The Google Takeover

Blog Topic

Google owns...

•  The top-ranked search portal

•  A wildly popular e-mail service

•  A widely-used customizable home page

•  A leading feed reader

•  The top-ranked feed management system

•  The top-ranked analytics product

•  The largest distributed ad network

•  The most widely-distributed traffic monitoring toolbar

•  The largest video content hosting site

1.) How do you feel about the fact that Google collects data from millions of its accounts every day?

As a culture, we have en masse given up our right to privacy in order to have nearly unlimited access to free information. Personally, I feel helpless and apathetic about it. I feel like we are easily monitored and tracked. Part of me feels that it is very wrong, but it is something we agree to on a daily basis. Part of me is upset that this company knows so much about me. But I’m the one feeding it the information.

2.) Should a user have any concerns about this or is it just the price we have to pay to reap the benefits of Google's many (mostly free) services?

We tend to think of Google as a very benevolent company. That may be valid, or it may be naive. The main concern I have, and perhaps many other users have, is: What happens in the event that the wealth of information Google compiles and stores is hacked by a nefarious individual or group?

For example, in the 1930s, the Dutch government kept record of a population registry that shared the name, address and religion of every citizen, among other pieces of information. The information was kept in order to improve welfare planning and help the community. But when the Nazis invaded, they were able to use that same information to track down Jews and Gypsies (Toobin, 2014.)

Now, I know that sounds awfully dark, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

“We like to think of ourselves as the newsstand, or a card catalogue. We don’t create the information. We make it accessible. A decision like this, which makes us decide what goes inside the card catalogue, forces us into a role we don’t want,” said Kent Walker, general counsel of Google (Toobin, 2014.)

However, I tend to agree with the opposite side of that argument:

“Google is no longer the card catalogue. It is the library, AND it’s the bookstore AND it’s the newsstand,” said Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Toobin, 2014.)

When one organization has so much power, it can be troublesome and worrisome. Although Google doesn’t create the content, it is the one that gets the content to others, which gives it control over that information in regard to who else can find it and consume it.

3. Research Google in the news with regards to topics related to ethics, privacy and security and share your findings along with your perspectives.

a. Ethics

There are many ethical implications when it comes to Google. For example, have you heard of Nikki Catsouras? She was a young college freshman who was traveling 100 miles per hour in her parents’ car when she clipped another car and slammed into a concrete tollbooth, dying instantly. Her head was smashed, cleaved in two (Avila, 2008.) I don’t recommend Googling it, but you can if you really want to. And that’s the problem.

The California Highway Patrol, the authorities who attended to the accident, leaked the photos to the Internet. Not even Nikki’s parents had seen the gory photos, and yet the whole world was now able to view them in just a few clicks. And it wasn’t long before anonymous emails and texts began arriving in the Catsouras’ inboxes with photos of the accident (Avila, 2008.)

“We knew people were finding the photos by Googling Nikki’s name or just ‘decapitated girl,’ but there was nothing we could do about it,” said Keith Bremer, the family’s lawyer. While they were able to take the photos off around 2,000 websites, they are still easy to find (Toobin, 2014.)

“The digital world has no morals,” said Ron Braunstein, an individual who has built a career around exploiting this kind of material (Avilia, 2008.)

Therefore, Google has shown it does not play by a book of ethics.

b. Privacy

“If Sony or Disney wants 50,000 videos removed from YouTube, Google removes them with no questions asked. If your daughter is caught kissing someone on a cell-phone home video, you have no option of getting it down. That’s wrong. The priorities are backward,” said Michael Fertik, founder of Reputation.com (Toobin, 2014.)

In the United States, freedom of expression trumps privacy. Back when records were kept on paper and film, filed away in physical cabinets, material was difficult to locate and retrieve. But with electronic records, online storage makes it ever easier to remember. This has caused a shift in our “behavioral default,” according to Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, an Oxford professor who is considered to be one of the intellectual godfathers of “the right to be forgotten” (Toobin, 2014.)

One example of a constituency that Google hurts are those with criminal records.

“The consequences of having a criminal record are onerous and getting worse all the time because of the web… I have a client who says he has a harder time finding a job now than he did when he got out of jail 30 years ago,” said Sharon Dietrich, a litigation director (Toobin, 2014.) It used to be that criminal records were hard to find after a while - not the case anymore.

