The first time we talked about Google+ here on the Masterlink blog, it was exploding onto the Internet marketing scene. Just a few weeks later, the bubble seemed to already have popped: overall usage of Google+ dropped by three percent, and time spent on the site dropped 10 percent.

So, nearly three months later, how is it doing now? Well, 40 million people now have Google+ profiles — just a fraction of Facebook’s 800 million users, but a sizable number nonetheless. And, perhaps more relevantly, Google+ for businesses has arrived.

According to the AP:

The expansion, announced on Monday, is the latest feature on Google’s Plus service to imitate what’s already available on Facebook, the leading website for sharing with family, friends and businesses.

Google Inc. unveiled Plus in late June to counter Facebook’s popularity and learn more about people’s interests. It hopes to gain insights that will help its dominant Internet search engine spit out more compelling results that keep people coming back to click on ads.

Until now, Plus was open only to individuals. In addition to companies, celebrities and sports teams will be able to set up Google Plus pages just as they can on Facebook. Google showcased the new Plus feature Monday with pages from 20 business, celebrities and sports teams. The initial list includes Toyota, the Muppets, the Dallas Cowboys, Pepsi and the pop music group Train.

So is Google+ worth becoming part of your Dallas social media marketing efforts? Here are just a handful of reasons to give it a try:

1. Fewer users means less competition as well

Sure, Google+ is still just something like a fox trying to take down the Facebook elephant, but think of it like starting up a business in a small town. There are fewer customers, but less competition as well. And if the town grows (which it’s likely to do), you’ll have a huge head start on the competition that eventually moves in down the block.

2. It’s all about search

Already, if you have a Google account, search results will show you pages that have earned “Plus 1” clicks by connections of yours on Google+. In other words, imagine search engines pointing out Dallas caterers, auto body shops in DFW, or Dallas limos “Liked” by your friends on Facebook every time you go searching for one. Google’s bread and butter is search, and it’s a good bet that they will increasingly use info gleaned from Google+ to improve their search capabilities.

3. It’s easy and free

In other words, give it a try and see what bites you get. If you find yourself connecting with potential customers and clients, stick with it. If not, pull the plug.

To learn more, check out Google’s handy step-by-step tutorial. It’s pretty easy, but if you don’t want to sink a ton of time into maintaining your Google+ page and responding to every post from a reader, our Dallas interactive marketing specialists will be more than happy to do it for you.

With interactive marketing, what’s most important: How frequently you connect with potential customers and clients? Or how valuable you make each connection?

My own social media habits show how it’s not quite one or the other. For example, a quick survey of my own Twitter habit reveals this statistical tidbit:

• 13 percent of accounts I follow are family and friends.
• 87 percent are bloggers, news outlets, reporters, celebrities and other people I’ve never actually met.

Furthermore, the majority of friends I follow are living overseas, doing something unique, or consistently tweet out information I find either valuable or humorous. Why? I love my friends and family, but unless their tweets add something valuable, illuminating or entertaining, they don’t get a spot. The chronological nature of Twitter makes it too difficult to consistently read valuable tweeters if my stream is clogged with minutia.

Inversely, while I’ll happily follow everyone I’ve ever met on Facebook, I only use the platform to keep tabs on a handful of businesses, reporters, or celebrities. In fact, I enjoy catching up on the minutia of people’s daily lives. The value of the content they post on Facebook is less important to me than the chance to just connect and catch up.

Three conclusions:

1. Content is King (Sometimes)

On Twitter, content matters (for me). My time and mental bandwidth are limited, and I’m loathe to waste either on frivolous information. If I followed everyone I know on Twitter, I’d miss information from people on Twitter who I want to hear from. Content is king.

2. Connecting is King (Other Times)

On Facebook, relationships matter (for me). I just want to connect with people, see what music they like, what photos they’ve posted, what events they’re attending, and what local businesses they recommend. Connecting is king.

