From American Idol to Lollapalooza, Google aims big to market Google+

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Google+ is using some of its oldest marketing tricks, and some surprising new ones, as it battles for social supremacy.

“This is a very small team but we have the benefit of Google’s existing marketing resources,” a Google spokesperson (they ask we don’t use their names) tells VentureBeat. She says the company won’t go into specific strategy for their new social network, but says there will be lots of experimentation. She points to the fact that Google+ is still in a field trial. “We expect new features to roll out on a frequent basis.”

Also rolling out on a frequent basis are Google+ growth statistics. This week comScore announced Google+ became the fastest social network to reach 25 million unique global visitors. Google+ launched just over a month ago, and has outpaced the early growth of MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

Google also announced the service reached 10 million members in mid-July. Impressive, but consider Facebook’s 750 million active users. Google+ has a long way to go, and yet there’s pressure to get there fast.

Google’s company-wide bonus payment strategy is based partially on the success and failure of Google+. While employees will receive their yearly bonuses, 25 percent of the payments will be determined by the state of Google+. Money is on the line, and so is Google’s reputation. The pressure in on, so how is Google+ responding? Here are five key marketing strategies the company is using.

Reach out to middle America.

This weekend you can see bands Ok Go and Ratatat on the Google+ stage at Chicago’s Lollapalooza music festival. There’s also an activation area where attendees can learn more about Google+.

“Having a stage is a great way for brands to get exposure in a trusted environment, at an event that fans have chosen to attend,” says a Lollapalooza spokesperson. “We have 90,000 active music fans that will attend each day during the weekend, with a total of 270,000 fans.”

Going for a cross-platform marketing strategy, Google will also be streaming the event on YouTube.

However, there won’t be a Google+ stage at San Francisco’ Outside Lands music festival, coming up August 12-14. While the festival’s 55 percent female attendance would be a good demographic for Google+ to reach, it’s taking place in Google+’s backyard. Everyone in San Francisco already knows about Google+.

Let them speculate.

SocialStatistics currently reports 86 percent of Google users are male. Thirteen percent of users are female (1% are “other”).

That prompted an avalanche of stories on Google+’s gender gap. Business Insider predicted “Google+ will eventually fail unless it attracts something it doesn’t yet have: women.”  Jolie O’Dell wrote about it at Mashable before joining VentureBeat. M.M. Faulkner wrote an in-depth post on the Google+ gender gap on her blog payattentionpeople.com. She pointed out the lists of groups available on the network, including the list of “googlers on google+.” There was also a list for “women on G+.” That’s a pretty solid indication of how few women were on there.

Google didn’t bother soothing gender discrimination fears. It simply declined to comment on the trend, and let the chatter continue. Today a search for “Google+ gender” reveals 500 articles. No sense in stopping a conversation when everyone is talking about you.

Test and measure everything. Larry means it.

Thomas Korte left Google in 2009 after seven years at the company. A former product marketing manager, his knowledge of the company’s current marketing strategy is somewhat dated, but he says some things will never change. One of those is analytics.

“Marketing at Google is extremely analytical: If you can’t measure it and show that it works, Larry [Page] will not approve it,” says Korte in a VentureBeat interview. “He hates ‘marketing’ and the only way to convince him is with hard numbers.”

Korte says every marketing tactic has been tested before it rolls out broadly. It first needs to be approved by Google CMO Lorraine Towhill, with whom Korte worked closely in 2003 to 2004.

“People say, ‘oh, Google doesn’t to marketing.’ This is not at all the case,” says Korte. “Google has refined it to a science! They know what they are doing, and only work with the best. If they have something that works, they go crazy.”

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Tags: social network marketing

Companies: Google

People: Thomas Korte

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Conquering Marketing Management Overload

Traditionally, a marketer’s primary concern was having the right message, delivered through the right media, to the right people, and at the right time. There were fewer channels and less content, and that made the management and distribution of messages a much more manageable process.

Compared to today, this sounds pretty simple. But why have things changed so dramatically? The premise remains the same, but with more distribution channels such as Twitter and Facebook, more options for content and rich media like video, and a totally new consumer, the way people interact with brands has been altered forever. These factors have undoubtedly ushered in a new era of marketing, and many of today’s brands are struggling to keep pace.

However, in looking at three of the biggest challenges facing marketers in this new era, you’ll find that many of today’s most innovative marketing minds are taking a surprising approach to these challenges and embracing them as opportunities.

1) More distribution channels

The continued development of new media outlets and the explosion of social media have opened the doors to uncharted territory. For marketers, this has meant that they have begun to publish their own content across different channels.

Challenge:

With the addition of more channels, brands today are in a mad dash to tweet their news, update their status, blog their opinions, and YouTube their videos. The addition of social networks has expanded the distribution channels and given brands the ability to get closer to customers. However, it has also created a constant challenge to create, manage, deliver, and measure a growing volume of content or rich media.

Opportunity:

Become your own content publisher. A recent report by the Custom Content Council showed that 84 percent of its Chief Marketing Officer respondents see custom content as the future of marketing. Explore new ways to attract prospective customers and engage your existing base. Rise above the competition. But, turning this challenge into opportunity means bringing order to the chaos that now defines marketing programs and campaigns. Take advantage of asset and content management technologies that allow marketing teams to deliver higher-quality rich media messages to market faster and at less cost.

2) The proliferation of rich media

Today, video is everywhere. It’s been estimated that as many as 158 million Internet users in the U.S. are watching video online each month, and by 2015 that number is expected to reach 195 million.

Challenge:

All rich media, but more specifically, video, is in the process of changing the way that consumers interact with brands. The good news is audiences are more engaged than ever. The bad news is the sheer enormity of these digital assets is a management quagmire that threatens to become a financial nightmare.

Opportunity:

Back to the good news—audiences have the potential to be more engaged and committed to brands than ever. So, naturally, marketers see mass potential and they are using the power and viral nature of video to seize the opportunity. Marketers across the board are increasing their use of video, and are working to deliver it to computers, mobile phones, and tablets. But, marketing organizations need to control this impending chaos created by all these rich media assets by establishing management tools and processes.

3) The new consumer

Traditional audiences were easier to target and reach because the distribution options were much more confined. But with the multiple channels, formats, and devices—each having an exponential reach—today’s consumer is certainly not confined and the world has become smaller. Every company needs to think global sooner than ever before.  

Challenge:

Not only are consumers more accessible, but today’s consumer is more savvy, demanding, and constantly evolving. It has become one of the biggest challenges facing brands, and those without a plan for reaching these widespread audiences in real-time face the risk of being left in the dust.

Opportunity:

Marketers who are willing to evolve alongside their audiences and not fear them are recognizing this as an opportunity. Engaging with their customers and building stronger relationships with them is much more feasible with the management tools that are being made available to them such as digital asset management, marketing resource management, brand asset management, and other management technologies.

With increased demand for high-quality content experiences, communication between companies and their customers has shifted. This shift has created both challenges and opportunities for today’s marketers that will only accelerate as the adoption of higher quality content continues.

Today’s marketers are faced with massive stores of content that need to be captured, searched, distributed, and reused constantly, creating the equivalent of digital media chaos. This is where technologies like digital asset management step in to provide a platform for bringing order to chaos. Once you have invested resources addressing these challenges, the question becomes how to make the most of these potential opportunities and take advantage of today’s modern era of marketing.

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About the Author: Jeremy Sohn is vice president of strategy and corporate development at North Plains

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