Get the juicy details below:

Facebook Offers Now National: Facebook’s in-stream offers are now national. This is a huge new feature for any brand on Facebook.

Pinterest Drives More Sales than Facebook: For one particular marketer, simply adding “Pin It” buttons has proven to be a big payoff. More evidence of Pinterest’s massive referral power.

Experian 2012 Digital Marketer Report: This thing is packed with useful insights.

• 91% of today’s online adults use social media regularly
• Revenue per email averages 2x higher for ‘Friends and Family’ campaigns
• 28% of smartphone owners watch video on their phone in a typical month
• Pinterest is now the 3rd most popular social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter

Google+ “Hangouts On-Air” Launch: Google’s new video broadcasting platform could be a huge challenger to UStream/Justin.tv. Your Hangouts can be posted on your G+ stream, YouTube Channel or website.

82% of Time Spent on Mobile Happens on Apps: Apps are still the king of mobile attention.

To get our monthly social media trends newsletter, head to Room214.com/subscribe. You also get a free download of our Quarterly Social Media Trend Report which covers Instagram For Brands, Mobile Strategy and Facebook Parent-Child.

Here are links to see the new season pass finder app and season passes info app for the 2012-2013 season in all of their 810 pixel width glory. I’ve posted screenshots below as well.

What the season pass finder does is help users determine what pass is best for their needs, based on the number of estimated days the user plans on skiing at each resort. The application’s logic determines all available pass options and then outputs the best pass option based on lowest calculated cost per day. Additionally, there is still a backend CMS that allows page admins to change pricing, images and copy on the fly. When pass or resort pricing is adjusted, the app’s logic still works its magic, outputting the best pass option based on lowest price per day. It’s pretty awesome if we do say so ourselves. Let’s take a look at what the apps look like:

Season Pass Finder Header

We built a new header module with additional functionality to mirror the epicpass.com website, where users can hover/click on each resort logo and get a nice summary of the mountain, in addition to adding the Like button which allows users to easily subscribe to each resort’s Facebook updates.

Initial State

Clicked State

Season Pass Finder Main Functionality

The core functionality of this app is pretty similar to last year, but the app now looks much clearer, which should help increase engagement. We also had to add in another resort, Kirkwoord, as the Vail Resorts family continues to grow. The first screenshot here shows the default landing state, while the second screenshot is showing how the app adjusts when users select different days on different resorts.

Initial State

Selected State

Season Passes Info Application

In addition to the season passes app, we created a separate new standalone app that outlines all of the pass options and information in an interactive, visually appealing way. To see all the pass info, we utilized styled modals to keep the main state cleaner.

Initial State

More Info Modal State

We’re really excited to continue to build customized, integrated Facebook applications in the new 810 pixel wide space – it’s almost like applications can now exist as microsites within Facebook. What are some of your favorite examples of new apps taking advantage of the new 810 pixel width?

Facebook’s New Ad Creation Interface: Facebook has made some updates to the popular ad creations interface. Age Targeting has changed, you can now target ads to as young as age 13. When you create an ad or sponsored story, instead of choosing a particular Facebook advertising program, all you’ll need to do to get started is answer a few questions about what you want to promote and your objectives. Also, if you are promoting a Page, app, or event you can enter its name in the field marked Destination. Once you’ve selected your destination, you’ll then see other options about what you want to promote, and what you want people to see when they view your ad or sponsored story.

Cadbury’s Approach to Google+: ”Cadbury has put significant creative muscle into Google+ efforts, with buzzworthy events such as recreating its page entirely out of chocolate to celebrate hitting the 500K fan mark and unveiling a new candy bar on the platform.” A great article on how Cadbury has built a following of 1 million+ on Google Plus.

Wrap Bribes Visitors For Data: How much is your personal data worth? Wrapp will give you a $5 gift card for access to your personal data… and people are taking the offer.

Kraft’s Likeapella Video: Kraft made an a capella video to thank all 4,632 people for liking one of their Facebook posts, literally naming every single one of them.

Here are some highlights:

Messages: A new feature for brand pages, which can be turned on or off at will. Now fans can send private messages to your brand page. We recommend that you use this feature to take customer service conversations to a private environment. You could also use it to administrate contests and giveaways.

Pinning and Highlighting Posts: Your Facebook posts have become much more flexible. You have the ability to give posts more visibility with the highlight option, which will make the posts much larger and more eye-catching. You can also use the pinning function to keep a post at the top of your timeline for seven days. This is a great option for promoting contests, applications, or ongoing campaigns.

