Google+ Gets Local

Yesterday Google rolled out Google+ Local for businesses. Upon logging into your Google+ account, you will see the new “Local” icon on your right-side navigation bar. A local business listing provides access to features such as photos, reviews, and a new scoring guide (Zagat's 30-point scoring system). You’ll notice there is unquestionably a stronger emphasis on reviews and photos at the top of the listings.

However, Google instructs businesses to continue using Google Places for Business to manage their listing information. There will be more news to come on how you can go about linking your Google+ business page to your Google+ Local listing.

At first glance, although Google attempted to make the layout clean with the white space – the listings still look "crowded". Perhaps because it rolled out yesterday and I haven’t been able to spend a great deal of time in Local, I’m just not loving my first impression from a layout/usability perspective.

How do you see your business using Google+ Local?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

The Facebook IPO Fail & Bad Virality

If you haven't been following the Facebook IPO news lately, then you may not know that there's big trouble brewing over the largest social media network's IPO. Stock prices have dipped below $30, companies like SEOmoz are claiming a little slice of credit for the problem, and people are making satirical spoof videos already. When a company like this fails big, it's only to be expected that it would go viral.

Virality is a double-edged sword - while you always want to create content that goes viral in a way that gets you positive attention, it's difficult at best to control negative attention once it goes fully viral, especially for larger companies (and people) that are often in the public eye.

Is the virality of bad press a problem? Or is this outweighed by the benefits of having your content go viral? Has your company ever experienced bad viral press?

Frugal Shoppers Rejoice with Facebook Offers

The coupon craze is in full effect in America. While it may be considered passé to sit around clipping coupons, sites like Groupon and Living Social are hotter than ever. We all know that person who scoops up local offers like it’s an addiction (a new form of shop-a-holic?) and then crazily talks you into going to that restaurant/shop/activity with them so they can redeem their deal. Heck, maybe you are one of those people!

Now, those super savers will be even more tempted to take advantage of these deals online with the introduction of Facebook Offers for businesses. According to TechCrunch, it had been in private testing for a couple of months with select brands, and, as of May 3^rd, it opened up as a self-service product to page admins. The service is free to use, and it’s similar to posting a status update – the interface walks you through the steps of creating a thumbnail, headline and adding the fine print to your offer, which then shows up in your fans’ news feed.

Have you purchased a Facebook Offer or promoted one online? How often do you buy from other deal sites, like Groupon or Living Social? Tell us about your experiences in the comments section below.

Google AdWords Will Soon No Longer Support Custom Alerts

Last week I explained how Google announced an upgrade to Google AdWords Editor that is effective as of June 12, 2012. Well, guess what? There was yet another announcement regarding our Google AdWords accounts that you will want to pay close attention to.

Effective June 30, 2012, the AdWords custom alerts feature will no longer be available. Prashant Baheti, AdWords Product Manager, explained that based on their observations, many of the actions an advertiser would take as a result of a custom alert, could just be facilitated via “automated rules”.

Google goes on to note the following, “Starting June 15, we will disable creation of new alerts and by the end of June, we will stop triggering existing alerts. This means that on June 30, you will not see custom alerts in your AdWords account. If you selected email as your notification method, this means you will no longer receive alert emails.”

If you are using the custom alerts feature, I recommend that you start making other arrangements now. June will be here before you know it.

To learn more about automated rules, check out Google’s Ad Innovations.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Alan Cleaver

The New Standard for Twitter Abuse

You may be familiar with Klout. Klout assigns a score to each user based on their social media presence, ranging from 0 to 100, to try to measure how influential they are. But is any of Klout's information valid or meaningful?

It seems that Klouchebag would argue that no, it isn't, and that in fact Klout's numbers "are pretty much a crapshoot." Klouchebag is a sharp and sarcastic commentary on Klout's clout that calls itself "The New Standard for Asshattery" and uses a measurement it calls the ARSE (Anger, Retweet Abuse, Social Apps, English Misuse) rating system to determine how much a twitter user is abusing their tweeting powers. While it doesn't cover all of the social media tools that Klout claims to take their measurements from, and it doesn't claim to be completely accurate, it does provide a lot of viral entertainment value. Plus, it's a great resume builder for Tom Scott, its creator, who mentions at the bottom of his page that yes, he is looking for work.

What do you think of Klout? Do you think that Klout ratings carry importance online, or that Klout ratings don't carry much weight?

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: 10 Digital Strategies to Find Your Dream Job

If you're considering a career change, you are going to need as much help as you can to land that dream job. A leap in fields, while not uncommon and certainly not impossible, requires some extra effort and major decisions to be made. Join Jay Berkowitz, founder and CEO of TenGoldenRules.com, as he visits the digital strategies needed to keep your income flowing while making that change in industries. 


Click here to register (5-23 at 12:30PM EST)
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About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is an author, an educator, an International keynote speaker and an award-winning thought leader. A senior online marketing professional with over twenty years of marketing experience, Mr. Berkowitz has managed marketing departments for Fortune 500 brands: Coca-Cola, Sprint and McDonald's Restaurants, and he has developed online and offline strategies for AT&T and leading health and fitness website eDiets.com.

Mr. Berkowitz is the author of The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook, the Founder and CEO of www.TenGoldenRules.com, a strategic online marketing consulting business based in Boca Raton, Florida. He is the host of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast, an Adjunct Professor with the University of San Francisco Internet Marketing Course and he has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, The Business Journals and he was interviewed on FOX Business TV.

Click here to register (5-23 at 12:30PM EST)
http://bit.ly/dreamjobregister