3.  Social Media is Inexact and Always Shifting

How people use social media changes from person to person. And as new platforms come and go, how each person uses social media likely changes as well. The key, then, is to focus on both connecting with potential customers and clients and providing them with valuable information — on the multiple platforms across the social media spectrum. Explore all your social media options to figure out what’s most worthwhile for your company.

Sound like too much to keep up with? Our devoted Dallas social media marketing experts can make it easy for you. Contact us for more information.

Apparently, if you give a mouse a 50 percent discount, he’s going to give you a poor Yelp review.

A recent study showed that Internet customer ratings for businesses running daily deals drop by an average of ten percent. According to Web Pro News

That research, from computer scientists John W. Byers and Georgios Zervas of Boston University and Michael Mitzenmacher of Harvard, finds that ratings scores on Yelp for businesses running daily deals are 10% lower on average.

[…] The new study also looked at text, and found that reviews mentioning either “Groupon” or “Coupon” are associated with star ratings that are 10% lower on average than reviews that don’t use these words. The few reviews that used both words were actually 20% lower on average, according to the report.

It’s interesting to think about what problems could arise from Groupon-type customers.

While many are likely eager to explore new restaurants, and use Groupon basically as a way to explore their communities, many of them, of course, could probably care less about the restaurant itself and just want something cheap to eat. Guess which group of customers is more likely to take to the world wide web to express their frustrations? In fact, guess which sort of customer is likely to look for an outlet for their frustrations in the first place — full and happy or unsatisfied and aggrieved?

Unfortunately, negative feedback made public on the sites like Yelp, Twitter, or Google Maps can be devastating for local businesses. If you’re a smartphone-toting person hungry for Thai food in an unfamiliar town, there’s a good chance you’ll use that handy little super-device in your pocket to find the best green curry — or at least what a bunch of grumpy discount-seekers think is the best green curry.

Our online reputation management services (ORM) can help.  It lets you know what’s being said about your business across the vast and rapidly evolving Internet, and gives you a chance to respond, engage, limit damage, and prove to the public that yours is a company that cares.

Here’s a good lesson: Don’t get so blinded by the dazzling potential of social media marketing that you forget to make it, well, social.

For example, both Facebook and Yelp decided to quit the “daily deal” game (sites like Groupon, etc.) in the past couple weeks, highlighting an important lesson for businesses trying to navigate the new Dallas Internet marketing landscape.

Let’s review how the daily deal story has developed over the past year:

Groupon and LivingSocial showed up and turned the relationship between local businesses and the web on its head. These pioneers were then followed by about a thousand imitators, since daily deal sites have very low barriers to entry (all you basically need is a website and a sales staff to get rolling). So it was only a matter of time before some of the web’s true heavy hitters would realize how seemingly well-positioned they were to dominate the deals market. The idea was simple: people already used tools from those sites to connect with businesses. Why not put a deal in front of customers while the sites have their attention?

Sure enough, Facebook jumped in. Yelp jumped in. Google jumped in. Foursquare jumped in.

But a funny thing happened: Domination didn’t ensue quickly. And as we mentioned, Yelp and Facebook soon decided it wasn’t worth the investment.

According to Dave Payne, CEO of innovative daily deal startup Scoutmob:

Each of these companies came with different assets, but all of them had one thing in common…they were big, scalable platform companies.  Platform companies are fantastic if they can scale quickly (like these could), but they are not accustom to the high-touch relationship necessary to be successful in local advertising. The companies that have found success in the past (eg the alternative weeklies like Village Voice or coupon magazines like Clipper) have the DNA required to focus an inordinate amount of resources to identify, communicate with and close quality local businesses. This is not a problem that can be solved with a server and an iPhone app.  Over the past few months this has become apparent to Facebook & Yelp, so they decided that focusing on their core businesses — platforms — is their best bet.

One of biggest strengths of industry leaders like Groupon and LivingSocial are their huge sales staffs already well-established in local communities across the country (read: relationships). Scoutmob succeeds thanks to a slow-growth strategy that carefully gets the community involved, engages with local bloggers and artisans, and gives businesses a chance to tell their stories (again: relationships).

