18 Minutes a Day to Social Media Time Management

There is a saying that goes something like this: “Are you working in your business or on your business?” Translate that to social media, are you working in social media or on social media? If you are “in” it, it’s time to figure out a way to be “on” it.
But what if you could improve your social media time management in just 18 minutes a day?
Let’s face it, we have a finite amount of time each day and usually we underestimate our to-dos and overestimate our time. If you’re in any type of online marketing position and reading (OK, skimming) this article, chances are high social media is part of your mantra. Bets are probably higher still that you spend more lost time in unaccountable social media diversions and distractions.
Whether you’re on the front lines, sidelines, or bylines, social media can easily monopolize hours of our day.
Scanning, curating, and aggregating content requires serious organization skills. Writing, reporting, and re-purposing content is best served with minimal distractions and maximum focus. Social media can be a 24/7 black hole or, if managed properly, a gold mine. It all depends on how disciplined, organized and aware you are of the time spent in social media.
I recently read Peter Bregman’s book "18 Minutes." It was just released last month and the result of a blog post he wrote for the Harvard Business Review that became one of the most popular and most commented posts on the site. That post, “An 18 Minute Plan for Managing Your Day,” began with Bregman’s humbling admission that we can all relate to, but here is my slightly modified version:

“Yesterday started with the best of intentions. I walked into my office in the morning with a vague sense of what I wanted to accomplish. Then I sat down with my laptop and a Starbucks, checked my Facebook, Twitter stream, iGoogle and e-mail. Two hours later, after fighting several digital fires, solving other people’s PR problems, and dealing with whatever happened to be thrown at me through my social media world via screen and phone, I could hardly remember what I had set out to accomplish when I first grabbed my Mac Book Air. I’d been ambushed at social media gunpoint. And I thought I knew better...”

Bregman’s takes you through specific and actionable strategies to seriously shut down the daily distractions and open up windows of social media opportunity. As I read this book, my social media fog began clearing and my days are now busier doing social media right.

Pick Your Social Media High Five

Look at your social media year and pick five areas that will make the most difference in your business. Social media is enchanting because there are so many interesting things to read, people to meet and places to go. It's challenging to prioritize and pick just a few; so instead we end up trying to do it all.
One of the secrets to thriving in social media is to look at doing fewer things better and pick the ones that matter most. When you decide on your five areas, commit to spending 95 percent of your social media time on these things and allow 5 percent for the rest of experimental or unforeseen unknowns.

Getting the Right Things Done

I’m always busy. But I asked myself after reading this book: Am I busy doing the things that matter in my social PR life? "18 Minutes" brings us to the reality that it’s possible to be busy in social media, look busy in social media, and unfortunately … get nothing done.
Making sure we’re getting the right social media things done is key – because it’s so easy to get off track when exciting breaking news happens, like Facebook F8 developer’s conference latest updates or industry shaking news like Steve Jobs passing away last week. I lost hours of focus to the reality and shock of losing one our greatest innovators. But to me, that was my 5 percent bucket of the unknowns you have to plan for.
Once we have our five buckets of focus, the goal is to make sure we spend 95 percent of our social media time each day doing things that fit into our five most important areas. Our focus is making sure the right things get done, as opposed to making sure everything social media gets done.

The 18 Minute Social Media Day

Step 1 (5 Minutes) Your Social Media Morning Minutes

This is your opportunity to plan your social media for the day. Before turning on your computer or picking up your PDA, sit down with the to-do list and decide what is happening to make this a social media successful day. What can you realistically accomplish whether it’s writing a blog post, researching a new Twitter tool, sitting in on a webinar, or getting ready for that next conference?

Step 2 (1 Minute Every Hour) Social Media Refresh and Refocus

Managing your social media time hour-by-hour is both a discipline and a science. Don’t let the hours manage you … How many times do you all of a sudden realize you have spent the last 20 minutes reading Twitter updates, surfing Facebook Pages, or reading an article from an e-mail subscription?
Set your phone, computer or watch to ring every hour and start the work that is listed on your calendar. When you hear the beep, do a social media check up. Assess your progress and recommit the next hour to get back on track.

Step 3 (5 Minutes) Your Social Media After Dark

At the end of your day, shut the laptop and review your social media day. Ask yourself some questions: How did my social media day go? What did I learn today? Whom did I interact with? Did I meet new followers on Twitter that I should send a quick @ reply? Was there a nice RT of me I should acknowledge? Any comments on my blog I should respond to?
Building and maintaining relationships is critical in social media and it is easy to forget that it takes just a few minutes to share appreciation, congratulate someone, or offer thanks.
All that seems easy, but here are some tips to add to the 18 minute plan.

Social Media Delete

It’s very hard to say no. I get invites every day to join a webinar, take a survey, look at this press release for a nonprofit who has no money, help my brother-in-law send a logo that I have sent him 20 times already, take unscheduled phone calls, or get sucked into a technical problem with Apple support.
All of these unscheduled things can rob you from important and strategic social media time. To get the right things done, choosing what to ignore is as important to choosing what to focus on.

Social Media Calendar

Bregman emphasizes and I agree: Place the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. He also notes the power of the when and where. Statistics show that when you schedule an action item with a time and date, the chances of it getting done are far greater than letting it float.
Mastering distractions and getting things done efficiently and effectively goes far beyond social media. Bregman offers a system and practical guides of how to get done what matters most to us and our business in 18 minutes.
By: Lisa

Top 10 SEO Myths… Dispelled

In continuation to a relatively popular article I wrote last month on top web analytics myths, I thought I would expand upon the theme of dispelling myths again this month. This time, I turned to some fellow Search Engine Watch contributors to help crowd-sourced a list of favorite SEO myths we've heard over the years. In no particular order, these are our top 10 SEO myths… dispelled.

1. [Insert Fortune 500 Company] does it that way, so it must be right.

If you're looking to the Fortune 500 for SEO tips or reverse engineering their “SEO campaigns”, stop now; F500 doesn’t “get” SEO. Unfortunately, this fact was made famous in several Conductor Research studies over the years, but hit infamy when news hit about bad linking practices at JCPenney earlier this year.

2. Onsite SEO doesn’t matter.

Internal links, title tags, semantic mark-up, and clean code are just some of the onsite SEO factors that will contribute to significant improvements in rankings, usability, and indexing.

3. Paid links are bad or buying links can get you banned in Google.

Paying for links is not always bad. Consider products and services that cost money to use but generate links to your website. These may include directory listings, advertorial content, sponsorships, press releases, etc.
In addition, the relatively recent argument that using paid links will spell doom and gloom for your site should be taken with a grain of salt. Are there ways you can sink your rankings using paid links? Absolutely. Are you going to get banned on Google for strategic placements of paid links? Probably not.
Obviously there is a white hat/black hat/gray hat blur on this point, so please feel free to discuss and comment below.

