Yesterday we talked about how funny shows like The Office and Better Off Ted were/are – until they’re a mirror into our own business lives.

And I wanted to take a closer look at the idea that business is missing several essential elements of social media. Because of how critical human interaction is to the process businesses that are purposely set up with mechanized glory in mind fail.

(For more on this, you have to read Humanize, and at least listen to Welcome to the Fifth Estate.)

For some the answer to a social media’s bad fit is to just skip social media, or put it off for another day.

But for years now, we’ve needed social media to enhance our search results, and its importance is underscored dramatically in light of Google’s most recent updates.

Be it the solo entrepreneur operating a Kindle publishing mini-empire, a family-owned pizzeria, or a nationwide insurance company chain, you can’t afford to wait until it’s too late to start using social media to help circulate your content – and you simply must have content to be in the conversation, not to mention the fact that it’s the most proactive form of reputation management. 

To simply ignore social media is to do so at your own peril.

People don’t read the newspaper anymore, they log in to Facebook, and let their friends lead them to news web sites or applications. This shift can be seen as a lost opportunity or as an entirely new way to directly reach your customers, and to develop a relationship before they need you. Then you can be the obvious choice when they’re ready to buy.

Which brings us back to the hard part – there’s an extreme disconnect between

• the way companies traditionally work,
• the content most enjoyed by pivotal groups in social media, and,
• how people typically use their various social media tools.

I’m sure you’ve heard this next part before but it’s important enough to repeat.

We Humans Have Built a Machine That Could Destroy Our Livelihoods

Social media is shaped and driven by the things that make us fundamentally human. Forming, operating, and marketing corporations are actions traditionally shaped by the notion that companies are best run as efficient machines.

And yet there are people inside these machines – and it is those people, not the mechanized, politicized, organizational structure, that people will connect to on some level.  So you’ll need people inside the company to connect with the people outside the company via social media.

Here’s where the problems then come – who owns what?

Who is allowed to speak and who isn’t?

When there’s a crisis, what’s the response procedure?

What are the 25 things we have to check off on the list before we can make a blog comment on another blog using the company URL?

In the age of the old media, this was fine. Press releases were mailed or faxed. Showing up in print or television news gave much more lead time to plan all these things out, and put processes in place that we relied on.

Advertising wasn’t subject to the opinions of people because most offended parties were not upset enough to write a letter, which then had to find its way to someone with influence. By that time the commercial in question may have been old news, and a new one in production.

But Twitter is happening

… ten minutes ago.

There’s already a Facebook group somewhere discussing the problem they have with how your company (or one like it) responded to that national crisis yesterday, and how they hope you’ll solve it.

People are acting, moving, and your company is getting left behind.

Why?

There’s a strategic issue at hand here. Because social media is so human and companies are so mechanical, the instinctive urge to slap social media on top of whatever we’re doing often fails. It’s like putting a band-aid on a broken leg- though the attempt at some repair may be appreciated, in practical terms, it’s completely ineffective, and as such, useless. Proper implementation is key.

And the social aspect of the tools are not the only issue – it is the impact the way the new media is being used and changing so many things, so rapidly.

Can We Put Our Companies Back on Track By Cutting Off Our Robotic Arms?

There’s a much bigger wave just underneath the surface of social media that is the threat to any stagnant company. We must change our companies from the inside out in some very key ways.

1. To succeed in social media, we must be people-centered.
2. Once we’re centered on the people inside and outside our company, we will want to listen to what their concerns are, because…
3. … We’ll have to get their attention in a way that’s a bit different than the way people related one on one. To woo them, we’ll have to produce content they find relevant, so that there’s a reason for dialogue since…
4. Dialogue starts the key conversations/connection that lead to subscriptions, clicks, and/or sales. And then?
5. We have to maintain that attention, not merely through content, but through connection, since that’s largely how the web is re-orienting.

I realize that I haven’t proven a single one of these hypothesis, nor am I linking to places where they are demonstrated. There are multiple sources that help bear these examples out that we’ll be discussing in future days.

First up will be our next few discussions, which will rest on a discussion on what being people-centric means in practical terms. How will we need to change? IS your company truly getting there, or is it just paying lip service to the idea? What are the key areas where we need to improve if we are truly centering around people?

