Google plus is the latest social media innovation for staying connected. Currently Google plus has 40 million users. Users spend their time connecting in multiple ways; Circles, Hangouts and Games. Google plus makes it easy to share your thoughts, links and photos. Video chat (hangouts) presents the ability for members to interact directly with businesses and vice versa. Take a look at these important considerations when using Google plus for business.

Setting up your Google Plus Business page

When setting up your Google plus business page, Google allows users to choose an accessible Gmail account. Google plus doesn’t currently allow for multiple accounts so you want to be sure everyone who will be using the account and monitoring the page has access to the e-mail account.

When it is time to setup your business page, follow the Google page wizard (similar to the Facebook wizard). It will help when setting up your profile. After selecting a category for your business page, you will then need to fill out all of the other pertinent information about your business. Next, you can customize your public profile. Since the default setting is public, you want to keep the information concise and descriptive.

Google recommends optimizing your business page and sharing links before beginning the promotion process. To further optimize your page, continually interact with other members on Google plus and keep the information you share up to date.

Optimize Profile

When it comes to optimizing your profile, it’s important to share links, photos and other information whenever you can. Google plus is designed for photo and content sharing, but when it comes to sharing you will want to select photos that will ignite conversations and increase viral spread of your content. When promoting your Google plus business page, you will want to link it to other pages to increase your ranking. Two places you might want to promote your page would be on your website and on your company blog. Having links on your blog and website will help increase your ranking in the Google plus algorithm which will help grow your fan base. As with any form of promotion you want to ensure that what you are doing is providing results!

How Google Plus Changes Search

Google plus changes search by improving Google intelligence. Google will soon be able to understand trends and how people interact within their circles. Google will be able to adjust rankings to reflect individual searchers interests based off of their Google plus accounts. Google is taking its improved search results quality and decreasing the amount of spammers by monitoring the behavior on the Google plus pages. This is changing how you they build the traffic based on the +1 button location. For example, the +1 button reflects the page where it sits. If you create a paid search campaign that directs searchers to several different pages, each +1 vote will be broken down by each individual page address. Since each +1 vote will be broken down by each page address it will affect quality score. Which means, every time a page is moved or the address is changed the +1 count will reset.

When it comes to click-through-rates, the Google plus button lets searchers know when other searchers have found a page they have viewed helpful. People are more inclined to click on pages with “good” reviews rather than a page with no reviews.

Direct Connect

When using a search engine, Google has added a “+” feature to make it easier to search for specifics on Google plus. By adding a “+” in front of a search, searchers will be taken directly to the appropriate Google plus page. Add the direct connect code to your company’s website in order to prove you are the “official page”. This can be done by clicking “connect your website” under the “Get started” tab on your Google plus business page. Google plus direct connect is determined by a direct connect algorithm which is influenced by promotion of Google plus within your site.

Interested in learning more about Social Media Marketing? The Net Impact can help!

This post highlights 5 quick and easy user experience tips that will improve how visitors interact with your web page.

1. Prioritize the conversion goal. The screenshot below shows The Net Impact (TNI) Event Speakers page. The purpose of this page is to make it easy for website visitors to schedule one of TNI’s event speakers. In a prominent location (top right web page corner), we included contact information for inquiries. This gives priority to the conversion goal of this web page.

2. Horizontal and vertical linking. Both horizontal (child page-child page) and vertical linking (parent page-child page) can optimize user experience on a web page. Make sure to include horizontal linking (as illustrated in the “About” side bar, which facilitates linking to equivalent third-level navigation elements) and vertical linking (as illustrated under each speaker listing that links from the third-level page to a fourth-level page).

3. Make Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and your company blog links top reusable content.  These icons should appear on most every web page in a web site – unless there is a compelling reason to exclude them.  See TNI’s social media icons, shown in the top right corner of the page.

4. Put videos, images and downloadable content at the top of the page. In most cases, users prefer to interact with videos, pictures and downloadable content when provided. If these media elements make sense for your web page, create them and make sure they display at the top of the page.

5. Entry page link. Links to logical entry pages provide users the ability to navigate back to the parent page. This facilitates further movement through the website and further discovery.  Always a plus with Google Panda.

The Net Impact offers professional website user testing services. View TNI’s user testing case studies.

Daily Analysis. On August 9th, we took a look at Twitter’s trending topics for Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, South Africa, Australia and the Worldwide buzz. Put simply, this simple 5-minute check gives us insight into topics affecting the globe and topics localized to specific countries.

