Original posted on 3BL Media.com

Over four years ago, I anxiously awaited my invite to Google+. As the invites spread across my office like wildfire, I stared at my computer screen, disappointed. That disappointment remained with underlying hints of hope, a flurry of activity here and there but NOTHING to inspire me to become a G+ power user. The transition of Google+ was filled with strong-armed tactics, forcing users to create a G+ account in order to access other Google features. Note: Social media is my profession and I ended up with four personal accounts. FOUR.

Like many others, I did my best to oblige — as reluctant as I was. After all, this is Google; master of search and analytics. Having an awesome Google+ page for an organization was supposed to improve search results. Awesome. Keeping up with algorithm changes with Google has become nearly impossible but integrations with G+ felt totally doable. Too bad Google+ failed at valuable analytics and the content of the G+ Pages appears to do little or nothing for improving search results (Note: Many localized businesses/organizations saw improvement but not much impact for national or global names).

Now, after cornering nearly every user and forcing them to create a G+ account, the “+” is now gone. While I can’t say that I will miss it I am curious as to the impact that this will have. Is this just another defunct Google pet project that we will all soon forget about? I say no.

While Google may have dropped the “+” the platform seems to still be very much alive. Google Hangouts is now a stand-alone app and is a GREAT tool for hosting a LIVE conversation with stakeholders about new CSR and sustainability initiatives or that hot new citizenship or diversity report. Photos have migrated away from the Google+ platform into its own app as well. This is another great tool to create a photostream to showcase the most recent company-wide volunteering effort.

Losing the “+” did not slow down Google’s efforts to evolve search into a more social engine. Earlier this year, it was announced that Google now has a partnership with Twitter. Welcome to real-time search. Currently, this has only rolled out on mobile. Check out my recent post to find out what that means.

These changes to Google+ might come with mixed reaction, but I think Google should receive some applause here. (Yes, I just typed that.) Google has shown users that it listens to our complaints and praise and adjusts, all in a world where social media has warped the sense of time and everything is on instant demand; even social networks themselves can’t keep up.

Did anyone notice that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn updated their platforms in recent weeks? Love or hate these changes, these networks are just trying to keep up with user trends, shortened attentions spans and the demand of businesses to mature. For social media professionals like me, no two days are ever the same.

My advice? Keep making awesome content. Tell your CSR and sustainability story in interesting ways. Make the content bite-sized, entertaining and easy to digest. Don’t be afraid to share it on multiple networks but proceed with caution. ALWAYS consider the format of content and the audience of the network on which it is being posted.

As for Google+’s role in the social landscape? The plus sign might be gone, but Google executives insist the social network is still very much alive. I say it’s just another transition and we should all stay tuned.

Further reading:

• Google Drops Google+ Promotion From Gmail, Search & Other Google Services
• What The Unofficial Death Of Google+ Means For Marketing
• Death of Google+ greatly exaggerated, says its chief
• Google+ Is Walking Dead
• Is Google+ Really Walking Dead?

Image Source: Wired.com

Hopefully there is someone on your team in charge of writing tweets to talk about your organization’s corporate social responsibility efforts. Ideally, this person also is well aware of hashtags and this post will give them a few ideas to keep striving for the perfect tweet. I stress the word striving here because social media is like a living creature, just when you think you have it figured out, it changes on you and adjustments will need to be made. If hashtags are still a foreign concept, this post will help with the translation.

Many communication pros still struggle with the hashtag or, rather, that “#” sign followed by a word or combination of words. The original intent of the hashtag was a way for users to categorize tweets. At a high-level, this is still the case, but hashtags have become far more powerful that anyone, even Twitter, even imagined.

What can hashtags do for a tweet? Anyone who is a follower of your account will be able to see your tweet. If they retweet it, that increases the number of potential others who could see your post as well. But what about the Twitter user who doesn’t follow you but would find value in and engage with your content? Hashtags are how Twitter users search for content that they find valuable, jump in a conversation that is of interest and engage with posts on the platform.

According to a few studies, hashtags have a powerful impact as to how your content performs on Twitter. According to a study by Buddy Media in 2013:

• Tweets with hashtags receive 2X more engagement than those without hashtags
• Only 24% of the measured tweets contained hashtags
• Tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% higher engagement than those with more
• Tweets that use more than two hashtags show a 17% drop in engagement

Twitter itself has also studied the hashtag. The success of the hashtag has been impressive as other social networks have adapted it over the years – including Facebook, Google+ and Instagram. According to Twitter’s study, “Tweets with hashtags can increase engagement almost 50% (1.5x) for brands.” When it comes to Twitter, we must always think long-term as well, not just about tweet performance, but also about an entire Twitter presence, “when you include hashtags in your Tweets, your Tweets become more visible, and over time you gather more Twitter followers.”

