Year after year, companies up the ante on Super Bowl advertisements. This year’s XLIX was no different in this respect, but the overall feel and content of this year’s ads were different. While predecessors used humor and wit to convey a message, more companies in 2015 used serious themes to grab the attention of viewers and overall, they were successful.
Although the amount of money most companies pumped into developing their promotions remains to be seen, USA Today reports that each 30-second block cost advertisers 4.5 million dollars. In all, 61 commercials aired despite the premium rates, and more than 114 million people watched them, according to CBS Sports. Super Bowl XLIX is now the reigning King of Television Programming, securing the spot of the most-watched show of in US history.
Ad Meter examined each of this year’s Super Bowl commercials to get a pulse from the community to see what most people thought of the ads. Each one was rated on a scale of 1-10 and the results were broken down by demographic, so trends could be easily identified.
Best 8 SuperBowl Ads Conveying Awesome Content Marketing
Here’s a synopsis of the top eight, who they were a hit with, and how they nailed content advertising.
1. Lost Dog by Budweiser.
Synopsis: Budweiser tugged on heartstrings last year with their “Puppy Love” ad and they brought the same director back this year to help them create the sequel, “Lost Dog.” In fact, Jake Scott of Anomaly ad agency, gives a nod to his original golden pup piece by reusing a still image from Puppy Love as the photo of the pooch on the sign in Lost Dog. The 2015 ad features a tear-jerking rendition of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” as remade by Sleeping at Last, as it follows the four-legged adventurer while he tags along with his owner and equine BFF, then gets lost in the city.
Score: Lost Dog scored an 8.1 out of 10 overall, and resonated most with those age 65 and older.
How They Nailed It: Budweiser skipped the sales-pitch and went straight for hearts instead. Viewers were treated to an adorable animal, which is almost always a winner in advertising, and the company paired it with a full plotline and continuing saga. This was able to draw people in and give them a memorable experience, rather than pounding them with sales. Their focus was on building a relationship with their consumers and, based on their number-one rank, their strategy was a major success.
2. Like a Girl by Always.
Synopsis: Always launched their female empowerment campaign last summer, and it was a huge hit. According to Time Magazine, Proctor and Gamble hired award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, who has a history creating memorable documentaries, to create the piece for them. The Super Bowl ad is a shortened version of the previous release, and it captures males and females of various ages explaining what “like a girl” means under different circumstances.
Score: Like a Girl scored 7.1 out of 10 and, not surprisingly, was most popular among female viewers.
How They Nailed It: The Always product line was not featured in the ad at all, nor was there any mention of anything related to it. Instead, the company focused on a message of empowerment. Much like the Budweiser ad, this piece was created to build a stronger relationship with their consumers. Viewers received a powerful message and were shaken to the core. Meanwhile, Always racked up loyalty points with their consumers, which will likely be returned in sales later, because studies show that purchases are emotional, rather than logical.
3. Blue Pill by Fiat.
Synopsis: One of the few ads to utilize humor was Blue Pill, by Fiat. Without ruining the plot too much, it’s safe to say that the promo explains why the latest Fiat 500X is “more ready for action.”
Score: Blue Pill scored 6.87 and was most popular with people ages 50-64, followed very closely by the 65 and older crowd.
How They Nailed It: Like the others, Fiat used a full plot, instead of simply hocking their goods. This included plot twists, so the viewer was already mentally invested and wondering what would happen next, long before the 500X ever appeared on camera.
4. Braylon by Microsoft.
Synopsis: The Braylon ad follows a young boy who needs prosthetic legs to walk. It tells his story, including how he was fitted for his first prosthetic legs at only 11 months old, and shows shots of him performing numerous activities.
Score: Microsoft’s Braylon ad scored 6.4 and performed best for people age 65 and older, as well as among women.
How They Nailed It: The full ad is a little over a minute long, and Microsoft isn’t mentioned until about the halfway point. Even then, it simply says they used Microsoft technology to measure the boy’s gait, and then they continue on with his story. Viewers naturally become emotionally invested in Braylon’s story, and by associating Microsoft with his success, the company becomes a champion too.
5. Middle Seat by Doritos.
Synopsis: Frito-Lay ran a contest, offering up a million dollars to the person who could come up with the best ad possible to fill their Super Bowl slot. Scott Zabielski won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest this year, by submitting “Middle Seat.” It follows the humorous story of a guy on an airplane who will do just about anything to keep the seat next to him empty until the right person comes along.
