The Kings' Game

Chess is one of the oldest games in the world, and Kings and Emperors were the first players since it originated in Persia around 600AD. 

But there is truly a parallel today in the match between the Kings of the Internet, Google and Facebook. Many of us live on the internet. Mary Meeker pointed this  out in her speech at the Web 2.0 conference last week, where she defined our hierarchy of needs as food, shelter and the Internet. Whether that's right or not, I doubt a day goes by that most of us are not using one or either of these sites once, if not multiple times, a day, and probably for hours on end. 

Clearly, they are the behemoths in this space. In fact, Google's share of internet traffic is so dominant, they were forced to appear on Capitol Hill in September to defend against charges of monopolization. No one has yet laid similar charges against Facebook, but with over 850MM users, it certainly dwarfs any other social network,  and that certainly could happen in the foreseeable future. 

Brinkmanship

Without doubt, they are watching each other's moves very closely. 

In late June, Google launched Google+  which has been deemed very successful by all accounts, They reached 50MM users in three short months, and even though stats now point to a decided drop off, it's historic in terms of the adoption curve and it's still early. Google seemed to steal Facebook's thunder for a time.

Then towards the end of September, Facebook released its latest improvements to their interface with the new Timeline, Updated NewsFeed, Smart Lists and the Ticker. These enhancements--although not yet fully rolled out--were greeted with almost universal praise by the highly influential early adopters, and there is keen interest for it to be fully launched as soon as possible. This new update has created a check mate situation for Google.  And they must make the next move.

The Next Phase: Brand Pages 

And very likely the future battleground for these giants will be brand pages. 

In a recent conversation with Facebook, they said there are no plans to launch brand pages in this new format any time soon, but that may be due to their legal problems with the general roll out. There's no doubt that brands want this new look and feel.  The day the new look was announced, agencies were tripping over themselves to show their clients what their pages would look like with this new design, and it likely would be a major improvement, as I mention in my post from October 12. 

In the meantime, Mashable just published a story saying G+ will launch their brand pages soon. 

So if Google goes first, will they see a a rush of new activity as brands look to leverage their unique platform?  I should think so. G+ benefits are clear; it allows greater content and user segmentation, plus threaded conversations without all those pesky ads cluttering their interface. And as Google integrates more of their products with G+, there will be seamless proprietary cross platform communication.

And then the pressure will be on Facebook to one up them with their brand pages. It's just a question of when. 

One thing's for sure, the game continues and it's going to be fun to watch. 

Image courtesy of Fantasy Interactive/Mashable

http://mashable.com/2011/10/22/what-google-brand-pages-could-look-like-pics/

It’s nothing short of meteoric. Google Plus took only 16 days to reach 10mm users. Facebook took over two years to reach that many fans. And now that G+ is open to anyone, their new user base is estimated at 43 million. Experian/Hitwise stated that last week, visits to G+ increased by almost 1300%, elevating it from no. 54 to no. 8 on the Hitwise Social Networking and Forums Category. And though their numbers have dropped recently, the platform will only get more users as brands come on board.

Worth The Wait

At the launch, brands were upset that only individuals could create pages—(except for two beta partners, Ford and Starbucks), however they will see three clear benefits from the long wait. 

1.     There is a very large audience already familiar with the platform, and in fact, these early adopters are a highly influential group.

2.     Google has been tweaking the platform and features over the past couple of months creating a better user experience overall, with increased functionality, including the addition of games.

3.     The platform is very stable and able to handle large amounts of traffic.

Content Propagatio

There is no doubt that Google, which owns over 65% of all searches, will drive         synergy. However, G+ did borrow the ability of tagging content off of the main site in a  manner similar to Facebook where users can Like external content. G+ has added the +1  tag for interactions on external websites, thereby increasing the visibility and relevancy of  the site for users outside of the network., and there has already been widespread adoption  by sites and users. 

Content Segmentation

With Circles, G+ created a unique tool that allows users to target content to specific groups, and will allow brands to offer specialized content to different user groups, based on customized criteria. Publishers’ whose content is highly relevant and targeted to their audience will see engagement gains as opposed to those who publish generic content on an irregular basis.  Brands may have a Brand Advocate circle, or a Focus Group circle, or possibly just those Coupon circle. This feature will require strong community managers able to make the best use of the nuances of content creation.

Other ways that brands can target their content is through Hangouts and Sparks. Hangouts, which is essentially a video chat tool, only allows 10 users at one time, but may be leveraged by brands to interact with their core audience through a visual real time connection. And although not used much, Sparks is a search tool within G+ allowing users to find relevant content created by those in your circles and allows content to be accessible long after the original publication date.

Content Analytics

An advanced analytics dashboard will be a huge differentiator for G+. Although not fully integrated yet, it is assumed they will leverage their proprietary tools such as Google analytics, Adsense,  and Adwords. This would inevitably allow brands the best in class data and the ability = to drill down into social media analytics to help gauge social media ROI on G+.  

Once realized, the advantages of a Google+ business account may be in the ability to analyze its effectiveness and reach getting what is probably the clearest return-on-investment (ROI) picture of any social media tool to date.  And if leveraged correctly, this information will help guide brands to create the most compelling and relevant content for their users.

With all these benefits, it would seem that brands will be able to set a new engagement level with their customers, making it a “must-have” as part of their marketing mix.

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