Designing Your Timeline: Between photo covers, milestones, and customizable app/tab images, there are a lot of great new options to give your timeline a very unique personality and look. Use these options to create a real personality and story for your brand. Remember not to put calls-to-action, pricing information, or contact information in your cover photo. Focus instead on the emotion and personality behind your brand.

All About Content: The majority of your fans are still interacting with your page through their home feeds, and not on your page. Content strategy is still a huge focus for brands on Facebook. We walk you through our simple “rule-of-thirds” content strategy. Get all the juicy details in the presentation below.

Be An Expert on Facebook Timeline

Burt’s Bees Music From Nature: A great piece of content marketing from Burt’s Bees. They worked with a composer to create a musical track made entirely from sounds from nature in celebration of Earth Day.

Paid Media Coming to Fourquare in June: The location-based social network is aiming to launch a paid-media platform in mid-June and is pitching brands to become launch partners.

10 Great Facebook Timeline Examples: We’ve seen a bunch of creative work for Facebook Timeline on brand pages. Here are some more really nice examples of well designed Facebook pages.

Spotify and Coca-Cola Partner To Share Music: It’s interesting to see brands leverage music in the social space to build relationships with users and ultimately increase the intangible value of the brand. Coke is working to not just sell soda but create lifestyles and identities for their consumers.

Online Consumers Vastly Prefer Email for Direct Marketing Messages: Marketing Charts reports that Email is still king for delivering marketing messages that convert.  Here are the highlights: 77% of respondents chose email, with direct mail (letter, catalogs, postcards, etc. – 9%), text messaging (SMS) on a cell phone (5%), Facebook (4%), and phone (2%) trailing distantly.

Smart Car uses Twitter as a Flipbook: Go to Smart Car’s Twitter account for Argentina, scroll down and you’ll see flipbook-style visuals in which they’re creating an animated story/commercial for the brand — all in a venue that’s supposed to be reserved to 140 characters of text. Awesome.

While most discussions on social design encompass the practice of creating optimized user experiences within applications and websites, Fisher’s presentation (and ultimate strategic suggestion to marketers) centered upon the most foundational elements to Facebook’s success.

As many of us desire to stay sharp on social media strategy, I’m hopeful the interpretive summary of his presentation that follows will provide a helpful reference (if not, reminder) of what we as marketers should keep top of mind when helping businesses meaningfully engage with their customers.

Facebook’s Social Design Components Defined

First, we acknowledge that relationships and trust are foundational to any social network. The level of trust depends on the types of relationships we have, which can be categorized on the spectrum between strong ties (family and close friends) and weak ties (short-lived/formal relationships).

In this context, we can consider the following three components, beginning with the inner circle in the diagram below:

• Identity: Facebook started by enabling us to define our identities within their network. Inherently, our identities are reinforced through strong ties, or relationships with those we most closely trust who are also in the network.
• Conversation: We insert our identity into the community through conversation. By listening and responding (sharing), we personally benefit from self-expression — yet also benefit others who learn or are inspired from our contribution to the conversation. Conversation is what Fisher refers to as “the glue between identity and community.”
• Community: As conversation continues, community is developed around various common values and participating identities. The strength of community grows from weak ties that give back via the conversation. The community response may reinforce or even influence our identity. And as the community influences us, even to the extent of our mere participation in the conversation, so may we influence our strong ties.

Fisher’s Key Insight

While Facebook has been about growing community from the inside out (starting with identity) — we as marketers realize our greatest opportunities by approaching it from the outside in, starting with community.

The widespread adoption of Facebook translates to an enormous volume of communities already established — and fortunately, we have visibility into any number of them. Practically speaking, the exercise from here becomes one of social business intelligence, learning what we can about existing conversations and communities so we can properly define a conversation and add to the identities participating in them.

At a more granular level, we can get into the kind of strategic modeling that specifically addresses the content, context, and campaigns which inspire people to act and share.

Additional Notes on Social Design

As implied at the start, this post could be considered a very different angle on social design. Although the importance of “traditional” social design merits a separate post, the following are some quick insights and references I hope you will also find useful.

First, if we had to boil down the common goal of social design, it would be to maximize the accessibility, ease and usefulness of social interactions between people and content. Since most agree that social media is about conversations, it’s easy to recognize there is great value to designing interfaces that best enable them.