Score: Middle Seat scored 6.71 and was most popular with people aged 21 and under.
How They Nailed It: In an interview with CBS News, Zabielski explains that to do commercials well, you have to be able to tell a story in 30 seconds or less. Based on the top commercials, he’s absolutely correct. Middle Seat also manages to incorporate humor and speak to a wide audience. As with the others, the feature product is more of a prop than a showcased item, which helps give it the feel of a story versus an advertisement.
6. Wisdom by Dodge.
Synopsis: The theme of Dodge’s promo is “You learn a lot in 100 years,” and it includes interviews of people who have lived that long of close to it. Through a series of quick clips designed to inspire and awe, Wisdom commands attention long before the ad explains that Dodge is 100 years old, too.
Score: Wisdom scored a 6.6 overall, though it was also ranked high by female viewers and near-equally well among those with lower incomes and people age 50-64.
How They Nailed It: The Dodge ad was in keeping with several other themes already mentioned. Primarily, it elicited an emotional response. As the clips of centenarians continue, the tone takes a surprising turn, which helps make the ad much more memorable.
7. Bold Dad by Toyota.
Synopsis: Bold Dad isn’t so much about being bold, as it is about being an involved father. The commercial delivers a series of events in which the father was present and active during his daughter’s formidable years. It concludes with the father fighting back tears as he drops his rucksack-toting adult daughter off at the airport.
Score: Toyota’s commercial scored a 6.59. Interestingly, those who appreciated it the most were people age 21 and under. However, the oldest age bracket, ages 65 and up, had the second highest approval-rating.
How They Nailed It: Like the others, it was story-focused and not a sales pitch. Additionally, Toyota’s message was universal and it bridged the gap between generations, income ranges, and genders.
8. Make It Happy by Coca Cola.
Synopsis: Coke did things a little differently than the others, because their product was front and center in Make It Happy. The commercial tackles tough issues like internet bullying and depicts how sweet the world would be if Coke were able to infiltrate the web.
Score: Make It Happy scored 6.5 out of 10. It was a favorite among people who had incomes between 25,000 and 50,000 dollars per year.
How They Nailed It: The New York Times reports that Coke has been struggling to stay relevant despite its long history. Considering that 70-percent of students report seeing frequent bullying online, their ad is not only timely, but also highly relevant. Despite the sensitive nature of the topic, Coke managed to put a light-hearted spin on it and inspire viewers with their message.
How They All Really Nailed Content Marketing (The Essential Secret)
According to Forbes Magazine, 55-percent of people will purchase an item if the company has a good reputation. The number drops by nearly one-fourth when the company has a weak reputation.
For the advertisers, these promos built up reputation, securing the future business of their consumers. People who viewed the ads, however, appreciated them for entertainment value alone. More than anything else, that is how these companies nailed it with their Super Bowl 2015 advertising.
Content curation is a HOT topic and over the last year or so, as Internet content has grown, its popularity has trended drastically. For a lot of companies, understanding content curation lies at the heart of the future success of their online entrepreneurial enterprises. For others it provides a handy way to keep content coming in and keep the things that show up one’s blog fresh. Content curation is the art of gathering relevant ideas and content about a topic or niche and housing them in a simply navigated repository that gives users, at a glance, the usefulness and viability of the content as well as where the content can be located on the Internet.
To many bloggers, content curation represents the next logical step in the evolution of content production. There’s a saying that goes, “There is nothing that is new under the sun,” and as far as content creators have realized it’s a sad reality.
Coming up with fresh new ideas for content gets to be tedious and tiring as time goes by. Content curation provides an injection of fresh content while at the same time allowing for the establishment of backlinks to well-respected sites thereby increasing the authoritative value of your site (as well as your search ranking for certain keywords). Content curation is the direction that a business-minded site would move towards since it provides a lot of benefits with a minimum amount of drawbacks.
Important! Do Not Confuse Curation with Copying
Content curators collect information from sites and catalog them, then go through the catalog and pick out the ones that provide the best information then review their findings for the readers. It is an ongoing process and curators usually spend hours trawling the Internet looking for viable links that they can use in their work.