While criminals might seem like a constituency that is difficult to have sympathy for, just know that it hits closer to home, too. Check out this link to find out everything Google knows about you. It might shock you!

c. Security

While we search via Google, Google searches us 100x more intensely. People care more about Google accessing their personal electronic data more than they do the NSA, their boss, their parents or their spouse. It can track user behavior on 88% of all Internet domains (Dewey, 2014.) They can look at all your G-Mail email - there is no expectation for them not to. It’s the price you pay for using a “free” service (Musil, 2013.)

But it’s not really free. We ARE paying for it. We’re paying for it by giving them unlimited access to our habits. Companies used to (and some still do) pay big bucks to get lists of potential customers or leads. Google doesn’t have to do that.

IT is troublesome that your activity is being compiled, even if it’s by Good Guy Google. That’s because there are others out there, not so good guys, hackers - that are working to tap into it. And, it’s already been gathered and curated, prime for the taking of whoever is smart enough to figure it out (Ghitis, 2012)

For example, last summer private, sexual photographs of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton were leaked to several websites. These are harder to find now thanks to copyrights - the individuals established copyrights for their selfies, and their lawyers established copyrights for all that they could, but while that has made it harder to find the photos online, it is still possible to get ahold of them (Toobin, 2014.)

In conclusion

In sum, while Google enables us to do amazing things, like write research papers for graduate school, tell us the movie times of our local theaters, let us know what the weather will be like on our vacation, and so much more, it comes at the price of our security and privacy. So far, society has accepted this without too much pushback. But it will be interesting to see what unfolds in the future, as Google continues to grow in power.

References:

Avila, J. (2008.) Family’s nightmare: Daughter’s accident photos go viral. ABC News. Retrieved Sunday, February 22 2015 from http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5276841&page=2

Dewey, C. (2014.) Everything Google knows about you (and how it knows it.) The Washington Post. Retrieved Monday, February 23, 2015 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/11/19/everything-google-knows-about-you-and-how-it-knows-it/

Ghitis, F. (2012.)  Google knows too much about you. CNN. Retrieved Sunday, February 22, 2015 from http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/opinion/ghitis-google-privacy

Musil, S. (2013.) Google says Gmail users have no expectation of privacy. C-Net. Retrieved Sunday, February 22, 2015 from http://www.cnet.com/news/google-filing-says-gmail-users-have-no-expectation-of-privacy/

Toobin, J. (2014.) The solace of oblivion. The New Yorker. Retrieved Sunday, February 22 2015 from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/solace-oblivion

Clicky: A Google Analytics Alternative

Prompt:

Based on what you have learned and your experiences with GA to date, identify and research one other web analytic tool in the marketplace and offer a brief review along with a compare/contrast to the functionality within GA.

In this course we’ve learned the basics of Google Analytics, a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website’s performance. While it is perhaps the most commonly used, particularly for beginners such as the students in my IMC 642 class, it is certainly not the only option that the owner of a site has to measure their progress and success.

When selecting an analytics tool for your blog, commerce site or other website, it’s important to do the following:

-List out the goals you need to achieve. Check to make sure the specific tool you’re looking at can help you achieve that goal.

-Check to see if the service is easy to understand and use.

-Check to see if it fits within your budget.

-Check to see if it has a free trial period (especially if it is NOT a free service!)

(Fernando, 2012.)

Clicky is an excellent alternative, as it is praised for being very user friendly. This is important to me because, as the title of my blog emphasizes, I am a novice when it comes to SEO. This is probably the biggest advantage Clicky has over Google Analytics. Clicky displays website visitor information in an easily understandable way, and unlike Google Analytics, it displays a live view of every visitor activity on the site (Fernando, 2014.) For those of you unfamiliar with Google Analytics, GA has a lag time of about 1 day to display information. That means if something big is happening on your website today (like your blog post about Clicky went viral, for example), you won’t be able to know until tomorrow! As soon as you enter Clicky, it shows you an automatic comparison of today’s data versus the previous reporting period to give you an instant assessment of how your metrics have changed (Hall, 2014.) This same functionality is available in Google Analytics, however, one must root around to find it. Clicky makes it easy (Ewer, 2013.) Knowing this can be very beneficial to the internet marketer, because being able to make sense of what’s happening right now can allow you to make good reactionary decisions, and you won’t be too late to capitalize on trends.

The second biggest advantage Clicky has over GA in my opinion, is its ability to provide super-specific information on individual website visitors. Detailed information like IP address, Internet Service Provider (ISP), location, operating system (Mac or PC), web browser (Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.), website referrer, visit length and actions taken during a specific visit, just to name a few (Angeles, 2014.)

“For example, if you expand the visitor data, you can see how many people looked at pages, how many downloaded items, how many followed outbound links, viewed media or triggered other events,” (Hall, 2014.) And the way that Clicky gathers its data is different from other services such as Google Analytics in a number of meaningful ways.

