Brittany Aguilar « PulsePoint Group - Communications Management Consulting

Google Launches +1 as Part of Social Push

Brittany Aguilar
April 6th, 2011

Last week Google launched a new social feature called +1. For searchers with a Google account, they will have the option of clicking the “+1″ button, which is similar to the Facebook “like.” Then, other searchers who are signed into Google will see “+1″ feedback from their connections.

ReadWriteWeb explains Google’s reasoning for the new feature,

“But in the long run, Google says +1 will help users find relevant content, and that’s good news if, indeed, your site delivers. Google also says that ‘as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.’”

+1 Means More Personalization

Google has been working on breaking into the social space in a big way, but I’m not sure this is it. While social media has proven that people value the references and input of their real-life friends, that may not be true when a user is looking for a specific type of content rather than just browsing. Especially, when your friends might not have experience in the category you are searching for.

Ray Grieselhuber of GinzaMetrics says that search results will keep moving toward increased personalization.

“Despite its growing presence in our daily lives, one of the least talked-about, most important trends in online marketing and media today is the expansion of personalization. Within just a few years, internet users are going to expect highly personalized experiences with their brands, videos, games, websites, shopping, and yes, searches.”

Personalization will certainly mean more relevant search results and more relevant marketing strategies overall, but the user-experience of rating search results might be difficult. By the time you realize that a site is helpful for you, you’ve probably already left the search results.

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Tags: Commentary, Google, Social Media
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Web Now Second Only to TV as News Source

Brittany Aguilar
March 16th, 2011

For media relations and communications professionals, understanding where target audiences go for news is critical. A new report from the Pew Research Center reveals that for the first time, the web has passed newspapers as the second most popular source of news. It’s second only to television.

We’ve been anticipating this milestone, but now that it’s here, it has significant impacts for our industry. Most importantly, this shift makes corporate blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds even more important as official sources of news content from major brands.

News Consumers Are Turning to the Web

The Pew study explains that the web is a premier source for news,

For the first time, too, more people said they got news from the web than newspapers. The internet now trails only television among American adults as a destination for news, and the trend line shows the gap closing. Financially the tipping point also has come. When the final tally is in, online ad revenue in 2010 is projected to surpass print newspaper ad revenue for the first time. The problem for news is that by far the largest share of that online ad revenue goes to non-news sources, particularly to aggregators.

As aggregators, bloggers and community sites continue to pull in ad revenue, they will add staff and will become top sources for news and opinion online. This means that a solid digital strategy is critical for any communications department. Building relationships with online media - bloggers, influencers, key opinion leaders, Twitter users, Facebook fans and blog commenters - will become the more important than some relationships with traditional media.

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Tags: In the News, Media Relations, Social Media
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Google “Cleans Up” Search Results

Brittany Aguilar
February 28th, 2011

Last week, Google announced a significant change to the way it determines search results. The change is supposed to place more value on sites with original content over sites that aggregate content or repost from other places. Google claims that this change will impact about 12 percent of searches.

Google frequently makes changes to its algorithm (the mathematical formula that Google uses to determine search result order), but these are usually small tweaks that only impact a few websites.

Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts explain in a blog post on the change,

“We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”

Hurting Aggregators

While it’s understandable that Google wants to improve its results, this change isn’t without controversy. Many website owners rely on traffic from Google’s search engine, and these changes can make it very difficult for them to maintain their business model.

Most of the sites that are seeing a decrease in traffic are “content farms” or aggregator sites. These sites pull content from across the web and house it in one place. Many of these “content farms” display content on a particular subject and provide a real value to the online community (ex. Techmeme). These sites often have their own algorithm for determining which content to place on their sites. Google may see these sites as competition since they often replace the need for a traditional search for the latest news or content.

Beneficial for Content Creators

Ultimately, this change is a good thing for companies that invest in quality content creation, because Google is placing greater value on that content. This also means that it is important to regularly produce quality content. For companies that have a unique expertise, Google is helping you out because you are now an even more important part of the “healthy web ecosystem” that Google seeks to promote.

This won’t drastically change the way in which you optimize you web content, but it does mean that you should focus on providing more original content if you want to rank well in Google.

Tags: Content Creation, Google, Search, SEO
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Extend Social Media Beyond Communications and Marketing

Brittany Aguilar
January 31st, 2011

We’ve seen many companies struggle with the question of who “owns” social media. In one sense, you are communicating to customers, so it must be a marketing function. But, isn’t marketing usually “paid” and communications “earned?” If so, most social media profiles are “free,” so it must be a communications function! Well, we’ve seen the most successful social media companies embrace both and use cross-divisional teams to find manage the space.

This struggle, though, may actually be less important than previously thought, as social media is quickly becoming relevant to much more than communications and marketing. In fact, the next wave of the social media revolution will likely be in customer service and sales.