4. Keyword density doesn’t matter.

This myth is a no-brainer: search engines use algorithms to calculate relevance of content on a page. How would anyone expect search engines not to use keyword density on that page to determine subject matter?

5. Look what I did in [insert non-current year here].

Old SEO tactics are about as useful as worn car tires. Will they work? Maybe, but you’re better off spending time and money to improve your content, fix technical issues, and build links rather than spinning your tires on lame tactics.

6. Matt Cutts [or insert Expert Name or Blog here] said it [insert year here] so it must still be true.

It has never been more obvious that Google’s search algorithm changes significantly several times per year. In addition, hundreds of other signals can influence rankings with varying degrees of weight and decay unevenly over time.
Anything written by Matt Cutts or SEOmoz several years ago should likely be stricken from the record as the game has indeed changed. Google has also changed their tune in terms of public relations with respect to SEO, with Cutts appearing and speaking in greater frequency on expert panels and in videos posted to the official Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel.

7. Content is king.

This mantra has been echoing through the vast conference halls of online marketing for far too long. While content, site architecture, social media and even technical intricacies can contribute to search ranking nirvana, they pale in significance compared to the SEO power of links. Although this argument may be a little “chicken and egg”, it should be noted that we didn’t rule out the possibility for a balance between content and links in the organic search monarchy.

8. Stop paying for keywords that you rank for organically.

There has been a long-standing debate on which is more important – SEO or PPC – but the truth is success in either is mutually beneficial. Rather than turning off paid search completely as organic rankings improve, try to leverage high organic rankings for higher quality score (and therefore lower cost per click).

9. Meta tags have a huge impact.

One might argue that meta descriptions have some impact on search rankings, if Google chooses to utilize them in the search results, but meta keywords died several years ago. Please let them rest in peace.

10. You can’t hurt a site with bad links

In general, bad links scattered across your inbound link profile aren't generally going to hurt your rankings. However, if you're the unwitting recipient of a significant amount of bad links overwhelming the good and you don't do something about it, you could be in for some trouble.
The best protection against spam links or bad links is to be proactive. Measure inbound links on a routine basis, keep an eye on unusual inbound linking, and enact a good link building regimen.
Thanks to SEW contributors Michael Bonfils, Rob Chant, Thom Craver, Simon Heseltine, Kristine Schachinger, and Frank Watson for sharing their SEO myths.
As usual, we're anxious to hear from our community of readers. Heard a doozy of a myth lately? Disagree with one of the above? Let us know!

By: Garry Przyklenk,

Our Top 10 Picks for WordPress Plugins

Wordpress is one of the most popular web publishing platforms due to its ease of setup, low cost and customization potential. Since its inception in 2003, it has been downloaded over 25 million times and because of its mass appeal, developers have created a whole host of plugins that add increased functionality and flexibility to the already robust platform.

As of the time of this article, over 16,500 plugins are available with over 222,386,280 downloads and counting. Which plugins are top rated? Which ones will help your website perform optimally?

Though your specific type of website will outline the various plugins you will need, there are some top picks we feel you should consider.

If you have a favorite plugin that isn’t mentioned, please let us know in the comments!

1. Wordpress SEO by Yoast

With over 540,000 downloads and a near perfect rating, Wordpress SEO by Yoast is one of our top picks for SEO plugins. Here are some of its features:

• Post Titles & Meta Descriptions -You will also see snippet previews of what your description will look like in the search engines


• Robots Meta Configuration – You can adjust nofollow options on a per post basis.


• Breadcrumb menus


• Robots.txt and .htaccess  - You can edit your .htaccess and robots.txt files using the built-in file editor.


• 301 Redirects


• RSS Feed Options


• Many more features…

Here is a snapshot of one of the admin screens:

2. Jetpack

JetPack is a plugin bundle that includes visitor stats, social media sharing tools and short codes. More features are planned for the future as well. See the screenshot below of what it looks like after first installation:

3. Disqus

Disqus is a comment system which allows for a more interactive blog commenting experience. The system promotes online communities with ease of sharing and interaction.

Some of Disqus’ features:

• Threaded comments and replies


• Twitter mentions


• Approval or rejection of comments via email


• Aggregated comments


• Subscribe and RSS options


• SEO friendly comments


• Increased exposure and readership

4. WPTouch

With the newest technologies taking the mobile world by storm, this plugin can't come at a better time. I have not downloaded this plugin personally but with over 2.5 million downloads and rave reviews, it is worth a mention.

WPTouch transforms your Wordpress site into a mobile-friendly version when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung Touch and Blackberry devices. You can customize your website's appearance and give your visitors the option to switch back and forth from WPTouch view and your regular theme.

5. WP Greet Box

This plugin promotes a more welcoming user experience for visitors by displaying messages for them when they land on your site. You have the ability to customize these messages based on the the website from which your visitors came. For example, if a user visits your site from Twitter, you can customize a message for them to tweet your post. You can also create default messages for new visitors who are not referred by another site.

Here are some of the default messages that come with the plugin. You can edit and customize as needed as well as remove the function from individual posts:

6. W3 Total Cache

Recommended by some of the top minds in the industry, this plugin improves the user experience of your site by enhancing your blog’s performance, reducing download times and protecting your blog from unexpected high traffic surges.

Some of the benefits as listed on the plugin page:

• At least 10x improvement in overall site performance (Grade A in YSlow or significant Google Page Speed improvements) when fully configured


• Improved conversion rates and "site performance" which affect your site's rank on Google.com


• "Instant" subsequent page views: browser caching


• Optimized progressive render: pages start rendering quickly


• Reduced page load time: increased visitor time on site; visitors view more pages


• Improved web server performance; sustain high traffic periods


• Up to 80% bandwidth savings via minify and HTTP compression of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and feeds

7. Limit Login Attempts

If you are a current Wordpress user, you most likely have experienced at least one hacking attempt. To combat this heinous activity, this plugin limits login attempts once a specified number of times has been reached. You can customize the number of login attempts as seen in this screenshot of the admin panel.



Without this plugin, Wordpress allows unlimited login entries, which makes it easier for hackers to discover passwords.

8. Akismet

Akismet is the most popular plugin to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. You can review each comment and approve/disapprove them before they are published. The plugin comes default with every Wordpress download. You will simply need to activate it and follow the instructions to retrieve and save your API key.