Fortunately, we don’t need to become user experience (UX) design experts to take advantage of what’s been learned. The following are a few great references, many of which provide highly practical examples and tips:

• Guiding Principals for UX Designers
• 10 Principals of UX
• Creating Engaged and Passionate Users
• So You Wanna Be a User Experience Designer
• Putting People First

Aside from the supporting stats, I’m finding this truth in daily conversations with clients and prospects asking a common set of questions.

What Types of Video Should You Be Aware of For Marketing?

Video has value for two main reasons:

• Social: The power of sharing is a metric that is quickly trumping clicks. YouTube clued many into this in May when they began a cost per view advertising model, as opposed to a cost per click.
• Search Engine Visibility: Forrester research has pointed to the fact that web pages with video stand a 50 percent better chance than text pages alone of showing up on the first page of Google search results.

The following are eight types of video you should consider for marketing:

1. Slideshows: This could be considered a low-cost/entry-level method of creating YouTube assets or simply a repurposing of presentation (PowerPoint slides, photos, shorter video clips) content that is converted into video. Could you expect this kind of video to go viral? Likely not, but it’s potentially a good start to increased search visibility for targeted keywords. Check out Animoto as a low cost resource for helping you build such assets.
2. Product Demonstrations: The more you can tell a story in the context of a product demonstration, the better. Note: the number of product demo videos to promote mobile apps is increasing. Example: Word Lens iPhone App.
3. How To / Tutorials: Serve an immediate (searched for) need while also positioning yourself or your brand as the expert on that subject matter. For web-based tutorials (as well as product demos), the use of screencast software like ScreenFlow or Camtasia is a no-brainer. Example: Brandon Whalen’s post “How to Get Started With Google Plus.”
4. Case Studies and Video Testimonials: Considering the effectiveness of product reviews, it isn’t surprising that customer testimonials via video can drive real results. Additional advantages are present with a video case study that can also be repurposed for online press releases, landing pages, and award submissions: Example: Sanrio Store Locator video featured on Facebook Studio.
5. Social Videos: Although “social” is a potential value to any form of online video, these types typically focus a more intentional (with supporting budget) approach to viral activation. Like game mechanics, the core of what motivates people to act (in this case, share) is fully tapped. Check out Jeremy Scott’s Social Video Blueprint series, which highlights several social video examples.
6. Video Vignettes: This kind of production can be effective in supporting a series of videos, or simply helping to create an impression/focus around an organizations’ culture and ideas. A good example of this can be seen via The Founders TechStars videos.
7. Video Scribing: This evolving, white-board animation methodology was first made popular by Cognitive Media’s RSA Animate videos. The key to this medium is effective and concise storytelling, where potentially long stories with various complexities can be synthesized to the essentials. Example: The Story of Linux.
8. Branching Videos: This is an emerging form of interactive video that “branches” to other videos based on a choose-your-own-adventure model. There are some very cool things happening in this space in terms of analytics, publishing tools and engagement. Keep your eye on FlixMaster as a company supporting (HTML5-powered) video publishing tools that could help shape the next generation in video marketing.

Quick Video Marketing Tips and Trends

Apologies for stating the obvious, but if you aren’t already doing this, YouTube advertising is something you need to seriously consider as part of your video strategy – especially considering how relatively inexpensive it still is.

Lauren Fisher’s post on why and how to run an effective YouTube video ad campaign is definitely worth a read. And as Chris Schreiber stated in his post about Google+ driving social video growth:

“It’s quite possible that we will look back on the Google+ launch as a landmark moment for social video advertising, because of the new possibilities it created for people to share, co-view, chat and text about entertaining videos.”

Outside of advertising, meta data is an important part of your strategy to ensure videos are effectively indexed on search engines. Brightcove’s Sara Watson references the first best practice of a social video program as leveraging the power keywords in your video’s titles, descriptions and tags to maximize search engine visibility.

One of the best tips I picked up from Greg Jarboe at an OMS conference pertains to the fact that YouTube gives you 5,000 characters to describe your video. That translates to approximately 850 words – and if you treat that 850 words as an SEO’d webpage, also using your targeted keywords within the video’s title and tags – your likelihood of being indexed on page 1 of Google for those words substantially increases.

This becomes an extremely important tactic when considering how some web pages have seemed to lock up the placement of top search rankings on highly competitive search terms.

As it’s been established, audiences will reward emotional content (humor, surprise, curiosity) within video by sharing it with others. But also of importance, is the means by which video content can be optimized for high search engine visibility.

