Using Google+ to build your business

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Rionald Soerjanto

Google+ is the new player in the block. It has quickly become the place to be in social media.

The last thing entrepreneurs need is another social network to join, right? Weren’t you just getting the hang of Twitter? Didn’t you just start putting that Facebook business page together? So why is this important to get into Google+ now?

What I’ve seen so far is that the new social network from Google has a lot of advantages that are worth thinking about, and entrepreneurial types should take a look-see.

THE NEXT BIG THING
Google+ is a social networking platform, but you can look at it a lot of different ways. You can say it’s like Facebook, only cleaner. It’s like Twitter, only more engaging. It has the potential to be a great collaboration and communication platform (you can isolate who sees information by sharing it with specific Circles, or groupings of people).

Also, realize that Google+ is indexed by the biggest search engine in the world, also known as Google. Other search engines like it, too. And it has a lot of integration points, such as Google Places (which shows you location information), and an incredible potential for integrating even more of Google’s services over time.

HOW IT WILL HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Social networks are built to try and emulate real-world connectivity and information-sharing. On one hand, they’re like a more interesting telephone. On the other hand, they’re built to augment (not replace) cocktail parties, chamber of commerce meetings and other places where people get to know each other (or at least used to). Google+ does this surprisingly well, for a few reasons.
Google+ lets you share photos, videos, links and location data with everyone, or with your select Circles. Thus, when you find the good stuff that applies to your real estate friends, if you’ve grouped them into a Circle, you can send that information only to them. Other times, you can share with the general public to try and grow your audience.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT
First (and important) Facebook is not indexed by Google for search results, meaning that everything you do inside there stays inside there. Second, Facebook and LinkedIn both are set up for more of an “exclusive” model, which means that you have to know someone to know something. That’s why you see companies pushing so hard for “likes,” and why you see people spam the LinkedIn Groups.
Google+ is slowly rolling out their “for business” parts of the platform.

GET IN EARLY
Simply put, it’s important to take action on Google+ right now. I saw the benefits of this when I joined Twitter a while ago. If you get in, get familiar, start growing connections and learn how to curate and share, you’ll be ahead of the game.

What Do Facebook Users Expect from Brands?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Suwandhi Taswin

Facebook users have both + and – expectations when “liking” a brand! Many Companies are very often on the hunt for more “likes” for their Facebook pages with hopes that people will soon recognize its brand or sometimes it’s just for increasing number of exposures on social media. However only 42% of US Facebook users think marketers should interpret a “like” in that way.

Study from ExactTarget on June 2011 study from, “Subscribers, Fans and Followers: The Meaning of Like,” which found that 25% of US Facebook users disagree that marketers should interpret “like” to mean they are a fan or advocate of the company”.

Facebook users themselves have some preconceived notions about what to expect when they “like” a company on the site, and among those who do not become brand fans, many are negative. More than half of users expect to be bombarded with messages or ads (54%), while 45% do not want to give companies access to profile information and 31% do not want to push content from a company into friends’ newsfeeds. These possibilities have prevented users from making brand connections on the social networking giant.

On the flip side, many US Facebook users also have certain expectations of perks they should get after following a company’s Facebook page.

Study from The ExactTarget study found that “58% of US Facebook users expect to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales after “liking” a company, while 58% also expect to receive discounts or promotions. Additionally 47% expect to see updates about the company, person or organization they “liked” in their newsfeed, which bodes well for brands as they work to have their content always show up for their followers.”

Additionally, younger consumers, ExactTarget found, have fewer expectations and generally “like” brands as a form of expression, not to get certain perks. Meanwhile, older consumers want something of value for “liking” a brand. By listening to what their target fanbase wants out of the Facebook relationship, marketers can get more interaction on their page and encourage more people to “like” rather than avoid brands on Facebook.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008630

7 Tips for Boo-tiful Web Design [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Jessica Nyoman

Listen up, ghouls and boos, we’ve written a lot about web design here at Mashable, but on one day a year, it’s appropriate to call on some more, um, spirited individuals to lay down the laws of basic and proper web design.

We hope you know by now not to use Comic Sans. And while everyone loves an animated GIF, they’re only funny or entertaining when they’re … funny or entertaining. And that blinking text? Get rid of it, unless you’d like to be liable for a few seizures.

