Google the 800 Pound Gorilla

Title: Google the 800 Pound Gorilla

            Ever ponder the question if one rules the world can that person still continue to be moral or does the idea of power enthuse more power especially where stockholders and profits are concerned.  “Power [seems to] corrupt” (Clemons, 2012).  Does Enron scandal come to mind?  Enron was a company in early 2000 that because of leadership’s greed “artificially increased profits and hid losses and debts…[and then] swiftly collapsed, taking with it the fortunes and retirement savings of thousands of employees” (New York Times, 2006). “Powerful firms have more opportunities for maximizing profits and shareholder wealth than smaller firms” (Clemons, 2012).  Google business is different than Enron but the bottom line is both companies have to report to stockholders.    

Who or what is Google?  Or the real question to ask who has not heard of Google?

            Google started from humble beginnings.  “Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.  The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of US $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim by 2012 Google hit $50 billion in revenue” (Statistic Brain Institute, 2015).  In the author’s opinion, Google today is an 800 pound gorilla.  Google  “collects data from millions of its account every day…and owns: the top-ranked search portal, popular e-mail service, widely-used customizable home page, leading fee reader, top-ranked feed management system, top-ranked analytics product, largest distributed ad network, most widely-distributed traffic monitoring toolbar, and largest video content hosting site” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  The paradox in Google’s case is Google also provides one of the most power web analytics tools free.  So is there an ethical problem here?  Well, first one needs to understand ow important is Web analytics to businesses?

Web Analytics

            “Web analytics is the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to a Web site.  The use of Web analytics enables a business to attract more visitors, retain or attract new customers for good or service or to increase the dollar volume each person spends” (Reed College of Media, 2015). Web

Google's Annual Search Statistics

analytics is extremely important to the bottom-line.  “Understanding Web Analytics and search engine optimization (SEO) is of great use in the analysis and evaluation of marketing and sales campaigns [as well]” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Where do most people search for products or services today - online?          

            More than five billion people use Google to search every day (See Chart). “While Web Analytics tools are certainly very powerful, understanding visitor behavior is as much a function of qualitatively determining interests and intent as it is quantifying clicks from page to page” (Peterson, 2008).  Knowing behavior, site owners can design websites to increase engagement and consequently increase revenue.  Google’s free analytical tool gives a site owner the ability to measure visitor behavior, determine interest, and clicks. 

Google’s Power

            “Google has the power to do almost anything it wants” (Clemons, 2012).  In 2012 Google announced changes to its privacy policy.  Google’s “privacy policy went beyond anything the world had seen before, in which Google asserts the right to  combine all the information it can obtain from any sources, including those never authorized by the provider, like the sender of email to a Gmail account” (Clemons 2012).  Basically, Google owns a site visitor search history, and if a person using an Android device knows about a person’s activity in that account.  Google Analytics allows site owners to understand Web visitor (customer) behavior on their sites. This is actually good for site owners to obtain this information.  “Using this information [and daily timeline] brands can join users who seek answers to their uniquely personal questions and explore their uniquely personal curiosities and interests…it’s an efficient way to connect with many people in highly relevant and personal ways. You can deliver the right message at the right time, accompanying and assisting someone in her everyday life, rather than broadcasting a generic ad and hoping she’ll pay attention to it” (deFreites, 2013).   But is this really ethical given “Google account holders cannot opt out of the new policy” (Washington Post, 2012)?

            Another issue with Google to knowing all is that site owners must establish an account with Google in order to use its powerful free analytics.  According to some Google’s ethics include that  “a) people want to know your deviances or b) [just do not do]  “bad” things” …At base Google is failing to recognize its position in a constellation of power structures — a constellation (call it the State, capital, Empire) that will crush anything that threatens it, while assimilating that which doesn’t” (Lennard, 2013).  Are these harsh words for powerhouse like Google?

             Clemons writes that the “governance at Google is broken and apparently will remain broken” because three people own 66 percent of the voting shares (Clemons, 2012). Google does have an Ethics and Compliance team that works “with outside ethics counsel to ensure compliance with all relevant political laws and the associated filings and reports.” And, Google does have a Code of Conduct.  The Conclusion is stated below:

IV. Conclusion

We rely on one another’s good judgment to uphold a high standard of integrity for ourselves and our company. We expect all Board members and employees to be guided by both the letter and the spirit of this Code.

Adopted October 2, 2015 (Google.com, 2015

            The author is concerned with Google collect data from millions of account holder and that Google intrudes on their privacy.  Additionally, the author believes many of these people have no idea that this information is being collected.    As a marketer, the author found the GA tool most helpful and really sees the benefits of such a tool especially for small to medium sized companies.  The data collected is generalized and not specific as to names making the use just a bit more acceptable. Google does have transparency dashboards so users can know what information is being collected. But should a person be concerned?  Truly, “When an all-powerful company acts honorably, then regulation can be done without a heavy hand, and without being especially intrusive” (Clemons, 2012).  If companies cannot act responsibly then government needs to be involved.   Hopefully, Google will stick to its core mantra of “don’t be evil.” As Google states: “At the core of this [Google.com, 2015] code is the mantra, “don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally—following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect” (Google.com, 2015).   Maybe this author is naïve but with this as the mantra, and as a marketer, the author finds the tools useful and intend to use them.