What Happened in 2011

For most brands, perhaps the most predominant focus with Facebook marketing in 2011 was growing the fan base. We saw a variety of custom Facebook applications (tabs) paired with Facebook ad buys – where requiring a Like (the becoming of a fan for that page) was the first or even final call to action.

As a result, some of the most common questions emerging were:

• What’s the value of a Facebook fan?
• How many Facebook fans shouldwe have?
• Now that we have these fans, what should we do with them?
• What can we be doing with Facebook outside of Facebook?

And honestly, many have even asked, “why are we doing this again?”

It’s The Data, Stupid

If you’re saying, “oh no, not another discussion on analytics or the latest changes in Facebook Insights,” fear not. This discussion goes beyond tracking simple key performance indicators (KPIs) within some marketing dashboard that spits out monthly reporting with +/- percentages.

On the contrary, it goes straight to the core of how companies can use a new breed of tools leveraging Facebook data to dramatically improve advertising results, content creation and overall business strategies. For the sake of brevity, we’ll take a quick look at two tools in particular: CalmSea and InfiniGraph.

CalmSea

CalmSea is a technology platform that enables you to create a conversion-based offer that can be accessed via a website, email, tweet, mobile device or Facebook page. As an example, let’s consider a coupon.

Normally, the basic data you would expect to collect with an online coupon might consist of clicks, shares and redemptions. Of course, you may also collect some demographics – or even additional data, depending on form-related entries required of the user in order to get the coupon.

The trick with CalmSea lies within an extra click that prompts your Facebook authorization in exchange for access to the coupon (or other offer). This authorization includes access to 3-4 of your Facebook permissions, which provides the CalmSea platform with multiple data points specific to your social graph (likes, interests, demographics, friends, etc.).

All of this activity can take place on any web page, including your ability to share the coupon with others on Facebook without actually ever going to your Facebook page.

When I spoke to Vivek Subramanian, VP of Products for CalmSea, he said they are seeing upwards of a 70 percent acceptance rate on the permissions authorization for branded apps (which could include coupons, sweepstakes, private sales, group buys and more).

The Power of The Data

CalmSea takes the Facebook user interactions and news feeds around the given offer – then combines that data with purchase/conversion analytics (could be Google Analytics) to aggregate and display insights on segments of users/customers with the highest levels of:

• Engagement
• Profitability
• Influence

This kind of data goes beyond Facebook Insights, in that it enables you to build predictive models based on distinct attributes that best describe current and potential customers with respect to the three items listed above.

In the figure above, you can get a slight feel for CalmSea’s dashboard, which demonstrates, among other items, the ability to view social insights compared to purchase data insights on users who have authorized the offer.

Depending on your role in the company (media buyer, content creator, channel partner/affiliate manager, etc.) this kind of data ideally improves how and where you spend your time and money.

The initial offer you develop with a platform like CalmSea will likely have a consistent conversion rate with similar offers you may have conducted in the past. It’s the offers that follow, leveraging the data collected from your first use of the platform, that stand to produce significantly improved results.

InfiniGraph

The InfiniGraph platform aggregates Facebook and Twitter data for the purpose of identifying relevant (real-time) affinities, content and interests that are trending around a particular brand, product or industry. There are two key considerations with respect to how this platform’s output produces actionable value:

• Improved performance on your Facebook ads: Gives you insights to new interests/keywords you should be targeting as part of your selection process within Facebook’s ad platform.
• Insights to assist with content creation and curation:Gives you a clear picture and delivery mechanism for content that is trending via a content “Trend Score” that algorithmically combines likes, comments, clicks, retweets, and shares.

InfiniGraph’s approach to identifying content that’s trending on Facebook, in particular, provides a level opportunity that is certainly missed by many brands wishing to dive deeper into content strategy (check out the Digital Path to Social Media Success to view the four kinds of content you could be addressing).

To describe how this works, imagine a series of Facebook status updates that are posted about subject matter relevant to your fans (on your Facebook page or another Facebook page your fans follow).

In the sample from InfiGraph above, you can see the dates these status updates were posted, in addition to the enormous amounts of engagement they received. Here’s the problem: Think of how many fans of this page would also be interested in this content, but simply didn’t see it. Now think of how quickly those status updates will slide down the page and disappear.

As Chase McMichael, President of InfiniGraph, told me, “Humans can’t keep up with trending content, nor can they see how content trends across multiple Facebook pages containing fans with similar interest.”

