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I think Google is really missing a chance for success. Instead of launching Google + aggressively with apps and invites, they once again built a social product with a moat. They needed to build bridges to already established networks and call Facebook out on it’s proprietary operations. Google+ could be a better functioning Facebook without tackling the problem of user migration. And if Facebook tries to cut them off from using their data through their open API, Google could sue them on grounds of unfair business practices.

But I digress.

My point is, Google’s apparent hubris to create networks when they should be integrating them could ultimately destroy even their best products. People are settling on their networks so prying them away from Facebook or Twitter will be enormously difficult. Even the employee who created the concept behind circles has even left and moved to Facebook. The move raises eyebrows that Facebook will easily combat Google’s threat by creating their own form of circles using their friend’s list function.

If Google was serious about Google+ and does not want the technology behind it to ultimately folded into a separate product (I’m looking at you Wave), then they should have launched it in an entirely different fashion. Here are 3 ways I think they could have launched with greater success.

1. Launch with apps: influencers are not using browser based apps to decide if something is cool any longer. Influencers are using apps on their iOS or Android mobile devices. Facebook does not even have an iPad app yet! In addition, Facebook lost their best app developer because of Apple’s tough policies. Talk about a huge opportunity.

2. Enough with this slow invite nonsence: This tactic might work when you are still a small cool company, but reeks of elitism for a product that only succeeds when everyone is using it. Google already has enough computing power to manage the massive load, so why not take a chance. Make it cool by having everyone there.

3. Pull in all networks: Stop having an exclusive network and start building an inclusive network. Use Twitter oAuth, Facebook Connect and every other network login API available to pull in as many people to a central network. Think FriendFeed with much more capabilities. My wife loves Gmail, but when I mentioned Google+ (side note, really tired of searching for the + button on my iPad), she said she just got used to Facebook and would probably not switch for any reason. My point is this: the groundswell event is over, Facebook and to a much lessor extent Twitter won. The future of social media is integration and simplification.

I want Google to succeed. I really do. I just want them to know that this “toe dipping” launch game is tiresome and damaging. To me, this launch seems too safe. To be “cool” they need to break some rules or at the very least hurt some Facebook feelings. The risk for Google is great. One more failed social experiment and the community might stop taking them seriously.

HubSpot and Marketing Charts have released their Marketing Data Box, a quarterly collection of practical marketing tools ready for professional use. At Bonfire we are data junkies so we sorted through the stats with a fine tooth comb and summarized the key takeaways from the slide deck. We have also embedded the full slide deck for your reference.

Traditional Media Stats

• TV and Radio Ad buys are up
• Newspaper is down
• Online news consumption is up 17% and marks the first time more people got their news from the web.

Digital Stats

• Top areas of marketing growth: Website, Email, Social Media – in that order
• Trigger emails are on the rise (automated emails for certain calendar events)
• Inbound marketing leads (Blogs, email, social media, PPC) are 61% cheaper than outbound marketing leads (TV, Radio, Print)
• Cheapest lead sources (in order from cheapest): Blogs, Social Media, SEO, PPC
• Facebook ads have a 72.3% reach in the U.S.
• Facebook interactive ads (home page ads) have the highest recall of any social media ads

Smart Phones

• 1/3 of mobile users have Smartphones
• Time spent on Smartphones in order of use: Email, Social Networking, News

Online Spending

• Online spending is up 11%
• Youth online spending is up 9%

In terms of digital communication, anonymity is awful. If social media (some would argue the internet in general) is expected to be taken seriously, anonymity is a brands biggest threat. Facebook recognizes this and is constantly evolving to provide access to tools and applications that can help brands grow their businesses online. It is also one of the reasons that Facebook is 1,000x bigger and better than Twitter. continue

Company: Thrive Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Center
Social Media Marketing Team: Ryan Lewis, Lisa Peyton, Danielle Hoole, Colleen Siviter, Pamela Peterson, Dr. Adam Maddox, Cathy Roche
Campaign Length: 6 months
Result: 400% growth in Facebook community, 117% increase in referral traffic to thriveportland.com from all social sources

The Challenge
Thrive Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Center is a local Northwest Portland medi-spa specializing in cosmetic and anti-aging medicine.  Thrive was a relatively unknown player in the local medi-spa industry and needed to increase brand awareness and boost business. Thrive had been focusing a majority of their marketing efforts on traditional media, and our challenge was to prove the added value social media profiles could provide to their overall business objectives.

The Solution
Bonfire focused on developing and optimizing a variety of social media assets to increase brand awareness, promote services and specials, increase online community participation, and increase referral website traffic from all online sources to the Thrive website. continue

Company: Lightspeed Systems
Social Media Marketing Team: Lisa Peyton, Danielle Lee, Amy Bennett, Illeana Rowe
Campaign Length: 9 months

The Challenge
Lightspeed Systems develops comprehensive network security and management solutions for the education market. The primary challenge was to build and promote social media platforms that connected with their hard to reach, target audience and were seamlessly integrated into their website.

Lightspeed’s target market of educators, school district superintendents, and school district IT managers were beginning to have conversations online and it was our job to find those conversations and present to the client the important themes and topics that their market was discussing so they could address it directly. The other challenge was to identify and address both the positive and negative feedback that educators and students were facing with Lightspeed’s products and the products of their competitors.