Imagine that you’ve just tweeted that you are tired of your current vehicle breaking down, and you are ready for an upgrade! What if a car company saw your tweet and someone from their sales team reached out to you with information about their latest models in your price range?

Sales teams have gotten pretty good at e-mail marketing, but I see a real lack of innovation in sales social media. Social media can give you a tremendous amount of input and insight on your prospects; you could even catch a lead in mid-status update. Imagine a time when all of your CRM databases include Twitter and Facebook profiles. You’d be able to really get to know your prospects and tailor your sales pitches to their specific needs. You might even be able to insert your brand for consideration with a prospect that wasn’t even going to look at you. There’s nowhere better to learn about your customers than from their own, hand-selected social networks.

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Tags: Internal Communcations, Online Communities, Organization Design, Resource Allocation, Social Media
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Foursquare Grew 3400% Last Year

Brittany Aguilar
January 24th, 2011

Foursquare had a big year in 2010. The company experienced 3400% growth in “check-ins” with a total of 381,576,305, and there was at least one “check-in” in every country in the world, including North Korea. We even saw the first “check-in” from space at the International Space Station on October 22, 2010.

Foursquare published an infographic summarizing their accomplishments and a few fun facts from 2010.

From a strategic communications perspective, the tremendous growth of Foursquare means that the collision of online social media and the offline physical world has truly become mainstream. For many consumers, there is no more “offline” world; even when we are nowhere near a computer, our phones give us access to the “online” world, and technologies like Foursquare provide meaningful ways to integrate the two.

Leading brands like Starbucks are finding simple, but creative ways to use “check-ins” to boost sales. For example, Starbucks gives discounts to customers who “check-in” frequently.

This meeting of the online and offline world represents a huge opportunity because it brings people to a physical location – a huge first step towards making a sale. This could also give brick-and-mortar stores a tool in the battle against the growing world of e-commerce.

I expect 2011 to bring increased integration between physical locations and the online world, and as communications professionals; we’ll all be looking for ways to capitalize on this growing trend. One thing is for sure – discounts and giveaways will continue to encourage foot-traffic.

Foursqaure infographic:

foursquare_2010-1

Tags: Foursquare, mobile
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Grammys Go Social – Will It Improve Ratings?

Brittany Aguilar
January 19th, 2011

The music industry continues to be at the forefront of social media innovation and excellence. Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Rhiana are Twitter legends and music videos continue to be the most-viewed videos on the web.

The Grammys ran an excellent social media campaign last year called “We Are Fans.” The effort included TV spots and a microsite with aggregated real-time content. It brought fans and artists together and TV ratings increased 35 percent over the previous year.

This year, the Grammys are taking their social strategy to the next level by making the experience even more interactive. The 2011 campaign is called “Music Is Life Is Music,” which includes an interactive geo-location map, exclusive Grammys performances and artist involvement.

The mobile app includes an augmented reality view that ties music to other aspects of the user’s life. Mashable explains the application:

The Academy and Co. kicked off Music Is Life Is Music with a Foursquare-esque app called the MusicMapper on both iPhone and Android platforms. The app, which is a mashup of Google Maps, SimpleGeo (for the location-based API) and music subscription service Rdio, allows users to tag locations on a map of their current city with songs and notes.

For example, say you saw your favorite band play for the first time on your birthday at that old movie palace in town, and middway through the set you caught the drummer’s sweaty tank top - by searching for that location via MusicMapper, you can drop a virtual pin of the map, and tag that location with the aforementioned story and a track by the artist in question, pulled from Rdio. You can also share your tag via Twitter and Facebook.

This app and campaign are innovative, but the real test will be if this improves ratings and translates into a strong business decision for the Grammys.

Undoubtedly, I think it will.

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Tags: Social Media
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Twitter Goes Casual

Brittany Aguilar
January 11th, 2011

Twitter users frequently abbreviate and misspell words in order to adhere to the 140-character limit. A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that there are regional differences in how users choose to shorten words.

Despite the global nature of Twitter, these regional differences among people who speak the same language can actually prevent communication or at least lead to confusion and misunderstanding.

The study team said that these dialectic differences haven’t been seen across the web in places like blogs because written words tends to be more formal and thus homogenized. But, the need for shorter phrases is forcing users to communicate in informal ways, even with written language. This means that Twitter is having an impact on the fundamental way we communicate - it is becoming acceptable to use informal language when writing.

For companies, the implication is that your language can’t be overly formal or officious because you won’t fit into the larger conversation. It will be obvious that you don’t belong and your efforts will fall short.

It also means that you may not understand exactly what is being said. Here’s a taste of some of the regional variances in the U.S.:

The study found Twitter users in southern California might tweet “coo” for “cool,” while those in northern California are more likely to write “koo,” it found.
The word “very” is often expressed as “OD” in New York and “hella” in northern California, the study found.
The word “you” is often “uu” in New York but a single ‘u’ elsewhere, it said. Twitter users in large cities are more likely to use ‘yu’ than those in rural or suburban areas.

