Archive for year 2012
Why Google+ Needs to be Jay-Z
Apr 15th
Google+ is probably not gaining enough ground to go mainstream as a social media platform and to do so, they need to “go Jay-Z.” This is what I mean …
Has Google+ been successful in attracting a large and engaged audience?
Certainly there is a lively, passionate, and involved group of users — and it’s hard to cut through the hype — but there is some indication that the social platform is languishing with key demographics.
Yes many people have accounts, perhaps they even peek inside to see what is going on once in awhile, but I think the business case for Google+ right now is “Let’s be there … just in case.” As long as that is the major value of the platform, it’s going to be a difficult proposition to compete with Facebook.
Now, I know there are many passionate advocates who will say “but I LOVE it!” but we can look at some data to get an idea that Google+ probably is not making a dent in the core Facebook audience.
The line below indicates when Google+ was rolled out. You could logically argue that Facebook usage has accelerated since then:
Last week, Edison Research revealed that a staggering 80 percent of the U.S. population between the ages of 19-34 are active on Facebook. The report concluded that essentially Facebook IS the social web for this demographic.
But don’t just look at the research. Go out and talk to young people and see what they say. In the past eight weeks, I taught classes to about 350 business/journalism/design students ranging from 19 to mid-30s. I always try to get a sense of where they are with social media with a show of hands. About 25% had Google+ accounts. But NOT ONE had been active in the past week. Both Pinterest and LinkedIn had more signs of life.
So why is Google+ apparently struggling when industry titans like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan are pumping it up like it’s social media crack?
The Kids. Don’t. Care.
Somehow, some way, Google needs to make Google+ “tip” with the cool kids. And by cool kids I do not mean Guy Kawasaki. I mean cool KIDS. The brand needs to be legitimately addictive and relevant enough to get young folks to move away from Facebook in droves. That is going to be extraordinarily difficult. But here’s one place they could start …
Celeb identity game
When my clients are in the process of defining their brand image, one of the tricks I use is to ask them, “If your product were a celebrity, who would it be? So, for example, a line of eco-friendly, cause-oriented fashion accessories chose Sheryl Crowe. So we began to explore the colors, images, textures, sights and sounds of Sheryl Crowe that could be incorporated into digital and brand imagery. This exercise provides a concrete, visual reference point for people working on the brand.
The celebrity I would associate with Google+ is “Tom Hanks.” Safe. Wholesome. Mainstream. Reliable. Somebody you would bring home to mom. The problem is, the age group they need to appeal to wants Jay-Z or Justin Bieber. Maybe both: Jay-B?
Today, Google+ does not fill any significant need that is unmet by Facebook. They don’t care about hang-outs or possible implications for SEO. Google+ is invisible to this generation. Kind of like Tom Hanks. Somehow, they need to get in a Jay-Z frame of mind.
Unless Google’s goal is to always be the “niche for geeks” they simply must break out of that Silicon Valley love-fest bubble and get out on the street with the kids. Google+ has to figure out how to appeal to the 19-34 demographic deeply, rapidly and NOW if it has any hope of really going mainstream.
And the winner is …
My hunch? They can’t do it. It’s just too far from who they are as a company.
Like so many tech companies, I think they believe if they build a better product they’ll win. That is not necessarily the case. History is filled with better products that lose. To win, you also have to build an emotional tie with your audience. Do you think the kids can better relate to Facebook’s founder, a college drop-out millionaire in a hoodie or the Google engineer with the Stanford degree in the button-down shirt?
What do you think? Can Google “go Jay-Z?” Is there a formula for them to win?
A Cloudy Outlook for Instagram. A {growtoon}.
Apr 13th
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Kacy Maxwell is a guy who loves his work, family and a good challenge. See more of his cartoons at EverythingIsMedia.com.
What do I write about?
Apr 12th
In our information-dense world, I know how hard it is to keep coming up with consistent, compelling, original content. And sometimes you just get STUCK.
The problem is, many folks think they need to have all the answers to write a great, original blog post but most of the time, quite the opposite is true. You don’t need to have the right answer. You need to find the right question.
