Have you noticed a drastic drop in your Google+ brand page +1 numbers? You aren't alone. This morning while reviewing our social channels, we noticed a 384,000 drop in Search Engine Land's +1 numbers that appear below the logo. Yesterday, it was over 409,000 - today only 25,000. Luckily, the number of people and pages who have you in circles, a little lower on the right side of your profile, is still at 366,000. However, 25,000 plus 366,000 still don't add up to 409,000. So, what's going on? We checked with our contact at Google, who confirmed that this is a known issue, and there is som [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing

Facebook has profiles, pages and groups. Google+ has profiles and pages. Wait, something is missing at Google+! Or, I should say it was missing. Over the last couple years, we have watched while Google+ systematically built Facebook-like features into its social media site, and to Google's credit other excellent features as well. Well now, Google+ has added one more Facebook-like feature. Google+ Communities are now here, and they look awfully similar to Facebook groups. Of course, there are some differences. What Are Google+ Communities? Google+ Communities are basically discussion fo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google Plus Marketing Column | Google: Google +1

Earlier this year Google acquired Meebo, a company known for their javascript based framed social bars and chat applications. The Meebo Bar quickly became the most promising product as websites could leverage the lower portion of user's screen to help push shares, gain more ad space, and entice users to consume more content. TheNextWeb spotted a revamped Meebo bar that surfaced on TVguide.com program pages. The new bar is framed from the Meebo.com domain and has a much more Google+ infused look. From left to right the new bar features: An ad (BestBuy in this case) A large Google + [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+

There appears to be a bug with Google+ that's sometimes causing the wrong URLs to appear when sharing pages. At first, I thought this was something happening just with me as an odd glitch. I was on Google+ today, entered a URL I wanted to share, and the wrong page title and description came up. I started over, and the problem went away. Then Matt McGee, our executive news editor, found a similar issue happening: See how the headline of the story is different than what he's sharing. Not only is the headline not correct, but sharing from that article actually caused Google+ to try and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+

The Google+ enhancements continue to roll out.  Google Chrome's web store added Google+ functionality this week post Google I/O.  Google+1 buttons have been added to all of the apps along with a new way to search for apps that utilize social recommendations. Instead of only browsing apps by popularity, users can now view apps recommended by those within circles: When the "from your circles" option is selected, circled user information along with profile pictures will show directly within the store.  In order to recommend an app, navigate to the app in question and simply +1 th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+

In its continued push to Google+-ify the internet, Google is launching +1 recommendations to all +1 buttons across the web.  The new recommendation  functionality will find similar recommendations that have already been discovered on the site: Included in the recommendations will be +1 stats and circled friends who have already +1'ed the recommended content.   Recommendations will only be from the same domain or sub-domain, no outside content will be recommended.  There will be no need to swap any code, +1 buttons will be automatically updated.  Recommendations will begin showin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Top News

The line between Google's +1 functionality and the Google+ network has always been somewhat blurred.  Today Google has announced a new Google+ share button that helps to differentiate the two services. Google originally launched +1 as a tool similar to Facebook's like functionality.  A +1 is the equivalent to a user vouching for a website by liking it.  Buttons were released around the +1 functionality that allowed users to +1 content directly from a website.  Today's new Google+ share button doesn't include any of the +1 functionality.  Instead of +1ing content users directly shar [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Top News

Google+ pages were only launched a few months ago, Google has said that they may have some effect on the search results, as Plus company pages are frequently indexed quickly by Google. While the Google+ layout takes some getting used to, the new social networking site is growing so fast, that companies need to create a Page for their business. Google+ Pages work like Facebook Pages, where multiple personal profiles have administrative rights and personal profiles cannot be used under a company name. There are some areas of a Google+ Page that need to be paid special attention to, inc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing Column

Today Google announced a new-look Google +1 button that matches the new Google+ theme.  Traditionally the +1 button was a white box with a blue +1 that turned a very loud royal blue when clicked. The +1 button was launched nearly a month before the Google+ network and had looked quite different.  Until now.  The new +1 buttons resemble the reddish Google+ badges and widgets: If you are looking for different sizes, type see the Google +1 configuration tool for all the various button sizes.  The changes will be pushed out to the public automatically - no need to update any existin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+