Although curators may extract certain parts of a bit of content to underscore the value of the entire work to their audience, they should NEVER copy content completely from another site. Curators are ethically minded people that aim to promote the useful information in sites that are not their own while giving value to their readers by condensing a tedious Internet search into a single page containing the most useful links for a particular niche.
Confusing curation with copying can lead to some serious fallout such as losing your page rank in Google for hosting duplicate content. As a curator you should be wary of finding yourself in such a position.
4 Ways To Plan Your Content Curation
Just like anything that has to do with a long-term business solution, you need a roadmap for your content curation. Developing a step-wise plan as to how to achieve the end result of a content curation site that content managers would be proud to operate is relatively simple. It can be broken down into three major sub-steps, each logically placed so as to enhance the step that comes after it. When planning your content curation you should be looking at doing these things in order:
Collect Content: Looking through the Internet to discover sites that best fit your audience interest and cataloging them with the appropriate utilities. This is the most important first step in order to create a database of valid links. These should be high-impact sites that cater to the basic needs of your audience. Arranging them by tags in an understandable format is where your journey into content curation begins.
Share the Best: Although your original pile of article links may number into the thousands, you’re going to have to do some reading and sifting. Content curation is a time-intensive job and the wider the niche you’re covering the more work is involved in getting your content curation to a point where it’s usable. In order to be considered seriously in your niche the quality of your shares should be very high based on their value to your readers.
Audit your Content: The feedback mechanism that separates good content curators from run-of-the-mill ones is auditing of your content. Your shared content may fall short in reaching your target audience and the only way you can figure that out is by doing regular audits and replacing the non-performing shares with those that are more likely to generate better leads. Audits also allow you to fix the technical aspects of your content (such as SEO details and keyword placement) so as to make the share more search engine friendly.
Schedule your Shares: Just like blogging, the aim with content curation is to ensure that you have fresh content regularly and on demand. To do so consistently, you should queue up your content shares so that they go live at regular intervals. These don’t need to be within any set time period, but consistent posting keeps your content curation site fresh and ensures that you don’t lose your search rank position through abandonment.
There are quite a number of online content production companies that offer content auditing and curation as separate packages or as a combination of both of these important aspects of running a site that is aiming to be an authority in the topic area. Because of the intensive nature of content curation, if you intend to go this route, hiring an external company to do your curation for you is definitely a good idea.
5 Ways Content Curation Can Generate Ideas
Curating usually inspires you to build on the content you have or to create brand new content. Just like a muse tends to awaken the creative spirit in an artist, so too does content curation give you a chance to explore different points of view for the same topic. You need to keep an open mind when putting together content via curation since it’s likely that sites that may not align with your point of view have some points that are just as valid as your own. Being objective is very important. Coming up with and curating new content ideas can be a relatively pain-free process, and may or may not include the following:
1) Utilizing your Experience. In many niches there are people who make up the user base that are very skilled in what they do. As a site seeking to be one of the authority sites for the niche, your content should incorporate the things you have discovered while writing for the niche. This can be done in any number of ways that attract both interest and feedback from the community. Coming up with new content using this method allows you to tap into a plethora of utilities such as:
User Generated Questions and Answers: In any community there will be a large amount of users that have back-and-forth discussions over topics of interest. The questions generated from these topics are very useful when coming up with ideas for new content. Ideally, when trawling the Internet for content links for curation, you should make note of these forum discussions as they provide great fuel for creating brand new content.
Opposing Points of View: Not all content you curate will be from the same point of view that you have. You are going to have to be objective in your choices and give air to the other side of the debate. Having other writers challenge your point of view is something that is as old as writing itself. Embracing this age-old tradition allows you to counter and rebut their arguments logically (or accept them if they have more evidence than you do to disprove them). This leads to creation of brand new content from older posts and can lead to quite a lot of community approval since it is seen as the mark of a great thinker to entertain ideas that do not officially fall within his or her world view.
Writing from Knowledge: Learning things from the Internet is something that many people depend upon. The most resourceful searchers tend to find information through their research. Content creation is about bringing value in the form of new information to your readers. Presenting information you have uncovered in your searching to them is probably the best motivation for creating new content that a writer can have. Your knowledge in the field is valuable to an everyday reader.