9. Contact Form 7

This plugin is simple and effective and gives users the opportunity to display a contact page without messing with any code. The forms are customizable and support CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering.

10. Sharebar

Sharebar adds a customizable share box to the left side of a blog post. I like this box because it moves with you when you scroll down the post and it is easily recognizable. You can also remove the sharebar from individual posts as well. When Auto mode is set to ON, the Sharebars are added automatically.

A Few More…

There are a few more plugins I must add to the mix. Every marketer needs to track visitors and stats to improve and grow. Here are my two top picks for analytics and visitor tracking:

Google Analytics for Wordpress
WP-Click-Tracker


By: Jenna Scaglione

8 Durable SEO Elements

Recent changes to Google’s search ranking algorithms and highly publicized search penalization of well-known brands, have caused much angst in the SEO community. However, Google’s changes to its algorithms aren’t new.
Seasoned SEOs have experienced major algorithm changes over the last decade. In fact, Google has confirmed making on average at least one change per day to its search algorithms. Clearly change is here to stay.

How do you minimize the impact of these inevitable changes? Focus your efforts on the durable elements of SEO. These are the cardinal elements of SEO that will stay true regardless of Google’s ongoing improvements to its algorithms.
These eight durable elements will withstand the test of time because they are aligned with Google’s explicit statements and implicit motivations. Here’s a rundown of these elements and practical steps you can take to align your website with them.

1. Basic On-Page SEO Rules

The basic keyword SEO rules per the Google Webmaster’s SEO Guide are easy to communicate and easy to follow. Google wants you to follow these rules, because it makes crawling easier for their bots, which leads to better results for users, and in turn, helps Google with market share.
Make sure your pages are optimized for these basic SEO rules. Include target keywords in your URLs, titles, meta tags, H1s, etc. Determine which pages rank for which keywords. Then use the right keywords to double-down your efforts on these pages.

2. Inbound Quality Links

An inbound link from an external website to your website signals to Google that the content it’s pointing at is relevant to the subject surrounding that link. Quality inbound links aren’t easy to amass and they require your content to be good enough for someone else to reference. For these reasons, quality inbound links are believed to have the biggest impact on ranking.
Continue building your inbound links through white hat content syndication and promotions. Create unique content that others will want to reference and link to. Build relationships with other web writers, so they are aware of your content.

3. Authority

Google’s Internet is a meritocracy and authority is essentially your assigned status within this order. To date, Google has confirmed using only Google PageRank and social media authority as the two types of authority signals in their ranking algorithm.
A website’s authority is factored into rankings. There will always be those who attempt to game the system rather than advance on merit, so diminished authority is one way Google punishes fraud.
Build your authority by creating unique content and follow white hat practices. Build relationships with authoritative sites and users. Pursue links from them to benefit from their authority too.

4. User Experience

Google wants their users to be satisfied. If Google gives high ranks to bad websites, with terrible designs, slow page load speed, and difficult-to-navigate pages, users will look for alternative search solutions.
A fast page load speed and a low bounce rate are two measureable indications of a good user experience. Additional qualitative measures include a nice design, easy navigation and a good UI.
Basically, anything that makes a user remain on your site and read more. Keep your site updated, measure your bounce rate and page load speed, and create clear alignment between the keywords you target, your content and the experience you’re creating for your visitors.

5. Freshness

If relevancy is the name of the game, then freshness is its nickname. The world is evolving and so is the web, and freshness of content will always be an indication of a site keeping up with the world. Freshness is a supporting factor to a site’s authority and plays a huge part in news ranking.
Keep creating new content as well as updating existing content. Link to it internally from indexed pages as well as syndicate it on social media. Register your site and submit a sitemap to Google. If you have a news site, register to be on the Google News Index.

 

6. Diversity

To borrow from the capital investment world, diversification minimizes your systematic risk allowing you higher overall return on investment, and it would appear Google follows this rule. Google prefers diversity in the format and content of its results.
Use multiple formats to deliver your content on the same page – video, presentations, images – and publish unique pages for diverse content to optimize for long tail terms. Submit a unique sitemap to Google for formats other than text.

7. Feedback

In order to gauge their effectiveness, Google must collect feedback on its work. From machine input, like click through rate and bounce rate, to human input, like human evaluators, Google’s “manual intervention” and  Google +1, Google will keep collecting feedback to improve its results.
Use only white hat tactics, be relevant and optimize your pages to the actual content on them. In addition, syndicate, promote and give people an easy way to share their feedback.

8. Compatibility with Updated Technology

Being compatible with new technologies such as new browsers is important to the overall user experience. Freshness is always good practice when it comes to being on top.
As an example, consider mobile devices. With the emergence and rapid growth of the mobile market, we can see how and why, in the future, Google will discount sites that aren't mobile device-compatible.
Make sure your site is up-to-date with the latest mainstream technology. For example, verify that your mobile site is indexed by Google and submit a mobile sitemap.

Summary

These are the eight durable rules of SEO. Follow and implement them on your website to maximize your SEO results and maintain your website rankings over time.
By: Erez Barak

4 Things to Consider Before Investing in SEO Software

SEO software is a great tool for the DIY site owner or in-house employee looking to take control over their site’s SEO. It can help streamline the components of on- and off-site SEO, bring all your SEO activities into one place for you to more easily manage and more. There is no shortage of great SEO software available for purchase either. But before you jump the gun and download the latest and greatest SEO software you have to ask yourself, “is this the right decision for me and my site?”
Here are 4 things to take into consideration before purchasing SEO software:
Might be as expensive as hiring an SEO consultant
Some SEO software platforms can be incredibly expensive; you might find yourself shelling out hundreds dollars a month for any given SEO software platform. At what price point does it just make more sense to forgo the software and hire an actual person to handle your SEO? While the cost of an SEO consultant might vary on what kind of campaign you’re trying to implement, it might be more cost effective in the long run to hire an SEO services provider instead of buying the software.
For one thing, the SEO provider is a real person dedicated to the success of your website. They’ll be able to build a custom campaign that takes your business goals and assets into account. While SEO software might help streamline the process, it can’t do your SEO for you—an actual person will take the full load off of your shoulders so you can focus on other things. An SEO provider will also know how to leverage your other online activities such as social networking and your business blog for SEO so you get even more value for their work. SEO software might not be able to that as easily.
Account for the learning curve
Just like any other software you’ve ever used (either in your professional or personal life), you have to learn how it works before you can take full advantage of what it has to offer. You have to remember to factor in that learning curve into your SEO calendar. Do you have the time to set aside a few hours every day so you can learn the ins and outs of your new SEO software? If you don’t understand all the facets of your SEO software, then you aren’t able to take advantage of all it can do for you, meaning a good chunk of the price of purchasing that software is going to waste.
For comparison, consider Microsoft Excel. Just about everyone can make a list of numbers in Excel and add them up, but how many people know how to really use Excel to perform complex calculations and equations? Not nearly as many. If you want to use SEO software well, you need to become an expert at it. That isn’t going to happen overnight.
Do you have the time to really use it effectively?
After you factor in time for learning how your new SEO software works, you also have to remember that you still need to use it! If the software is just going to be sitting on your desk, what was the point? Don’t buy the software in the hopes that one day you’ll figure out how to work it into your schedule. If you don’t have the time to implement and use the software now, chances are you won’t any time soon. It would be better to invest the cost of the SEO software in an SEO consultant who can take all the work off your hands.
Still have to learn the basics of SEO
SEO software is a tool, but you still need the basic SEO knowledge to make it work for you and your site. For example, Microsoft Word can’t teach you how to write, but it makes the writing process easier—that’s what an SEO tool can do for you. As a site owner, you will still have to learn the basic vocabulary of SEO, learn to identify white hat from black hat link building techniques, figure out how to integrate your SEO and social media marketing efforts and more. Your SEO software is only going to know what you do!
By: Nick Stamoulis