This discussion will include some pretty fun embarrassing situations I’ve found myself in. Until then, try this visual exercise.

Imagine a hug. Warm arms that envelop you, the almost palpable wave of emotion migrating from another person to you. Who can truthfully argue that hugs suck?

Not most emotionally stable people.<

And while our mission is certainly not to hug our customers, we often have the intention of embracing technology that helps us serve our clientele. But picture that hug again - only this time imagine that you have the arms of a super-strong robot, who isn't programmed to understand how much pressure to apply.

In your imagination, I'm willing to bet that you either crushed your hug-ee into jelly, or gave them one of those butt-out, barely touching non-hugs. Even in our minds, robots can't quite do the jobs that we can as humans, though they are suited for certain things.

Your robotic arms represent your company, and the person you're hugging represents social media.

Feel me now?
 

Day 285 © by Alan / Falcon

“The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!” Albert Einstein

There’s a reason why I use or create examples in art and pop culture to express ideas about social media.

I can’t say it better than Einstein but here goes – the art societies create often illustrates where that society is going, sometimes decades before change shows up in society. Think about how many seasons Arrested Development would make it to today, almost ten years after it debuted versus when it came out, confusing half its intended audience with the absence of a laugh track, and the documentary-style presentation.

The show was ahead of its time. Tap your neighbor if you watched this fine show when it was on TV, or on Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu, or Netflix now.

(“NO TOUCHING.”)

Inside jokes aside, some of these parallels are very revealing. Among my favorites examples in observing how many companies react to technology from a marketing perspective are also The Office, and a less popular show that was at least as brilliant, Better Off Ted.

In Better Off Ted, the company the protagonist Ted works for was constantly coming out with commercials that openly mocked the type of ads General Electric is still running (see the General Electric Super Bowl Ads, on several worst ad lists, though they are getting better by introducing the people aspect in the one about beer). One of my favorite examples of the VD mockery follows.

Of course the joke is that to Veridian Dynamics, these commercials were Not jokes. They were serious with the image they wanted to project, one often completely at odds with reality, as we saw when we followed Ted in his daily adventures.

Then there’s The Office of course, best summed up in the words of  the then-boss of the Scranton branch, Micheal, as a conclusion to his version of the Dundlin Mifflin commercial he was absolutely not asked to make, “limitless paper in a paperless world”. (But ironically, inept as he is at so many things, his commercial was much better than the one the corporate office version. Yes, I know way too much about this show.)

It’s nuts, isn’t it?

The thought that a paper company would stick to its initial business model for so many years after the advent of the web, the global trend of greening, and the rise of superstores like Office Depot, Amazon, and to a lesser extent, Walmart. Layoffs were always looming overhead – at least until they joined forces with a printer company.

Seeing those two examples of companies failing to keep up with the digital marketing age and the resurgence of the people-centric organization, week after week, often has me wondering about the sobering reality so many companies small and large are facing.

Namely, how do companies adapt and thrive in this new business environment that is changing so rapidly?

Doesn’t it seem sometimes that the instant you change course to keep up, something else changes? It did to me until I figured out how to get ahead of the stream of change. It takes a fluid strategy and constant study to stay on top of both the day to day changes as well as the over-arching trend that is driving it all.

On the one hand the answer is in being more socially adept. Yep, all those skills we’re supposed to have gotten from humanities majors are as valuable, or even more valuable, than we thought.

Social media, an active Facebook and Twitter account specifically, could have worked to keep  Veridian Dynamics out of their constant reputation management issues, in concert with a capable public relations and marketing team. They could work together to solve internal issues, make some changes in strategy both internally and externally, instead of just trying to paper over the busted plaster of their public image.

A little video blogging, hopefully resulting in some YouTube hits, and some LinkedIn network on the part of the executive team could have hooked Dunder Mifflin up with Sabre much sooner, perhaps before more branches were eliminated and all those imaginary people lost their imaginary positions.

Yes, I’m mocking myself as I return to reality – this is all fake. It’s just a bunch of TV shows I have to whisper to my fix-it self.