For example: When using Clicky, your own personal traffic to your website is ignored by default (FAQ, n.d.) Why is this important? Well, last week on my IMC 642 class discussion board, many of my classmates discussed the efficacy of various web metrics, this one included. As a site owner and operator, you are likely to spend a lot of time on your own site! But your heightened activity is not the norm for others coming to check your site out. So, your own activity can skew your data, and make you think you’re doing better than you really are. That’s why Clicky leaves you out of the equation all together, so you can more accurately see what activity is occurring on your site.

Another difference in functionality between Google Analytics and Clicky is the definition of the bounce rate. Traditionally, the “bounce rate” refers to the rate of visitors who view only one page on your site, and then leave. A high bounce rate has a negative connotation. However, this metric was a hotbed for discussion on my class discussion board last week. That’s because this definition (which is used by Google Analytics and many  others) does not take into account the type of action that is being performed on one page. For example, on blogs like this one, the whole point is to read the article (thank you for doing so, by the way) and then leave to go on your merry way. But if you’ve taken the 10 minutes it requires to read this, it sure isn’t fair to say that your visit was a “bounce,” or a failed attempt of mine to get your attention. If you’ve read the information, that’s what I wanted you to do, and therefore it’s a success, even though it technically counts as a bounce.

I think it’s pretty silly. So does Clicky.

With a paid account from clicky ($9.99/month), the service can continue to gather data on site visitors in order to get an accurate picture of how successful the visitor’s visit was in regard to achieving the site owner’s goals. In Clicky terms, a bounce is only a bounce when someone views a single webpage AND they were on the website for less than 30 seconds (FAQ, n.d.)

Another difference includes that Clicky only counts one referrer per visitor, which provides a more accurate picture of where the bulk of your traffic is coming from.

Clicky admits that they do things differently than many other trackers do, and admit that it can cause some minor confusion at first. However, they stand behind it as a way to give users a better analytics experience (FAQ, n.d.)

Aside from measuring metrics differently than other analytics services, Clicky has a few other attributes that distinguish it from Google Analytics. It offers Twitter analytics by monitoring and summarizing any mention of you/your brand on Twitter. It doesn’t require using Flash, so it can be easily used on mobile devices. Unlike Google Analytics, there is an iPhone app for the service (Fernando, 2014.)

They also offer customers an alert system that notifies users of specific events that occur on their website, so that they never miss out on important information. This means that the site owner can get a notification when things like new visitors, achieved goals, or new referral traffic comes to their site (Angeles, 2014.)

Clicky offers easy to read heat maps. A heat map shows the highest concentrations of places where visitors are clicking on your webpage (Ramsay, 2014.) Additionally, these heat maps can be segmented by anticipated goal or by visitor sessions (Angeles, 2014.)

And lastly, one of the biggest differences between the two services that puts Clicky on top is its ability to install a Clicky widget right on your own website. This means that once you install this widget into the HTML code on your bog, you can view (almost) all the analytics I’ve discussed thus far, right in the corner of your very own page, without having to go to Clicky’s website and logging on to their service (Ramsay, 2014.) This means users don’t have to toggle back and forth between their own website and that of their analytics provider. Convenience at its finest.

But, as with anything, there are cons to the service. Most notably, Clicky is not great for bigger websites, and it does not allow for step by step tracking of keyword traffic, which Google Analytics does offer (Fernando, 2014.) However, neither of these affect me or my little blog, so I really wouldn’t mind!

Below is a chart that shows how Clicky stacks up to Google Analytics in a number of areas.

In summary, it seems like Clicky is an excellent alliterative for users who are not overly technical when it comes to website analytics - like me! I know how to take data that I understand and use it in a way to make good strategic decisions. But, if I don’t clearly understand the data, how am I supposed to do that? Because Clicky appears to offer an uncluttered and intuitive experience, it sounds good to me!

You can check out a complete guide to Clicky Analytics here if you’d like more information.

Cheers!

