Is Facebook on a mission to improve user experience, or on a quest to validate every privacy concern your kid’s school counselor warned you about? On Jan. 16^th, 2013, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the Facebook Social Graph Search, and to many appears to have taken an early lead in driving a dangerous trend.

 ”Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”

-Ayn Rand

That may sounds like a rash generalization (I don’t normally jump straight to the Ayn Rand quotes when I’m researching things), but Zuckerberg’s take may actually validate this when he talks about what he believes people care about:

“A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

What Is Facebook Graph Search?

Facebook’s “Social Graph Search” will allow users to search the Facebook user database for individuals, brands and content based on data points such as:

• Interests
• Photos
• Places visited
• Likes
• Physical location
• Etc.

At this point, the Facebook Social Graph Search won’t search status updates, but it’s no doubt in the long term plan, if you take Mark’s word on it:

“Our goal is not to build a platform; it’s to be across all of them.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

To Search or To Facebook Graph Search?

In addition to this change, which is aimed at encouraging users to stay longer on the Facebook website, integration with Bing appears to have deepened, judging by their beta and Bing recently adding 5x more social data into their search sidebar. When results are not found within your network or shared publicly, the ‘fallback’ is for Facebook to display relevant results through their search partner, Bing. Inevitably, some users will begin searching for general information through the Facebook search bar as they become conditioned to search within the platform, which I’m willing to be Zuckerberg wouldn’t be upset about.

With any new Facebook change there’s a period of necessary trial and error, but if the beta test proves to be a working platform, Zuckerberg may have finally found a way to liven up the network’s current (and pretty useless) search bar. By integrating a more natural search, Facebook can entice more people to spend more time on the site, which already dominates a lot of Internet time as it is, thereby encouraging investors and the stock market gnomes that Facebook isn’t a waste of time after all.

Whether this search enhances the status of social media civilization or demolishes it is up to be seen, as Facebook has made very clear that privacy issues were taken into consideration from the very beginning.

What Does Graph Search Mean for Marketers?

Right off the bat, Facebook profile, page and picture optimization, as well as optimization of websites for Bing spiders just became a top priority. This implies a growing need for leveraging metrics available from Microsoft and Facebook revolving rankings, profile ‘completeness’, network size, and respective rankings in results. It also means a need to go back in a start labeling and taggin all photos and video content with locations, company, and people names in order for them to show up in the new search.

For example, if someone uses the new Graph Search to find “Friends who went to the ISM Holiday Mixer” it won’t do any good unless all of those videos and pictures are tagged with that particular event, the ISM brand and the people in those photos are tagged correctly. It’s adds a few more steps into the mix when it comes to (and I hesitate to use this term, but what the heck) Facebook SEO, but those steps are now glaringly necessary.

Aside from just making Facebook changes, if you’re not using Bing’s Webmaster tool set yet, you probably want to set that up immediately considering all Facebook default searches will now run through Bing.

The Bigger Search Picture

All in all, these changes speak to a greater message many of us have anticipated and preached for years: social media’s growing importance in search. While we don’t believe Facebook’s Graph Search is a complete ‘game changer’, we do believe that it will likely drive more search equity towards FB/Bing and we would be remiss if we didn’t step up and be well-prepared and positioned to take advantage of whatever shifts come over the next few years.

As marketers, it is our job to stay on top of updates and announcements like this and while concrete data and extrapolations can’t materialize until widespread release of Graph Search, it appears at this point Facebook may be extending it’s hand into a profitable and influential arena. Whether or not Facebook users or the general public feel privacy is going out of the window, this new land of search is here to stay.

What do you think of Facebook’s Graph Search? Do you think it’s a “game changer” or just another addition to the network people will ignore to watch cat videos?

Thoughts?

Let me apologize in advance for the transcript’s front and end missing. I will be sure to update when it becomes available, but was limited to the failures of the FTC live stream. The core message is 100% in-tact, from the intro to the last statement prior to questions…

…OTHER PARTIES, INTERVIEWED NUMEROUS INDUSTRY PARTICIPANTS AND TOOK SWORN TESTIMONY OF KEY GOOGLE EXECUTIVES.