True. But they’re also things some of the resources I’ll be talking about this week can help you with.

Dunder Mifflin’s issues were specific to smaller companies as most of them manifested at the branch level – we can see this during our weekly observation of their company, in both their triumphs and failures. Veridian Dynamic had problems that were closer to the enterprise level, and perhaps because of how big they are, the problems are more clearly visible (and comedic).

But the thing is, social media isn’t the whole answer to the question of how to adapt a 20th century company to the present day on its own. The changes that need to be made are much deeper. To implement social media, better search strategies, a proactive reputation management strategy, even basic web marketing, we need deeper changes in our companies. We can’t make the same mistakes we laugh at on these TV shows and in some movies, or we’ll share their fates, only with a lot less laughter, and a lot more pain.

How did we get here? Why did we create companies to be the way they are if this model doesn’t work? These are questions I’d like to explore as well- after all if we don’t observe our history aren’t we doomed to repeat it? My quick theory after reading books like Humanize, The Social Media Strategist and Welcome to the Fifth Estate is that these things worked once. And organizations got stuck in those developmental stages, but we’re not sure what to do next as this is new territory for most of us. (We’ll be peering at specific examples from those books and The Like Economy in days to come as well.)

This week, I’ll take some examples from these and other fictional organizations – and with links to some successful case studies from the real world — show steps small business can take to keep from suffering the fates that plague the real-life Dunders and Veridians.

Over at AGBeat, where I do a (approximately) bi-weekly column, the editor Lani Rosales wrote about something I ponder often: whether the web has stolen the idea of expertise. It’s called “The lost art of becoming a true expert“.  Quick quote:

 Yet, as an example, a carpet saleswoman with an email address can begin a blog claiming to be an expert writer, and who will question her? No one, because most people are now hiding the secret that they are not truly an expert at what they do. Even with all of my earned expertise, I still struggle with the term “expert” because of the bad taste left in my mouth by all of the newborn, self-proclaimed gurus, ninjas and mavens that get on the world’s last nerve. People sign up for Twitter and two weeks later are leading classes on the topic, people who started a blog in 2011 go volunteer to speak at national conferences with no credentials, professing expertise on blogging. The word “expertise” has lost its meaning.

I understand what she’s going through – during my brief flirt with so-called internet celebrity, people started calling me a guru, which to this day I hate desperately. It’s a title so liberally applied that it has lost its meaning.

At one point, in hopes of combating this festering disease of worshiped mediocrity, I wrote a guide explaining how an actual expert could use online tools to reflect their years of knowledge and ability to help others in a sort of free sample. It never computed to me that some people would just take other people’s hard won experience and claim it as their own.

Since 2005 I’ve struggled with this idea of expertise. It’s powerful and helpful in some hands – when I’m being operated on, I want a surgeon, not a vetinarian. I’m sure vetinarian’s are perfectly capable of performing surgery – it’s not just an issue of skill or knowledge.

It’s an issue of experience, and specialty. I want someone who has dealt with MY problem not a similar issue, someone who knows how the human body works and what to do if it does something unexpected.

I call myself an expert in certain areas. At this point I feel I’ve earned it – in the areas I call myself an expert, it’s because I have spent years attempting to be among the best in my field, not just in terms of what I know.

It’s not difficult to know things.

I call myself an expert because I can apply that knowledge to certain situations. Again, anyone can take a course, and memorize facts long enough to pass a course. Memorization, which the American schooling system is based on, is an easily learned skill if you know how to find the right teacher for your learning style.

But once you’ve learned something, being able to apply what you know to situations you haven’t come across before and still come out with a positive outcome – that takes experience, expertise, specialization in simliar issues.

And the fact that the lack of accountability on who is qualified to claim expertise is so widespread is a serious problem, and a possible price we pay for all this accessibility. At one point it was an advantage – there are people with degrees who know nothing who are also calling themselves experts – it’s not just the un- or web-educated. Just because you paid $100,000 for a degree doesn’t make you smarter than the person who was doing the job you were training for while you were in school.

I like to think of the example of offshore banking. They aren’t protected by the FDIC or any other regulating body, and so thrive only by reputation. But how do you trust reputation? You can’t if you don’t know whether the people informing you about the reputation of a third party have their own motives. You need an impartial body.