But just because Facebook and Yelp have built fantastic platforms that make it easy for other people to build relationships with businesses, doesn’t mean they could quickly or automatically build those relationships themselves.

In other words, stuff like a snazzy web design, a devoted company blog, and a smart social media marketing strategy can’t succeed by themselves. They’re just platforms. But what they can do incredibly well is give your company an unprecedented number of ways to engage with your customers and clients — to build relationships. That’s key.

Our Dallas social media marketing specialists can help you figure out which parts of the digital world can best enhance what your company is already doing well, and show how to use such tools to build fruitful, long-lasting relationships with your clients and customers.

A couple things have happened recently in Internet marketing land worth noticing — and understanding their implications without jumping to drastic conclusions:

1. After Google+ exploded onto the scene, raised a big ruckus, successfully built an enormous amount of media buzz, and posted meteoric first-month growth numbers, it promptly shrunk back to mortal levels. Following its first month, Google+ usage dropped 3 percent, and time spent on the site dropped 10 percent — not a good way to catch Facebook.

2. A recent study showed that social media use growth has slowed down significantly across the board. According to Web Pro News:

eMarketer estimates that Facebook growth will hit only 13.4% this year after experiencing 38.6% acceleration in 2010 and a staggering 90.3% ascension the year before. Facebook isn’t alone in its sobriety either. The rate of Twitter user adoption fell from 293.1% growth in 2009 to 26.3% this year. [...] Installing apps is on the decline, down 10.4% in the U.S. and 3.1% worldwide.  Sending virtual gifts may not be gifts worth giving after all, with numbers declining 12.9% in the U.S. and 7.5% around the world.

Don’t get me wrong, people are still embracing social networks. However, the severity of competition for consumer attention is now unmistakable. Once liberal with their likes, Retweets, and follows, consumers are becoming much more guarded and realistic. Therefore brands will now have to more effectively listen to markets to make more informed decisions about how social media impacts the enterprise and in turn customer experiences.

So what do these sorts of developments say about your Dallas social media marketing strategy? That social media is overrated? Just a passing cloud in the ever-evolving marketing sky?

Not likely.

With any new product or service, the initial buzz is likely to suffer from a steep drop-off — especially when the product or service is free for people to try, when their friends are trying it, and when it could seem useful for a broad variety of users. People will inevitably give this new service a try. A smaller percentage of folks will find actually explore its usefulness. A fraction of them will stick, and use the service to varying levels in their daily lives.

So yes. Hype springs eternal, and social media sites do everything they can to build that initial buzz. But making a decision about your social media marketing strategy based on how quickly hype dies is just as rash as investing heavily based on the early buzz of every emerging Internet marketing trend out there.

Social media is still an unprecedented way to reach customers and clients, engage with them, and learn about them. So don’t try to decipher the passing clouds — look for bigger, more permanent shifts in the Internet marketing landscape. Don’t look at the drop-off — look at how people settle into long-term usage of a social media tool or app, and build strategies around those potential clients and customers.

At Masterlink, we can help. If you’re too busy, you know, actually developing and refining your company’s core products and services to spend a bunch of time figuring out social media, contact one of our Dallas interactive marketing specialists. Following Internet developments a little bit obsessively is part of our business, and we’re eager to help Dallas companies mold web marketing strategies that work.

With 1.3 million friends like these, who needs voters?

News broke yesterday that presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had possibly… well… overstated his popularity a bit. Without getting into politics, Newt’s nefarious Twitter strategy is a useful example of how your company should — and should not — approach social media marketing.

According to Gawker:

Gingrich currently boasts 1,325,842 followers, whereas competitors Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann have yet to crack 100,000. [...]

About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various “follow agencies,” another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt’s profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn’t follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you’ll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated.

To answer your first question: Yes, there are ways to do this. There’s no need to get into the details now, but anytime a new marketing medium like Internet marketing emerges, people are going to figure out how to game the system.

To answer your second question: No, you shouldn’t do this. And no, your competitors won’t gain much of an edge if they do.