“There are two aspects to the settlement we announced today. The first involves Google’s misuse of patent protection to prevent competition. We stopped that abuse. The second concerns allegations that Google unfairly biases its search results. We closed this investigation finding the evidence does not support a claim that Google’s prominent display of its own content on its general search page was undertaken without legitimate justification. We do accept Google’s legally binding commitments to stop the most problematic business practices relating to search in search advertising. This also comes with monitoring obligations as well.

Let me start with the patent issue. By a 4-1 vote, a bipartisan majority of the commission orders Google to stop seeking to exclude competitors using standard essential patents that Motorola, which Google purchased, had first promised but refused to license unfair and reasonable terms. These essential patents and others like them are the cornerstone of the system of interopen — interoperability standards that we have taken for granted. Over half of American consumers own and use one of these devices, including iPhones, Android phones and Xboxes. Today’s action by the commission ensures that competition ensures to work for the benefit of American consumers in these important markets.

Now, years ago Motorola promised to license its patents essential to these interoperability patents on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms. Those are called fran terms, to any interested manufacturer. Other companies took Motorola at its word. Over many years relying on this promise, they invested billions and probably tens of billions of dollars in developing and bringing products to consumers using these patents. Rather than offering a license or the license it promised, Motorola changed the rules of the game. The company sought injunctions and exclusion orders to prevent the devices from coming into the country against products using their patents. After Google purchased Motorola, it inherited this litigation and continued the same practices. Google’s un-fair conduct threatened  laptop and tablet computers and smart phone and gaming systems or it could have increased the cost of these products by requiring manufacturers to pay higher licensing fees which then would have been passed onto consumers.

Here’s an example of one product issue in the case. It’s an iPad. I happened to have an older one. There are a number of other devices, xboxes, government-issued Research in Motion smart phones, that are all under threat if this practice had been allowed to continue and grow. Google’s settlement with the commission requires to Google to abandon their claim for relief on any essential patents with a fran commitment and offer a license on fran terms to any company that wants to license these patents in the future.

Today’s landmark enforcement action will become, we hope, a template for resolution of SEP licensing disputes across many industries and builds on more than 15 years of bipartisan work in the Federal Trade Commission from patent reports, to workshops, to enforcement actions like this one aimed at protecting the integrity of the patent system and even more importantly, protecting American consumers. Today’s action makes clear the commitments to make patents available on reasonable terms matters and that companies cannot make these commitments when it suits them, and to have a patent included in one standard and behave differently later once the standard is in place makes those relying on it vulnerable to extortion. Today’s commitment action will relieve companies of hoarding patents for defensive purposes, savings we hope that can be invested in job creation, research, and development.

Before we turn to the commission’s investigation of Google’s search and search advertising practices, let me say a few words about the commission’s section 5 authority, which was the statutory basis for our challenge to Google’s unfair conduct.

When Congress created this agency in 1914, 99 years ago, it endowed the commission with a unique commission of broad jurisdiction and limited remedies. Our section 5 authority reaches beyond the antitrust laws to prohibit unfair methods of competition. In lies a pennumbra. We can impose fines. We don’t put malefactors in jail. Section 5 violations are not violations of the antitrust laws and are not a basis for subsequent follow-up private lawsuits for treble damages in Federal court. In a society that many believe is overly litigious, the judicial use of section 5 represents a practical way for the commission to bring problematic conduct to a halt.

In the second part of the action, Google committed to stopping the most troubling of its business practices related to Internet search into search advertising. Google will stop misappropriating or scraping the content of its rivals for use of its own specialized search results. Google will drop contractual restrictions that impair the ability of small businesses particularly to advertise on competing search advertising platforms. Google has made legally enforceable and binding commitments to resolve the commission’s concerns. These commitments have reporting requirements that will allow the commission to vigorously monitor and enforce compliance if necessary.

Let me talk in a little more detail about some of this conduct.

The commission investigated allegations that Google misappropriated without consent the content of rivals websites to improve its own products and pass this content off to consumer as if it were its own. For example, Google allegedly scraped the user-generated reviews of local restaurants displayed on yelp and led consumers to believe that they were its own. When some websites complained to Google about the practice, Google allegedly — and I say allegedly — threatened to remove them entirely from Google search results. Now, Congress created our commission almost 100 years ago to stop unfair business practices and I won’t seek to characterize Google’s behavior as conduct that is clearly problematic and potentially harmful to competition because it undermines incentives to innervate. That is why you would create a new site for restaurant reviews if someone else can take them and appropriate them as if they were their own.