So far, I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for a reputation to be trusted, it has to be erected by a community of peers, colleagues, customers and clients. It has to be a fluid, changing community so that there isn’t a lot of wagon-circling happening in times of crisis. So you need long standing members, newbies and everyone in-between, and constant communication to keep everyone honest.

That, and due diligence can keep the idea of an expert alive until we come to another agreement.

My Real Facepalm © by joelogon

And by “you”, I of course mean me.

Because I did it again.

I thought it would be really neat to create a certain type of product. And to keep it from instantly being pirated, as my products often are, I decided to erect hoops between purchasing and receving, perfectly reasonable hoops, I thought, that would be barely noticable.

And I had to learn again, the hard way: you will go absolutely broke trying to enforce the “right” way to purchase something on your customers and clients, every time.

Imagine if you went to a gas station, that instead of the way you normally buy your gas, you had to walk across the street, pick up a voucher, walk back to the gas station, show them the voucher, and then go about your regular way of purchasing gas.

Unless we had no other option and were desperately in need of gas, most of us would drive off. But there are gas stations everywhere. Why in the world would a gas station make it harder to buy gas in this day and age?

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Someone has to really be a die-hard fan of yours to even tell you WHY they wouldn’t buy from you if you make this mistake. Most of the time it means you’ve lost business FOREVER. Is being right really worth that?

If you make it harder for them to buy, they will go somewhere else, no matter how much they love you and think you are the top logical choice.

If you make it hard for them to subscribe, they won’t sign up to your newsletter or membership site.

And if you make them enter their email address (which in their minds you should already have) in order for them to access something they purchased, refunds go up.

This is extraordinarily stressful for me because I have an extremely low refund rate. I always have – even when I had the spike that comes with using Clickbank, the average rate was still 1%.

Thank God I believe in testing everything, or I would have created a huge disaster and a customer service nightmare, since I only have extra customer service staff when we have a sale.

It’s funny because no matter how often I offer this advice to others, at least once a year I forget to apply it to myself. Yes, I’m much better than I was when I refused to acknowledge that this is true at all.

Luckily though, I once had a mentor who would ask me the critical question, when I stubbornly fought to get customers do something my way, the right way, the sane way, instead of the way that most likely resulted in them paying me for my services: Do you want to be successful? Or do you want to be right all the time?

Because eventually, you’ll have to choose.

The way you interact with people over social media can bring you success or waste your time. You can fight to make it into just another marketing exercise, or you can relax and go with the natural flow of connection.

The way you market your site online can increase your bottom line or it can be a bottomless pit of wasted money and time. Are you going to market in a way that’s successful? Or would you prefer to use the traditional ways you learned were correct and lose your shirt?

There’s a value in being right sometimes, sure. It’s often more profitable to screw people over than it is to do the right thing (at least in the short run view of the pre-social media day when someone can instantly broadcast your mis-step to an average circle of around 200 people.)

In cases like those, where morality is at play, hopefully we choose to err on the side of humanity and doing what is ethically correct.

But when it comes to generating revenue, there’s a reason the expression “the customer is always right” has endured for so long: if you try to force your version of what’s right against the grain of what they want, you’ll lose your customers.

So unless your family has some super-power that enables them to eat “rightness” for dinner, let go of the fact that the way you want to do things is technically right, better, smarter, faster, or more efficient if it’s interfering with you making your sale.

Be smart instead.

John Cusack © by Gudlyf

John Cusack: A Mild Obsession

I love John Cusack (as an actor/writer). I will see every movie he’s ever in, forever. I don’t care what the reviews are,  I’ve seen enough of his films to know that he is one of my favorite actors and anyone who disagrees with me can suck it. He works for me.

What works for you?

What this has to do with blogging: micro-fanaticism. Everyone has their fascinations that for business or personal reasons, they want to keep reading about, seeing images about or hearing conversations about. You have something that, if someone gets you going talking about it, you won’t shut up, and you’re probably the smartest person in the room on that subject.

