Why you Should Consider Adding Google Plus Comments

Sharing is important. Interaction is our business. Commentary is a big part of this.

As such I've always rather liked the concept of Disqus (though it never really seemed to catch on) and the likes of JetPack that extended the experience and attempted to tie commentary and the social world together.

Recently, since Facebook produced Facebook Comments (all be it a bit fiddly to set-up - here's a decent FB Comments Wordpress plugin if you need it), the landscape of commentary has become irrevocably skewed towards social integration. For community management, this is great news.

Yesterday, somewhat inevitably, Google+ flopped out Google+ Comments.

Put simply, when folks comment on your content it's also shared on Google Plus. This works both ways, and if a visitor shares your stuff on G+ it'll also appear on your content, and if a dialogue then ensues it's there on G+ and your site/blog for all to see. Pretty simple, right?

This is a piece of cake to turn on in Blogger - in fact, next time you log in you'll probably be promoted to do so - and flawlessly connects your blog (or website) to the wider Google+ platform.

While it's not official, there's already a Google+ Comments plugin for Wordpress that seems to do the job for this - I've no doubt there'll be more to follow.

So why do you want this?

Cos this is some serious gourmet shit.

Social Signals - essentially, the human component in modern SEO. The more shares, +1's, and activity within Google Plus, the more Google is likely to favour you in it's 'organic' search results. Every comment now has the potential to be a share in G+. Every share in G+ is a social signal, and (if you're all set-up properly) a boost to your AuthorRank as well.

The jury is still out on just HOW effective this will be, but with Google doing more and more to integrate G+ and the likes of AurthorRank into the SEO mix, this can't be ignored. Getting closer to giving us a self contained web experience within the G+ walled garden, Google Plus Comments is just yet another string to SEO's bow in the pursuit of preferential rankings.

Add it today. It's early days, but it seriously can't hurt.

How to Automatically Post Content to LinkedIn and Google+

Sometimes clients ask for things that you recommend they don't do, and still want it done anyway. One of the big things I come across is auto-posting of blog content.

Posting like this to Facebook, due to EdgeRank, is totally pointless - your content will never get seen as Mr. Zuckerberg and co. will see any third party app. (an external tool or internal Facebook Page add-on) as spammy (like the Poker apps of old) and devalue your posts accordingly. Automation in Facebook means your content is 80% less likely to be seen by your audience. Don't do it.

For some channels (like LinkedIn and Google Plus) it can be done, but the channels themselves don't offer it as a service and (certainly in Googles case) they seem to actively discorage it.

Personally I think all social media posts should be individually crafted for the best results. This should be done 'by the channel', with sympathy to the audience and client goals, and should offer your followers the best experience possible. Yes this is time consuming, but results always are.

Automation for business rarely works well.

Sometimes, however, the client just wants it posted when they publish and to the devil with the consequences. It's not rocket science to fudge this using an RSS feed, but to me this feels almost like grey-hat tactics. In reality, the client pays the mortgage and you can only preach about best practices for so long. This had to be done, so I had to find a simple way to make it happen. If you ever need to do this, here goes.

First set-up a new Hootsuite account for your client. I'm a big fan of Hootsuite. I've written before about creating custom search code for Twitter etc., and once you delve under the hood there's a wealth of good stuff we can turn to our advantage.

Next, on the start screen, click on the option in text at the bottom that says 'Add A Different Social Network'. If you're already logged into an existing account click the button that says '+ Add Social Network', under your list of streams. You'll then get the pop-up, below.

On the left you'll see a list of options - including Google+ and LinkedIn (this process works the same for both, so let's do LinkedIn as an example).

Click on the LinkedIn option, and you'll see the 'Connect to LinkedIn' dialogue.

You'll need to be logged in to your LinkedIn or Google+ accounts already to save any messing about. If you are, Hootsuite will sift through the Pages you belong to and those you Admin. It'll then give you the option to pick one.

Just select the Page you want to post to and click 'Finish Importing' down there on the bottom right.

The next step is to connect an RSS feed. If you have trouble finding the feed there's a good little 'how to', here. If you want to get an RSS feed from your Twitter, I wrote a post about that recently (and that has a whole extra level of potential).

Anyway, just nip back to the main interface (the 'dashboard') in Hootsuite and click on the cog symbol ('settings') over on the left. Then choose 'RSS/Atom'.

Next click on the '+' icon next to the 'My RSS/Atom Feeds' drop down (when you roll over it it says 'Add New Feed').