Going forward, Google will allow websites the ability to opt out of Google local or product shopping without being penalized or demoting in its general search results on Google.com. That is it’s organic search. This arrangement should ensure that the Internet remains vibrant and competitive.

The commission also investigated whether Google unfairly restricted the ability of businesses to use tools to manage their advertising campaigns simultaneously on Google and on other competing advertising platforms. For example, Bing. This practice is known as multi-homing. Our investigation suggested that most large advertisers preferred to multi-home. Multi-homing by small advertising and small businesses affected by the Google restrictions was much less common. Some commissioners were concerned by the tendency of Google’s restrictions to raise the cost to small business and Google has committed to drop the restrictions on multi-homing. We think that will create a more competitive environment.

Many of Google’s critics, including many competitors, wanted the commission to go further in this investigation and regulate the intricacies of Google’s search engine algorithm. The commission exhaustively investigated allegations that Google unfairly manipulated search engine results to harm competitors, a practice that most of us refer to as search bias. Today the commission has voted to close this investigation unanimously. It can always, of course, reopen any investigation if it believes that a company, in this case Google, crosses the line with respect to our investigation. Although some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition. Google’s primary reason for changing the look and feel of its search results to highlight its own products was to improve the user experience. Similarly changes to Google’s algorithm that had the effective demoting certain competing websites had connection, applausable connection, with improving Google search results, especially when competitors tried to gain Google’s algorithm in ways that benefitted those firms but not consumers looking for the best search results.

I remember an article from the New York Times maybe a year ago about J.C. Penney paying companies to do precisely this: not commenting on the value of seeing J.C. Penney advertisements ranked higher or lower in search results. Tellingly, Google’s search engine rivals engaged in many of the same product design choices that Google did, suggesting that this practice can benefit consumers.

Now, while not everything that Google did was beneficial on balance, we didn’t believe that the evidence supported an FTC challenge to this aspect of Google’s business under American law. As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote more than 50 years ago and as the Federal courts have consistently ruled since, “the focus of our law is on protecting competition, not competitors.”

Google is unquestionably one of America’s great companies, innovative in fielding from its core search engine to varied ventures such as driverless cars. With today’s action by the FTC, Google can refocus on its business and its products, but with a clear understanding that it must do so while competing fairly. Now, some may believe the commission should have done more in this case perhaps because they’re locked in hand to hand combat with Google around the world or perhaps in a mistaken belief that criticizing us will influence the outcome in other jurisdictions. Some may believe we should have done less. I imagine Google is one that believes that. but for our part, at this very wonderful agency, we follow the facts where they lead  and apply statute faithfully. We do it with a vigor and appropriate restraint.

Today’s bipartisan commission action brings to an end the commission’s investigations of Google in a fashion calculated to brings our investigation to a close.”

Google has a reputation for rolling out far-reaching changes at a moment’s notice. Today, it was announced that Google is merging its Google Places pages with their new Google+ Local initiative. While this move adds benefits and options for consumers and G+ users, it creates a lot of new potential challenges for Google Places Page and Google+ Business Page administrators.

Here’s what you need to know:

Optimization of G+ is Even More important Now

While you can still manage your Google Places page from your previous administrator access, the page information is now being cultivated and merged with your Google+ Business Page and will live in the new Google+ Local tab.

You business pages will still show up in search results (and have been integrated with Maps and mobile too), but now the information that shows will be the rich content that has been written and optimized for your Google+ Business Page.

This makes it even more important that you’ve taken the necessary steps to completely optimize your G+ page (if you’re unsure how to do that, read our post on optimizing G+ personal pages). There isn’t a business on the planet that can afford to not have an updated, optimized Google+ Business Page now as search results and business rankings will be shifting in the wake of Google’s 80-million-page shift.