McMichael alludes to “crowdsourcing” of the human voice around collective interests and actions. Not only can this aid in the repurposing of content otherwise lost, but as McMichael so eloquently puts it: “you can know where to double-down from a media buying perspective. Who needs comScore when you have a resource that is guiding you where to advertise based on what a large audience is in essence telling you?”

Wrap-up

Although the summaries on these platforms don’t do them justice, my hope is you’ll be inspired to dig deeper regarding the possibilities they offer. It will be interesting to see how Facebook will continue enabling access to data, but I think it’s a safe prediction that advanced marketers will leverage it to the hilt.

After discussing social media with senior marketers from several large brands, the implementer reference in the above tweet by Shiv Singh really resonates with me.

More brands are taking (social) community management activities back in house while seeking outside expertise to continue guiding decisions around social strategies and applications.

When it comes to the day-to-day of social marketing, corporate competence is rising — and the “yeah, I get that, but what’s next?” mentality is placing a higher demand on strategy with expectations of research (or at least experience) to back it up.

Game Mechanics for Custom Facebook Applications

For those of you sick of hearing about it, I’ll start by saying game mechanics are not a magic silver bullet — and I took great delight in hearing Gowalla CEO Josh Williams proclaim “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges” at Snowcial.

However, like Williams, those who have an established understanding of game mechanics are better positioned to get ahead. Why? Because it’s a matter of better knowing how human behavior works.

If you’re aware of certain ingredients that foster a higher propensity for sharing a social experience on Facebook, then you may realize higher fan growth and engagement as a result of implementation.

I touched on the Sanrio/Hello Kitty gifts application as an example of this when discussing social intelligence for Facebook marketing.

Another recent and impressive implementation of game mechanics (and overall digital strategy) is Vail Resort’s EpixMix, which is also promoted on the Snow.com Facebook page.

Although the application doesn’t reside on Facebook, the Connect functionality takes full advantage of Facebook sharing via passive, automated check-ins at six separate ski resorts, all enabled by an RFID chip embedded in your ski pass.

“Passive” means you don’t need to pull out a mobile device for checking in. Updates to your Facebook feed are automatically posted based on your location with the pass, and one-time Facebook authorization.

A leading game mechanic in play for EpicMix is the use of more than 200 ski pins (digital “stinkin’ badges”) you can earn based on locations you ski at each resort, total feet of elevation skied and more. Although Vail Resort’s CEO, Rob Katz, wasn’t specific about adoption rate when asked, he was very clear about the fact that users signing on to share in Facebook exceeded expectations.

Game on.

Strategic Modeling for Social Strategies

While game mechanics address specific strategies from a human behavior perspective, the bigger and equally important picture pertains to how all elements of social marketing work together for the good of a business.

A valuable, but often overlooked practice is to adopt a model that facilitates a framework for strategy. There are a range of options with strategic models, but the one I follow is a layered (“Four Cs”) approach:

• Content: This is the foundational element, focusing not only on the type of content (video, infographic, written, etc.) but also how to apply supporting research to guide its development and/or justification.
• Context: Think of this second layer as platforms enabling the display and distribution of your content. Facebook, for example, would be an element of context in this model.
• Campaigns: This layer puts the context in action, addressing key variables around planning, implementation, supporting applications, visibility efforts, communication, and measurement.
• Community: As the top layer, the strategic focus centers on loyalty achieved through specific campaigns, advocacy, or customer experiences. Community should be viewed as long-term, with the expectation of learning that can be applied to future iterations of strategy and research.

Practically speaking, we as marketers should be both implementers and “idea evaluators.” But as strategists, we’re called to a higher accountability — one that distinguishes originality from repurposing, and activity from productivity.

“Sweet, Google’s rolling out its own improved version of Facebook. Wait, it doesn’t look like there’s anything going on for businesses with this. Wow, not many clicking on the +1 buttons. Hmmm, none of the cool kids are playing much here – guess we’ll wait and see if this thing grows legs.”

Today, 90 million users later, wait mode is over. Google+ is running on fresh legs – and beckoning us to join while the echo from the starting gun can still be heard.

Jury’s still out, you say? Don’t really want to hear it, as you’ve hit a good stride with other social media activities you must manage? If this aligns at all with your thinking, then now is the time to pretend you have been a bad salesman, and I am Alec Baldwin, who has been sent on a mission of mercy to help set you straight.

The New Necessity of Google+ for Business

Regardless of your experience with Google+, you may still find yourself needing to articulate, even justify (to yourself, your clients or boss), why attention must be paid to this effort.