If you aren’t the person that people have decided to fixate on, you can be the curator of best of the topic that  certain people are fixated on. If you’re really good, you can turn the things that go with that into a career, or leverage your knowledge on a related topic into a boost for your current career.

What this has to do with Google rankings: as we will discuss shortly, consistency is often a key element to recovering a slipping ranking. Obsessive consistency to be exact. Think about it – is there anything you used to do that you aren’t doing now? Why?

Have you made changes to your site that might be the culprit? Even design changes may be responsible for a change in results. I once had a very lovely client who sold timeshare resales. At the time we met, he didn’t know the difference between a page view and a hit.

After he changed his web design, hits went down. I pointed out that page views were consistent and that hits were down because technically, a hit is any request for an element on the page, including images.

A page view is what it sounds like – a view of a page. So since the new design had fewer images, of course hits were down.

Of course, hits were as irrelevant then as page views are becoming now. But he didn’t know that.

The point is: for all you know you might not have a problem at all. One ranking may be down while another is up, leaving you with more targeted visitors. If your rankings go down and sales go up, do you really have a problem? Consider all the elements.

GIGO: No One Is Obsessed with Crap (Well. No One Sane.)

Oscar the Grouch Graffiti © by bixentro

I learned this one when I was first learning about computers. GIGO stands for Garbage in, Garbage Out.

The relevance to our discussion is that in order to be knowledgeable enough on a topic that people want to listen to you, you must be consuming the cream of the crop of thinking on the topic or at least a related one. Success in the blogosphere and social media is as much about consuming content as it is creating it.

You have to know how to pore through the yawn of empty, senseless, pointless random yammering to find the sweet golden nuggets.

So many elements are attached to the quality of your content.

Whether anyone will link to it, talk to friends, come back again, bounce back to the search engines – and some of these end up impacting search, particularly in the case of Google.

Now, you don’t need a Bieber-sized fan club to make it online, or for your business to get a steady stream of leads from the web. But a few hundred or thousand coming back every month and buying/subscribing won’t hurt your bottom line. That core repeat business group can also be referred to as a group of fans.

Name ten fans of garbage.

(Oscar the Grouch doesn’t count.)

Blogging:  A Bit More Important All of A Sudden (again)

will write for chocolate © by caparica

If you’ve been watching Google’s last few algorithm changes, you may have noticed that it’s not only the frequency of updates that seems to have saved certain blogs from a dismal fate. It’s the perceived quality of updates, partly the fact that they’re attached to known authors.

For now, I won’t say more than that on this topic. Let’s go back to what that means to you and your Google strategy: content production. Not just in quantity but in quality.

The smart bloggers, writers and authors know that they can’t necessarily spin gold out of straw every day. That is: most of the time, there’s no remarkable news, discovery or observation for you to draw on that’s relevant to what you want to talk about, even when the other content on the web in your area is absolutely stunning. And yet, your job, each day, will be to create this constant stream of readable, actionable, consumable content, day in and day out.

One of the many things bloggers who have either recovered (or never lost) their rankings have had in common has been consistency of quality content, on a tightly structured topic. (Yes, if you have a copy of my Evergreen Traffic System or Rescue Your Blog, I’m repeating myself.)

So if you’ve lost your rankings and you’re already blogging, think about those three things:

1. What’s your John Cusack as it relates to business blogging? Are you still talking about him/her/it or have you wandered off topic too much?
2. How much can you reduce the garbage that’s coming in to your brain on the topic and simultaneously expand the amount of quality content you consume?
3. Can going back to basics fix your ranking problem?

Now, keep in mind this isn’t the only possible solution to recovering a good ranking, nor are these the only possible set of problems you have with your rankings. An algorithm is merely an extremely complex formula when you break it down – so there must be a way to reverse engineer, from positive outcomes, how to fix your rankings.

However, remember that there are hundreds of variables going into this equation, and that what fixed another site may not fix yours. At the same time, re-committing to what worked before is not to be discounted as a solution to a re-occuring problem.

When I wake up each morning, my breath is not exactly fresh as a spring breeze. So I brush my teeth. It fixes the problem. If I stopped brushing my teeth, I wouldn’t be surprised that my breath stopped being fresh.

Sometimes the simplest thing is the solution.