A Fully-Realized Enterprise Social Strategy and Social Media Policy Are No Longer Optional

It wasn’t that long ago that having an enterprise social strategy was something you’d find in companies few and far between, but those times have changed. With every change to Google and Facebook’s growing empires, it has become necessary to delve into and understand how your company appears for, acts with and responds to customers on social media.

With the recent merger of Google Places and Google+ Local, customers now have the ability to interact and converse directly on Google+ Business Pages alongside leaving reviews. In the past, it was easy to keep an eye on reviews and respond when necessary, but the conversation is moving away from stagnant review slots and we are in the midst of Google realizing their vision – a completely social experience for the consumer.

Because of Google’s recent changes to 80 million pages, having a clear, set and understood social media policy has just become a top priority for companies.

It’s worth reminding you that unless your customers are prompted to write a review, the review they’re most likely to leave will happen after they have a bad experience. Unlike the Lowe’s Facebook fiasco last year, we hope you’ll be ready to reply with the right response.

One Profile, Several Search Experiences

Your customers will now be able to search out your business in many different ways: by searching on Google.com, searching on Google Maps, through mobile applications and now through searches on Google+ and Google+ Local. You can see how businesses show up in Google Map searches in the image below:

Although there are many doorways through which your customers can now find you, all the information is coming from your one G+ Profile. Users will be able to filter by location, type, Circles, ratings (Zagat-based ratings as well as reviews), and more, so having a fleshed-out and content-rich profile is critical.

Google+ Business profiles allow for much more information and rich content like pictures and videos to be added and easily displayed to customers and search engines. Below, see the different between the old Google Places page layout and the updated Google+ Business page layout.

It’s up to you to take the time and fully optimize this page to give people searching their area the best presentation of your company as possible.

New Pages Are Indexed

One of the most exciting changes coming along with this shift for business concerned with SEO is that unlike Google Places pages, Google+ Local pages will be indexed, so all that work you’re putting into optimizing your page will pay off in your company’s search ranking positioning.

The good news is that aside from spending more time setting up an enterprise social media policy and filling out your Google+ Local page information, managing your Google Places/+ page won’t involve a huge learning curve. Here’s that Google had to say about it in their blog:

“If you are a business owner, you should continue to manage your information in Google Places for Business. You’ll still be able to verify your basic listing data, make updates, and respond to reviews. For those who use AdWords Express, your ads will operate as normal as they’ll automatically redirect people to the destination you selected, or your current listing.”

Yes, there are greater demands on business-owners on learning Google+, but much is being focused for businesses while search option are expanding for customers searching you out.

No More Stars, Zagat Now Rules To Roost 

Last year Google acquired Zagat. No one was really sure how it would play out, but now we’re getting a peak into how this will solidify for businesses and consumers.

Google has done away with their 5-star review rating process and merged everything with Zagat’s 30-point score system. The same is true for general reviews and both will show up in search rankings for businesses on Google.com AND Google+ Local searches.

While for a lot of B2B businesses this may not seem like that big a deal, with all reviews now showing up in search rankings throughout all Google services, it is even more important that you create positive experiences for clients and encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on your Google+ profile.

Final Thoughts

Google has made some pretty big changes that affect a lot of businesses and pretty much all of them involve how your business shows up locally to people around you. The changes will most certainly enhance customer search and discovery experiences with a small learning curve for users.

As for businesses, the changes mean a great deal more. It is now imperative that businesses pay attention to the activity and presence on Google+ and those that ignore their Google+ presence do so at their own peril.

Google has been inching towards making local search more social for a while and now has taken a huge leap into that area with this merger. Social media has been playing a large part in business communications for years, but in one day, Google has effectively upped the ante and made it crucial for your business to get in the game.

Recap

3 years ago you may have been one of the guys saying “I can’t believe competitor X is wasting money on THAT…” Today, Google has created another opportunity for you to start fresh and be ahead of the curve. The question is, are you ready?

If you need additional help, feel free to contact our search and social department at social@marketstrong.net or visit our Enterprise Social page.

Question: Is it true that everyone is in sales?

Answer: Yes, and if they know what’s good for them, they better be!

Incentivizing Sales Across Your Entire Organization

Relying exclusively on traditional sales processes driven by “salespeople” is inhibiting your company’s growth potential. Your technicians, the subject matter experts in their respective disciplines, are an untapped source of sales revenue with a much better close rate than your typical 1099. Why? Because customers trust the doer more than the seller.