Any Google+ user can now have a badge promoting his/her account -- not just brands/pages. That's one of several updates that Google shared this afternoon on the Google+ Developers Blog. Any individual with a Google+ account can use this page to create and customize a badge/widget, and then get the code to add the badge to another website. Badges for Google+ Pages also have a small change today: Google has added a "Follow" button. Clicking on it automatically adds the page to your "Following" circle, and a second click lets you change what circle the page is in. One other tweak [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing

Back in November, Google officially launched brand pages for Google+.  While they started were launched with limited features, brand pages have evolved to allow for multiple admins, add users into circles and become verified.  One of the surprisingly underutilized elements pages is the lack of verification.   There still seems to be some confusion around the different verification processes within Google+, so we will help to demystify the various ways to verify your Google+ page. Google+ Page Verification Page verification is Google’s way of showing users the authenticity of a profile [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+

A new study release by Compete shows an explosive growth spurt of Google+1 and Google+ that started in October.  The study represents an whopping 2 million non-mobile users across the United States which equals 1% of overall US users.  Compete looked at the stats behind the plus.google.com plusone.google.com subdomains to determine unique visitors, page views and attention for the new social networking features. As of December Google+ has seen half of the unique visitors of Twitter (20,000,000 Google+ unique visits vs 40,411,065 Twitter unique visitors in December).  Since July, unique [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media

To understand how Google became the world's most popular search engine, think of it as a giant vote counting machine. That's why there's so much attention these days on Google's competition with Twitter and Facebook. They're the new, popular ways that people are voting for things they like, casting ballots that Google can't easily count. Search 1.0: Counting Words On The Page Let's go back to the beginning of web-based search engines. When names like AltaVista and Lycos were ruled, search engines figured out what pages from across the web should rank well largely by looking at the words on t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Facebook | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Search Marketing | Search Marketing Column | Twitter

Google+ badges are getting some new duds, enhanced +1 counts and a few more size options. When Google initially released badges for users only two options existed: an icon version and standard badge version.  A new darker version can be chosen for darker sites, and a smaller interactive button can be used in tight spaces.  Also, all badges will feature the correct +1 follower counts from the December update. Why put the Google+ badge on your site?  Google states: We recently looked at top sites using the badge and found that, on average, the badge accounted for an additional 38% of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Top News

Today Google announced the addition of two new features to Google+.  One of the features is quite helpful and time saving, the other ... not so much. Hashtag Autocomplete The first item coming to Google + is an auto-complete feature for hashtags.  This will allow popular hashtags to appear when a user enters the '#' symbol.. This looks quite similar to auto-complete for search, and can be seen in the included video clip. Meme Generator The second feature that is being added is a built in meme generator for user photos.  In case you have been living under a digital rock, a meme is a v [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags

Did you miss it? Part of this week's changes to Google+ was the debut of a new figure combining +1 counts and followers for brand pages. It's nice, but it still doesn't rectify problems with how Google+ badges are displayed and used. Counting +1's My earlier article, The Broken Follower Counts & Confusing Buttons Of Google+, looked in detail at how, until this week, Google+ Pages featured a confusing count of +1's that a brand had received, based on: +1′s of the brand’s Google+ page +1′s of ads that the brand runs +1′s of the brand’s web site home page This count di [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Pages | Features & Analysis | Google: Google +1 | Google: Google+ | Top News | Twitter: Buttons & Widgets

Fifty-two percent of all sharing online happens on Facebook, about four times more than Twitter's 13.5 percent. And Google +1 sharing "has plateaued." That's according to sharing platform AddThis, which shared its 2011 Sharing Trends today. The numbers are interesting. Facebook, as you'd expect, owns the lion's share of sharing with 52.1 percent. Twitter represents only 13.5 percent of sharing on the web, but that's a whopping 577 percent (yes, five hundred seventy-seven) higher than a year ago. Tumblr's growth was even more dramatic: 1,299.5 percent between 2010 and 2011. AddThis says G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Google: Google +1 | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Top News | Twitter: Statistics