As we discussed a year ago when Texas gubernatorial candidate Kay Baily Hutchison’s campaign was caught using “blackhat SEO tactics”— in her case, loading her website with random, invisible keywords like “Cooper Tire Texarkana” that had nothing to do with her campaign in order to boost traffic — shady SEO or Internet marketing techniques just have a way of coming back to bite you.

Beyond the political realm, we’ve seen several companies build elaborate, but fragile SEO schemes in order to improve their position in search results. And then we’ve seen how even a small algorithm tweak by Google sends the whole SEO house of cards crashing down.

Instead, companies who use social media’s enormous power to engage with their customers, to listen to their concerns and requests, and to add a humanizing voice to their communications strategy build organic, lasting followings.

So let’s be fair and hear Newt’s response. According to his campaign:

“[I]t’s his personal touch: He tweets and manages his Twitter feed himself, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO. All told, he has tweeted 2,611 times in the 29 months since he joined the site.”
It might seem implausible, but that is basically the strategy we recommend with interactive marketing tools like Twitter and Facebook. Be prolific. Be engaging. And most importantly — be personal. Give potential customers and clients the chance to know a different, more human side of your company — and give them a chance to connect and be heard. Your numbers will see a more sustainable rise.

For Newt, in all likelihood, there was probably a mix of both strategies. He should’ve just stuck with the latter.

10 Million people are now using Foursquare to tell the world about their favorite places to eat, drink, dance, and shop. Let’s take a look at how apps like these can become an important piece of your Dallas Internet marketing strategy:

Foursquare is what’s known as a “location-based service.” When app users go to restaurants, bars, clubs, or stores they like, they can “check in” on their a smartphones. As extra incentive, there’s a game aspect to the app as well, where the people who check in the most times at specific hotspots get crowned “mayor” or other titles—encouraging them to return again and again, and tell all their friends when they do.

It might sound silly—or just one more step on the why-do-I-care-where-you’re-eating-dinner ladder—but 10 million users is impressive, and location-based services do matter. Austin-based Foursquare competitor Gowalla is approaching two million users, Facebook has made checking in easy for the fraction of its 700 million users who use smartphones, and Google Maps has recently added check-ins so users can rate and review locations in real-time. Including geolocation tags with stuff like Twitter updates is also increasingly common.

In other words, more and more people are carrying smartphones around, and more and more of them are using LBS apps to share where they are and what they are doing in real-time. Depending on your clientele, LBS could be a fun, effective part of your Dallas interactive marketing strategy:

According to PCWorld:

The partnerships Foursquare has made with large brands provide an idea of the utility it provides businesses. As a small or medium sized business owner, you have the same access to the technology that’s checking millions of users in to local businesses around the country. Simply set a deal — such as giving a free coffee with the purchase of a pastry to customers who check in on Foursquare — let your staff know, and get the word out. Those who use the service and redeem the deal may enjoy a feeling of exclusivity, and tell their friends.

Foursquare showed how LBS can easily be used for to boost business last year, when McDonald’s gave app users discounts in exchange for check-ins, increasing in-store foot traffic by 33 percent in a single day. Recently, the app announced that it would be pairing deals with the rest of its services more regularly. Facebook has taken a similar approach — “check in” at certain locations, and you get a bargain from the business.

The advantage to businesses is simple: In exchange for the discount, the customer tells all their friends, followers, and Internet stalkers about the business and deal. In exchange for “titles” and other parts of the game, the customer returns again and again. It’s viral marketing made easy.

Google+ (aka Google Plus) is here—the latest attempt by the world-changing search giant to, well, change the world again. Let’s take a look:

How is it different from Facebook and LinkedIn?

Google calls it “real-life sharing rethought for the web.” The core idea behind Google+ is to take all the ways people already connect and share notes, photos, documents, links, etc. and integrate it into a streamlined, better social media network.

