This to me is not a big deal and here’s why:

• The buying decision for a car is much longer and involved, and most Facebook ads are for liking a page or a low involvement purchase.
• A page would be more beneficial to GM’s marketing needs, with the ability to give more information
• Not all marketing/advertising tools return the same reward to all clients
• Brands need a diverse marketing mix to accomplish goals

GM is leaving the ads but that doesn’t mean they are not working for everyone. It’s always important to measure and judge and see what is effective.

I have started using it for my clients and  have put my them on it with a page. This was a smart decision especially after they have now tied in search results with +your world. But, is Google+ going anywhere?

Today Google has released a share button. This is similar to the Share button for Facebook. But is this too little too late for social network. Here are a few issues I have with the network:

• From a brand perspective, especially for smaller brands, it’s hard to find pages
• Engagement is much lower then a Facebook page
• There appears to be less time spent on the site as opposed to Facebook
• Lack of real analytics for pages, they give you shares and +1′s but not  in depth like Facebook insights
• Will users actually use the Google share? It is the least used of the three social share features.

These are just a few thoughts. I got the inspiration for this post form Tech Crunch. You can read the article, http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/24/google-share-button/. I have used some of my insights with my clients in small business to come up with my bullet points.

The Excedrin Facebok page used to let fans post directly to the wall. It was full of messages asking when the OTC drug would be back or where peoples refunds were for returning the product. This was the first two visits to the page. However, after  few days of this Excedrin turned off allowing fans to post on the wall. I know that most posts were these two topics but they have been very vague in responses.

Effective crisis management is built on honesty and openness. I know that they probably feel that the posts were over whelming to manage. However, turning off the wall posts makes people feel their comments aren’t welcome and you aren’t open to them. The posts they make now are over run by people who want to know when the product will be back on the shelves.

Being a Pharmaceutical company the postings are very vague on when the product will be back. They always say something like “we are working very hard to have Excedrin back on shelves soon.” Posts are now consumed with questions, comments about the recall. All of these tent to be off topic.

I give them credit for being honest about the recall and getting information out there. Here are a few more suggestions to let consumers know about the product recall:

• Inform consumers of what is happening at the plant that was shut down. This is the main plant where the drug is manufactured.
• Give consumers a general time frame when it will return to store shelves. But, caveat this by saying this time frame may change and lets consumer know when this happens.
• Find where the drug is available now and inform consumers where they can attain it.
• Create a forum where customers can voice their complaints, concerns or comments.
• Focus all posts on the recall. Running page as normal is just angering consumers

This product is very brand loyal. They need to focus on them and devote all info to the latest information on the recall. This will go a long way with consumers in the long run.

Marketing Elements Episdoe 33 – Social Analytics – Facebook from Tim Goleman on Vimeo.

This is the second part in my analytics posts. The first was an overview of what analytics there are in social. This specifically deals with reporting Facebook Insights. The spread sheet, as given by Chuck Hemann at the Social Media Conference at Kennesaw State University. It’s a great way to do the reporting manually.

The last time we spoke we had just seen the release of Google+ and now we have the full release and pages. We go over what we think of the service.

Then, we go into Facebook and Timeline. We touch on how Timeline will eventually come to Business pages and pondered the future of Tabs.

Lastly we talked about the Muppets and social media.

http://www.marketingelementsblog.com

WordPress now has some great features, like the Drag and Drop uploading. Check out the video for all the details

I know many out there aren’t fans of Google+ and many of our social media folks have written it off. First, let me say I feel that Google did botch the launch of +. They should have run a smaller beta and then had pages and everything ready to launch.

With that said, I am enjoying Google+. I think it has a lot of potential and good competition to Facebook. Here is why:

• It is a less cluttered layout then to Facebook
• They are slower to release things, unlike Facebook that put out the ticker, story grouping and highlighted stories.
• It’s easy to use, very intuitive
• I have actually been using it to communicate with friends, more so then Twitter or Facebook.
• Hang Outs are easy to use and now includes the ability to call anywhere in the US for FREE.

These are just a few reasons why I like it. I will be realistic here and know they have a long way to go before the mainstream will start seeing it as an alternative to Facebook. Some things that will be needed for that are:

• Better integration with other Google properties i.e. YouTube
• Google Analytics integration on pages
• Vanity URLs for profiles and pages
• Integration into third party applications like HootSuite, Tweetdeck, etc (HootSuite is in limited beta testing just for enterprise customers)
• Multiple admins on pages

I hope we see more from them and it won’t die like Wave, Buzz and many of the other social program Google has come up with.

Well the long wait is over. Today Google announced Google Plus Pages. It took most of the day for me to get in and set it up, but I finally did it. Some of the problems I have seen are:

• Only one admin is available right now, so who ever creates the page will be in charge of community management
• It took me a while to figure out how to get back to my page, ask Drew Hawkins, but next to your picture/avatar there is a switch menu
• Google extended YouTube this week but I hoped to see greater integration with it for a page.
• People can’t self select what circles they are in under the page, it will be done by the community manager
• No dedicated URL for the page, Facebook just opened up so that any page, regardless of # of fans, can have a user name with a dedicated URL. Google Plus needs to have this feature ASAP. The search using +(page name) has been acting wonky today, so I hear.

Just a few concerns of how to manager and put together a page. This leads me into another issue. How will Timeline affect brands? It hasn’t been officially announced that it will come to brand pages. But, if you remember correctly when the profiles were last made over, it was carried over to Brand Pages. This was also released early and caused Facebook to go down for an hour!

I haven’t heard when Timeline is coming for personal profiles. I have applied to be submitted, but Facebook doesn’t get in a hurry to release new updates. It took me 10 months to get Messaging, which was supposed to be a email killer. Does anyone even  use their Facebbok email?

I Know what you are thinking, I hear you now. You say, “Tim you have written about how Google+ missed their mark, started too soon, and is just ok.” Yes I did say all that, and more if you know me. BUT, and I say this will all caps, as marketers, we better get ready to hit the ground running with Google+ for our clients.

What Google+ Can do to Make pages for Brands Better

• Google Analytics will be the “insights” – let us put our Google Analytics in the pages. Depending on your knowledge of Google Analytics you can track what people do and if they go to your site.  However, Google will need to put in engagement results in Google Analytics, such as +1 (aka Likes), impressions, shares, comments and the like.
• Integration directly with YouTube – I think this will be a great advantage. Right now there is the debate, should I put the video in YouTube and Facebook? Now, once it is in YouTube it can be instantly carried over to the page.
• Let Fans/consumers to self select into Brand circles – This will be something I think would really be cool. Let the brand set up circles, and then let the consumers select which one or ones they want to be in. This would allow pages to post more then once and actually target their messages depending on circle. A perfect example of this is if you have a sponsorship, ex if Coke created an American Idol circle to put out updates. We haven’t seen much  EASY, segregation of fan/followers, this could be the first.
• The design is clean – One of the things I like best is that Google+ is clean. It’s not as cluttered as Facebook. I know that ads will be coming to + but I hope they keep it as clean with pages.

These are just a few things I think Google+ can do to really be a competitor to Facebook. Google has lost momentum on + but for once I don’t think it’s a total failure like Wave or Buzz. They can still turn it around and make something of it, but it will take some effort.

It’s great to see a brand bringing humor in. If you look at the engagement, 24 comments and 133 likes in 12 minutes. I can only imaging what the Edge rank is for this post. More brands need to find their personality and use it. Social should be fun and really engage your fans to make them an advocate for you and your brand.

I just wanted to share this and say this is a great example of social media on Facebook