Google+ Hands Beats Down Facebook In Customer Satisfaction Scores

in Social Media by iqmadmin July 23, 2012January 21, 2014 0 comments

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) measures customer satisfaction across different industries and releases results monthly to bring stakeholders in-depth coverage of various sectors of the economy.

In previous years, the ACSI has measured the customer satisfaction rates of Facebook and YouTube, but this year, it has added Facebook competitors for the first time, including Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Google+ (G+ or Google Plus).

So who came out on top for customer satisfaction? Did you say Google+? Because it most certainly was. With a score of 78 out of 100, it came up 17 points stronger than Facebook’s score of 61 (down 7.6% since last year). LinkedIn and Twitter were only a few points above Facebook with scores of 63 and 64, respectively.

The Big Winners For Google+

ACSI points out that some components of Google+ keep users incredibly faithful:

Protection of user privacy
Clean interface without ads in prime space
Superior mobile presence

There are still not nearly as many users on Google+ as there are on Facebook or Twitter, but those that are there seem to be happy there – a lot happier than the other social networks.

But Why Is Facebook Down There?

ACSI offers that privacy issues and a user interface overladen with ads is partly to blame for Facebook’s low score. It points out that the drop in Facebook’s score coincides with the introduction of the Timeline redesign:

Facebook’s drop coincides with the release of its Timeline profile, a significant change to the look and organization of its pages. Users complain that they cannot opt out of the new profile design. The big drop in user satisfaction—coming on the heels of Facebook’s somewhat disorderly IPO—doesn’t bode well for reversing the company’s sliding stock price.

Interesting. We’ve talking for the past year about the user experience, customer engagement, and the need for mobile strategy. Connect with us — we’ve got plenty more to say and want to hear your opinions as well. iQuarius on Google+ and Facebook.

Google Penguin: Checklist for Businesses

in Social Media by iqmadmin May 7, 2012January 21, 2014 0 comments

Social Media Soothes Where Google Hits You Hardest

For small- to medium-sized businesses who find their rankings adrift with every new wave of Google algorithm updates, finding a way to generate traffic without having to rely on Google might seem like a dream come true.

As with the latest Google Penguin algorithm update, designed to weed out Internet pollution and spam, Google is getting more specific about how websites are judged on quality. They want quality and relevancy at the top.

Well, as businesspeople and marketers with real content to promote, we can’t complain about that, can we?

The Consumer Shift Away from Google

If we think of Google as a single marketing channel, albeit a big one, we are headed in the right direction — because there are other sources of traffic and link juice, and they are getting more and more powerful by the day. Why not go straight to the source? After all, consumer behavior has shifted towards reliance on social media, as opposed to Google. And Google may help them find specific products like no other source but, through social media, they are getting brand information, recommendations from friends, and reasons to buy.

The bottom line is that people – and by people, we mean 60 percent of the entire U.S. population – use the social networks. So dip in.

Google Penguin: Checklist for Businesses

1. Get people, as opposed to Google, to share your content.

Do you have gorgeous photo galleries, videos, infographics, and other visual content? Put them on Facebook ,Twitter, and Pinterest. Be funny. Be inspiring. Most importantly, be social and shareable.

2. BLOG.

We can’t stress this one enough. Good, fresh content is something that both people and search engines look for. When you blog regularly, it helps build your brand and gives your readers a reason to come back, but it also forces search engine crawlers to continually index and rank your site. And Google Penguin gives particular weight to fresh, original blog content.

Push out blog posts regularly. Hire an Internet marketing company with great writers to help. Get guest blogs, and guest blog on others’ sites to establish yourself and your blog. Blogging is a big part of how Internet marketing is done these days, and it is simply too big a deal to ignore.

3. Go visual with Pinterest and YouTube.

People latch on to visual content. Visuals, particularly video, can pack a whole lot of information into a short time frame. And visual content is infinitely shareable, made even more powerful by both Pinterest and YouTube – two sites that are GREAT sources of traffic.

4. Stay on top of Google+.

In an effort to push Google+ further into the social realm, Google Penguin is giving its content and users unnatural importance in search engine results pages. Take advantage.

5. Optimize your Facebook and other social network profiles.

Buy social ads
Interact with relevant businesses
Make sure people see your URLs
Fill out all your profile info
Pull in your blog stream
Link to your profile on important keywords on your site
Do newsworthy things and publish them

***

What To Do

Google Penguin cares about relevancy, quality, diversity, and freshness — because these are the things that will ultimately make for a better Google search experience. What may seem like an initial hit to some of your Internet marketing efforts may be the best thing that ever happened — because it can push down those that are gaming the system, and help you and your brand rise to the top for being the cream of the crop. Just don’t slack on Google Penguin and social media best practices, some of which we have outlined for you above.

If you haven’t started in social media, start yesterday. If you’re there, do more. Get help — dedicate a team to it. This is a full-time job. Hire a full-service Internet marketing team. Iquarius Media’s number is 407-362-6503. We can:

Stay on top of your social media profiles
Start your blog and do exhaustive research, then have dedicated writers create your blog content
Produce videos and motion graphics
Custom-fit these and other Internet marketing services to you and your company

If you have questions, ask them. Ask us. You can do that here, on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Google+, to name a few.

Google Starts Getting More Personal Today (1/10/12)

in Social Media by iqmadmin January 10, 2012January 21, 2014 0 comments

google people Starting today (Tuesday), Google search results will start looking different more frequently for different people. Google will start including content from their social network, Google Plus (G+), including photos and comments, when it performs a search. This way, search results will be more intimately tailored to each user. The search engine will even start incorporating content from their older photo service Picasa.

This feature will automatically be made available to all English-language searches conducted by users who are logged into Google. This is just one step toward one of Google’s most ambitious goals. Eventually, Google hopes to amass enough information about each person’s individual preferences and interests in order to provide custom-fit search results. Google is calling this functionality “Google, plus your world.”

People signal what’s important to them through what they do and share on the social networks, and it’s this information that Google is in the business of curating. Facebook has greater insights into personal tastes, though, because of its 800 million users sharing 1.5 billion photos each week. This is the territory that Google is hoping to encroach on with these new additions to their search.

Here’s the part we wanted business owners to hear.

In more general searches, like “music”, “sports”, “fishing”, “design”, you name it, Google will generate a drop-down box of suggestions from companies, people, and places that have accounts on Google Plus. Couple that with Google’s ability to localize search results — and the fact that Google Plus signed up 20 million users in December alone – and the implication for companies is huge. This brings the idea of targeted traffic to soaring new heights.

[Existing clients: Call us, as always, if you want more information on how Google fits into your marketing strategy and what we can do for you. Potential clients: Ditto.]