Currently, according to Google, the ways we connect and share online (read: a mishmash of social media platforms like Facebook) is rife with inefficiencies:

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

• [Sharing] is sloppy. We only want to connect with certain people at certain times, but online we hear from everyone all the time.
• It’s scary. Every online conversation (with over 100 “friends”) is a public performance, so we often share less because of stage fright.
• It’s insensitive. We all define “friend” and “family” differently—in our own way, on our own terms—but we lose this nuance online.

Essentially, the site believes, people communicate in “circles” — work, friends, family, strangers with similar interests, etc. For the most part, when you post something on Facebook, it could show up to anyone who you’ve “friended” or who’s become a “fan” of your business. Twitter is similar — you post, and the whole world sees (unless you set your Twitter stream as private). It’s not easy on either site to tailor your communications to specific groups of people.

Google+ does this more naturally, building its new site around those circles. According to the Google: “Just make a circle, add your people, and share what’s new—just like any other day.” It’s simple.

Through several other functions (that we’ll explain in more detail in the future), Google+ “socializes” many of its existing tools as well — Gmail, Google Reader, Picasa, etc. — which makes the site seem more likely to succeed. If you already use those tools extensively, using Google+ will make sense. For many people, it will be just a small step towards usage. This also makes the site more likely to achieve critical mass — “must join” status — complete with endless blog posts about “Why you’ve gotta gotta join Google Plus!” from social media marketing companies like us.

It seems to have slightly improved privacy controls compared to Facebook, as well.

How is it different than previous Google social media efforts?

Google’s been looking for ways to cut into Facebook’s social media dominance, in part because  Facebook seems primed to cut into Google’s search dominance. But they’ve failed, because previous social media attempts like Google Buzz never really gained traction and made it clear how the site offered anything different to users. But just as Facebook will eventually do well in search by leveraging its built-in strengths (thanks to the information posted on user profiles, unmatched, in-depth understanding of what searchers will be looking for) to offer something new, Google+ seeks to do the same by leveraging its tools that people already use.

Whether or not people will begin to replace Facebook functions in their daily lives with Google+ still remains to be seen. Frankly, it still seems like a long shot — but that doesn’t mean abundant opportunities for businesses to connect with potential customers and clients via Google+ won’t soon emerge.

I’m so, so sick of trying to keep up with social media. Do I have to?

We know it can be overwhelming. But social media marketing is simply a fantastic way to connect with potential clients and customers, and let them spread the good word about your products and services. At Masterlink, our Internet marketing specialists can make it easy for you.

Currently, Google+ is invite-only (it’s how Google launches most of their products, before opening them up to the public). And the company explicitly asked for businesses to abstain from rushing right in and setting up pages.  But it will be fully open soon — and it’s a good bet that Google+ will become a big part of Dallas search engine marketing. Stay tuned.

It reads like a bad Lindsay Lohan movie: Too many friends + Too much popularity = Way too much stress.

It’s not just teen fiction. A recent study done by Scottish researchers suggests that the more Facebook friends people have, the more stressed out by the site they’ll be. According to Web Pro News:

Psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University surveyed 200 students on their use of Facebook, and found that a for a significant number of users the negative effect of the social network outweighed the benefits of staying in touch with friends and family.

“The results threw up a number of paradoxes,” said Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. “For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits. Our data also suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety, with only very modest or tenuous rewards. And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed.”

According to the study, Faebook stress leads to things like delaying responding to friend requests, rejecting friend requests, and feelings of guilt and discomfort over doing so. The study didn’t survey business owners, but some of the same principles apply.

Relax. There’s no need to stress about your social media marketing strategy. Here are three reasons why:

1. It’s Free.

One of the truly wonderful and extraordinary aspects of the digital revolution is how cheap is to experiment with all the different emerging technologies and social media platforms.

Compare this to, say, the 1950s, when cable TV emerged and broadcast TV went fully mainstream. An extraordinary, world-changing technology was suddenly available to companies, making it easier than ever for them to reach potential customers all across America. But the most effective way to do that was still very unclear — and experimenting with different TV advertising techniques was not cheap.