The most relevant, interesting and timely blog posts often are created in response to relevant, interesting and timely questions. If you can find a great question, and answer it, you are likely on your way to a dynamite blog post! So how do find the right question? Here are four ideas:
Look to your peer groups. There are so many great places on the web to find questions. My favorite place is a LinkedIn forum. Did you know there are 800,000 different groups on LinkedIn? There is bound to be one that fits your interests. Go there. Look in the community forums. Find an interesting question. Answer it. Voila! Blog post. Other possible sources are Quora, Focus and Yahoo chat groups.
Look in your comments. I would say 25% of my posts come form comments from my readers. If it is relevant to them, it wold probably be relevant to other readers too, right? Ironically, this post was inspired by a comment about writer’s block from my friend Jon Buscall.
Look in your key words. Many people post questions as their search terms. Go to Google Analytics for your website and see what questions people might be using to find your blog. Recently one of the search terms used to find this blog was “how do I start blogging?” I thought it was probably time to write about some blogging basics.
Google it. If you are really, really stuck, go to Google and type in “what do I write about?” You’ll be amazed at what you find. People have planted lots of seeds of ideas and prompts for you out there.
How do you get unstuck? Where do you find the best questions to blog about?
New research shows Facebook impacting behaviors in formative years
Apr 11th
Guest post by {grow} community member Tom Webster
My friend Mark Schaefer wrote a provocative piece in this very space yesterday about why Facebook will become the most dangerous company on earth. Perhaps he underestimated the problem.
One of Mark’s central observations — that a public company must find ways to grow, and Facebook’s only path to do that is through you and me — was particularly insightful and, for some, alarming. I’ve been studying Facebook for five years as a researcher, and after seeing our most recent data on social media behaviors I can tell you this: It’s scarier than you think.
In data that my company (Edison Research) just released yesterday, we found that 54% of all Americans age 12 and over have a personal profile on Facebook. This represents some modest growth over last year’s 51%, but not hockey-stick growth, so one might be tempted to see Facebook’s rise as slowing down, especially when that growth is trended over the past five years.
Not so fast. Numbers like “54%” don’t tell the full story.
First of all, it is important to know this: in the same report, we show the percentage of Americans 12+ who have a personal profile on any social network as 56%, and no other network is even remotely close to Facebook. When we talk about social media in this country we are talking about Facebook, plain and simple. The other thing to note about that 54% is it’s an average that masks some intriguing demographic disparities. Note the breakdown of social media usage by demographic below: (and remember, Facebook is used by 96+% of these Americans)
There are two important stories here.
The first speaks to the saturation that Mark wrote about, but in a different light. For the second year in a row, the growth for Facebook has really been people aged 45 and over. Indeed, the 12-34 demographic has largely been static since 2010. Certainly, it isn’t wrong to think that it’s pretty much all ashore that’s going ashore with younger demographics. And, as Mark correctly pointed out, as Facebook’s growth with older demos slows, the company will need to find ways to wring more data out of us in order to feed their shareholders’ insatiable hunger for growth.
The second story, however, is more subtle. As I noted earlier, usage by the 12-24′s haven’t really grown appreciably since 2010. But look where they are “stalled” — at an 80% adoption rate. Now, getting 80% of American youth to do anything is an unbelievably powerful construct to get your head around.
You can’t find any other media property remotely close to that. Heck, 80% of 12-24s don’t have smartphones, or landlines, or read the newspaper, let alone use any one brand or product. That 80% use of social media (i.e. Facebook) is remarkable, to say the least.
Eventually, those 24-year-olds turn 25, and those 34-year-olds turn 35, and so on. Gradually, as these younger demographics age into older demographics, they will take these learned behaviors with them. In that sense, it’s like smoking. Facebook has changed the behavior of Americans in their formative years, and they will take those learned behaviors with them.
With nearly 8 out of 10 young Americans making Facebook the hub of their online lives — and, thus, their lives – the ways in which they consume and share information have changed irrevocably.
Consider the number of Americans who have the “social habit” and check their profiles several times every day — while Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm prioritizes the information they receive based upon our personal interactions — and you can begin to see just how much sway Facebook holds over what we know as Americans. These 12-24s are literally growing up with the news and information they are exposed to being curated by their friends. And by Facebook.
As a parent I am keeping a wary eye on this. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.
What do you think? Am I overreacting? What do you see in the data?
Tom Webster is Vice President of Strategy for Edison Research, a custom market research company best known as the sole providers of Exit Polling data during U.S. Elections for all the major news networks. Webster specializes in drawing insight from social media data, and writes about these topics at www.brandsavant.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Webby2001.
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