David Clarke is CEO and co-founder of BGT partners, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Ad Age Top 15 Best Places to Work in the U.S honoree. BGT creates interactive marketing and
technology solutions for global corporations that strengthen brands, develop
more engaging relationships, and transform businesses.
Social
media has radically transformed the way we search, buy, and consume content
online. Facebook has not only taken advantage of this, it’s become the driving force behind the
new social web. Google Wave, Google Buzz and Google+ were all Google Inc.'s way of
trying to win this war against Facebook, but the company is still far behind.
That’s
because the current state of Google’s contribution is to act as the bottom
feeder of social media, by collecting content from other social platforms, but
doing little with it. Google’s biggest opportunity is to create a social
ecosystem where content is created, distributed, marketed, attributed and
measured. Here are five ways Google can do that, and secure its social future.
1.
Buy a Social Media Dashboard/Distribution Tool
Success in
social means you have to enable content creation, distribution, and
integration. Facebook realized this long ago with the addition of its apps
platform and now with the purchase of Instagram. Social media dashboards
provide powerful content distribution features to most of the major social
platforms.
This is
why Google should consider buying TweetDeck (Yes, Twitter owns them. Check
bullet #2.), or HootSuite,
as they both have a dedicated following, offer an engaging experience, and are
constantly evolving. The data collected from TweetDeck or HootSuite would be
extremely valuable to Google, as it’s one of the few companies that can
monetize that data as it’s created and captured. If Google really wanted to, it
could even integrate the content in real time, similar to a sports ticker, into
Google Search. This would create a truly unique offering and a powerful tool.
2.
Buy Twitter
This
expensive piece of social real estate will get Google in the game much faster
and raise its social credibility. Although Google did purchase Blogger in 2003,
it still doesn’t have the social impact of a platform like Twitter. Not to
mention, the huge cost and commitment that went into building and marketing
Google+ has shown nominal results because it’s simply not better or different
enough from other similar platforms.
More than
anything, Twitter can be Google’s next YouTube. When Google was accused of
overpaying $1.65 billion for YouTube in 2006, it understood that the sum of
both companies was worth significantly more than the purchase price. Think Instagram. Who would pay $1 billion for a
company that made no revenue? The answer is a company that could leverage the
content and make it more valuable. If Google buys Twitter, it needs to
integrate Twitter, not assimilate it.
3.
Integrate Reporting into the Social Ecosystem
The future
needs to be robust social reporting through Google Analytics that seamlessly
integrates into the ecosystem. That means Google should incorporate PostRank
and SocialGrapple into the social media dashboard. This will open up new
opportunities for marketing, will tap into an existing audience of users and,
most importantly, provide value to businesses by giving them access to rich
consumer data.
4.
Monetize Content
Monetizing
content can be achieved in three ways: One, allow advertisers to advertise
within their social ecosystem, similar to how Gmail serves up useful and
relevant ads to its users. Two, provide marketers with more relevant social
consumer data so they can better spend their advertising dollars. Three, tag
social content and turn it into contextual ads, as Google is currently doing
with Google+ and Gmail.
5.
Succeed in Social Marketing Attribution
Social
utopia for marketers is the ability to understand and measure social advertising
or content and how this directly impacts conversions or goals. This is the
final frontier and something Facebook has been slow to provide, probably
because poor results will impact advertising spend.
Attribution
is beneficial to Google, as it has a larger advertising network, makes little
from its social initiatives, and Facebook advertising revenue is growing.
Google Analytics is currently doing this in beta. However we have to wait and
see how robust the functionality will be and if this will be integrated into
the larger social ecosystem. Social attribution would give marketers the best
reason to spend their advertising budgets with Google, and significantly
differentiate Google from Facebook.
6.
Purchase a Significant or Niche Social Site
The purchase
of Zagat, fflick, and Angstro were fairly small and didn’t have the growth
impact of a much larger social platform. Some better bets are Yelp and
LinkedIn. Here’s why.
Yelp is a
good match for its high-quality content and loyal audience. Also, it might be a
good deal because Yelp could run out of money before it gets in the black. If
Google really wants to buy something of substance, LinkedIn would be an
extremely expensive purchase but would give Google the world’s largest business
network. The potential of this combined company would be greater than the sum
of the purchase. LinkedIn’s explosive growth in hiring solutions alone could be
detrimental to Monster and CareerBuilder.
Yes,
there’s a downside in building out this social ecosystem, as it could be used
to help grow Google’s competition. But Google’s strength is its ability to make
money on data, and social “enemies” are a business reality. Google is far from
throwing an AOL/Time Warner Hail Mary, and the company’s success in mobile
gives it a huge runway to figure this out. However, at some point, Google’s
growth will slow and more nimble, aggressive companies will innovate faster.
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