References:

Angeles, S. (2014.) 3 Google Analytics alternatives (and why you should use them.) Business News Daily. Retrieved Sunday, February 2015 from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6090-google-analytics-alternatives.html

Ewer, T. (2013.) Why I use Clicky Analytics instead of Google. Leaving Work Behind Blog. Retrieved Saturday, February 14 2015 from http://leavingworkbehind.com/clicky-web-analytics/

Hall, S. (2014.) Analytics update: Do you need a second analytics package? The Daily Egg  - Conversion Optimization and A/B Testing Tips. Retrieved Saturday, February 14 2015 from http://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/06/03/clicky-web-analytics/

FAQ http://clicky.com/help/faq/tips/different

Fernando, D. (2014.) 10 Web analytics tools: Analytical tools other than Google Analytics. WooRank Blog. Retrieved Saturday, February 14 2015 from http://blog.woorank.com/2014/07/10-web-analytics-tools-analytical-tools-other-than-google-analytics/

Ramsay. (2014.) A review of Clicky Analytics (and why it beats Google.) Blog Tyrant. Retrieved Sunday, February 15 2015 from http://www.blogtyrant.com/a-review-of-clicky-analytics-and-why-it-beats-google/

A Valentine's Day Thought (ATTN: NOT related to IMC 642)

First off, I want to be clear that I’m not bitter, jealous or a curmudgeon, because I truly do believe I am most blessed and fortunate when it comes to the love department. My sensitivity is heightened right now due to the 50 Shades of Grey controversy and it’s causing me to feel a bit prickly toward some of the Valentine’s Day social media posts I’ve seen.

A man is not “the best boyfriend ever” just because he bought a dozen roses or a box of chocolates, or even a diamond ring. You are not “the luckiest girl in the world” to not have to cook dinner for one night because Valentine’s Day is an excuse for him to receive praise for doing what you do for him every day. Look. I’m not trying to be a jerk. If you’re happy, I’m happy for you. I just really hope that people aren’t missing the point of love on a day that is dedicated to celebrating it.

I’d like to say that my guy is the best boyfriend ever because he respects me. He cherishes me. He listens to me. He is considerate of me and my preferences. He is generous of his time with me. These are not things that can be filtered and posted to Instagram; they are not succinct enough that they can be properly portrayed in a tweet. And the plus side? All of this is not limited to a money-fueled holiday. This is all year long, baby.

Again, I’m happy for you if you received a gift you loved. After all, who doesn’t love a gift at any time? But please don’t make gifts out to be more than they are. It’s an incredible feeling to know that the love you exude is fully reciprocated - and that is what matters. The rest is fluff. Both of you deserve this kind of consideration from one another year round. And don’t you forget that! 

So Many Platforms, So Little Time

Blog Topic: With so many social media platforms available to the marketer, should a company adopt only one platform as its main/primary channel? If you think so, offer some perspective on how this primary platform should be determined. If not, how should a company identify which platforms to use and how to allocate its marketing resources?

Well, the true answer is: It depends.

Just like with traditional media, marketers should be conscientious of what types of social media will be most beneficial for their brand. The old saying “The medium is the message” rings true in this situation.

There are several criteria to determine which platform should be the primary platform. What is the nature of the company’s product or service? Is it visual? Is it text-heavy? Who is their audience? What do we want them to do? What is the company’s strategy to get them to do that? How big is our budget?

I propose that for large, national brands, companies should not only adopt one platform, but should have a presence on several. It doesn’t have to be every single one if it doesn’t fit with their product or service- it’s never a good idea to join a network without a clear understanding of how it can be used to the brand’s benefit. That’s why it’s important for brands to select channels that are natural fits for their products and services. No need to try to shove a square peg into a round hole.

Each social media channel caters to a slightly different audience, and so it may be advantageous for brands to establish a presence on multiple platforms. For example, Nike shines on a variety of social media platforms, and I believe that is because the company appeals to a very broad audience.

However, for a brand with a more niche audience, it may make perfect sense to strategically put the bulk of their effort into one platform.

For example, National Geographic exists on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. While each platform does well, the brand has found particular success with Instagram, where they boast 11 million followers. This makes sense, because National Geographic is a quintessential example of a visual storyteller. Because of this, they have leveraged the visual nature of Instagram to their benefit. On Pinterest, another visual social media site, National Geographic has a healthy following as well. However, Instagram still appears to be the frontrunner for this brand, likely due to Instagram’s ability to deliver content in real time. 

But let’s look at another brand: The New York Times. They too have the kind of following that most brands would kill for. They have more than 9 million Facebook fans and 15 million Twitter followers. They do have an Instagram, but it’s specifically for their fashion section (again, a highly visual subject.) On Facebook, the NYT is able to give readers a visual sneak peak along with a catchy teaser. But Twitter is king for the brand because it is constantly updating in real time, which is absolutely perfect for delivering breaking news.

While national brands can benefit from existing on multiple channels, perhaps leaning more heavily on one in particular, the story is slightly different for small businesses with meager marketing budgets.