Take a look at the table below to see this breakdown of global and localized national trending topics. Notice that the London Riots have become a major area of concern for the entire world, occupying a large portion of the trending twitter topics, not just worldwide, but in specific countries too. And according to a recent Mashable article, Twitter users not only shared footage of riots on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, but now social media is a key mechanism for the organization of riot cleanup.

The United States’ State Department recognizes 195 independent countries worldwide. Although, many think of Twitter as highly global (and it is in respect to other companies), Twitter trends represent trended tweets from only 31 of the world’s 195 countries. Major countries not represented by Twitter Trends include Russia, China, and more surprisingly, South Korea.

1. Your brand is not a logo, advertising, your mission statement, etc. Your brand is a gut feeling (as articulated by Robert Brunner, Ammunition Group). Or you could say, a brand is the intangible sum of your assets (Tom Schmittdiel, PSG Marketing).

2. It is important to identify every touchpoint of your brand and then deliver on the brand promise that you’ve made AT EACH touchpoint.

3. You cannot tell people what to believe about your brand, but you can be consistent with your branding efforts. Words create a challenge you must live up to, actions give you the opportunity deliver on that challenge.

4. Communicate your brand consistently online through your navigation, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and beyond.

5. For EVERYTHING you do, ask yourself, “Does this follow the brand that I’ve created?” If this brand were a person, would it do that? Here? In this way?

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Frequently compared to the highly-publicized O.J. Simpson trial, many are saying the Casey Anthony trial is to social media what the O.J. Simpson trial was to cable television. While many Americans have been glued to HLN, CNN and other news channels these past two months, watching the events that will ultimately lead to the fate of a young mother accused of killing her two year old daughter, many have also been connected to this case via social media channels. Unlike the O.J. Simpson trial coverage, the media is not the sole outlet for exposure in the case of ‘Florida vs. Casey Anthony’. Through social media, people now have the opportunity to participate in court cases in way never before thought possible.

Emerging technology has provided a global audience with a coveted front row ticket to the trial named “Social Media Trial of the Century” by Time Magazine. From the first frantic message posted by Casey’s mother, Cindy Anthony, on MySpace in July of 2008, to social media affecting the selection of the jury, MySpace posts and search engine usage being used as evidence in the trial, and finally to the live twitter stream , social media has played a significant role in the controversial trial.

Sam Diaz, a Silicon Valley-based social-media expert and consultant, points to social media as the fuel to recent world news —”Social media has allowed everyone an instant megaphone on the Internet, to express, argue and form opinions instantly,” Diaz said. “In the old days, we used to watch a newscast or read a news story. Now we get things so quickly that we are immediately reacting and feeling passionate.”

Mainstream journalists are tweeting from inside the courtroom where Anthony is being tried so people can get notified about court proceedings as they occur. Nearly 40 seats are reserved for local and national media, and bloggers who cover the trial on a daily basis. These credentialed media are allowed to use smartphones, iPads and other devices to disseminate information in real time.

Those following the trial can watch  live-streaming video and then discuss ( or even argue) with others in the Orlando Sentinel’s online-chat room (which has attracted up to 124,680 people per day). In 140 characters, those on twitter can hashtag #CaseyAnthony to view and participate in a never-ending conversation. These hashtags connect the conversation about the topic and makes it searchable. Twitter accounts such as @NinthCircuitFL, which is managed by the 9th Judicial Circuit Court, are adding hundreds of followers each day due to their up to the minute trial coverage. With the click of a mouse, those following the trial can also use Facebook to instantly publish their thoughts about the trial to their online friends. The Facebook Page “Casey Anthony Updates” has over a whopping 109,635’ likes’. As if that wasn’t enough, there are iPhone apps that stream the live feed straight from your phones. These apps have rapidly become best sellers in the paid news category in the App Store. Even an online press release regarding the Casey Anthony trial and attorney Jose Baez is now a top story on both Google News and Yahoo News.

“People from all over are seeing our release involving the Casey Anthony trial we distributed for a client,” says Shannon Hannon Oliviero, executive director of marketing and client services for PR NewsChannel. “The online press release has been viewed thousands of times from all parts of the world and shared more than three times that on social media.”