2) Personal Knowledge of the Field. This in itself can come from years of working in the field or from reading the pertinent literature and being able to apply it to the field in a satisfactory manner. This is usually garnered through a long-term interaction with the topic on a personal level. Although many bloggers have the benefit of writing from an isolated standpoint, there are few that really have a grasp of the actual, physical nuances of the topic they write on. Personal knowledge comes in very handy when presenting information to your audience that would be based on prior knowledge, but expands upon this by giving them a logical and legitimate stepping stone to your subject. A good example would be scientific news blogs. These impart knowledge to the layman by digesting information and applying their knowledge of the field itself to break down the overall results and jargon of a published work into an understandable post. Content curation aids in this process by giving you added exposure gained through reading the personal encounters of individuals in the field.
3) Review Existing Content from Other Users. This is at the heart of using curation to develop new content for your site. Ideally, a content curation site serves as an online museum where readers can explore the usefulness and details that a site may offer to them before going through the site itself. This saves time for users since it gives them only the most relevant sites to their interest In order to be considered a more valuable curation site, you should take time to review some of the shares that you have in a detailed format. This review doesn’t necessarily have to be exhaustive, but should give the reader a full idea of the content contained on the page so that when they go there, they already have an idea of what they’re liable to find. Content created in this way must be wary of giving too many excerpts from the main site since it could register as duplicate content, forcing search engines to penalize you for it.
4) Generate Titles based on the Most Popular Topics. Not all topics are equal, especially in certain fields. Understanding which topics are more popular than others gives you something to work with as far as getting a title and a direction to write in. Curation of sites will allow you to get a feel for the topics of discussion that work best in the community and those that don’t have so much interest. Remember that you have to keep your audience in mind both with your curation and your creation. Understanding what topics your audience values gives you a very good idea of what they would look for in created content. From there it’s just a matter of following up your research and condensing the points from multiple high-value articles into your own. Giving the source documents links within your writing also helps promote your site a source of traffic for the source articles and gives you good backlink karma with Google.
5) Think like your Readers. Your writing should reflect what your readers enjoy reading. This should be an obvious statement but there have been times in the past where writers have decided to opt for topics within their own interest alienating the readers that they need. Doing a content audit on your site will allow you to see the topics that perform below expected levels so that you can avoid those when creating new content. You can also spruce up those bits of old content or remove them altogether, making your site more in tune with what readers would expect from you. As a content curation device, auditing also allows you to get a feel for what works as far as interest generated by readers. Remember, once you start linking to other sites, it is very likely that they will start linking to yours as an authority site and drive traffic to your door. You have to cater for the influx of these readers while still maintaining your own voice.
Content Creation & You
Developing new content isn’t as easy as it once was. Even the ‘news’ is just a rehash of old events with new players. If you’re writing content, coming up with ideas is one of the hardest parts of the brainstorming process. There’s simply only so much you can say about a particular topic.
However, if you’re exploring the other things that have been written by authors on the topic, it’s not too hard to start collecting and critiquing their links, making your site an invaluable resource to users all around the community. These even help you come up with your own ideas and fuel your imagination.
When you get to that level, you’ll know that your foray into content curation was well worth it.
In the world of business and sales, words are powerful. Copywriting not only involves captivating and educating your audience, but also choosing the right words to say. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that your choice of words could cost (or earn) your company a sale. When it comes to copywriting, every detail counts. The idea isn’t to walk on eggshells with your copywriting, but you do want to be aware of word choice and the message you are signaling to your clients.
Almost every word has its place and purpose, but there are several that you want to avoid when you are copywriting for sales or your website. These are what I like to call “the worst phrases in content marketing.”
Content Marketing Tips: What to Avoid
Content marketing may seem like it’s for everyone (see “You Don’t Need to Be a Brand Publisher To Win At Content Marketing” on Moz), but remember, there are some words in general you should be avoiding to stay on the right road. If you have these words and phrases on your own website, consider it a red flag: it might be hurting your conversion ratio.
Our Product is The Cheapeston The Market. If you are in a hurry to downgrade the value of your product, the word cheap will get you there in a heartbeat. Cheap is not to be confused with affordable; affordable is a gentler and more positive way to emphasize a cost effective price point.However, cheap may bring the connotation of flimsy and invaluable. If you must include a low price point in your copywriting, stick to affordable.