WordPress Sucks: Impress Search Engines With These Alternatives

With the recent WordPress security vulnerabilities, hacked themes, exploits, and all sorts of madness floating around, it was only a matter of time before search engines started to pipe in and penalize “vulnerable” sites.
If your site is clean and clear, you have nothing to worry about, right? I don’t think so.
Considering that WordPress is so blatantly easy to install, configure, and get up and running, it has become the spammers choice for mass site deployment.
You only have to dig so deep to find services like LinkFarmEvolution and other mass WordPress posting services that offer to get your article “syndicated” to more than 5,000 websites instantly.
In essence, WordPress is a PC. Everyone uses it. With that, everyone is trying to exploit it for gain.
There are tons of other content management systems out there, the Mac’s of the CMS world if you will. Let’s start looking into some of them.
Note: You can fix most of these problems with WordPress by simply staying up to date, and, a variety of other methods which I will talk about at a later date.
For now, let’s talk about one reason why you should move to something other than WordPress: It isn’t WordPress and search engines will love your site moreso for not being WordPress.
Think about it: effort = reward. If you slapped together a website using a cheap theme and launch it on the web, do you really deserve to be ranked higher than someone who invested time and money into a designer, writing, and well structured thought out compliant code?
So here’s my short list of “CMS” or “blog” like systems that will get your website up and running almost as quickly as WordPress, without being WordPress.

• OctoPress: Sophisticated, made for hackers, and it has “press” in the name. What more do you want?
• Jekyll: OctoPress is based on Jekyll. You can even import your existing WordPress site into Jekyll using a script.
• Textpattern: Easy to use, very flexible, feels like WordPress.
• MovableType: Before WordPress there was Greymatter and MovableType. 
• FeinCMS: Django based CMS.
• Notepad (or TextMate): Yes, it isn’t a system, but sometimes hand coding is simply the best way to go.

By: Gary-Adam Shannon,

Now Google Could Make Your Wallet Lighter

Early today Osama Bedier Vice President of Payments announced through the official Google Blog that the Search Engine Giant had delivered on its May promise to create an app that would make the fat consumer wallet stuffed with credit cards look thin. Google Wallet opened its account on a limited scale with its first partner  Citi Master Card using Sprint and First Data. The tap and pay Google Wallet does not require you to use your phone and the Near Field Communication. ( Below Photo posted at GigaOm )

The video clip showing a demo of Google Wallet in action using a Sprint Nexus 4G phone, had a satisfied customer offloading his overstuffed wallet packed with credit cards, claiming ‘ it is serenity now’.
Google also announced that it will soon go full throttle after the required incorporation of ‘air update’ and further up gradation of software for the next roll outs. It confirmed that Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet. It also introduced the Google Prepaid card, which can be funded with any existing credit card and added a $10 introductory bonus to early activators who would set up their Google wallet Accounts before end of the year.
Google Wallet had announced its intent to set up an open commerce ecosystem, a statement that has been differently interpreted by analysts. While most have taken the announcement at face value understanding that it was the ease of operation that Google was talking off, a few have interpreted it as an add on venture for using Google’s mountain of cash pile that exceeds $ 30 billion as of date.
They claim that Google could mean effectively that it would want to get into the consumer driven credit card market and enable interest rationalization in credit transactions for merchants and users, something that could give headache to the existing credit card companies. Whatever be the outcome, the Google Wallet business seems a promising diversification for the search engine giant in search of new avenues for its global domination plan.
By: Sandip Sen

What Might Google+ Improvements Mean for Marketers?

It’s been about 90 days since the Google+ project began and the proud parents of the bundle of joy are still oooh-ing and awww-ing over their 3-month-old. The site has seen more than 100 improvements, the most recent of which rolled out Tuesday. Let’s examine a few of those improvements and what it can mean to marketers.

Phone Hangouts

In a Skype inspired move, Google+ now offers live hangout streaming on your mobile phone. Only supported on Android 2.3+ phones with front facing cameras, this app is now available in the Android Market for download.

Broadcast Hangouts

Speaking to a large audience just got a little bit easier. The recent launch of Hangouts On Air allows you to interact with a large group of your Google+ buds, or just view as a spectator. There’s even an option to record your session.
Think we’ll see Google+ only webinars, free training sessions, and even live concerts? Of course!

Screensharing

Additional add-ons include screensharing. Need to teach a lesson, share photos, or whatever else might be on your screen? Hangouts now have the addition of screensharing to make your experience more seamless.

Sketchpad

Hangouts now come with the additional functionality of a sketchpad. Certainly will come in handy when you’re trying to show a client, friend or family member a concept that can’t be put into words.
I can see this helping with creative content projects like Infographics or ad copy: real-time mockup in Google+. Also – quite an entertaining way to play hangman with Grandma.

Google Docs

Google+ has finally integrated Google Docs into Hangouts. Work together on a project, update an editorial calendar with a client, or explain financials in real-time. Heck, even get your taxes done in real-time and see how the numbers compute with your accountant in a hangout. Connect with a freelance writer and see how they are progressing with an article, piece of ad copy, or project you have contracted them for.

Named Hangouts

Have a need to talk to others in a particular industry or with similar interests? Look for a public hangout about that topic and connect. Or create your own. This is a great opportunity for an up and coming designer looking to reach out to fashion bloggers, other designers, or to collaborate on designs to do so no matter where they are in the world.
Use these hangouts to meet up with a support group and invite others to join in on the conversation as well. Hold an online networking event and connect with prospective customers too. The possibilities are endless.