I’m not advocating that your brand start using these words, but it is important that you understand the context of the conversations you are monitoring so that you can communicate appropriately.

Online, written conversations are beginning to mirror offline, verbal conversations. So, your online conversations should begin to sound more like a person having a conversation. Many welcome this change as a more accessible and open way for people and companies to communicate. Either way, companies who don’t learn how to adapt to this new reality will be left behind.

Tags: Social Media, Tips, Twitter
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Mobile Matters More in 2011

Brittany Aguilar
January 5th, 2011

The Consumer Electronics Show is about to kick-off in Las Vegas and industry watchers are expecting hundreds of exciting, new gadgets to wow tech lovers. Most of these new “consumer electronics” will probably fall short, but a few will inevitably spur major attention and revenue.

cesweb_headerlogo

ReadWriteWeb outlined their CES predictions with their top 3 trends in mobile:

Trend #1: Usable Android Tablets: Like last year, there will be tablets aplenty at CES, but this time around, they might be tablets you’llactually buy. Sprint’s president of its business markets group, Paget Alves, recently toldFierceWireless.com that he expects there will be “at least 12 different tablets” that will be unveiled at CES 2011. Other sources, like CNET for example, say there will be more. In fact, CNET says there will be tablets from Acer, Archos, Asus, Creative, Dell, Entourage, Fusion Garage, LG, Motorola, MSI, Notion Ink, Samsung, Toshiba and ViewSonic.

…

Trend #2: First 4G Phones (and Other Devices): 2011 will be the year that 4G, specifically Verizon’s LTE technology, takes off. Although none of the carriers who have announced 4G networks are actually providing speeds that meet the standard’s requirement, as a marketing term “4G” means faster speeds and faster downloads for mobile users.

Verizon’s CEO Ivan Seidenberg is delivering a keynote address on January 6th, where it’s expected he will discuss the company’s launch of its LTE network, and will likely talk about its new LTE-enabled phones and tablets. According to The Wall St. Journal, Verizon will show off LTE smartphones from Motorola, Samsung, HTC and LG Electronics as well as one tablet computer. All the devices will be powered by Android.

…

Trend #3: 3D / Mobile TV: There isn’t much information about this yet, but LG Electronics is reportedly going to unveil a new line of mobile TV products, including 3D mobile TV which will let you watch 3D digital broadcasts, without special 3D eyeglasses, even when traveling in mobile vehicles up to 200 Kilometers per Hour (3D TV on the plane)? The tech will reportedly be demonstrated with a 7-inch device.

While all three of these are likely to exploded in terms of growth this year, I think another trend merits discussion as well.

My Trend #4: Making Other Devices “Mobile”: Mobile wifi-enabled hotspots were introduced in 2010. They let users carry around hotspots that provided wifi access nearly anywhere (planes being the obvious exception). Now, this technology is being embedded in phones with unlimited data pricing structures. I expect this technology to expand in 2011, possibly even to the iPhone at some point this year. That would mean an increased revenue stream for data providers, and a mobile consumer army that can connect their wifi-enabled devices like laptops and tablets to wifi through their phones. That means that tablets will have to step up their functionality to compete with full-out laptop computers to provide value. If I can connect my laptop to the internet anywhere, I see little need for a tablet that lacks a USB port and a camera. Obviously, there are benefits to a lighter-weight tablet, but making any device “mobile” means that these devices will become more innovative as they come into more direct competition with each other.

Tags: 2011 Trends, CES, mobile
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2010 Pop Culture as Presented by Social Media

Brittany Aguilar
December 16th, 2010

We are approaching the close of 2010, and we’ve seen a lot. Luckily for those of us with short memories, Google and Twitter have created microsites so we can re-live the year’s top topics. Google’s site shows the top searches and Twitter’s shows the top trending topics of 2010.

The most searched topics in the United States on Google in 2010 were:

iPad
Chatroulette
iPhone 4
World Cup
Justin Bieber
Myxer
Facebook
Groovseshark
Glee
Mocospace

There are certainly some surprises in that list. Overall, products and services are searched most often. Apple dominated with two of the top three searches. Of the list, only the World Cup was an event, and even it could be classified as an entertainment service.

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Tags: Social Media, Trendspotting
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Collaboration Drives Communities

Brittany Aguilar
August 20th, 2010

Communities bring people together. In the offline sense, people gravitate toward communities because they are able to share with others and benefit from team-dynamics. This means resources can be pooled to achieve common goals. In this sense, everyone wins when they join a community that they really care about.

Companies have been in the community-management business for a long time. Athletic shoe stores organize runner clubs and bookstores organize book clubs, but the really successful communities focus on the mutual benefits to members and organizers. These benefits have to be things that the individuals cannot gain or achieve on their own, or would at least find challenging on their own.

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Tags: Add new tag, Online Communities, Social Media
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