And if it’s not? Come on back and talk to me, and we’ll see if we can avoid jumping off that bridge.

Happy Martin Luther King Day

I made the conscious decision to take today as a true holiday. Usually I would volunteer for a local cause, or work to zip ahead of the crowd. But instead, I decided to take a leisurely stroll around these intertubes.

And here’s a clip from an article I read from our good friend, Doug Haslam, giving his opinion on some of the new best things in social media:

The truth is, I am aways suspicious of new platforms being declared “The Next XXX ” before it has had a chance to mature a little and give users enough chance to figure out how the platform is going to work for them. Google Plus has been a prime example, making some folks giddy before most people – especially businesses – we’re able to use it, a direct before it was even complete. Not that I don’t think it will make a huge impact, but if the train is leaving the station, say, in eight months, don’t line us up on the platform today.

I have seen several tools vying for “next big thing” status lately, but rather than fitting these for crowns, I see them – and others – fitting into a larger trend, whether they succeed or not.

Emphasis mine, because I agree with this long view. Everything I ever opine as a big step is not just because I think that company has something good that will succeed, it’s because I see a larger picture of the web going in that direction, and a possible relevance for business.

Doug’s Point Helps Discern Whether Objects are Less Shiny Than They Appear

It’s a good article. It talks about Pinterest, Path, Instagram, and Storify, 4 new social media resources that have been getting a lot of attention, some of which are worth watching. If you haven’t come across them, read Doug articles before you finish mine.

These were my thoughts on the article;

I don’t really pay attention to what anyone says is the next big thing. And I rarely get caught in arguments over stuff like this – everyone thinks what they think for the most part, and it’s almost never mere discussion or a single article that changes their mind.

I strongly agree with your assessment of these tools being part of a larger trend. Even when I focus on what could be a great new tool, it’s because even if they screwed up, something along those lines could be very successful.

 

What I’ve observed is that when people truly get turned on by social media, it’s not because of the site or resource itself. It’s usually an experience they have with it.

My Take on the Social Media Tools and Trends

I had an experience with a friend featuring me on Instagram that got my attention. Quite frankly I like how quiet and slow it can be at Instagram due to it limited availability. I love that it’s only available to Apple users, a point that Doug took exception to in his article.

Path I inexplicably hate.

It’s not just the limit of connections, though I’m a big proponent of connecting with different groups of people in my various circles as my mood/circumstances change. I can’t put my finger on what I don’t like about it. I doubt I’d join even if it had business uses, except to be knowledgeable about how it works for people who would ask me.

But that’s my opinion today. It may change. And I’m not in love with hammers, but if I need to drive in a nail, I’d still use one. My issue now is that Path isn’t solving a problem I have. Yes, I have a lot of followers and follow a lot of people, but I’ve picked or allowed each one to be connected for a very specific reason.

When it comes to these shiny new tools, sometimes I lurk and tell all of you what I think will happen next, based on my own research and experiences. Usually it’s that something fits into a larger trend, as Doug was talking about.

2012: The Year the Firehose is Tamed?

The one thing all three of the tools have in common is that they tame the firehose of information to an extent. Pinterest lets you categorize photos very easily with the boards feature, as you’re saving them. Flickr has this capability, but I find the whole thing about sets very annoying.

I also love being able to attribute/link to the source in a very Tumblr-like style.

Despite all the bliss that comes with discovering new tools, I stil think it’s most comfortable for me to be at the trailing edge of early adoption. Part of what I seek to provide is advice about what you should be using next before the world hops on the bandwagon – and more importantly, what may be a waste of time.

What’s your experience with Pinterest, Instagram, Path and Storify? Are you with the crowd? Did you have a strong experience that would get me excited about them?

Some of you may be familiar with Google Reader and some of you might not.

If you haven’t then you’re missing out on a wonderful way to get your blog noticed by other sites that similar to yours or some blogs that aren’t.

Check it out. You’ll be impressed.

Yes you will.

Create basic documents from scratch or start from a template.
You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. And it’s free.

Upload your existing files.
Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. So go ahead and upload your existing files.

Familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze.
Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font or number format, change cell background color and so on.

