason for why other large businesses need to use paid search as well.

Benefits of Paid Search for Large Businesses

• “Preventing other advertisers from eating your lunch” – As Razorfish Lead Account Manager, Amos Ductan, puts it.   Basically, if your competition is there, you should be there, too.  No one wants there lunch stolen, right?

• Paid search & organic work together – Many studies have shown that paid and organic listings working together help to increase traffic to the site, increase visibility and overall, increases brand awareness – businesses, in general, should not solely rely on organic listings as a way of promotion.

• Customizing – Paid Search allows businesses to customize ad copy – optimizing copy with add-ins like sitelinks, location extensions, product extensions, call extensions, etc.

• Targeting – Large businesses can choose to target users by demographics, psychographics, IP address, in order to write and tailor ad copy to niche audiences.

• And the list goes on and on and on…

In the end, Small & Large Businesses live happily ever after.

Whether tall or short, narrow or wide, small or large – paid search marketing can be useful tool for just about any business size.   There are many external caveats that can make search a complex tactic to manage.  But, with handy tools and creative minds – small and large businesses may both see success in using paid search as a medium.