While news of a Facebook IPO hit the web on Friday, the earlier part of the week was all about Google, as the company continues its move toward unifying its service into one platform.
On Wednesday, the company announced a new privacy policy, streamlining its previous guidelines into one more easily understood principle. Essentially, data from all of its services, which include search, Gmail, Google+ and YouTube, among others, will be used to determine the content most relevant to users across Google products. All logged-in users’ activity will be tracked and applied throughout the platform. So As such, email content might inform individual search results; Google+ activity will can influence video content showed on YouTube and so on.
For businesses, this could mean more targeted marketing opportunities, Brafton reported. The amount of data available will grow, and some speculate this will even translate into Analytics insights so content created as part of an SEO campaign can be tailored for maximum relevance. Additionally, PPC campaigns would receive a boost, as more can inform the targeted advertisements.
While the move seems like a fairly natural step, some have been openly skeptical about the announcement. Google provided its response even before the criticism began, stating in the release, “if you want to take your information elsewhere, you can.”
Supporting its move toward “data liberation”, Google is now requiring anyone looking to make a new account on its services to create a Google+ profile as well. First reported by the Google Operating System blog, which is not affiliated with Google, mandatory Google+ enrollment will likely drive membership for the network, which Google CEO Larry Page pegged at more than 90 million in the company’s quarterly earnings report.
Brafton pointed to the potential effects of required accounts for social media marketing campaigns that include Google+.
With all of these policy shifts occurring, the Washington Post conducted a poll throughout the week, asking readers whether or not Google’s announcements would force them to reconsider their use of Google and cancel accounts.
At press time, more than 65 percent of respondents said they would cancel their accounts when the changes take effect on March 1.
Thursday also brought more Google news that search marketers should consider, as Brafton reported that the company had rolled out its latest Panda update. While the algorithm update was fairly minor, the company said, it still caused some to see their traffic fluctuate. Google said there were no major changes with Panda 3.2, but it plans to make approximately 500 updates and improvements to its search algorithm this year.
All of the conversation about Google, including its recent Search, plus Your World announcement, has been troublesome for some companies as well as a portion of consumers and this week, some web leaders took action. Brafton highlighted Focus on the User, a joint initiative of engineers from leading social media and internet companies.
The organization is calling for Google to integrate data from all social networks into its search results to provide users with more complete, accurate social results. The site points to Facebook and Twitter, primarily, saying that these websites are often updated more frequently and that Google, itself, tends to identify certain public figures’ Twitter or Facebook pages as the most relevant search results for related queries when Search, plus Your World is not live. Users conducting searches want the latest content, which was part of the motivation behind the Freshness Factor update Google rolled out in 2011.
The true motivation behind Focus on the User is a little murky. While these organizations contend that Google could showcase brands’ other social pages in search, Google cannot currently access data from Facebook and Twitter, according to Eric Schmidt.
Facebook has aggressively avoided any relationship with Google, including the sharing of any user data for indexing.
The reigning social giant made news of its own on Wednesday, reporting that Timeline will go live to all users next week. The profile layout was first announced in late September, but only became available to all users in mid-December. Since the introduction of the feature, it has been entirely optional. However, Brafton reported that Timeline’s focus on visual content makes it especially important for the company moving forward, as a recent data shows that images and other visuals encourage the most interaction from users.
A study released last year pointed to visual content as a leading driver of engagement, with users Liking 0.37 percent of all visuals they encounter compared to 0.27 percent of text-only content.
This shift toward visual content in social media marketing correlates with the rise of networks, such as Tumblr that focus heavily on images. Moreover, female-focused social sharing website Pinterest has seen rapid growth in the last few months. Both Experian and comScore noted the site’s substantial jumps, as Brafton reported this week. The service allows users to share content on their own pages and “repin” content from their followers’ profiles. The site is heavily skewed toward visual content.
Pinterest saw a push from the launch of its mobile apps. This has become a fairly common trend for social networks and other companies in recent year as the mobile market grows. Pew Internet Research reported on Monday that 2011’s holiday shopping season resulted in major growth in tablet ownership in the United States.
Brafton reported that 19 percent of American adults now own a tablet or e-reader of some kind. While the study was vendor agnostic, ignoring which device these users purchased or received, the growth of the iPad along with the development of more affordable devices encouraged many to invest in tablets during the final months of 2011.
As Brafton reported last year, content marketing campaigns are among the best methods for engaging tablet owners. More than half of consumers using tablets access news content every day on their devices, placing a premium on news content marketing to reach on-the-go audiences. Additionally, Brafton found that people read more news after purchasing a tablet than they did beforehand.
The tablet audience is highly convertible as well, with Equation Research reporting that 9 percent of all ecommerce purchases stem from the devices. Smartphone owners are spending from their handsets too, with 14 percent saying they shop on their phones.
Brafton reported that this shift should be used by businesses to inform content marketing and SEO campaigns, as mobile search algorithms are more likely influenced by a user’s location.
Looking ahead to next week, the first few days of life for all Facebook users with Timeline and its IPO should be on marketers’ watch lists. Also, the onset of February means we’re moving closer to March, the day Google’s new privacy policy takes effect.