The Solution
Bonfire worked with team members Amy Bennett and Illeana Rowe to develop a Blog, custom YouTube Profile, custom Facebook page and Twitter profile. These updated profiles would be used for promoting content, monitoring community conversations for valuable information, and ultimately increasing Search Engine visibility and sales. continue

Last month I had the opportunity to meet several leading clothing and footwear manufacturers at the OEN PubTalk. It was an interesting discussion so I decided to create a Facebook Page Analysis of footwear and apparel brands on Facebook. Below are the results. I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts about effective ways brands are connecting with you on Facebook.

B2C Facebook Page Analysis: Footwear and Apparel

TechCrunch is one of my all-time favorite blogs. TechCrunch has attracted some very insightful industry leaders from diverse backgrounds including: Venture Capital, Entrepreneurs, CEOs, Engineers and market insiders. Last weekend they invited Adam Rifkin to post his views about Facebook.

I think Facebook may have the perfect combination of user critical mass, smart engineers and a culture of empowering good ideas. They also have several revenue streams to fund it all. Below I have embedded Mr. Rifkin’s TechCrunch post below because I couldn’t do a better  analysis myself. I’d love to hear your feedback and hope you enjoy the read.

How Facebook Can Become Bigger in Five Years Than Google is Now

One question that comes up often with clients is “How do I deal with negative online reviews?” In this post I will discuss the best way to put your company’s digital reputation in good standing. Although some of the suggestions require considerable company resources, I can’t stress the importance of managing your company’s online reviews. Social Media and the Internet enables a transparent world that can make or break any company in a highly competitive market.

Why?

Why is online reputation management important to your business? The short answer is everyone researches companies online before making a buying decision. It’s easy, fast and very informative.  Here are some of the most important statistics:

• 70% consult reviews or ratings before purchasing (BusinessWeek, Oct. 2008)
• Traffic to the top 10 review sites grew on average 158% last year (Compete.com)
• 97% who made a purchase based on an online review found the review to be accurate (Comscore/The Kelsey Group, Oct. 2007)
• 51% of consumers use the Internet even before making a purchase in shops (Verdict Research, May 2009)
• 92% have more confidence in information found online than from a salesclerk or other source (Wall Street Journal, Jan 2009)
• 90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust unknown users, 27% trust experts, 14% trust advertising, 8% trust celebrities (Econsultancy, July 2009, Erik Qualman, Socialnomics)
• The average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times per week in conversations with friends, family, and co-workers. (Keller Fay, WOMMA, 2010)
• 61% of people rely on user reviews for product information or research before a buying decision is made. (Razorfish, 2008)
• 34% have turned to social media to air their feelings about a company. 26% to express dissatisfaction, 23% to share companies or products they like. (Harris Poll, April 2010)
• 75% of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertisements (Yankelovich)

(Hat Tip on stats – Moto Message & BazaarVoice)

Your customers are researching, reading, learning and reviewing you right now. They have grown to expect more than just a static company website and many feel it is their duty to update the online community about your business.

What can my company do?

The simple answer is: Be the best business you can by providing outstanding service and products that consumers love. A good start is to ensure you make a superior product and educate your employees about how to best deal with unhappy customers.  If you are a sales organization, this could mean attaching consequences to poor reviews or correlating positive feedback to incentives and salary.

Organic Tactics

One way to help boost positive reviews is to make it simple for new customers to sing your praises. Ensuring that the company website or online store has the capability for customers to submit reviews is essential.  This can be unnerving for some businesses because of the risk of bad reviews, but studies have shown that most reviews are positive. (Across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. Across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. – “J Curve,” Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay)

Inciting Reviews for Physical Locations

For businesses that don’t have an online purchase or product, it’s a bit more difficult to ensure customers have the ability to post great reviews.  Restaurants, hotels and other brick-and-mortars  can create on-site computing centers for customers. The photo below is an example of an on-site computing center with signs helping to direct customers to review websites.

Email Follow-Up

Another option for generating additional reviews are follow-up emails soliciting feedback.When using follow-up emails,  remember to give customers several social network options and keep the directions simple.  Google and Bing have their own review systems, but they also aggregate reviews from Yelp, CitySearch, Angie’s List and Dex. Make sure to provide a link to the business listing where you want your customer to post the review. There could be multiple listings for your business on one website so it’s best to consolidate reviews to one listing.  Consolidating reviews will also help overall SEO (search engine optimization) by making it easy for search engines to find and understand your business.

Non-Organic Tactics: Pay to Play

Bonfire does not endorse companies paying for false reviews, however it can be an effective tactic.  Google, Bing and Yelp use complicated algorithms to determine review relevance. If the mayor of a large city that has 2 million followers on Twitter and 500,000 ‘Likes’ on Facebook reviews a restaurant on Yelp, it’s likely the review would be more visible than a review by someone without any community standing. As networks become more interconnected, community relevance will become more important.

Companies that can “fix” or buy a brand’s online reputation use scripted reviews on popular websites to boost awareness. Pricing can range from $5,000-$10,000 over the course of 6 months.

Summary

As you have read, online reviews are important for your business.  A good online reputation is best achieved by encouraging outstanding business practices and providing customers the tools to share their story.  If you have anything to add or know of any other solutions to online reputation management, please share below.

While B2B social media marketing is still a new concept, there are examples of companies creating effective campaigns. We analyze companies that are dedicating resources toward building engaged online communities.