Signalfire | Brand Matters

Hootsuite has just announced the social media dashboard will now support Google+ Pages updates for all users.

For many small businesses, using a social media dashboard like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, or others is the best and only way to stay on top of social media. With Hootsuite’s addition of Google+ Pages (not individual accounts, yet), many of these burgeoning brands can now more actively interact in Google’s struggling social media platform.

While some say Google+ is languishing, I agree with Chris Brogan’s sentiments that it is a significantly underutilized platform that can significantly improve a brand’s performance on the search side of Google. For a system of engagement and audience participation, Google+ has a world of features and functions that succeeds over Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

If you’ve been looking for a reason to finally jump into Google+, this might be it. Will this impact your use of Google+ for business? If you’d like to discuss putting a strategy together that includes Google+, give Signalfire a shout!

As social media continues to permeate the marketplace, and more businesses choose to socially connect with their interest communities, the amount of “clutter” in a person’s social media stream has reached intrusive levels. Brands and organizations can run dangerously close to being the social media version of spam and being tuned out altogether. As we’re seeing with Google+’s Circles, Facebook’s improved friend organization, and even as far back as Twitter’s lists: who is talking has become equally important as what is being said.

Content has been and still is king, but recently the throne is being shared. Producing great content is no longer enough. Making associations via “likes”, “followers”, and “connections” is not enough. Brands and organizations must earn their place in consumers’ or interest community’s social stream. There must be trust, there must be authenticity, and there must be a relationship. In short, both you and your content must be given a worthy context.

Context can be simply defined as a frame of reference. This frame of reference has several critical elements: Source, Relationship, and Timing.

What is the link between Content and Context?

The most important element to your business’ social media presence is also the most commonly overlooked. We can discuss engagement, we can attempt to plot ROI, and we can emphasize analytics for social media, but in the end it doesn’t mean a thing if it doesn’t take the user anywhere. Social media is simply running in place if it doesn’t have an effective destination.

Social media is constantly being qualified for ROI, stickiness and reach, but how many of your indicators are looking at the destination of social media? How does your website work for or against your social media presence? Let’s look at this from the perspective of high school physics or just a need for speed.

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Brands have to participate to interact with consumers. Common buzz terms like “1.0 versus 2.0” crop up. Gary Vaynerchuk tells brands to “get in the trenches” in this blunt and accurate video. Douglas White calls it “broadcast versus engagement” in this excellent article. Everywhere marketers go, people are looking for one thing—interaction!

Consumers want to interact with a brand. This forces businesses to share their brand with interested communities of people. Thus brands must allow consumers to participate in the brand experience. This coins the term “participatory marketing” and leads businesses down a path where their brand is no longer their own. And that can be a good thing.

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