A box will pop-up with all the fields you need to import your feed and set up protocols. It's pretty self explanatory. Just add the RSS URL at the top, then click in the box that says 'Network to send feed items to' and attach your channel (double check it's the right one, those social channel icons are tiny).

You can leave the scheduling stuff, unless you have specific requirements, but it's good to put something in the 'Prepend text to each message' box to say it's yours and from your blog or whatever. Above I'm just using our agency as an example, I'd NEVER do this for channels I personally manage.

Press 'Save Feed' (bottom right), and Bob's your Uncle.

Remarkably painless, once you figure it out. I still maintain there's no substitute for manually crafting posts, as many of these will be truncated and won't have any call to action or other useful stuff, but if you have to do this I can testify it works.

I feel slightly dirty. I'm going for a shower...

How to Support SEO With Social Media and Content Marketing

I've worked, on and off, in SEO for over 16 years. It's far from my speciality these days, but I do work for an agency where the core business product is search and I'm often asked what social can do to help. Here's a few suggestions I give the folks in the SEO department when they ask.

NB: Tweeting used to help in getting content indexed. Re-tweets helped it to get indexed quicker. Alas, since Google stopped paying for the full fire hose of Twitters data this no longer appears so (especially if you only get small numbers of RT's). It's still worth doing, but don't hold your breath.

Link Bait

If you create shareable content it'll get passed around, and (more importantly) linked to. Putting the time in to creating video, infographics, audio, a bit of creative meme riding, finding and crafting the right images - content like this is fried gold if you want people to organically link to your posts or site. There's no substitute for the well researched and nicely presented content that pushes your audiences buttons. Embedding that into blog post and into other services promotes sharing and linking.

Link bait

Linking to Channels

For SEO, forget fancy embed codes from the likes of Facebook on your main site (yes, this goes against all the best community building practice, I know. Saying this feels like playing Tie-Fighter after a month of playing X-Wing, just dirty). The Facebook embed code, even if it does promote sign-up by showing your friends who already like a Page, slows a site down so much it's like watching stoned turtles stampede through peanut butter. Go with direct links, above the fold, and a clear 'trawlable' line of access to the social channels. Also, tag them. Putting alt text in place that says the likes of "Follow [blah] on Twitter" is another way to get the brand name in there, and is great accessibility practice.

Get on G+, and Develop Your AuthorRank

Google Plus is getting better. No, really. Not only is it getting more and more usable but Google is making it valuable for search rankings. Posting your blog content here, and actively going about redistributing it by promoting +1's and developing a community is 'where it's at.' How you do that is a whole book in it'self, but starting now with basic set-up and posting is a positive way forwards. Google Plus also seems to promote rapid indexing and trawling, with any 'shares' and '1+s' meaning it's trawled and indexed even quicker.

In the next few years AuthorRank has the potential to become the backbone of credibility. Get your G+ profile linked to your blog content. Now. Start building your reputation. Now. For more on this check my 'Why You Can't Ignore AuthorRank' post from back in January. AuthorRank is like PageRank for individuals, and it's all about 'social signals'. Once you've got your profile linked to your blog you can start to generate credit for the content you create - the 'scoring criteria' runs on factors like 'likes', 'shares', 'retweets', 'comments', '+1s' and the influence of the folks (your followers) doing the sharing. Get this sorted now, you'll thank me for it in 2014. Rel=Author tags are important, and the more you write on a given subject and the more 'love' it gets, the more Auntie Google will pimp your stuff.

Pinterest

In general, Pinterest seems to be good for inbound links. General good practices on Pinterest (adding prices, linking across platforms, filling out the whole profile, fresh content, linking to individual products, categorising boards, adding keywords to descriptions, etc.) seem to be a real boon, and we've got clients that pick up PageRank from being connected to their higher PageRank Pinterest accounts. Every little helps, right?

Write Some Original Quality Content

Not average run-of-the-mill content. Good original content, just like the link bait above. 2-3 fresh posts a week and Google will love you for it - though bigger brands will need to do this a lot more often (probably as much as 2-3 times a daily). Create posts people want to share and link to. Share what you know - remember, you're not giving away information your spreading your knowledge and enhancing your credibility. One blog post that gets shared is worth the time it takes to write 6 blog posts that just sit there gathering social dust. People like to share good useful information from sources they trust that's helped them or they believe will help other people. Often this will be about those common interests and the answer questions they didn't even know they needed an answer to - go take a look at Quora or Yahoo Answers and have a search to see what folks want to know. If it's new, funny, topical, or bordering on the obscure, people love it. Think about working in those compelling (and actionable) calls-to-action and tantalising headlines, and don't cram articles with keywords (those days are gone). Keep your content relevant and accurate, and grow your credibility as an authority. Stimulate debate. Be awesome. Rock your peers. Get writing, but make sure it's decent stuff.

