I totally dithered over the heading, wondered whether I should call this “A Guide to Using Google+” decided that was way too presumptuous and a “How to Use Google+” would be way too prescriptive plus I use Google+ in ways that’d make most traditional marketers want to stone me so I decided the personal angle is probably best.
The world has changed. Things are different. We know this at an intuitive level but when it comes to quantifying it we are usually at a loss for words. Social media’s pervasive presence works insidiously, eroding barriers and transforming practices by degrees rather than in defining, catalytic moments.
When a Google+ Community with almost 300K members suddenly disappears you can bet there is nothing ‘routine’ about it. On Saturday evening (GMT time) the largest Fitness Community on Google+ suddenly vanished from the screens of every one of its members.
I recently moved into a new neighbourhood. No one knew me there. So I started telling everyone I was a billionaire Wall Street Investor. I even had some business cards printed with that title and I would hand them out at every opportunity. Within a few days I had the whole neighbourhood knocking on my door, neighbours coming in with their $100K cheques asking me to wisely invest it for them.
There is a method to my madness. Thought experiments are the result of either research I am heavily involved in or analysis I am carrying out. Recently I have been doing a lot of “end of the world” scenarios for businesses, not because marketing is a concern when the Zombie Apocalypse descends, but because by examining the way a business works in an inherently fragile situation, it allows us to discover ways to make it more robust and disruption resistant.
In the information age ignorance is no longer an excuse but knowledge does not necessarily make us smarter or wiser. Search has changed from something we did on the web when we wanted to check out some piece of information to take center stage in our daily lives.
Back in February this year I wrote an article knowingly titled How I dominated Google Search (and How You Can Too) about my marketing efforts for my book, Google Semantic Search.
Work is a funny thing. We see it as a loss of our time. When we work for someone we typically contract to give them a set number of hours each week in the expectation that within that space of time they will make use of our expertise. In return they pay us a set, agreed upon, amount of money. This has all sorts of implications. For a start it is an unwritten contract (despite what you may think when you sign a contract with an employer). Implicit within it is the fact that you will be invested in a business that supports your lifestyle to the extent that you will truly give it the value that resides inside your head (and heart).
In the semantic web everything is connected. There are two trends that are worth keeping in mind. First, the traditional compartmentalization of technology where the impact of developments was localized, is gone. Everything now runs on data. The ability to collect it, index it, contextualize it and use it is changing the value that every app, computer or connected device has.
As soon as my book on Google Semantic Search was on sale I did something I hadn’t done for any other of my books before: I started to map sales globally using a Google map.