Hangout API

Something developers will likely jump for joy over is the basic set of hangout APIs being previewed. Building real-time applications for Google+ hangouts is now within reach. Games are certainly on the horizon for Google+!

Search

Certainly something you’d expect would have already been integrated into Google+ from the search engine giant, but search is now available. Relevant content and connections will show up in addition to relevant posts. Easily sort through and find content related to what you’re looking for.

Open to All

Finally, after 3 months, Google+ is available to all. Anyone has the ability to join, and over the course of the next few days the entire globe can join Google+.
Additional Updates on the Way
We certainly haven’t seen the end of Google+ updates. Some on the horizon include:

• +1ing comments from your iOS device 
• Improved support
• More personalization options

By: Kaila Strong,

'The Power of Google' Senate Hearing is Must Watch TV Today

People should be watching the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights hearing on "The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?" today. Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt will testify along with a number of his competitors who claim Google has hurt their business. NextTag, Yelp, and Expedia will be represented.

The Power of Google

The UK Guardian thinks Schmidt will "argue the company offers a level playing field for rival products – and is increasingly facing competition from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. He will argue that Google's position as the world's No 1 search engine belies a rise in alternative ways to find information online, pointing to Facebook and other social networks. Research from Nielsen last week showed that US internet users spend more time on Facebook than any other website."
Additionally, All Things Digital reports Schmidt will testify that “Microsoft’s Bing launched in June 2009 and has grown so rapidly that some commentators have speculated that it could overtake Google as early as 2012.”
What is being overlooked here is one is not the same as the other. Google isn't a social network - even with what they have on offer in Google Plus – it is a search engine. Comparing it to Facebook is like comparing radio and TV – true one impacted the other but they were different mediums.
Regardless, Google has prepared its own website, Facts about Google and Competition, which Google is calling a "viewer's guide" to the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee's hearing. Featuring seven talking points, Google preemptively tries to spin the following topics in their favor:

• Google is a gateway to the web and controls what people see. 
• Google favors its own content. 
• Google's search ranking changes hurt a certain website or caused them to lose traffic. 
• Google deters other companies from innovating. 
• Google is hurting small businesses. 
• Google used third party reviews improperly for its Place Pages. 
• Google limits choice in the Android mobile operating system.

Startup search engine Blekko offered support to Google yesterday. In a blog post, "Blekko's not afraid of Google, why is Washington?", CEO Rich Skrenta noted that the products Apple has brought to market have done far more damage to Microsoft than the Department of Justice lawsuit they faced in the 1990s.
"The success of Google should be applauded on Capitol Hill, not derided," Skrenta wrote. "Let’s let entrepreneurs, technology and good old-fashioned innovation deal with Google. Consumers will always be the winners in that scenario."

How to Watch the Hearing

In the early days of television Senate subcommittee hearings were as popular as soap operas. "From the 1950s through the 1970s, televised Senate hearings played a major part in shaping public opinion on topics ranging from organized crime and alleged communist infiltration of federal agencies to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandals," the U.S. Senate site explains.
Sadly, yet realistically, we no longer keep that close an eye on our public and corporate officials. The major networks aren't covering it live – we'll have to see how many minutes it gets in the news.
If you want to watch the Senate is streaming it and cable channel C-SPAN3 will air the hearing live at 2 p.m. ET. I wonder what most of the monitors will be tuned to in Mountain View today?
I'll be watching and I hope they discuss their impact on the analytics market when they bought Urchin and started giving away a service numerous companies were making a living charging varying fees for.

What Will Be Covered?

Search rankings will obviously be the large focus of the hearing. Given Expedia is represented by counsel, the purchase of ITA will no doubt be front and center. Yelp will be able to tell how their information has been usurped and dropped by Google, while NextTag will be able to present their case for loss in rankings.
While Google addresses the U.S. Senate they are also dealing with numerous antitrust issues in Europe and have court dates in numerous countries.
"Today Google, like Microsoft then, is both admired and feared. Google has used the riches from its dominance in search and search advertising to expand into video distribution with YouTube, smartphone software with Android and Web browsers with Chrome. It has added online commerce offerings in local retail and restaurants, comparison shopping and travel, and folded them into its search engine, prompting complaints that Google is giving its businesses preferred placement in search results," the New York Times noted.
What they are missing is they are buying into those areas where their major advertisers are. That Google knows conversion numbers of successful advertisers cannot be denied, whether they use such information for developing programs and products is unknown.
Have the manipulated results for their own benefit? There are numerous types of articles on this issue. The fact Google laid a trap for Bing by manipulating their results shows they can do it... whether it is done any other time and for what reasons is the big question.

Must Watch TV

People in our industry need to watch this hearing, as should the generic public, to understand exactly what this company does. Their latest Droid phone ad even plays with the attitude of them taking over. We really don't need a Big Brother and this may be the start of the break up of a dominant force in everyone's lives. Either way, it is must watch TV.
by: Frank watson

Basic SEO for Facebook Fan Pages

Many have tried, and failed, to write a good post about how to SEO a Facebook fan page.
For example, optimizing the filename of your profile picture is one popular piece of advice that doesn’t really matter, considering Facebook just renames the file something like 198135_10150109366....jpg. Another popular tip: you should link to your main website from your Facebook page. Yes, you should for visitors. But this doesn’t optimize your fan page because Facebook just nofollows, redirects, and clusters your URL in a mess of code anyway.
So let's take a different approach to Facebook SEO today.
I want you to imagine that your Facebook fan page is your website – or another website for your brand at least. While it may not ever rank first for a keyword, you still want it to be optimized.
If you want to keyword optimize your Facebook fan page, these are the areas that actually pull SEO elements from your page's content for additional optimization.

Your Facebook Fan Page SEO

• SEO title: The name of your page plus | Facebook.
• Meta description: The name of your page plus the About description of your page, followed by | Facebook.
• H1: The name of your page.

This is like the search optimization of the homepage of your fan page / website. If you didn't consider keyword optimization when you created it, and you have less than 100 fans, you're in luck. You can still change your page's name.
Two things to keep in mind aside from search optimization includes:

• Branding: It may be more important to have your page as a recognizable brand than a specific keyword phrase.
• Appearance: Whenever you comment as your page, or people tag your page, your entire name will come up, so if you're page is Your Brand - Keyword, Keyword, and Keywords it might look a bit excessive (and lead to less tagging).