The most significant reason to get your business on Google+ is simple: The quality and corresponding engagement around your search engine visibility stands to either noticeably improve or gradually decline.

At the heart of this lies the new “Search Plus Your World” algorithm (also referred to as “Search+”), which relies on data collected from logged in Google+ users. The output is search results that display/promote People and (business) Pages in Google+.

This is a bold direction for Google, delivering search results based on a new range of personalization signals that include elements of user engagement we’re familiar with in Facebook (comments, shares, likes – or in Google’s case, +1’s).

Yes, this is still relatively early-stage, but make no mistake. New patterns are being established for the long term. Now, more than ever, is go time.

2 Top Advantages of Google+ Pages for Business

Although related changes to search results were an easy prediction several months ago, there’s now plenty more visible evidence from recent Google algorithm updates that demonstrate the importance of Google+ practices effecting search results both inside and outsidethe Google+ environment.

To clarify on the significance of that last sentence, consider for a moment the work that goes into maintaining status updates and community response on an active Facebook fan page.

Can you get relevant, topical access to Facebook engagement via a Google search? No way. But guess what? You can’t on Facebook either.

Status updates/wall posts come and go. Got a post on your Facebook fan page that got over 350 comments? Cool, but too bad it’s here today and gone tomorrow – soon to vanish with no commonly known way for anyone to look for or happen upon it in the future.

Like Facebook, you’ll see updates from those you follow (Circle) in Google+. But unlike Facebook, the content in your Google+ posts may turn into highly ranked search results on Google (again, inside or outside the Google+ environment) – providing keyword and topic-relevant search engine visibility that improves based on your “AuthorRank” and content-specific engagement levels.

A second key advantage relates to how you can target your messaging and more directly interact with your followers, organizing those you follow into the circles (groups) of your choosing. Google+ has done a good job of enabling a fairly intuitive way to track and engage with segments of an audience curated by you.

Learning From Early Adopters

Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice I can share with you as a marketer who is just getting setup in Google+ or wants to learn more is to create a circle called “Google+ Resources”, then begin to add people and pages who are on the cutting edge of this subject matter.

A good first Google+ page to add would be Google’s own Google+ Your Business page. Toby Stein, the Pages and Mobile Community Manager for Google+, is great about referencing helpful articles and other expert resources in the field.

Recently, Gideon Rosenblatt created a circle that now has over 100 G+ influencers who have demonstrated various levels of thought leadership around social media in the context of this platform. You can follow all of them in the click of a button.

Additional Next-Step Recommendations

I’ve summarized some favorites here, many spelled out in greater detail on Mark Traphagen’s post regarding the “First 5 Things You Should Do with Your Google+ Business Page”:

• Optimize your page for SEO by completing the verification process, adding recommended links and being smart about keyword placement in your Introduction and Subtitle areas. Thanks to people like AJ Kohn, you can get a deeper understanding of this, and take a closer look at the Google+ anatomy from an SEO perspective, for both personal and business pages.
• Take advantage of the “Scrapbook” photos and text editing features to make your page visually appealing and consistent with your brand identity.
• As always, the quality of your content is of paramount importance. Post pictures and videos when possible. Make your first few posts very rich so new potential followers will be attracted by their first impression of what you’re putting out. Don’t assume what resonates on Facebook will also appeal to your audience here.
• Promote your business page by leveraging personal profile pages on G+, announcements/requests to follow on other social networks and by using the Google+ Badge on your web pages.
• Be thoughtful about how you segment your audience with circles, considering how you might post frequently and differently to targeted interests.
• Monitor your stream, and be intentional about +1’s, comments, and shares of your follower’s posts. As Traphagen notes, “such engagement seems to be more valued on G+ than on other networks, and will induce your followers to do the same for you.”

Search Results I See Are Looking Less Like Search Results You See

Despite the strong opinions in this post, and in hopes of convincing you I’m really not a Google groupie fan boy – I will acknowledge that Google’s changes, even with our ability to control multiple query settings, have continued to evolve in a manner that arguably supports the “filter bubble” problem presented in Eli Pariser’s Ted Talk.

Helen Brown recently referenced this, along with a statement I’m empathetically compelled to quote: “Just to do one search in Google the way I used to just last year, I have to turn off two things and turn one on. Every. Single. Time. This is progress?”

We face a slew of other issues and challenges as Google and digital marketing in general continue to evolve. For today, hopefully you gained something that will inspire your next action on Google+.