More and more companies have started empowering technicians to sell by harnessing the power of social media. Incentivizing sales across your organization will encourage team members to productize and share their knowledge online and off in hopes of generating commissions. Social media sites, trade shows, trips to the bar, etc. all become an opportunity for technicians to sell their capabilities.

Within three to six months, people you previously slotted as technicians will have grown equity in themselves by advertising their expertise through sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The result? Increased sales for you and an extra paycheck for them.

Over time, the published and productized knowledge your technicians share online will perpetually generate sales from customers sourcing subject matter experts – not salesmen. As a strategic marketing solutions executive, I’ve seen firsthand how opening up a “social sales enterprise” can significantly increase business opportunities.

Social DNA

Initial returns from socially integrated sales organizations are showing promise; however, the tools of the trade have yet to catch up with companies seeking to make social networking part of their corporate DNA. The old workhorses, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, have especially fallen behind the development curve.

Enterprise level CRM systems from SugarCRM to Salesforce.com recently began to awkwardly integrate social into customer lists and at the contact detail level.  However, CRM software disregards the fact that many prospective customers do not engage brands through the traditional sales funnel. Customers are more likely to initiate an equitable exchange with a person, on there terms, versus responding to artificial engagements driven by a faceless corporate entity.

Companies Don’t Do Business with Companies

Social media is literally redefining how we sell. To prognosticate, the role of the salesman will evolve such that the people responsible for closing sales MUST truly becoming active, contributing social professionals in their respective trade or area of expertise.  A salesperson’s vested stake in social groups, industry associations, forums, blogs and other media will directly impact their ability to find and convert leads in the social network ecosystem.

Companies must wrestle with the fact that no one wants to speak with a salesperson when they can network and connect with a professional. As social media adoption grows among buyers, sellers will be forced to adapt company culture to promote buyer/technician relationships.

People Must be the Value Proposition

Social media works best in business when there is an equitable exchange.  We “like” and “follow” content because we see value, interest or amusement in what was delivered.  Businesses of all sizes must ensure EVERY team member understands your company’s value proposition, elevator pitch and the marketable value of their respective role when connecting with clients – both online and off.

Sales professionals who do not “pay the price” to learn their trade, sharpen their saw and dive into their most relevant social and online networks will be challenged to be considered an expert.  We very simply cannot afford to live outside of social networks and expect to sell as efficiently as we used to.

Technology to the Rescue

Emerging software like Nimble is giving SMBs scalable, low-cost options to connect every employee and potential customer into the sales communication process. How? By using the one strategy that absolutely cements social’s inevitable penetration into even the most stubborn enterprises; unifying social media and traditional email into one inbox.

Communications efficiency will ultimately demand that all inbound direct communications be consolidated into one interface. Everyone from the sales team to technicians will have an opportunity to directly respond to social media-generated inquiries. Your entire organization becomes your customer service department, customer retention department and sales department, all without adding overhead. 

It Works, We Proved It

My organization has an initiative called “Operation 3X” where each employee is given a PERSONAL (yet company-owned) social CRM account.  All employees are encouraged to actively participate in online communities that involve their respective disciplines. Content strategists and other specialists live, learn and network on the company dime in exchange for one expectation; they learn the company playbook and share their brand aligned knowledge with peers and clients.

We schedule monthly meetings to give team members the opportunity to share experiences, knowledge and leads gained through social communities. The 3X stands for a goal where each employee triples their network of peer and client contacts each year. The ultimate strategic goal of these efforts is for each employee to generate three times their income in sales each year.

Our results have been amazing. Every team member has a percentage stake in generated business and receives a guaranteed raise when they hit their 3X mark. In less than one year, this program has grown to account for more than 10% of our annual new account sales and double digit increases in bookings from existing customers.

Overall, social media has a place in an enterprise and certainly in a sales organization.  The technology to fully integrate social into companies of all sizes is literally months away and the rules are changing such that everyone can and should be a driver of business.  It can be and should be in our personal and corporate DNA.