With social media, you can adjust your strategies on the fly, without paying for the space to do it. You can change your Facebook page a thousand times, and it won’t cost you a cent. Your company can explore ways to use apps like Twitter, Foursquare, Google Maps, and LinkedIn without the risk of wasting valuable ad money.

2. It’s Fun.

Embrace it. Run with it. Paint it purple and make it dance.

The social media platforms that thrive are inherently simple and enjoyable to use. And at its core, Facebook marketing lets you interact and develop relationships with your customers. If that’s something you dread, then, well, you might be better off behind the scenes. But you enjoy it, social media is a great way to connect with them in new ways.

Plus, potential clients and customers will respond to an enjoyable, innovative vibe. A fun, creative Facebook page will reflect a innovative corporate culture that potential clients and customers will be eager to join.

3. We Can Take Care of It For You

Our Dallas social media marketing specialists love exploring ways to make the web work for small businesses. Contact Masterlink Interactive — we’ll show you how.

There’s no shame in being hesitant about jumping in head-first to the vast-and-growing ocean of social media marketing. After thousands of years of basic stability, social networks have changed the very nature of geography itself in just the span of a decade.

Take a deep breath. We’re all still figuring out what these new realities mean.

According to Mashable:

When we talk about community, we talk about places and spaces. But online communities transcend geography. That tends to mess with our heads. In trying to understand the new, it helps to fall back on the old, using metaphors drawn from familiar sources. Cities have streets, blocks and neighborhoods. Why wouldn’t virtual worlds have the same? [...]

And yet we keep falling back on the notion that online communities — entities like Facebook, Twitter, even Mashable Follow — are “places.” They occupy mental space, if not physical space. [...] You no longer tell your friends where your body is. Instead, it’s about where your head is at. It’s a real-time map to the geography of the mind.

In other words, a large part of social media is people telling other people: “This is what I’m reading.” “This is what I find interesting.”  “This is a person/restaurant/company I love.”  And, thanks to the e-commerce boom: “This is what I’m thinking about buying.”

Mind-geography mapping.

To help visualize these new realities, XKCD came up with a nifty map that illustrates how the world would look if social communities somehow became geographical:

So does this reality clash with the importance of small business tools like local search marketing? Will digital realities render brick-and-mortar realities obsolete?

Not at all. Obviously, even the most socially-averse, internet-addicted digital native still needs to get out and buy new tires every once in a while. To resurrect an old, cliche metaphor, think of it like an information superhighway: Eventually, members of these digital communities need to exit — to eat, to try on clothes, to travel, to look people in the eye, to hug.

The goal for small businesses is just to make sure there are billboards where targeted highway drivers will see them, the ability to use these highways to find and buy from businesses without exiting, and off-ramps leading directly to store when they do.

How, then, should Dallas small business owners handle social media?

1. See social networks as real communities

Social media is not just for geeks hiding out in their parents’ basement, wasting away in front of a computer screen. And online communities are just as real as a bunch of people gathering for school, business, or church — even if aspects of face-to-face relationships will inevitably be lost.

These communities still consist of people who buy products, use services, and eagerly tell others about good experiences they’ve had with companies.

2. Bridge to them. Join them. Blur the lines.

Dallas social media marketing makes it easy to blur the lines between geographical communities and digital communities. For example:

• A customer “checks in” at a local Dallas cupcake bakery on Foursquare or Twitter while eating there—spreading brand awareness to their 284 followers—and then raves about the red velvet cupcake to their 837 Facebook friends.

• A driver needs car repairs, so he opens Yelp and Google Maps on his smartphone to find a trustworthy Dallas auto body repair shop and asks for recommendations via Twitter. He reads online reviews from other satisfied customers of one nearby shop, and pulls up that shop’s mobile-friendly web design to find contact information and driving directions.

You get the picture. Social media communities are real, and usually eager to spread the good word about your high-quality products and services. Potential customers and clients are there — go say hi to them.

Contact one of our Dallas Internet marketing specialists to explore ways social media marketing can work for your business.