To say the least, the “online jury,” is not shy about sharing their feelings and thoughts on the trial or on the defendant. Numerous blogs have been created regarding the case, and Facebook and Twitter posts are consistently published as the trial progresses. Does communication via these popular social platforms affect the proceedings inside the courtroom? A recent study found that peer-to-peer opinions are considered the most credible and have more influence on the Internet today. Internet marketing professionals know that understanding the sociological formation of social media communities and listening to the peer-to-peer communication is fundamental to the task of effectively publicizing the brands in which they represent. In the minds of many social media users, reviews and online opinions have become the source to get authentic, objective news, making the relationship between social media and the legal system a complicated one.

There is no doubt that online reputations can impact court cases. But is this communication influencing the proceedings inside the courtroom? Persuasive communications expert Juliet Huck told WebProNews that the judge in this case had a difficult job on his hands in terms of keeping the online influences away from the jury. Social media has become such a dominant player in society that it is a challenge to keep it away from even the most conventional practices like the legal system.

What can we learn from social media’s role in this case? Developments in technology are making court cases available to the masses, as a result, forever changing the way the public participates in the legal system, the way news is consumed, and how public opinions are formed. As millions of online users try to make sense of this nonsensical action: the murder of a 2-year-old girl, social media provides the opportunity to keep up with literally every moment of this capital murder trial. Bottom line: the Casey Anthony trial is only proof of what is to come, from now on it will be extremely difficult for the legal system to have sole control over all of the evidence and news that is released before, during and long after the verdict.

Have you leveraged social media platforms to stay up-to-date with the Casey Anthony trial or others? What are your thoughts on social media’s impact on the legal system?

Interestingly enough, out of the organizations that raised over $100,000 using social networks (dubbed “Master Fundraisers”), 30% were small organizations with annual budgets under $ 5 million. There is certainly potential for smaller NPOs to gain substantial returns on their investment in social media; however, it seems that few organizations want to dedicate the resources. Of the nonprofits surveyed, 75% dedicate only ¼ of a single employee’s time or less to social media, while 30% of the “Master Fundraisers” dedicated 2+ full-time employees solely to social media. Clearly there is a link between social media results and the level of investment an NPO puts into these tools. Last year Facebook communities for NPOs grew 161%; users of social networks are engaging with nonprofits in as many ways as possible, and this can mean direct benefits to the NPO in terms of membership, event attendance, and donations. Of the nonprofits that were not using social media, 60% of them cited “Lack of Strategy” as the primary reason for staying away.

Does your nonprofit organization have a clear strategy for social networks? Are you using your resources effectively to get the most out of social media? Hear about success stories and valuable tactics for a variety of budgets from professionals in the nonprofit sector at our June 21st seminar. Find more information and register for the FREE nonprofit seminar.

The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery posts daily on Van Gogh related news, events, exhibitions, books, quotes, FAQs and more. The posts often link to other sites like museums, news articles and artist galleries. Occasionally, The Van Gogh Gallery It is successful because of the loyal and dedicated base of Van Gogh fans who use the Facebook page as a forum to discuss all things Van Gogh.

Luckily, we don’t have to work too hard to get a lot of great user generated content. A lot of fans and contemporary artists influenced by Van Gogh will post messages and share photos.

Depending on the subject matter of your Facebook fan page, it may be easier or more difficult to achieve a fan base of this size. It’s not the same for everyone. Just make sure your content is relevant, focusing on the most identifiable and “conversation-sparking” aspect of your company. Think intuitively about whether or not what you’re posting is actually good fodder for conversation.

Thank you to those who joined The Net Impact and Reel Impact for “Watch This”: Video Marketing That Search Engines Love. Adam Crosley and Steve Thomas presented some great video creating and video posting tips and we just couldn’t wait to share what we learned!

Key Takeaways from “Watch This”: Video Marketing That Search Engines Love

1. Video is an art form but it helps to think of it as a communication tool. Create with the end result in mind. What action, understanding or feeling do you want to communicate to the audience?

2. ONE good, clearly written communication objective is a great blueprint for a marketing video. Do not overwhelm your audience by trying to communicate too many things with one video.

3. There is no “magic, right length” for a video; the shorter the better. 44% of audiences abandon a video within the first 60 seconds  (Adam Crosley, Reel Impact).

4. Even with just a few views, a video can rank high on search engines when optimized properly.

5. Don’t just produce video; pass it around, search for it and use it to connect with your customers and potential customers via social media. Video is a great trust agent if created and shared properly, so be creative!!

