Jan 28, 2013
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The Season of Love
This love story starts in February (surprisingly enough) of 2003. A website called myspace (for all you young readers out there) was all the rage with teenagers, musicians, and artists of all kinds. It immediately gained the ire of most over the age of 25 due to its potty-mouthed content, but pioneered the industry nonetheless. Google was interested at that time however in another pioneer that attracted a more mature audience. They end up buying a small start up who’d developed a great new writing platform, Blogger. Often times, people forget that blogs were one of the founding members of Social Media era. Blogs developed the concept of sharing great content and finding an audience who cares. A whole new marketing platform was discovered and many turned it into profit (and still do). By late 2003 to early 2004, social networks like Friendster were starting to gain attention. Google’s bank account by this point was starting to swell significantly, and they could see their market trending towards social sharing. About this same time, another social network was started in a dorm room at Harvard University. Facebook.
Always as Bridesmaid, Never a Bride
From 2004 to the end of the decade, social networks started showing up and then disappearing faster than chocolates at Valentines. Most of which never gained much attention. A few did however, Flickr, Twitter, Skype, Linkedin, to name some of the most prominent. Most networks, even the popular ones, either fizzled fast or captured a niche audience and went off the radar. One radar however that kept a close eye was that of Google. They continued to measure success, track trends, and ultimately attempted to buyout or launch their own competing networks. A classic example of this was Google Buzz, created to act like Twitter. Buzz, while a great name for its service, never got out of the hive.
The One
In 2011, Google had licked their wounds from previous social media defeats, and launched Google+. While, G+ initially gained a huge tech savvy audience, it has had a hard time turing that corner of not just the techies having a G+ account, but Mom and Dad too. To be fair, Facebook went through a similar evolution. I remember all too well writing an email to my family, trying to convince them to join Facebook so that we could connect better. After months (and sometimes years) of persuasion, they all joined.
But This isn’t a History Lesson, This is a Love Story
Here we are, 2013. Google’s love story started 10 years ago. And now, after all the drama, fights, “let’s see other people” moments they’ve had, it looks like Google is finally ready to settle down. Google as you know is the king of search. They decide who gets ranked and how high. They decide what businesses their users get to be exposed to. They do this by a mathematical equation called “the Google Search Algorithm”. Here’s were the romance starts. Each year, Google has given more and more search “weight” to content shared on social media. They take that content and where its linking to, and assign search weight that determines a pages rank-ability. It has been well documented that 2013 will mark the year that Google will place SIGNIFICANT focus on Social links.
So What Do You Do?
It’s time to capitalize on the torrid tale of Google’s love affair with Social Media. But how? Out of our Provo, Utah office, we specialize in social media as a content aggregator to impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and as a means to create and communicate with your Super Fans. Most of our clients had tried to manage their social media on their own, but found that it always became an after thought. Sound familiar? To solve this, and capitalize on the weight of social media, they allow us to serve as their proxy employee, sharing their uniqueness to a social audience. Sound interenesting? Give us a call at (385) 312-1555 and learn how you can “get some love” from Google through social media.