Your title can be as long as you choose, but keep in mind the standard length of SEO titles (70 characters) before getting too crazy. Also, since your page name is also a part of your meta description, you might not want it to make it too long and overshadow that.
To edit your About information to make a great meta description, go to your page and Edit Page > Basic Information, and fill in the About field with a 140 character description like you would with any website meta description.

Facebook Fan Page Updates

• SEO Title: The first 18 characters of your update.

If you’re posting a standard status update, the SEO title will be pulled from the first 18 characters (approximately 18 characters, sometimes a bit less). The following update by Search Engine Watch's fan page has a title of Yahoo Search, which is pretty good.

If you're posting a link to your fan page wall, you'll have an option to "Say something about this link..." – the first 18 characters of what you enter in this field are going to be the SEO title for the individual page of that status update.
If you don't post something there, the SEO title for your update will just be Facebook. Plus it won't take up as much real estate in someone's news feed, which means it will be less noticeable. So I would suggest that, regardless of whether you care about the SEO, you fill this part out when adding a link to your wall.

If you’re concerned about optimizing your updates while considering them as individual pages for your overall fan page / website (click on the timestamp for any update to see it on its own page), then you might want to consider sticking some keywords right at the beginning of your comment.
Using the above example, I could simply put the post category / main keyword as start the update such as Google Analytics and then write the rest of my comment. If I continued this trend with my updates, my fan page would have lots of "pages" underneath it optimized for my main keywords.
The best part is, unlike Twitter status updates that don’t go that far back, you can see your Facebook fan page updates at least two years – mine go all the way back to when I created my fan page, which was in February 2009.

Facebook Fan Page Notes

• SEO Title: The title of your note plus | Facebook.
• Meta Description: Your page name wrote a note titled the title of your note plus | Facebook.

Facebook notes – they don't get a lot of love anymore, but they do have a more controllable SEO title when you create them and, of course, they add to the additional "pages" underneath your fan page / website. Notes allow you to add lengthier updates to your fan page without having to take your fans offsite to get more of your content.
Some people use them to syndicate their blog posts on their fan page, but I find this feature is a little inconsistent. Unique notes, on the other hand, could add more value to your page.

Facebook Fan Page Discussion Topics

• SEO Title: The title of your discussion's topic | Facebook.

Ever wanted a little forum / discussion board, but don't want to invest in forum software? Facebook has an often-overlooked discussion board, with each topic giving you a little SEO title credit.

It might be a nice place for you to have discussions with your fans that they don't necessarily want on your wall. If you don't have one on your profile already, you can get it by going to the Discussion Board and using the Add to My Pagelink to add it to your pages.
by: Kristi Hines

Avast Ye! Talk Like a Scurvy Pirate wit' Facebook, Twitter n' Google

This day is International Talk Like A Pirate Day 2011. Woefully ye noticed all ye pirates be speakin' a little different? Yarr, bein' a Monday, the grog fest be early this year, but yer mateys p'on the good ship Search Engine Watch wanted to give ye a jolly way to hoist the colors afore the moon haunts the seven seas. So, we made 'tis guide to be tellin' ye how to change ye Facebook blabber settin's to scurvy pirate speak, squawk on Twitter, 'n bring ye treasure huntin' on Google a wee bit more o' a ruckas.

Changing Your Language Settings on Facebook to Talk Like A Pirate

It's incredibly easy to change your language settings on Facebook. Simply:
1. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and locate the Language Settings link, which will display the current language setting you are using.

2. Click the link and a dialog box will appear. Click English (Pirate) to change the language setting change and then click 'Close'. Shiver me timbers, Facebook is now all piratey!

A warning comes with this salt-blastedly savvy tip. Turning your Facebook account language settings to English (Pirate) is so funny that you may never change back your settings again. The hazard being that you grow an unnatural habit for calling your friends wenches and sea dogs, refer to your family as kin and robustly congratulating newly-weds for "gettin' anchored".
Not only could such antics be construed as rude, but speaking from experience, you might find yourself wondering why no one else 'gets' your rampaging witticisms. The reason is because changing your language settings only changes what you see - not everyone else's. So, unless you encourage your friends to change their language settings too (which I heartily recommend you do), you may find yourself sharing a giant in-joke... with yourself.

Squawking on Twitter

Twitter's language settings does not currently support English (Pirate). However, if you cut and paste your tweet into this nifty little website, Post Like A Pirate, it will automagically get translated into pirate-speak right before your very eyes.

Click the Twitter link and it creates the tweet for you. The embedded Bit.ly link takes a user back to Post Like A Pirate, which should help your followers join in the shenanigans. After all, it's no fun raving like a lunatic on your own, right?

Treasure Huntin' on Google Pirate

Google, "Tha Old Seadog", has always maintained a swashbuckling version of their flagship at Google Pirate, which now has gleeful translations of their (relatively) recently introduced universal sidebar and plusbar.
There are many other silly versions of Google to be spied here, but as yet, there is no Gmail theme for pirates. Yet, there is a ninja theme. This has proven to be such a carbuncle in the backside of pirate fans that some are petitioning Google.

One Dastardly Tip for Ye Blackbeard SEOs

For those of you who prefer not to run any risk of walking the plank, a fun way to celebrate International Talk Like A Pirate Day, could be to translate your hand crafted blog posts into English (Pirate) using the plethora of translation tools available (there are subtle differences between the translations).
However, if you are feeling a little churlish this day, then you might want to weird out the web analytics teams in your competitors crow's nest by linking to a piratey translation of their site. The linked translation will force a dastardly duplicate copy of the site to persist on some 'inferior' search engines, such that said site may rank well enough to get traffic from search phrases such as "Blimey, That's Good", "I Needs Ya Gold", and "Stab that Crustacean!"
Such a motherload of curious search terms will surely have those landlubbers scratchin' their bonces!
By: Jonathan Allen,

5 Ways SEOs Can Work with Social Media Managers

As social media gets widely adopted across organizations of all sizes we’re starting to see social media and search marketing teams operating in silos. That is already the case in many organizations. It isn’t unusual to have a 5:1 ratio where there are five community managers for every search marketer.
Due to nature of daily social media management, it’s natural that social media teams will outnumber small search teams (including one man teams!). This puts the onus on SEOs to reach out to their social media counterparts and ensure SEO is part of social media process as well.
An in-house SEO invests a lot of their time into creating an enterprise-wide process to work with developers, IT, and other important stakeholders. SEOs should also create a process for social media teams since they create a huge amount of content on a daily basis.
One of the first steps to get SEO integrated into any existing process is SEO training. But there are additional ways SEOs can work with social media team on an ongoing basis to ensure that even social media team members integrate SEO and leverage their daily community management efforts. Let’s jump in into what I think are the top 5 ways SEO’s can work with their social media counterparts:

1. Train Social Media Managers on SEO Essentials

SEO, especially in-house SEO, is a lot about demystifying the SEO myths across the organization and to me that starts with a ground level SEO training. I like to call this “Essential SEO Training” as the goal here is not to make SEO experts out of your social media managers but just enough to ensure that SEO is built into the social media process (most importantly not missed out on).
Many community managers come from a non-technical background so if you start with technical jargons like server response codes, faceted navigation, etc. then you will lose them. Instead, focus more on meta tags, H1 tags, alt text, page titles, and so on.
It is also assumed that you as an SEO would be working with IT or developers on the technical side of SEO so better to keep it simple for social media team members. Reaching out and offering to train them can be a good icebreaker of sorts and is also a great way to make an impression with the social media group.
Remember, most of the times blogging responsibilities also fall under social media team. Training them on how to write optimized blog posts can benefit your SEO performance a great deal.