We hope you join The Net Impact team for our next monthly seminar at the end of June. More details to come. Stay posted!

Watch the full podcast below:

We encourage you to link to Tariq on the web. Here are just a few suggestions of where to find him in cyber space:

Twitter: @tariq_ahmad
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tariqahmad1
Website: http://tariq.me
Link to Tariq’s SXSW presentation on Social Media and NBA
Participate in Tariq’s sports fans and location-based services survey

Liz: Hi and welcome to the first TNI podcast where we interview a fascinating web social media or interactive marketer. Today, we will be interviewing Tariq Ahmad. He is a Social Media and Sports Researcher currently pursuing his Doctorate in Sports Administration at the University of Northern Colorado. Tariq is currently looking at the NBA, studying and looking at their fans and the teams to see how they interact on social media and how they use social media. So, let’s welcome Tariq.

We know that you have been doing a deep dive into social media and the NBA. Can you just tell us a little bit about that project? How you got started? What you’ve been working on? What you are hoping to find out? Just kind out cover what you’ve been doing.

Tariq: Sure. Well, I’ve been working on the project for, say, about the last year or so. Last July of 2010, I conducted a survey on how NBA fans use social media, so specifically Facebook and Twitter to support their favorite teams through those mediums. I got interested in it probably a couple of months before. I am seeing how the NBA did such a great job with social media and that I like using social media.

So that way, I just decided to go ahead and put the both of them together. In general, there’s been a lot of research done on sports in general. But some social media is such a new entity coming up and becoming so popular in the last few years. Not a lot of research has been done on social media. So, I went ahead and decided to meet at the intersection of the NBA and social media, and do some research on this.

Research has been going good, like I said. Last July I focused on more of the fans, how the fans use social media to support their favorite teams. Now, probably coming up this summer I am going to flip the script and see how teams use it to connect with fans. Do the teams offer fans anything, any kind of specials, tangible or intangible benefits through social media?

How many people went with a social media team before each team thinks along those lines. I wanted to get more of the full picture because there is only two sides to a story. The fans might see it one way, but the teams see it a completely different way. So, I think this summer I am going to focus on the other side to try to get more of a complete picture on how social media NBA works with fans and teams and then teams and fans as well.

Liz: Great. That sounds real interesting. And, since you haven’t looked into like the team interaction, what have you found out about the fan interaction that’s most interesting?

Tariq: It’s been really good. I have actually found a lot of good information, like why people follow it and use social media to connect with teams. I would say the most interesting finding that came through research was probably one of the most unexpected findings. I had a couple of questions on my survey that asked: why do you follow specific players?

So, the choices were, the player is my favorite player, he plays on my favorite team, I enjoy status updates etc., etc. That one there, I enjoy status updates, like by far and away, everybody loved that one. I think it was like, 78% of people said that I enjoy reading player status updates. So, they want to hear Shaq saying, “Hey I am going to go get a sandwich” or they want to hear LeBron James saying, “Hey I am about to do laundry”, things like that. People just love things like that.

Liz: They want to know they’re real people.

Tariq: What’s that?

Liz: They want to know that their sports idols are real people.

Tariq: Exactly, yeah. I think people just love that. Not only for the fact that they’re more like an idol but also just to let them know they’re humans. Just that, you know, hey Shaq has to do laundry, also. LeBron had to eat. Chris Paul has to pick up his kids, or if he has kids. So, I think that’s the nice thing about social media is it really breaks down that medium between a fan and athlete.

Because before you would have the fan read about somebody, we’ll say Dwayne Wade. So, if you wanted to hear about Dwayne Wade, you would have to read a website article or watch him on TV or see him in a commercial to hear about Dwayne Wade. Now, with social media that middle part is broken down, and now you can directly contact Dwayne Wade through Facebook, through Twitter. And, you can get an inside perspective on his life even if it’s something mundane. It’s like, hey that’s cool that he’s sharing that with us for now. It’s almost like I am there with him, and now I have a new connection with that athlete.

So, I really think that’s why social media is so good because it really breaks down that middle barrier and allows for you to get closer to your favorite athletes.

Liz: That’s fascinating. Tariq, it was my impression that as part of this project you were looking at location based services. Am I correct? Have you done your research on location based services yet?

Tariq: I am actually currently doing that. It’s actually separate from the NBA study. I actually have a research survey out on that right now. I can go ahead and pass along the survey to you as well. This one’s going to be more specifically for sports fans in general on how they use LBF like Foursquare, Facebook Faces, Gowalla, things like that. Not only in general use but if they use it in connection with sports teams.