Below, you’ll learn from Frankenstein font snobs, mouthy mummies, impatient pumpkins and spiders on the web to help you make your website more of a treat than a scare to browse.

Artificial Super-Skin Could Transform Phones, Robots and Artificial Limbs

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Jessica Nyoman

Touch sensitivity on gadgets and robots is nothing new. A few strategically placed sensors under a flexible, synthetic skin and you have pressure sensitivity. Add a capacitive, transparent screen to a device and you have touch sensitivity. However, Stanford University’s new “super skin” is something special: a thin, highly flexible, super-stretchable, nearly transparent skin that can respond to touch and pressure, even when it’s being wrung out like a sponge.

The brainchild of Stanford University Associate Professor of chemical engineering Zhenan Bao, this “super skin” employs a transparent film of spray-on, single-walled carbon nanotubes that sit in a thin film of flexible silicon, which is then sandwiched between more silicon.

After an initial stretch, which actually aligns the randomly sprayed-on conductive, carbon nanotubes into microscopic spring-like forms, the skin can be stretched and restretched again to twice its original size, without the springs or skin losing their resiliency. Darren Lipomi, a postdoctoral researcher who is part of Bao’s research team explained, “None of it causes any permanent deformation.”

This unique makeup allows the malleable skin to measure force response even as it’s being stretched, or “squeezed like a sponge.” Researchers noted that it can also sense touch and force at the same time.

This super skin is not simply a thicker, more flexible version of the touch screen on your iPhone 4S. Virtually all touch-sensitive smartphones feature transparent films that sense touch. However, these capacitive screens are only responding to the tiny electrical charge in your fingertips and do not actually know if you’re touching lightly or hammering the screen.

Flexible touch screens for computers and smartphones is one obvious super skin application idea, but the Stanford researchers have larger goals. They envision future robots wearing this flexible touch and pressure-sensitive skin. From there, the next logical step is replacement of skin on people, especially burn victims or those who have lost limbs.

Learn more in the video and then give us some of your ideas for how industry could use this super skin breakthrough.

Google+: a One Hit Wonder or a Classic?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Vanesha Manuturi

Following up to Google+’s buzz these past couple of weeks, an article that was originally published in the San Jose Mercury News by Mike Swift covered the surge of popularity that Google+ is getting. Noting that this is Google’s fourth try at social networking, Google+ has reached 20 million people in about three weeks. While the numbers and the response seem to be in favor of Google+, two executives that are in charge of Google+, Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz commented that, “We’re Google. We can get anybody to kick the tires of a product…It doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful…”

The sentiment is shared upon as experts also agree that it’s too early to decide. Michael Fauscette, an analyst with IDC, commented, “Until it really starts to go mainstream, and I see my cousin in Florida decide to get on it, I just don’t think we can say it’s a success. We’ve got a ways to go.”

While I do agree that Google+ still has a long way to be titled a hit in the social networking field, it definitely has some, if not a lot, of potential that can be explored in the future. In the mean time, enjoy Facebook’s Zuckerberg’s thoughts on Google+ as shared by Mashable.com.

Like in Every Relationship… You Gotta’ Give a Little…

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Vanesha Manuturi

You’ve probably heard it many, many times: the importance of keeping up the relationship with your Facebook fans. Since Facebook is a social media whose effectiveness relies crucially on developing relationships, engaging the fans of your business page is a given. Easier said than done, it’s not surprising that even though you’ve been advised on it many times, you still scratch your head every time you think about how the actual practice would pan out.

A few months back, Mashable.com published a post that originally from the American Express OPEN Forum, titled 4 Creative Ways to Reward Your Fans.

You guessed it, just like any other relationship, the act of giving rewards is highly beneficial in maintaining the relationship.

In the article, Blake Cahill, principal and president of social media agency Banyan Branch, commented on the issue, “Fans have signaled a level of passion or connection with a brand, so rewarding that acknowledgement only further endears the brand to those fans… Giving fans what they want can vary from discounts, to empowering them to support causes, to providing them with exclusive content and information. In many cases, success is a mix of all of these.”

There are four ways to treat your Facebook fans for their support and maintain the relationship:

Offer exclusive discounts, coupons and contents
Help fans give back
Show you’re listening
Recognize individual fans

In managing the image of your brand, the maintenance of your customer relationship would be supported as you follow a little of each advices.