Promote Sharing

If sharing is good for content distribution and you want to up your 'social signals', make sure it's easy for the reader to share (yeah, I know, the theory's hardly rocket science). There's a few good services for this that add all the relevant (the key word here is 'relevant', no one wants to wade through a bazillion icons) social shearing features - try AddThis, ShareThis, or Lockerz - they all do the same thing in different ways.

Also, just as a point, if you spend a few pennies to promote your social posts and get them under the nose of folks who will share it, well that's just good 'white hat' tactics ;)

sharing is good

All this is just scratching the surface. If you want to boost your SEO through distributing content via social media this is a good start. How you get people to do that is another story, but putting the back-bone in place so that they can is an excellent start. Quality and access, that's all it takes.

Why we Can't Ignore AuthorRank, & why That Rocks

Gone are the easy days of the early noughties when the definition of content quality was based more on the 'authority' of a domain than who wrote that content (or it's virility). Google is moving the goal posts, again, and this time it makes sense.

Now it's all about the individual, and (in SEO terms) as individuals that makes our name a commodity. I worked for the Daily Mail in on-line info delivery for 7 years, and if individual contributors don't start making the most of this then it's a crime against journalism. This is a ranking you'll take with you - it doesn't belong to the individual website - and that rocks for original content creators.

Let me try and explain how this works:

Is your name now a killing word?

Authorship, or AuthorRank, is Googles way of examining the importance of a post by the reputation of the individual who wrote it. What does +reputation mean? Prizes. Essentially, justifiably preferential search engine ranking for people who produce good content and who's work has been distributed by others (in the past, or currently) via social signals.

So how do we gather AuthorRank?

Predictably enough we have to start with our Google Plus profile - by adding the blogs, Pages, and channels we contribute too to our profiles and letting the data filter down so that it recognises us. It really is time to stop being scared of giving over our relevant data - get over it, and get in the system. Go to your G+ profile, then go to 'edit' and link the websites you "Contributor to" in the section close to the bottom. You'll be given a code to embed into your posts to set up your 'author rich snippets' - here's a how to - and for businesses (and as individuals) there's a bit a faffing around with "rel=author" and links to G+ pages in footers etc. (doubly so, it seems with Blogger) then you can test it here. With Blogger you can link your G+ and Blogger profiles together (see over on the right) and here's a handy AuthorRank plugin for Wordpress that should see you right.

Content creators (and there's every indication this will soon work for YouTube too) are 'ranked' using a magical Google algorithm based on the 'engagement factors' of the content they produce. This is what we blanketly call 'social signals' and it covers tweets, retweets, comments, shares, likes, +1's, all the usual social malarky. Add to this the stuff we consider Googles typical measurement factors like inbound links etc., and from this it crafts a measurement that it can attribute to an individual to get a sense of their popularity (even, potentially by Circles and Google Communities etc. within a given topic). Presumably the more a content creator creates content on a topic, plus the more engagement with that content, the higher that persons rank is going to be for that topic. In this case specialisation seems like it might be a plus - it's always worked for insects.

Blogger identity is important.

This has the possibility to change the content landscape and shift the balance of power into the hands of the creator. Suddenly brands and marketeers are going to have to court authors. Specialists are going to have (SEO) value and search engine kudos within their chosen areas, and magazine brands will have to seek out the folks with strong AuthorRank to boost their reputation and flagging rankings. It's nice to think that journalists, writers, and content creators who have authority in a topic are going to find themselves a commodity in the very near future. Any companies who want to be seen as specialists and industry leaders - and it's a goal for many when we're creating online marketing strategy - are going to have to conduct 'author outreach' for their short-term content creation, and they'll need to boost and cultivate the AuthorRank of those who are already writing for their organisation to make the most of them in the long term (and don't forget, they'll take that individual rep with them if they leave). Very interesting.

