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Google, Frommer’s, Zagat and Content Marketing

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from +Amanda Blain

Did you see the news? Google is carrying forth with its strategy to become a content marketer with the latest acquisition of Frommer’s travel guides for $25 million. In the world of travel guides, I wonder if that’s a lot of money? When you look at what Facebook paid for Instagram; it’s peanuts.

I, for one, love Frommer’s. It’s my travel guide of choice along with Lonely Planet. Last year, Google bought Zagat Reviews, and you begin to see the strategy unfold with its launch, too, of Google Flight Search.

Talk about becoming content kingpin in the travel and hospitality industry over night, eh?

So, what does this say about search engine Google now owning hot travel sites where hotter content rules? Because it can, it is diversifying in a sector that caters to a wide demographic from teens and tweens to mommies, business folk, seniors and great seniors.  How smart is that for a strategic move?

I don’t have to tell you that Google has opened up new and huge opportunity and successfully diversified its interests; much to the chagrin of Yelp and Yahoo!

What’s Your Google Strategy?

Here are some tips you might parlay in your own neck of the woods:

  •  If you’re @RalphDopping or @PattySwisher who work in the architectural fields, perhaps their firms might join forces with a construction company or launch their own. Small construction is still a good bet (versus building high-rise office structures), and perhaps architects can earn a greater piece of the pie.
  • If you’re @KaarinaDillabough who works as a business and life coach, is there a way to boost business by developing killer content that encapsulates tips for the stressed mommy entrepreneur? She can build a new channel that way; open new doors.
  • If you’re @NeicoleCrepeau who owns Coherent Interactive, a digital web shop with marketing analytics, perhaps she could partner with Soulati Media, which brings solid PR experience to marketing teams.
  •  Adam Toporek diversified his brand; I watched the whole thing. He decided to refocus his brand new blog on customer service and went dark awhile as he rebuilt the site and now targets content specific to that topic. Now, when I write my customer service stories, I always shoot them to him as they fit better on his blog than mine.  What’s he done? Become a content expert in that sector, just like Google is doing in hospitality and travel.

Very cool.

Should You Delete Social Media Profiles?

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A man I respect as a peer and pal is a social media leader and A(mazing) lister who will deny that last descriptor as a slight, but he carries enough clout that he has deleted his and also his Google+ profile.

His hit my in box over the weekend, and I was fascinated with his announcement that he had deleted his and was lamenting that Google required him to re-up his profile IF he wanted to use .

So, I got to thinking about social media leaders who take proactive steps to change it up. Remember the leaders who deleted all their Twitter followers ? That was all the rage for awhile with everyone talking about what that meant, why they did it and what influence it had.

That said, I got to thinking about what it means to be in social media marketing.  Each of us engages with the next new channel. I kicked and screamed all the way to Pinterest to fall in love and then have that love wane to zero after the legal problems came to light. But, I didn’t delete my profile…yet.

is someone I fully consider a leader in this space. I feel as if I know him extremely well, yet we’ve never met IRL or via Skype. I need to change that up.  I remember when I started and I was in awe of his efforts with 12for12K.com.

And, we’ve f together, too. That makes us kindred . So, when I read yet again that Danny was justifying why he had deleted a profile after playing ball (he had met with some interesting obstacles and Wil E. Coyote shenanigans) I thought:

If you’re in social media, shouldn’t you have a Google+ profile? Then, I thought, Danny is now working for ; not driving his own company. Is that the reason he’s not as concerned with personal branding as before?

So as not to sideswipe Danny or speak on his behalf, I sent this post to him for his heads up in the hopes he would be able to shed some light on my curiosity. Let’s define what that curiosity means — it’s not gossip by any stretch; it’s learning.

Do I need to keep my Pinterest profile if I’m not going to be current or active? Do social media leaders have to engage on all the channels to show they know what’s hot? I seriously want to know the answers to these questions, and I’m hoping the king himself will help provide us with some insight…Danny?