I would strongly discourage a new small business to put much effort into a Facebook page. Facebook has continually implemented new rules and algorithms that filter out promotional posts unless businesses pay up. What was once free marketing is no longer free, and page views have plummeted (Louhis, 2014.)

In this situation, I suggest that companies focus their efforts on Instagram, where users may be actively promoted – for free (Oliver, 2015.) Instagram (and Twitter, too, for that matter) allow all posts to be shown in chronological order for free. So for the small business looking to leverage a small social media budget for the biggest impact, these may make more financial sense.

Do you think this week’s readings regarding content vs. conversation factor into the decision? Please feel free to use a real or fictitious company to explain your position. 

This week’s readings regarding content vs. conversation did not particularly factor into my decision. All of the readings were from 2009 or 2010. I’ve managed social media for brands for nearly five years, and a lot of the viewpoints expressed in the readings are like second nature to me – they’re simply the rules of the road, if you will. There were some excellent excerpts, however, that eloquently state what a marketer should do when creating and implementing a social media marketing plan. They’re the basic tenets of marketing, adapted for social media.

Entrepreneur Chris Lake wrote a fantastic article back in 2009 – a time where the idea of “thought leadership” was becoming more mainstream. His position, which is still true today, is that engaged customers are far more likely to convert (Lake, 2009.)

But becoming a thought leader takes a lot of work. Digital marketing analyst Brian Solis said early on that in order to succeed in social, one must discover all relevant communities of interest to their audience(s), and observe the choices, challenges and wants of the audience within each network. Then, once identified, you can formulate a game plan that embodies the attributes you wish to publicly portray. While doing that, he warns against speaking at audiences through canned, self-promoting messages. Instead, promote thyself by being valuable to your audience – give them insight, direction and a sense of community (Solis, 2010.)

Once you’ve found your niche of thought leadership and formulated your game plan, companies must refine their personality. Content without conversation is merely advertising (Novak, 2009.) Companies must become more human. Today, many people expect a response when they tweet a question or comment to a company. When engaging customers, brands should have a consistent voice.

Now that you have all of those three things, you’re really ready to rock and roll with the most important part of all: Content.

Content is King. We’ve heard it a million times. But that’s because it’s true.

Marketing executive Michael Greenberg explained that first, marketers must have content. Second, they must have cadence. Once they’ve established a cadence of posting, they must maintain it to maintain their credibility. Finally, they must consider themselves a publisher (Greenberg, 2009.)

Back when Greenberg wrote his article, there weren’t many companies doing social very well. Companies didn’t quite grasp the concept of becoming their own publishers. And that paved the way for my career success.

I was fortunate to ride the wave of social media during the time that it really caught on. I was working for a Seattle startup called Nology Media (which has since been acquired by other marketing companies) as an intern. I’d had another offer at a PR firm, but I took a chance on this newfangled social media management company.

It completely changed my life.

We built the social media presence of several regional brands.

During my three months there, I learned inbound marketing without realizing it was called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a way of putting your message into digestible pieces to catch the audience’s interest and keep them wanting more (McCormick, 2013.) It was all about establishing your client as a “thought leader” in their given field. It took a lot of research into the client’s audience, to realize their interests and figure out how to best cater to those interests.

At one point, I remember sitting down with my then-boss, and I explained that while I loved what he was doing, and what I was learning, that I didn’t think it was very sustainable. Why? Because, eventually in-house marketers were going to fully grasp the concept of social media. And I was right.

While Nology Media didn’t stand the test of time, it did provide me the foundation that got my foot in the door at my current job. While I don’t particularly care to manage social media accounts anymore (after 4.5 years I was ready for a change), I will always be grateful to social media for jumpstarting my professional career.

References

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved Sunday February 1, 2015 from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing

Lake, C. (2009, October 30). 35 social media kpis to help measure engagement. Econsultancy Blog. Retrieved Monday, February 2, 2015 from http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/4887-35-social-media-kpis-to-help-measure-engagement.

McCormick, M. (2013.) What is inbound marketing and how do I start? Salesforce. Retrieved Sunday, February 1, 2015 from http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/07/inbound-marketing-getting-started.html/?d=70130000000tH3O

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved Sunday February 1, 2015 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Oliver, G. (2015) Why your small business should participate in an Instagram Weekend Hashtag Project. Business 2 Community. Retrieved Monday, February 2, 2015 from  http://www.business2community.com/instagram/small-business-participate-instagram-weekend-hashtag-project-01118117

Solis, B. (2010). 21 rules for social media engagement. Mashable. Retrieved Monday, February 2, 2015, from: http://mashable.com/2010/05/18/rules-social-media-engagment/