Take the tour!

Though Google posted this on 10/31/2011 – it’s still fresh to tons of bloggers.

Here it goes:Today we’re rolling out the new Reader design, and the Google+ features that we mentioned just over a week ago. Before the day’s over, all Reader users will be able to enjoy the following improvements:

A new look and feel that’s cleaner, faster, and nicer to look at.

The ability to +1 a feed item (replacing “Like”), with an option to then share it with your circles on Google+ (replacing “Share” and “Share with Note”).

Integrating with Google+ also helps us streamline Reader overall. So starting today we’ll be turning off friending, following, shared items and comments in favor of similar Google+ functionality.

Let’s go get it!

Now that the furor has died down some over Search Plus, let’s talk about it.

What is it? Google says:

We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction…

Pay particular attention to the fact that they specifically said “another big step”. Not THE step. Not FIRST step.

This is significant but not life-altering, not if you’ve been integrating social into your overall plans. Even if you haven’t ever been to Google+ or started a profile yet, it’s not over for you and your site, because this race will not go only to the swiftest.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t get on the ball though.

Of course there are some who think Search Plus is no big whoop:

The average Joe is still on Facebook. And my prediction is they’re going to stay on Facebook.

After someone publishes content, and puts forth the effort on Google+ to get it ranked, the average non-techie reader is more likely to go and share that content on Facebook.

That’s not a bad thing, of course. It will get you the exposure you desire. But I don’t think Google+ has advanced their standing as a mainstream social network here.

Well, I partly agree with them – Google going social itself? IS a big so-what.

Not for the reasons in the article though. I’ll be back to that in a minute.

Here’s the point you need to really think about.

My wildy theoretical speciulation is that the Google+ element of this news is just a Kansas City shuffle (“A Kansas City Shuffle is when everybody looks right, you go left. “) Maybe Google is being intentional with its misdirection, as they did back when they launched Google Social Search on a known Apple Product launch day.

The Two Reasons The Google+ Component Is a Big So What

1- It’s old news.

They’ve been going social for 2 years. This is just another step in a huge plan – if you were at our Google 2011 Webinar last year you remember our various discussions about Google in social, and Google social search.

Chris Lang has been telling us about the changes we were going to see over at Google in the social space since 2008 at least.

My point is, this is part of a metamorphosis, not some huge leap forward. It looks that way because it’s a significant design change. But it’s just a further implementation of something that was already in progress.

Personal results, profiles in search, people and pages? Already existed. Google’s first moves towards search included much of this. What changed was the priority, and to an extent, the sources.

If you’ve been following along so far, you’re gonna be fine, just continue to pay attention. If not, I suggest you go back and look at the repeated themes about Google social search in the news over the past few years.

Especially if you lost footing during the last round of Google algorithm updates.

2- I know I keep bringing up this point. But this update really isn’t about G+. It’s about what the updates impacts for most businesses, and that’s your overall Google strategy.

What is Search Plus Really About? SEARCH. Not Plus.

Google has brought the search engine back to the forefront, even though it looks like it’s pushing Google+ to the forefront. What is driving the new push of Google+ though? Google search.

It’s a statement, intentional or not: you have to care about our side mission (Google+) if you care about your organic Google search rankings.

The enhancement to Google’s search, whether it’s a bug or a feature, has only one bit of relevance, how it will affect your business. Focus on that point and everything else will be clear.

Part of the reason we build custom solutions for businesses is that there isn’t one blanket strategy for every business. Should G+ be part of your strategy? It’s too soon to be 100% sure where it fits, there isn’t enough data.

Does that mean don’t create an account and tinker around? Of course not. Just don’t make that your main focus – focus on perfecting what’s already working for you before you change the direction.

Just imagine.

Six years of Tool Time Friday’s.

That adds up to 780 posts.

That adds up to nearly 3,900 comments.

Whew!

You can’t imagine all the fun we we’ll all have at our new home.

Yes, it’s been a great ride and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it – and it’s time for “Tool Time Friday” to move to another site.

And last – thanks to all of you who made Tool Time Friday a tremendous success.

So – Look for the move – it’ll happen in the in the next week or so.

Morgan