Co-Written by J.Camp and C.Brown

We gathered. We shared knowledge. All in all, the Industry Collective was strong at Murmuration 2012, and we couldn’t have done it without all of the participation from our panelists and the Nashville community. The event generated more measurable Social Media buzz than any marketing event in our history, and was wildly successful in leading to cash donations to the NTC Scholarship Fund and to Nashville’s chapter of the Intern’l Social Media Club.

We brought together the top leaders of the social media and technology world to speak at the historic Franklin Theatre. Attendees flocked to hear panelists Jeff Cohen (Radian6, @jeffreylcohen), Dawn Devirgilio (ExactTarget, @dawndevirgilio), Patrick Salyer (Gigya, @patricksalyer), Marcus Whitney (Moontoast, @marcuswhitney), special unannounced speaker Robert Brown (Nissan, @jrobertb),and James Soto (ISM, @jamessotoism) share insights, technologies, and strategies on the rapidly developing landscape in social marketing.

The panels covered a wide spectrum of hot topics – from the challenges and risks that today’s business leaders face to the opportunities as social media becomes integral to campaign and relationship-based marketing.

Now, it’s time to dig a bit deeper and recap … i.e. the “Murmuration Effect”, and how we went about accomplishing our goals.

Our Goals for Murmuration 2012

Murmuration was geared toward supporting enterprise teams and marketing executives who wanted to explore the most effective, creative and advanced ways that social media could make a measurable difference for their business, their clients, or their employers.

When we set out, it was our goal to reach the following members of the community at large. This was accomplished by creating a “map” of everywhere on and offline that these targets spend time. A few of the groups include:

Speakers we pursued: Gigya, MoonToast, ExactTarget, Facebook, Linkedin

Result: Received immediate confirmation from Gigya, ExactTarget, and MoonToast. Facebook made a soft commitment (now we see that the IPO announcement was keeping them a bit busy). Linkedin expressed interest too close to the date of the event to participate. 

Marketing Associations and Groups: PRSA, NAMA, IABC, Nashville Technology Council, The 615, SMC Nashville, AAF

Result: Every association on-board as advocates or sponsors, and all were in attendance

Local Corporations: Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Catepillar, Genesco, Griffin, Eventful, Magazines.com, Emma Email Marketing, Raven Tools, Gaylord, Vanderbilt, Nissan Americas, Infiniti, Kirklands, SESAC, Xerox, CMT and approx. 100 other local companies

Result: 100% Awareness, 80% of the targeted companies were in attendance (100% of those listed above), 2 became sponsors, and Nissan joined us on stage.

Local Marketing and PR firms: As Industry Collective is all about the community, we also sought attendance from local PR and Marketing agencies as we have long felt they are groups that stand to gain the most from a solid enterprise social media education.

Result: Estimated 100% Awareness, 73% of the targeted companies were in attendance. The companies included Gamma Blast, [meta]marketer, Birdsong Creative, Powell Creative, Sheridan PR, Fletcher Rowley, Journal Communications, Deane Smith & Partners, Caddis, LexisNexis, Red Pepper, Athens-South, ACS, iostudio, Marshall and Bruce, Phase 3, Nashville Business Journal, DVL, Meredith Group, and dozens more. 

A quick profile of Murmuration attendees:

Overwhelmingly, our main advocates on Twitter were the drivers of over 84% of all online communications.  90% were between the ages of 25-44 (equally split between 25-34 and 35-44) and 62% of those that mentioned us online were women.

How we marketed the event without “breaking the bank”:

Like all good things, we started with a plan. A brief “Playbook” was written and distributed to speakers, sponsors, and association partners and we simply encouraged their participation. This was made manageable  as we provided everything from a well-written editorial calendar, to pre-crafted press releases and emails for easy distribution. Even the emails were created from the start with branding for those that were to distribute.

We based our communications strategy on key milestones that were mapped out in the Marketstrong platform, and triggered social updates and reminders to everyone ahead of each communication milestone. In order to track the event, we included the hashtag #murmuration in all communications. (For better tracking we tagged “negative keywords” like “starlings” and “birds+flock” – the hashtag previously had 1 to 2 daily mentions)

The Influencer Formula

Throughout this campaign, we also tagged influencers online and tracked their activity. This activity tracked in the context of a campaign allows us to identify influencers in a much different way than a site like Klout. Rather than simply looking at a general class of retweets and reach, it allows us to measure entity relationships and as people engage with our campaigns, allows us to track activity across the web as it relates to future campaigns – thus allowing intelligent identification of new potential advocates. Using this methodology, we were able to minimize our efforts and still see great success.