We Are Offering One of The Best Things Available in Our Industry. Maybe this is a personal pet peeve, but the word thing really makes my skin crawl. It is extremely vague, generic, and does nothing in terms of describing value. The word thing should be used to describe an object when you don’t know what it is, or how to even go about describing it. Merriam Webster describes the word thing as an object whose name is not known or stated.Does that really describe the product or service that you have to offer?If you are writing about a product with the goal of generating a sale, describe what is in in detail. Then focus on its best qualities — also in detail. Generic terms don’t encourage conversions.
Allow Us to Serve Your Needs. Yet another vague phrase, allow us might be one of the most unconvincing terms to use when trying to make a sale. Furthermore, you are putting the cart before the horse. In order for your client to want to allow you to help, you need to describe in detail why you are their solution.Again, details matter to your clients. Don’t assume that you automatically have the sale just because you believe in your product or service.
We Will Try to Resolve The Problem as Soon as Possible. If you are looking to instill confidence and encouragement in your client, refrain from using the word try. Try sounds like you will make an attempt, but there are no guarantees to the outcome.Even though there are never any guarantees in life, it is much more ensuring to your client to say that you will find a solution vs. you will make a mere attempt. You don’t want to make false promises, but you do want your client to feel confident in your capabilities.
Industry Jargon Overload. While this may not be a specific word, overwhelming your potential client with too much industry jargon can easily cost you a sale. When was the last time that you were motivated to buy something because you were overly confused? I’m willing to bet never.When it comes to describing your products and services, stick to the basics. One of the rules of copywriting is to make sure that your 80-year-old grandmother can understand what you are trying to say. Of course, this does not apply for those who have a highly specific target audience that already understands industry jargon.Otherwise, make your copywriting simple and easy to understand.
Free (When It’s Really Not). Free might sound harmless enough, but unfortunately it can come with negative connotation. Your clients are smart and know that almost nothing is truly free. Not to mention, the word free is often used as a bait-and-switch to lure in clients for a sale. Think about those phony smartphone commercials that promise a free service, only to find out that you must sign a contract to get the benefits.No one likes to be strung along. Unless your offer is truly free, don’t advertise as such.
I Don’t Want to Generate More Business. Yet another phrase more than a word, negative and sarcastic phrases will never put your message in a positive light. This trick has become popular around the Internet, especially when you navigate away from a page and are stopped by a pop-up. If you have to insult your client into buying, you might want to re-evaluate the value of your product.
Don’t Try to ‘Boil an Ocean’. If at all possible, avoid using clichés. Chances are that your clients have read those clichés time and time again, and they aren’t doing you any favors. With all of the wonderful copywriting books, tools, and online resources available, surely you can write a few words that will capture the attention of your audience. There are tried-and-true methods that were established decades ago that still apply today. Give it a try.If you can’t seem to get it just right, hire a pro. Your message will be well received, easy to understand, and help you attract business instead of unintentionally turning it away.
Too Much We, I, And Us. If you take anything away from this advice, too much of you in your copywriting will never win over clients. People care about their needs and how they can use your products to solve problems. Win your customers over by showing value in your product and making your focus entirely on them.
Copywriting doesn’t have to cost you money. In fact, it can earn you quite a lot of cash.
Keep your content writing and copywriting focused on your audience, easy to grasp, and steer clear of words that cost you money. Learn more about what to avoid with these “7 Deadly Sins of Content Marketing” on The Guardian. Have you seen any other bad content marketing bits out there? Share in the comments!
On week three of the great content roundup, I wanted to specifically pull out links that talk about content and SEO in 2015. I’ve been seeing some great stuff on the Internet circulating around this hot topic and wanted to share my favorites from this week.
As you know from my past posts, I strongly believe that content IS SEO. Therefore, this will revolve around content marketing and everything SEO related. There are some great articles here, so enjoy, and feel free to share or leave a comment!
Best Content Marketing Tools in 2015 by Sujan Patel on SEJ. Great info shared. He says that 78% of CMOs believe custom content is the future of marketing. Wow!
The Technical Future of SEO by Scott Stouffer. A unique search engine engineers perspective on SEO. He mentioned that PPC is over-saturated and no longer profitable; and how organic search can be looked at.
There have been a number of conflicting reports surrounding G+ in 2015. A handful of writers claim that Google+ is seeing its last days as a valid product and that Google is moving to shelf it.
Many of us in the tech world know that the driving force behind Google+, Vic Gundotra, has left the company and ever since that departure, G+ has seen less of a prominent place in Google’s limelight, some claiming that Google is actively moving to hide it from the average user. The thing is, as there are more and more users that lean towards social media platforms as a means of communication and keeping up to date with the happenings of the world, there will always be a need for competition.
