Google+ For B2B Marketing
The social media landscape is alight with talk of Google’s new social media project (not product apparently), Google+. With all the hype it’s been receiving and a limited beta (or Field Trial – standard phrases aren’t good enough for Google you see) already at capacity it’s just about the only thing I’ve been seeing in my social media streams for a week or so.
Well that’s grand. I’m all for trying Google+ and having yet another place where I have to select “Ignore” on a multitude of “friends” posting endless pictures of their cats, but I’m also supposed to be marketing a certain CRM consultancy to the wider world.
So is Google+ likely to be a useful channel for B2B marketing?
Short answer: Yes.
Slightly longer answer: Yes, and if anyone from Google reads this, could I have an invite please? Thanks in advance!
Why is it going to help in B2B marketing? Let’s have a look at three of the key features:
Circles
“You share different things with different people. But sharing the right things with the right people shouldn't be a hassle. Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another and your boss in a circle all on his own – just like in real life.”
Okey-dokey. So in my personal life, if my friends and I had had Google+ a year ago and set up a “Friends” circle, then some of the more embarrassing pictures from my stag-do would never have made their way to the eyes of my family. It’s winning me round already here, but what about B2B?
Well, to me Circles screams ADVANCED SEGMENTATION - in capital letters and everything. You know Advanced Segmentation already of course. The process whereby you send targeted messages to the people that will find those messages relevant and of interest. Not to everyone and their dog. After all, the dog probably can’t read.
So with Circles I can make tidy little segments like “prospects” or “leads” or perhaps “Maximizer CRM Users” and “SalesLogix CRM Users” and make sure that they only see the messages that I want them to see. Radical.
Hangouts
“With Hangouts, the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time. Let your mates know that you're hanging out and see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat. Until we perfect teleportation, it's the next best thing.”
Grand. So here we have a video chat feature that will let up to 10 people interact with each other. Simple enough a concept I suppose. Video chat’s been around for awhile after all. But a neat little feature here is that the main image in the video chat will change automatically to show whoever is speaking at that moment. Which arguably could be a bad thing if you know a lot of people that like to talk over the top of each other... but let’s not dwell on that for now.
When a hangout is launched it will show up in one of your Circle’s feeds inviting others to join in the conversation. Clearly the business application for Hangouts is for teams to interact or present new information to one another quickly, efficiently and - most importantly of all – face-to-face. User-groups could quickly help each find answers to their questions. Sales people could have quick face-to-face meetings with prospects or clients. The list goes on.
Sparks
“Remember when your Grandpa used to cut articles out of the paper and send them to you? That was nice. That's kind of what Sparks does: It looks for videos and articles that it thinks you'll like, so that when you're free there's always something to watch, read and share. Grandpa would approve.”
Similar to bookmarking tools, Sparks lets users identify and share topics of interest with others in your network. Not really anything new to social media, but a useful tool to have in B2B nonetheless. Ping your contacts and groups an interesting link on an area they’re interested in and start a discussion. Engagement, you see. Another nice marketing tool.
Coming at a time when one of the old titans of social media, MySpace, has just been sold for $35 million (after being purchased in 2005 for $580 million) and not that long since Google’s previous forays into social media, Google Wave and Google Buzz, failed (or strategically withdrew in Google’s lingo, no doubt), is another platform needed right now? And will it stand the test of time? Difficult to say at the moment. Early reviews haven’t been entirely favourable, particularly as Google hasn’t announced any plans to develop APIs that would allow developers to connect other systems (CRM for instance) to Google+. But this humble marketer hopes so... it would sure make segmenting social media contacts a whole lot easier. What do you think?
Doug Taylor is Marketing Manager for Collier Pickard.
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