Results – By the Numbers

Note: Our tracking was meant to cover a range of items, including speakers, companies, associations, and sponsors. In an effort to truly track the effect of the event on our partners, we included generic keywords as well as company and speaker twitter handles.

Key Stats (click on images to enlarge):

• Keynote Tickets Sold: 247/240
• Birdbath Tickets Sold: 122/120
• Industry Collective (#murmuration) had a total of 2826 (32.4%) mentions between Jan 1st and Feb 10th.
• Radian6 recorded 250  mentions alone with the #radian6 hashtag on the day of the event.
• #Murmuration was the most popular keyword used from the start of the year
• The event was mentioned over 1200 times on the day of the event alone
• Out of the 2826 posts that were recorded, 84.6% came from Twitter.

If you attended Murmuration, thank you for your  enthusiastic participation & we look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Add Joshua on G+

Optimizing your G+ profile is quite possibly the best use of your time on social networks at the moment. Here is the ‘how and why’ of what we recommend you do to take advantage of things.

Why it’s important

Your G+ profile is displayed when one of a few things happens. The most common being that someone searches for something in Google and results are returned from their G+ network (in the way of profiles or shared content), when you as an author have a ‘rich snippet’ tied to an article you wrote, or when someone simply searches for your name. With this latest change, all of these things are increasingly important to your SEO efforts. Remember, with G+, you really do have to treat yourself as a brand.

G+ Profile in Search Results

Metadata still counts

Google+ uses the following formula to generate the meta name=”description” tag:

Your Name + Headline + Position + Company + Current City + Introduction

Here are the steps you should take in order to make the most of G+:

1. Decide where (and what) you’d like to rank for
1. Do you do most of your business in your hometown, or the large city where your office is? This makes a difference when you add a current location.
2. Are you looking for freelance work, a job, or aiming to promote your company page? Keep this in mind when looking for keywords and job titles to use in your profile
2. Do a little research
1. Just like traditional keyword research, look for higher volume, lower competition words and phrases
2. Pay attention to one variable – the fact that people are probably more likely to click through personal profiles when seeking to expand their network (that means city searches, and occupational searches may be much more valuable than generic phrases), and business pages are more likely to be clicked on when someone is looking for a service.
3. Complete your Profile
1. It may sound ridiculous, but when we say “complete”, we mean it. G+ uses bits and pieces of your entire profile to determine the best way to display you and your content in search results.
2. Pay attention to your length of text – especially in your headline, as it appears that hidden information isn’t so relevant when searching inside of G+, although it’s all used in the meta tag for public searches
3. Make sure to add the proper URLs to your profile. There are (2) types of links that affect search results for someone in your network:
1. The ‘Other profiles’ will give Google a clue as to where your Twitter account and Facebook profile or pages live, and will affect subsequent search results
2. The ‘Contributor to’ field will let Google know where you publish content.

NOTE: Make sure you link to an actual author profile page, and not just the blog or publication page. This along with some optimization and rel=”me” and rel=”author” tagging on that linked profile page is required for Google to display rich snippets

Rich Snippets in Google Search

Other Important Steps

1. Optimize outside of G+
1. Connect your other profiles to your G+ profile by adding links where possible
2. Although Google may or may not take it into account for individuals, make sure to be consistent – there is no sense in telling Facebook you live in Monaco and G+ that you live in Arkansas and in the case of a business profile this is likely to have a negative effect
2. Engage, engage, engage
1. Lastly, there is no point to any of this if you don’t build your personal network on G+, so start building circles and contributing to conversations.
2. Try building location or interest specific circles so you can build influence in your own area or the area you do most of your business. For example, for a freelance PHP developer doing mostly local work you might start engaging with people you know are closely related to small business associations in the area and adding their members to your own segmented circles. As more and more business people in the area add you to a circle, you are more likely to be returned as a search result that magic day when they go to Google and type in “freelance PHP developers”.