As it stands right now, G+ is not something the world really wants as much as the world needs options in social media.
Why G+ is Important in the 21st Century
A lot of people have put Google+ down as the walking dead or a failed attempt at social networking. While G+ isn’t a competitor to Facebook and Twitter in the traditional sense (it doesn’t sell its users to advertisers, for example), it still presents a place for users to share their ideas and the things that they like across a social platform that integrates with their email and other facets of their life that they already use Google’s services for. The key reason that G+ is important, according to former Google employee Chris Messina (in this rant that is decidedly expletive-laden), is that G+ provides an alternative to the juggernauts that make up social media in the twenty first century today. America has realized how monopolies are bad (any cursory glance at American economic history will reveal this) and the rest of the world should also be wary of putting their eggs in one basket. However, as the wizard behind the curtain in Gundotra departed, G+ has come up short in its drive to be something new, innovative and fresh. It’s because of this failed initiative that many social media gurus are announcing the death of G+, even if not acknowledged as yet by Google.
A Bleak Future for Google+?
Google+ is decidedly one of the important gears in the machine that is Google’s digital identity in the twenty first century. Google has managed to link it with some of their more popular utilities (such as Google Hangouts) in an effort to drive more users to utilize it as a social media device. Although many users resented it (and many still do) it showed that Google wasn’t about to give up on Google+ just yet. In fact, with so many Google users simply having a G+ account (whether or not they use it) it means that G+ has one of the largest potential outreaches of any social media in existence. It’s like a sleeping giant, and although it’s unlikely that it will be a Facebook-killer, it is still well poised to do so much more. Google’s developmental teams have been shuffled around as of late and many tech and social media gurus see is as a sign that G+ is dying. I’m personally not so sure. As it sits right now, the coming year could make or break G+ in terms of being a major part of Google’s integrated system.
Is G+ Another One of Google’s Failed Ideas?
Investment in G+ from Google to such an extent means that Google has (or at least had) great plans for the system. The thing is, this isn’t the only project they’ve had over the years that started off with a bang and ended up with a whimper. I am reminded of Authorship: a push by Google to introduce author tags into web content so as to give Authors more visibility on search engine rankings. Well, Google tried that for a while and realized it wasn’t working so they ditched it. However, they never put as much time and effort integrating Authorship with other Google utilities as they have G+. The interwoven tapestry of a Google account means that a G+ account grants you access to your Gmail, your Hangouts, even your cloud storage. Your Google account is not your G+ account, and like a lost puppy it follows you around wherever you go. Integrating G+ into Gmail has had its share of troubles by opening up the door to unwanted spam emails from people you don’t even know. After potential fiascos like that one you can start to understand why Google might be better off leaving G+ to die.
Four Predictions for the Future of G+ in 2015
2015 presents a unique turning point in G+’s development, one that could see it as another innovative result of Google’s tinkering with social media or as another spent, broken shell on Google’s idea scrap-heap. Google has a lot of decisions to make in the coming year regarding G+ and as much as it seems as though G+ is dead, Google has managed to do miracles before. Resurrecting a nearly-dead social media idea might be right up their alley. Based on what we’ve seen from Google in the last couple months towards the end of 2015, we can extrapolate pretty handily what the state of G+ will be in the coming year and if Google’s actually taking steps to make it into a better place to visit than it is currently. As I stare into my crystal ball I can make a few guesses as to what the future of G+ will look like in the coming twelve months:
Google Will Further Shrink the Dedicated Workforce on Google+ This seems counterproductive if you think that Google’s trying to salvage G+ but it’s actually not a bad idea. Google firmly subscribes to the idea that “too many cooks spoil the broth” and in this case they might be well warranted. Google+ already has a deeply designed interface that shares information seamlessly with other Google services and is a major part of the functioning of other services. All the heavy lifting in terms of code is already complete. If that’s the case then there really is no reason to have a couple thousand more programmers and web analysts looking through the code to spot bugs that aren’t there. In my mind, having a small but dedicated bug-fix team is where Google sees it at with this new iteration of Google+. This means that more people will be shunted out of the G+ workforce and into other parts of the Googleplex to work on new ideas. To many it might look like Google’s downsizing their G+ department even further and it will probably spawn another round of “G+ is dead” articles from many who take such movement at face value. I think that Google is smarter than most tech gurus give them credit for and they’ve still got a ton of surprises up their voluminous sleeves.
