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Comments by David Amerland Subscribe 
On Facebook’s ‘Subscribe’ Button Offers Additional Exposure to Marketers
Carina, thank you for taking the time to leave a comment here and you are 100% right as far as iteraction and engagement goes. Both of these are central to social media success. Getting followers in the first instance hoewever, before you can interact with them and create high levels of engagement should not be a hoop-jumping process. Nor should people who find your posts interesting have themselves to go through a tedious process of requesting your 'friendship' (the old Facebook procedure), risk being classed as stalkers or spammers (because they do not really know you), wait for you to approve the request, and in the meantime have their accounts suffer a warning or worse, a ban, and all because they found what you said interesting. The 'Subscribe' Button is intended to get round this issue.
On Facebook’s ‘Subscribe’ Button Offers Additional Exposure to Marketers
Cilente, thank you for taking the time to comment here and you raise an important issue. I followed the f8 conference yesterday and Facebook has, after taking knock after knock from Google, come out swingling with some really importaqnt changes which are not limited to functionality (though functionality is what we see as visual evidence of change) which have the potential to revolutiose the web and marketing, forever. Will it really work? It depends on how the user base takes it (as you suggest) and on whether they get any better at communicating with their members - currently they have 800 million users and growing, so right now, this is not an issue. If we see either a slowdown or a dip in numbers that will tell us.
On Lessons in Social Marketing Given By NetFlix Predicament
Courtney, thank you for taking the time to reply here and the link to the group. You are quite right that when social media failings of this magnitude are revealed the underlying reasons lie much deeper. In many cases I have seen companies whose managerial style and management structure belong, more properly, to the middle of last century. When they attempt to jump on the social media bandwagon there are always problems because they are simply paying lip-service to another marketing notion they do not understand.
I believe that social media has not even yet began to made much of a dent in this regard. As we see more and more horror stories there will, at some point, be impetus for real change.
On Lessons in Social Marketing Given By NetFlix Predicament
Bob, it is the nature of journalism to be humbled by readers noticing typos. You are totally right about the gnashing of teeth (add pulling out of hair and kicking oneself, too). I appreciate the message, though.
On Google+ – Too Little, Too Late
Kody, good points. Google+ opened its doors to the public today. Just go to https://plus.google.com and register for an account.
On Google+ – Too Little, Too Late
Gareth, interesting post with a suitably sensationalist headline. A few facts that need correcting:
- Google does not have the most visited homepage. In the US it is Yahoo! albeit in order for users to access news and information rather than search. Globally Google has different homepages as each represents a different index so Google.co.uk has a UK database to draw results from and so on.
- Google+ is not falling in numbers. The latest surveys show that the membership is 58 million and it has just over 20 million active users. I think it took Facebook almost four years to get to 20 million users.
- Although, quite correctly, you point to the ever dwindling amopunt of time available to get into socila networking, you forget that it's not just a pasttime. If that were the case you would not need more than one, maybe two at most, social networks. Those who operate as social media marketers, consultant or advisers understand that the real impact of social networking and the real strength of Google+ lies in its ability to influence website search rankings.
Finally, great use of the chart above but it does compare Facebook (a mature social network with seven years of operation) with Google+ which is still in Beta, can be joined still by invitation only and is less four months old. I would be more interested in seeing how the initial uptake of Facebook and other social networks compares with Google+ not because I am a Google-fan, I am not, but because meaningful comparisons can actually contribute to a better understanding of social networking and social media marketing. Anything else simply adds to the noise.
On Google+ Business Accounts: What Can You Expect?
Scott, thank you for this. The Ford account at Google+ was disabled back in the tail end of July and had to be reinstated as a personal account on behalf of the company. Thank you for clarifying the issue, I have now made the additional correction.
On Why You Shouldn’t Send Your Traffic to Facebook
Bilal good points, well made. Every social media marketing campaign worth its salt should aim to create a funnel effect leading online visitors to a specific website. I covered pretty much the same issue when I examined whether there was a worrying trend of social media making website obsolete.
On Return on Investment for SEO? -- An Infographic Raises Questions
This does raise questions, as you suggest, though they should never be on the ROI on SEO. ComScore's latest research shows that 67% of all purchase decisions start with search and organic search is the one channel which delivers consistently, over time, at an ever decreasing cost per click.
Patrick, quite correctly, mentions the lack of social media data. Social media feeds into SEO and plays a large part in a website's organic rankings. At the end of the day almost all online activity, even down to email campaigns, feeds into cues used to assess organic search rankings, so SEO has expanded to include these rather than narrowed down because of them.
On Why I’m Quitting Google+
Chris, a great personal piece and everyone has to make their own decisions based on their own understanding and set of priorities. However, when it comes to Google+ there are a couple of things which need to be stated clearly regarding its benefits (and my take here is purely factual, I struggle with time-management just like everyone else on social media):
- No other social network will give you the same boost on search.
- Despite it being the newest social network it is providing a great medium for interaction and engagement to levels which have raised the bar on social networks.
- Even at this early stage a Google+ presence is feeding search results in other parts of Google search, in addition to mainstream search ranking.
- When it comes to social media marketing channels there are three which are really worth focusing efforts on by stint of their presence in the online world: A. Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
As marketers (advising clients) we need to be aware of the benefits. As marketers with a finite amount of time to devote online to promote our selves we each have to find ways to use that time better.
On Google+ and the Real Name Debate: Why It Might Be a Good Thing
Jillian, nice post and it adds a useful point of view plus it brings the spotlight on veracity on the web and the way we make decisions as consumers. Your example of TripAdvisor is particularly useful - as you point out, in the absence of real names consumers use other cues to assess the trustworthiness if the reports. This indicates a couple of things, one of which Gary Walker brings up in his comment: 1. That in a social media network (I will not even dignify Schmidt's claim of an "identity service" with a comment) there has to be freedom to grow, you cannot shoehorn everyone into a pre-supposed usage pattern 2. That even when there is transparency and full disclosure there can be no guarantee of veracity or better decision making.
As a matter of fact the latest research we have on this subject point to exactky the opposite, with full discolosure of potential conflict of interest in advice given online often muddying the issue.
The online world is developing fast and we, as online consumers, marketers and netizens need to learn to operate in it developing the skills necesary in the process. Schmidt's claims regarding Google+ are disingenuous and about as ill-thought out at the moment as the Real Names policy.
On Klout Makes You As Much a Marketing Maven, as Farmville Makes You a Farmer
Ditto!