2. Show Them the “Whys” and “Hows” of Keyword Research

Search marketers understand that keywords are the cornerstone of SEO. But not everyone understands that, so driving that point across to social media team members should be your goal.
Besides the obvious importance of keywords, you can show them how to use the various keyword tools.
One common mistake people make is picking keywords with highest number of searches. Instead, you want to train them on why that may not be the right approach.
It’s important that they learn how various keyword tools employ different data collection methodology. The other advantage of empowering them with tools is they are self-sufficient thus allowing you to focus on more strategic initiatives.

3. Optimizing Tweets For Visibility

As engines start integrating more tweets in their SERPs, we’ll see an increasing number of tweets show up for normal keyword queries. Twitter too is constantly updating their internal search engine, so getting found inside Twitter searches becomes critical as well.
Inserting one good keyword in each tweet is a good tip to share with social media managers. Think about the search impact social media managers can create if they target the same keyword while writing a blog post, creating few tweets, posting on Facebook fan page all the while using the same keyword.
I’m always amazed at the amount of content a social media team ends up creating on a daily basis. It is not just the original tweets but the retweets, mentions, etc. that makes up the lifecycle of a tweet.
Think of the SEO opportunity if you can take that content and house it in your domain – something to the effect that Zappos has done at twitter.zappos.com. I talked about this last year during SES Chicago in one of my in-house SEO panel. Again, SEOs are well suited for this kind of initiatives.

4. Optimizing Facebook Fan Page

A tremendous amount of time and resources are poured into building a company’s Facebook community that it makes sense if we start optimizing that content on fan pages for SEO.
Jeff Widman and team at PageLever recently did an interesting study on the referral traffic that search engines send to Facebook fan pages. They looked at almost 1,000 Facebook fan pages and found that almost one-third of external traffic is sent by search engines.

The key takeaway here: optimize your Facebook page just like you would any web property. It would be a hard battle convincing social media managers to allow you to make changes on Fan pages (it’s their baby!) but looking at back end analytics (Facebook insights for starters) and then making an “SEO case” can help you win this battle.
You can customize your training session to tackle Facebook posts while keeping your SEO process transparent. This way social media team can integrate SEO on an ongoing basis without you being involved.
This is another social media property where so much content (and engagement) is created that it makes perfect sense to leverage it for SEO. This can also be another source by which SEO can attribute the gains to their performance.

5. Teach Them the Importance of Conversion Metrics

The science of measuring conversion metrics like a search marketer doesn’t come naturally to “many” social media managers. Most of the time, search marketers create campaigns with end conversions in mind. They launch campaigns only if the ROI makes sense.
Not so with social media as collectively we are still in the “figuring out mode.” On top of that, the social media customer conversion funnel is slightly longer with more emphasis on fan engagement.
It’s easy to get carried away with the “coolness factor” of social media like number of fans, followers, design, apps, and so on that folks forget the purpose of a business is to create customers, as Peter Drucker said.
True, direct marketers can get little disappointed with social media as there is no straightforward “input X amount of dollars to get Y number of customers” ratio on social media. This is where SEO’s can help social media team understand common performance metrics the “search world” follows.
Search marketers should realize the engagement factor of social media so search marketers can also do with some unlearning of their own. Collaborating and coming up with common set of metrics is the way forward.

Summary

Increasingly, more collaboration is needed between search and social teams if an organization’s digital marketing strategy is to succeed. The nature of search marketing makes it easy to measure performance in terms of dollar amount and this is also where SEO can take a lead and support social media activities.
By:  Bob Tripathi,

Social Media Tech IPO’s in Uncertain Markets

Volatile markets and listing issues are now delaying tech IPO’s as cash flush start-ups well funded from private investors defer their public listing. This despite the LinkedIn success at garnering a tremendous response from the market, its stock price touching an all time high of $94 which was more than double issue price.
Following this stupendous success of LinkedIn at the IPO, which raised its market valuation to over $8 billion it was expected that Twitter, Groupon, Zynga and Facebook who had filed intent of going for a IPO with the SEC would soon get into the act. With the market suddenly turning volatile with the Europe and US debt issues surfacing, the tech IPO’s now seem to be faced with uncertainty.
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo surprised analysts and reporters at a press conference at its San Francisco headquarters last Thursday saying “We want to be able to remain independent and grow business the way we want to, and not be beholden to public markets until we feel like we want to be there.” The micro-blogging major which had just raised $400 million in venture financing is now stepping up to generate more advertisement revenue. In 2010 the company gingerly started introducing advertisement by Twitter users, without permitting spam that could annoy other twitter users. Such interaction has exceeded expectations creating a revenue model that Twitter lacked but sorely needed in order to survive on its own steam.

Following Twitter Group on also announced the postponement of its IPO albeit for different reasons. Investors had raised concerns over its method of calculation of profits that excluded marketing costs. Questions from SEC remain to be answered by the company just like Zynga both of who will be taking time to solve the issues before going for the IPO.
While Groupon has to redraw its metrics that excludes marketing and other expenses from its profit calculations in case of Zynga the issue lies with metrics for the measurement of its daily and monthly, as well as its bookings that have come under scrutiny. Adding to the SEC woes, the volatility in the markets and the uncertain financial climate has prompted tech the start-ups to postpone their IPO’s for now.
By: Sandip Sen

Social SEO – Facebook & Twitter Best Practices

Optimizing your social presence for search is important, right? That is certainly what we've all been told for some time, but determining why it's important and deciding where to focus can be challenging. Exponential growth of a medium is great and all, but your problems figuring out how to tame the wild beast tend to grow exponentially as well.
Let's discuss a couple of simple ideas regarding conversational media (i.e., social networking sites and blogs) and its relation to search:

1. How to help your social pages rank better
2. How to help your website rank better with social influences

A Little Perspective About the Market as a Whole

The growth in activity at conversational media sites is undeniable. The number of unique has increased more than 80 percent since 2007 to 213 million in May 2011, while total visits to the category grew 136 percent to 6.2 billion.
Since a search click to a website represents one type of site visit, this is where we can begin to connect the dots on influence between navigation events. The number of search clicks to the category reached 845 million in May, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total visits to the category. That number has grown 145 percent since 2007, outpacing gains in both unique visitors and total category visits.