I find these stats powerful and encourage our clients to make sure they are using hashtags. I’ve been a big fan of the “no more than three” rule but more recently, I’ve pushing for no more than two. It is HARD sometimes to find that perfect hashtag so I hope this helps some of you find confidence in the world of hashtagging.

A few quick notes about hashtags:

• Length. Keep them short and sweet but relevant. Hashtags #ShouldNotButSuperLongBecauseTheyTakeUpPartOfThe140Characters and lose their effectiveness – who else will actually search for that? Instead, spend a minute or two researching hashtags that fit your content and are appropriate in length.
• No Special Characters. Remember, spaces and special characters break a hashtag. Think #Clean Energy vs. #CleanEnergy – that first hashtag links the tweet to #Clean, NOT “clean energy”. Short dashes (or hyphens) seem to be the exception to the rule such as #eco-friendly.
• Make it easy to read. If a hashtag contains multiple words, capitalize the first letter of each word to help users understand #WhatYouAreTryingToSay.
• Use dedicated hashtags for events. Most events, conference, etc., also have dedicated hashtags that have been created to link attendees and generate buzz.
  • Cause Marketing Forum used #CMF2015
  • Sustainable Brands event in San Diego had #SB15SD

Now that I’ve shared some not-to-be-ignored facts and tips about Twitter, make sure every tweet you create moving forward includes at lease one hashtag. If that tweet doesn’t get more attention, see if there is another hashtag that might suit your content better. Tweet again with this new hashtag (or two).

I’m hardly the first person to write about hashtags and I’d like to share some of my favorite articles to help continue to inspire your hashtag growth:

• How Hashtags Evolved And Changed The Way We Communicate
• Twitter Tweet Cheat Sheet [Infographic]
• A Scientific Guide to Hashtags: How Many, Which Ones, and Where to use Them

Image Source: 20px.com

Originally published on 3BL Media

First there was Bennifer. Then Kimye. Now, there’s Gwitter. Or should we call it Twoogle?

It’s finally happening. Social media and search engines have finally joined forces. Internet marketers have been talking about this for years. Sure, Bing and Facebook have been in cahoots for a while now but Bing gets a bad wrap as a never-used search engine. (Surprisingly 20-percent of the search market share is now attributed to Bing – a slow but steady gain.) Whether this pressure from a decrease in market share inspired Google to explore social media inclusion to its results, or not, this new relationship between Google and Twitter has already changed how we search AND how we see tweets. And for similar reasons, Twitter has most likely felt a similar pressure from Facebook’s continues growth.

With Google and Twitter in cahoots, when users type in their questions or keywords into the Google search bar, once that search has begun, real-time tweets straight from Twitter will populate the results. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But what is the true impact that this combination of forces will have on those of us using Twitter to boost our communication efforts? What does this mean for your CSR and sustainability content? Twitter just became a far more important tool for communicators and Google just became real-time relevant.  Make sure there is someone on your team who is master of the 140-character limit, understands hashtags (#CSR and #sustainability are easy to incorporate) and knows how to make a shortened URL.

What are other potential impact areas of this powerful duo? Twitter has struggled with its advertising offering for the past few years. We all know that Google is a powerhouse in online advertising. Whether you’ve loved or hated Twitter ads in the past, this partnership will result in powerful promoted tweets visible outside of Twitter to the general online population.  Check out Twitter’s homepage when you are not logged in as an example.

If you haven’t mastered your 140 characters yet, now is the time to do so. Twitter should no longer be treated at a secondary form of communicating your message. These pithy messages are now competing with each and every landing page along with every other tweet similar in content to yours.

At 3BL Media we’re excited as this new development and are awaiting to see how all of this rolls out.  For now, this Google/Twitter integration is available for MOBILE ONLY with promises that the desktop version will be available soon. In the meantime, explore some of these articles speculating what this new relationship could bring to the online search experience:

• Bloomberg Business: Twitter Reaches Deal to Show Tweets in Google Search Results
• Reuters: Twitter and Google strike deal to show tweets in search results -Bloomberg
• Search Engine Land: What Signals From Twitter Does Google Care About?
• DigiDay: 5 things brands should know about the Google-Twitter partnership
• AdAge: What the Twitter-Google Partnership Means for Brands
• CNBC: Twitter bringing ‘Promoted Tweets’ to other feeds
• The Google-Twitter Deal Goes Live, Giving Tweets Prominent Placement In Google’s Results
• 14 Examples Of The New Tweets Showing Up In Google Search

Image Source: Good ‘Ole College Humor