Google+ Will Change Its Focus. Yes, we know that Google+ is a social media platform: it works through sharing things you like with your friends in order to stimulate discussion and drive traffic. But you ever wonder why there wasn’t a massive influx of advertising and marketing on G+ as there was on Facebook and Twitter? Social media networks are like the sugar to the flies of advertising and an active social media network means that there is more chance for a user to see things that they are more likely to click on based on their already-saved user preferences. It boils down internet marketing to a very concentrated bombardment of a target audience with a number of ads that focus on the things that said demographic would like to see. Facebook and Twitter do it by promoting ads by companies that pay them either per-click or per-conversion. With Google’s sheer amount of users, it can provide a formidable opponent to other social media giants if it opened its doors to internet marketers and allowed them to run amok, targeting their users and farming the Google servers for information that would result in them increasing the amount of conversions they get through their advertising. To date, there are not many add-ons for social media advertisers on G+ and many companies overlook G+ as a location for users simply because Google has made it difficult to target them. It is possible that in the coming year, Google will merge their AdSense data with G+ to provide a viable marketing platform to companies so that they can start spreading their brand awareness across G+. The advantage Google has over its competitors here is that Google’s information on a user is not just limited to their G+ information but on any information that they exchange through Google services. Although it could save G+ it could mean a serious challenge to Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto.
Google+ Will See Some Major Version Changes. G+ as it is right now is clunky. It’s got an old-school vibe that just isn’t doing it in this day and age. If it wants to survive it will have to change. In the coming year I can see G+ having a complete overhaul in the looks department and make a push towards a sleeker interface with better options for sharing than what currently exists. Based on what we know about Google’s current development of G+, there are rumors circulating that a brand new version of G+ is in the works. In keeping with the previous prediction, this new version of G+ will incorporate new methods of advertising that caters to pages and companies to expose them to users that would be best inclined to purchase their products or services. It’s likely that Google will have researched the things that Facebook and Twitter did before in order to curb abuse of their resources and implement these in the new version as well. Google has always been big on personalization and by giving users the option of a fully customizable interface they allow their users to express themselves. With the uproar Facebook has with its interface changes (that happen frequently enough), G+ can give users the option of keeping a layout scheme even though the actual interface may change technically. It’s very likely that this single adaptation would see more users moving away from Facebook and towards G+ in the coming year.
There is Likely to be a Major Adoption of G+ in the Coming Year. This prediction certainly goes out on a limb. However, if Google does decide to change the direction that G+ is currently going in, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. Google+ in its current form is a social media failure: this much is true. However, just because it’s a failure now, doesn’t mean that it has to remain a failure for as long as it exists. Google’s integration of G+ into its core system means that Google sees some potential in the platform. The platform has access to untold resources, vast volumes of users and information that would be any internet marketer’s dream to have. The power of G+ lies in the things it can do and the people it can influence, but in order to have any power at all, people need to start using it more. And that’s where this prediction comes in. If Google has hopes of making G+ into a viable platform for social interaction (which is where turning a profit on G+ lies) then they need to figure out how to market G+ properly. Clearly, giving it the title of “Facebook-Killer” won’t work. They need to go back to basics and redesign the interface, then subject it to rigorous user testing in order to perfect their user interface problems. They need to find some way to make G+ more attractive. But, when you come right down to it, isn’t that the most important thing that they have to do?
Moving Forward: The Future of Google+
Google’s obsession with G+ can end badly if they just decide to let it fester. It’s not so deeply integrated into Google’s system that it can’t be ripped out. Doing so would mean admitting defeat and Google doesn’t admit defeat lightly. There are far too many things Google can to salvage the situation but the most important thing that it needs to do is to make it viable for the average user. They need to pull a regular user and give him something that he doesn’t only enjoy using but looks forward to logging on to. Facebook managed to do this, and so did Twitter, but they rely heavily upon the presence of popular people. In anything that runs on social interaction as a foundation, popular people are the highest valued currency. It’s about time G+ started investing in some of those. Of course, these predictions only apply if Google’s aiming to save the slowly shambling corpse of G+ by giving it a makeover.
The question remains: If G+ was more popular, could you see yourself using it?