Branded social media searches (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and people searches (e.g., friends, celebrities) appear to be the two primary growth drivers of search clicks.
Although these types of terms still make up the vast majority of the terms driving traffic to conversational media sites, the fastest growing search traffic segment is actually big name brands. Well-known consumer brands have finally begun to embrace their conversational media assets and are driving a considerable amount of traffic directly to Facebook and Twitter in addition to their own websites.
When combining the top 20 brand names in retail, finance, and travel, their branded searches delivered over 1.6 million clicks directly to Facebook, a 1,300 percent increase since mid-2009.

How to Help Your Social Pages Rank Better

Links on SERPs are like shelves in a store: Owning more shelf space, and the more varieties you have to offer, invariably will drive more sales (clicks). Because you will already own the premium position for your website for your branded searches, further promotion of your social media assets can only improve your end game.
In collaboration with SEO software vendor BrightEdge Technologies, we've identified three simple steps you can take to improve the rankings of your social pages.

Link From Your Homepage

It can’t be as simple as linking from your homepage, can it? Actually, it can because search engine algorithms absolutely value these links when scoring sites (more on this later).
Despite this reality, 6 of the top 20 most searched for Retail brands did not have any sort of social media integration on their homepages. Talk about a missed opportunity! Linking from your home page and using your brand name in the link will have immediate impact.

Use Brand Names in Posts

URLs that match search terms have a built in advantage for high SEO rankings on that search. This same principle will apply to the words you use in your social media posts, so be sure to use the brand names of your company and your products when posting for maximum effect.

Get Likes

Search engine algorithms value crowd science quite heavily in their rankings (link building relationships). This same type of value is given to likes, follows, +1's, etc. This is an inherent trust metric and will impact rankings as well.
Getting likes can be easier said than done. It may require some creative marketing tactics that engage your customers and make them smile.

Helping Your Website Rank Better With Social Influences

The first part of this column discussed how to drive better rankings for your social media pages. Clearly this has become more of a priority than it was a couple of years ago – particularly for branded terms – but will never be of the same volume and SEO coverage as your own websites. The more important goal is figuring out how to use social media influence to impact your owned media assets.
Social signals drive SEO performance, but how important is it? According to data from BrightEdge, between 75 and 90 percent of the top 10 search results on any given SERP have at least one Facebook like or Twitter tweet. These numbers and the related influence will spike sharply, especially for industries such as retail and finance.

Start With the Basics

Visitors to your website are usually interested in your company and your products, so don't miss the opportunity to invite them into your treasured social media circle. Invite them to connect, like, follow, and/or share your company and your product pages.

Target Head Terms With Social Media Friendly Pages

For most companies, head terms make up a large percentage of their referral traffic. Although these terms drive high volume in both searches and clicks, they are often very competitive for page/position rank.
Ensuring that your head term landing pages are social media friendly with further impact your overall SEO ranking for these coveted terms. The more likes and follows your landing pages have, the higher they will rank.  Therefore, encouraging visitors to take social media action with a “bookmark & share” drop down menu will further your landing page SEO efforts.

Create Tools That Are Easy to Share

An easy to share tool is something that is visually appealing and simple to use. Too many times you arrive at a website that has expert only tools available for analysis, searching, sorting, and the like.  Or you find a tool that is easy to use for all of these things, you would love to tell someone about it, and there is no sharing drop down.
Either of these scenarios is negatively impacting your use of social media SEO influence. Think about the types of assets you have on your site that begat social involvement and make it simple to do.

Drive Social Engagement to Your Website

Facebook offers a variety of social plugins you can utilize on your site. Different plugins encourage different types of engagement, so choose wisely on which ones work best for each part of your site.

Conclusion

Social media and search share a two way street of influence. Social media assets have reached enough critical mass to rank on the first page of search results, as well as directly contribute to the SEO ranking of your website pages.
Although many companies are taking advantage of this established medium, many others have not and are missing a sizeable opportunity. By implementing some of the best practices mentioned here, you can ensure that your social media and search teams are working together and that your organization isn’t being left behind.
By: Eli Goodman, 

Google + A Real Life Social Network Story

Over a year ago Paul Adams who was then the user research lead for social at the Google UX team told a story in a power point presentation at SlideShare of the evolution of Google + . The story of a little girl Debbie and how she has several different circle of friends and family with whom she can share and talk on varied topics without opening her life to all.
The circle was born out of such brainstorming at UX. Even then Google+ was devised as a social networking site based on the perceived drawbacks of Facebook. Adams said that this not a criticism of the rival network but was rather an evolutionary process and a fundamental change in architecture of how people will use the web in future. Nobody knew then why Adam was so diplomatic about Facebook.
Adams quit Google to join arch rival Facebook a few months later in Christmas following a year of high profile and key departures to Zuckerberg’s camp from Google. By the end January major changes were offing at Google after Eric Schmidt’s repeated failure to break the Facebook stranglehold of Social Media. In came youth with co-founder Larry Page deciding to step in as CEO and creating the base for an all out turf war with Facebook for dominating the social media. The cast was being set since long. Now Google + has been launched as a project not a product. Why?
Simply because Debbie’s circle is only the first step of a long list of features listed by Adams in his PPT presentation that has fetched 713737 views till now and still counting. The 160 slide presentation gives a literal blueprint of how Google wants to map, learn and assist the growth in social media and lead it to increased interaction and conversation.
How it wants to publicly protect privacy but actually encourage the ‘bare it all’ phenomenon by urging the human instinct to let loose inhibitions and try become a celebrity in her chosen and pre-selected circle. Blending the personal image building with some crafty advertising from top selling brands Google wants to layer the online social life of a person with her choice of products and friends to create a unique mix of people activity and commerce. How is this different from Facebook?
While the current model of Facebook is probably the stone age art of ‘social media based commerce’, the Google Plus model is its refinement to script and beyond. The Google plus project looks truly evolutionary, but whether it will have the punch and power to eclipse Facebook or even restrict its growth before its 2012 IPO remains to be seen.
By:Sandip Sen