In the immediate future it looks like outreach to find people who have AuthorRank on a given topic should be relatively easy. All we need to do is run a search on any relevant keywords and see what rich snippets show up and who they are attributable to. Right now, each of these has a grey line of info next to them saying how many Circles these folks are in. To begin with, in the absence of any proper tools for automating this research, it's a good start. Right now, these are the people you want writing your guest posts and these are the folks you'll need to contact and schmooze.

The hard working author in his natural habitat.

It's a great time for content creators, and in the future there's the potential for us to be paid - if they smooth out all this adding codes and messing about for the layman - to write on the things we have a passion for and a talent for. Though admittedly the origins of this were seeded back in 2011 - at least some good shit came out of 'Penguin' and 'Panda'. Google is fostering creativity here, and I'm feelin' this bodes well for the future of brand journalism, content marketing, and people with passion and talent.

Nice one Google. That rocks.

What Google+ Means for Direct Marketers

The tools may have changed, but the song remains the same.

The Web is now personal. VERY personal. Everyone is a content producer, whether they realize it or not.

Google realizes this. Google's deal with Twitter has run out so it no longer has Twitter content in its search, and Facebook is giving content to Bing, so Google needs its own source of social from which to draw content and, most importantly, in which to embed its advertising platform (AdWords).

Google knows personal recommendation is important, and so do we. It knows business has to have its place in any new channel in order to generate advertising revenue. Google, still the search king, knows it needs to sell advertising, and that Facebook social ads lead in the social space. Google, just like those of us in one-to-one marketing, realizes it's all about people. Because of this, Google has built its own social network: Google+ (which is now open to everyone, no invite required).

Everyone is posting links, sharing content, making recommendations, telling their friends about the good and bad in their daily lives, about the great coffee they just had, about the lousy service at the hotel they just stayed in, and about their love of a million long-tail niche hobbies and interests (perfect for generating ad revenue by displaying relevant opportunities along with the public message). The basic principals are there across every tool and channel.

Strategy should not be based on tools like Google+. Strategy should be based on business objectives. Tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are, as appropriate, a means to achieving business goals through communication, but are not strategies in themselves.

Content is king, even today, and the not-so-secret sauce is in the message and what you do with it. That's not going to change for direct marketers anytime soon. Research, engagement, listening, measurement, creating good content, fostering relationships, these remain the same. What is changing is the opportunity, and how you can use it.

When people choose to be a part of your community, it's important to give them something in return. They are letting you into their Google+, Twitter or Facebook streams, and it's critical to give something back. That may be as simple as offers, entertainment, a behind-the-scenes look at our brand, 'secret' knowledge, breaking news, etc. but should always be human and engaging. You still have to generate genuine opportunities to get your community talking and sharing. A community should feel that it is being heard and that, when opinion is sought, it is being acted upon. Being inclusive, and being personal, is being social. These are the fundamental principles of communication, and regardless of your goals or the delivery method they're key to good community. That's unlikely to ever change.

We can bet that soon Google+ will give us business profiles and then paid advertising. Just like Facebook, this is your opportunity to reach out to your audience and show them the value in becoming a part of your community and tuning in to your message. It's your chance to listen and gather opinion and deliver good, entertaining content value. How you do this should be based on clear strategy, and should be sympathetic to the community you gather. Here you can say "Join us. It'll be fun, rewarding, and advantageous."

One of the most valuable elements of one-to-one marketing in the social space is the ability to recognize those loyal customers who make repeat purchases, and to let them know they are appreciated and that they are important. Who is adding to the conversation? Who is taking your message forward? Who CAN take the message forward? These people are the ones to foster and reward above all others. Heck, you owe them that even if it's just though personal thanks and good messaging. A bottle of wine in the post or a voucher for a special event goes a long way to turn someone into a lifetime brand evangelist. The tools may change, but the principals remain the same. Social media lends itself perfectly to one-to-one marketing, and this is where powerful lifelong relationships can be forged.

Google+ is new. Anyone who claims to have a secret answer to making it work for business right now is selling snake oil. There are, however, those basic core principals of communication that will see you through. There're a million tricks and tips and tweaks for every tool and channel, but there's always a constant: social media is about people, and what's important is how you talk and listen - not where.

This article was first published on the Target Marketing Magazine website, Sept 21st 2011, and is republished with permission.

A Note on Facebook Updates

That wasted 10 minutes in Photoshop, but it has made me feel marginally better.

I'm seeing a lot of negativity in status's of friends and relatives. I gotta say, I can't believe Facebook totally alienated their user-base on the same day Google Plus opened it's doors to everyone. Not a strategy I'd have recommended... :-S