(Thanks, Mr. Brown!) Danny Brown says:

“The way I look at it is this – does this platform really need to take up my time, and is it doing things at least in some right ways? When Klout first arrived on the scene, I was curious as I’m really interested in how messages are filtered through the channels, and what influence could mean for brands and business. Then I found out about their crappy privacy, their shady profile setting up and their inclusion of minors, and I deleted. It was simply a popularity tool as opposed to a true influence measure.

Now Google, with their Google+ platform, seems to want to follow the same path – force account creations, count “active users” as people who might click on G+ alerts in Gmail but never go through to the site, allow non-users to be emailed by their connections online to encourage sign-ups, etc. Its invasive marketing and so out of touch with Google’s lauded “don’t be evil” mantra. It may be a bit easier to take if the platform was good, but it’s such a stale experience compared to Twitter and Facebook (and, yes, you can say it’s down to the people you follow, but I followed some of the smartest folks around while their content was great, the user experience was still bland).

My time is very limited, due to professional and family commitments, so unless a platform stands out as being hugely effective, I won’t waste time on there. I’ve never felt the need to “build a personal brand,” as that always sounds forced and contrived. So not being on the “big platforms” doesn’t bother me too much. If I miss out, so be it – I’ll still prefer to be active on the platforms that matter to me, and for now that’s , Twitter and Facebook. Everything else is either a luxury I don’t need or a time suck that’s being hyped by those looking to push their own books, webinars and agendas.

My advice? Look at the platforms, evaluate your interaction and returns, and if they don’t seem to make sense, then spend your time where you’re more effective, both as a producer and a listener. That’s how you’ll get the results that matter.”

 

Run to Google+ to Engage!

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I would be remiss if I did not share my thoughts about Google+ after a weekend of playing. Here’s the upshot…RUN to Google+ and reserve your profile and nickname before others, especially if your name is common or there are duplicate names to yours.

The site is intuitive, addictive, fast, and organized. My network is not just being built from Twitter and Facebook, thank goodness, it’s coming alive with people I don’t even know.

* And, that’s what’s cool. Google+ is organized in circles. You can put peeps into a circle of friends, social media types, PR, family, following, or any other category you create and name. I found that I have pretty much three circles only; not sure I need to skew them deeper than that. If I did, it would be a simple click with a really cool interface to make it happen.

*As for content, I’m a bit unsure about posts up there. The weekend was full of banter; ahem, Ms. Dietrich was scamming the poor system in search of “free beer.”  I think she found it.

*What people are saying, and I fully agree, is they don’t want to see content being cross-posted from Twitter and Facebook. Because so many of us are connected on all channels right now, the cross pollination of content and repetitiveness would become  unruly. This remains to be seen…how folks will elect to share.

* The jury is still out how to best use this channel. What I’m hoping for is a more professional channel of business folks that would create a hotbed of learning, testing, and challenging/useful content. Again, if you follow those types of peeps and organize others into circles, that is highly likely to happen.

* Here’s one critical tip — secure your nickname. Here’s the link and it appears like this when you’re done In box one, type in the name you’d like to use to identify yourself. In box two, copy and paste just the numbers from your current Google+ account (found in the url in your browser). Click “add” and voila. You can use this to identify yourself rather than a cumbersome set of numbers and unwieldy url.

* When people  you don’t know add you to their circles, add them, too. In this beta phase, all peeps should be safe (not spammers yet unless her name is cough, Gini, cough).

* Re analytics, there’s a lot of banter about whether this channel will help drive blog traffic. Why wouldn’t it? I already had an alert for my profile here; I know that Google, being the search engine it is, is going to be monitoring traffic inside and pushing attention to the outside.

* One thing that is slightly disturbing to me, though, is the amount of data being transmitted via Gmail, to Crackberry and to iPad2, plus other mobile devices. Think about it…how will we keep data plan charges down when the mobile providers are all going to fee for usage plans? Anyone else have a thought on this? I got the idea after seeing the huge spike in Gmail traffic to my iPad and Blackbery; that’s a bit worrisome.

What’s your first impression, folks?

Google+ Will Social Media Fall?

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This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we? (Thanks, @GiniDietrich, for the link there.)

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.

Google+: How Social Media Will Fall (Updated)

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This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we?

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

 

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.