And I want to see: are they receiving any kind of benefits from checking in. Like, hey, are you checking the game you are getting 20% off the concession stand or free T-shirt.

Liz: Which would be a lot of money at the NBA event.

Tariq: Exactly, exactly. I’m looking at that to see how fans are using it. Why are they using it? And why they aren’t using it? And seeing if there is some way that we can give people a reason to check in. Because some people can be kind of on the fence about checking in, like why should I let you know where I am at? Hey, if you check into Madison Square Garden and we’re now giving you 25% off on the nachos, then more and more people may be likely to check in.

What I am wanting to see is people, why they check in or why they don’t check in? Are they receiving any rewards? And would they be more likely to check in if they receive some sort of reward? Not only a physical reward or a tangible reward, but parking discount, concessions but intangible discounts as well, such as meeting the players after the game or media access, locker room access, things like that.

So currently I have the study out. I should probably have the results here in the next two to three weeks as well. I will be sure to pass them along to you as well.

Liz: And one of the questions that came to mind when you are talking about that is: was there a specific reason that you decided to focus on the NBA? Or why you didn’t decide to focus on any of the other major leagues?

Tariq: The reason I did NBA is because overall the NBA does the best jobs or one of the best jobs using social media. If you look at their numbers I think like, the NBA as a league has, I don’t know like over 11 million followers combined on Facebook and Twitter. If you take the NBA, NHL, and MLB combined, it doesn’t even equal the number of NBA followers. I think the NBA was not only a pioneer, but they are like really way ahead of the curve in social media as well.

I don’t know if you have seen that they have created an NBA Legend Game which is actually a Facebook game that you basically start off as a career, you start off as a rookie and then you build your way up throughout a career until you become an NBA legend. By building your team, by building strategy, by acquiring all these intangibles and that game is only available through Facebook. And NBA said they actually reached, I believe, they said that they’ve reached over one million users on that game only in a couple of months.

So, I think the NBA not only has the numbers, but they do things like that like creating Facebook only games that allows fans to use social media to connect with them.

Liz: And do you think that what you found could also apply if they ever did decide to get more involved in social media, that it could apply to the NFL, NHL, MLB or even college level sports teams?

Tariq: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think the thing is that, social media in general, like I said, is just a new way to connect with fans to connect with teams. Overall, the thing is like is it’s scalable and it’s definitely transferable. So, even if the research is done on the NBA, it’s definitely applicable to NFL, NHL, Major League Soccer, Major League Baseball, all these other sports.

Because there are certain things about social media, like to me engagement is a big thing. It’s great if you have a million fans on Facebook. But if you are not engaging with any of them, it doesn’t do you any good. Or you may take another team which has only 10,000 fans on Facebook, but they are engaging with the majority of them: hey, thanks for coming for the game, thanks for being a fan etc., etc. I think that’s the key. It’s important to engage with your fans and with your users, and that’s definitely applicable across any sport.

Because every sport and every team is going to have fans and the fans appreciate the team. But the team must let the fan know that they appreciate them as well. Social media is a good way to do that.

Liz: Great. Tariq, those are all the questions that we have for you today. We really appreciate you sharing your information with us. Is there anything else you want to add before we sign off?

Tariq: I think social media is a great tool. Really, it’s only been prominent for the last five years. I really think you are going to start seeing a lot more growth and a lot more trends going in the next five to ten years as it keeps growing. I really think there’s going to be a big emphasis on the location based services, allowing fans to check in.

I think there is going to be big push on mobile devices as well through social media and probably see some bigger trends and some more trends coming through. Those two specific ones among other social media entities in the next few years.

Definitely, we’re still scratching the surface of social media. But, I am definitely excited to see what teams and leagues and fans and athletes are going to be offering in the future.

Liz: And I guess it’ll give social media experts a new reason to get involved in professional basketball and watch the NBA.

Tariq: Exactly, exactly or any sport, any sport they want.

Liz: Great. Well, thank you so much. That concludes our interview with Tariq Ahmad, Social Media and Sports Researcher from the University of Northern Colorado. Thank you so much and keep looking for our podcasts as they come. We’ll talk to you soon.

Watch the Reel Impact Video Demo to learn more and if you’re interested in attending this FREE event, Sign up on The Net Impact website!  See you there!