References:

Clemons, E. (2012).  “Say it ain’t so, Joe, again, and again, and again”: A legacy of continued bad behavior at Google.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/google-privacy-issues/

deFreites, C. (2013).  The meaning of search: How it shapes our lives and builds brands. Retrieved October 25, 2015 from: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/meaning-of-search.html

Google.com (2015).  Code of Conduct.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from: https://investor.google.com/corporate/google-code-of-conduct.html

Lennard, N. (2013).  The dangerous ethics behind Google’s transparency claims.  Retrieved November 24, 2015 from: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/the_dangerous_ethics_behind_googles_transparency_claims/

Peterson, E.T. (2008). The voice of customer: Qualitative data as a critical input to Web site optimization. ForeSee Results.

Reed College of Media. (2015).  Lesson 1: Intro to Web Analytics.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from:  https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2558932_1&course_id=_51583_1&framesetWrapped=true

Reed College of Media (2015).  Lesson 6:  Exploring Google Analytics.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from: https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_51583_1&content_id=_2558942_1&framesetWrapped=true

Statistic Brain Research Institute. (2015).  Google Official Resource.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from: http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/

New York Times (2006).  10 Enron players: where they landed after the fall.  Retrieved November 28, 2015 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/business/businessspecial3/29profiles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Amazing Tools

Amazing Analytic Tools

            Web Analytics tools available to marketers today are amazing.  However, the amount of data obtainable from these tools can be overwhelming.  “The importance of Web analytic tools is that they give companies more clarity about the results of their advertising campaigns” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  What is even more remarkable is how much these tools are constantly updating reporting measures.  “A wide variety of emerging tools are being used to measure Web analytics” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  For the most part these tools can be divided into two main categories:

• ·         Traditional Analytics Tools (e.g. Google Analytics, WebTrends, Omniture).  These tools are used to track site activity and ROI. (Reed College of Media, 2015)
• ·         Social Analytic Tools (e.g., Radian6, Hootsuite, ArgyleSocial).  These are only three of the vast amount of tools available to monitor social media results.  (Reed College of Media, 2015)

            This blog is going to concentrate on two traditional analytic tools, Google Analytics (GA) and WebTrends (WT).   Google Analytics and WebTrends are similar in the collection of web metrics data that track visitors’ activity. “With digital channels stretching from customer portals and emails to mobile apps and social media, analytics is necessary for improving the way customers engage” (Webtrends.com, 2015). 

Similarities - Google Analytics and WebTrends  

            Both GA and WT use Web profile or view that “is a set of rules that define the reports that [site owners] see” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  One Web site view corresponds with a domain. (Reed College of Media, 2015)  Site owners can set up filters in these analytics to find information out about subdomains.  “Assigning users to the appropriate view will ensure that site owners are viewing reports that apply to that set of users” (Reed College of Media, 2015). 

           Both GA and WT produce an Overview report that essentially contain the same foundational metrics.  These metrics are particularly valuable and would be for most businesses. 

WebTrends' Overview Report

Overview reports produced by both  “provide information on the characteristics of the audience that is visiting a site” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Basically both vendors’ reports include sessions, pages/session, users, average session duration, pageviews and bounce rates.  In 2014, GA changed “Visits” into “Sessions” and “Unique Visitors” into “Users” (Alhlou, 2014).  What are and how do site owners interpret the findings of these valued metrics?

• ·         “Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to a site” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  “The initial session by a user during any given date range is considered to be an additional visit and an added visitor” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Important to note, visitors coming back will be counted towards the number of sessions but not as additional users. (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Sessions increase from new visitors and returning visitors if the site gains popularity.  If gaining popularity is goal this could one way to measure this. WT adds a metric of average visitors per day.

  

  Google Analytics Overview Report

• ·         “A Pageview is defined as a view of a page on the site that is being tracked using the tracking code…and is the view of a page on a site that is being tracked” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  In this case pageviews matched session, which make sense because the blog does not have other pages.  This would be important if pages were added to the site to track so see which pages have more traffic.           
• ·         Bounce rate is defined as “the percentage of sessions on your website with only one page view” (Kaushik, 2010).  For this blog, it makes sense that the bounce rate is high since there is only one page to the blog.   This does not mean the user did not read the page.  “A bounce means “when someone comes to a site and leaves without engaging with other pages” (Cleary, 2015).   Adding more pages would decrease the bounce rate.  “The more pages visitors go to during a session, the more engaged they might be. It means they are following your internal links and exploring more of your sites” (Cleary, 2015).  If a blog has internal links on its website this would be a good thing to measure to see if the visitor is staying on the website.  Also, this may help in knowing what pages a visitor finds interesting if the site had other pages.

            “Because Analytics attempts to answer a variety of questions about user behavior, it sues different calculations types or attribution models to arrive at data site visitors wan in the reports” (Google.com, 2015).  An example of particular importance to site owner would be “Which internal search terms contributed to a transactions [really conversions to purchases]?” (Google.com, 2015).  Both GA and WT have capabilities of producing customized report and have the ability to produce more metrics than site owners can absorb. 

Google Analytics – Overview

            Google Analytics (GA) is free and provides complex reports about traffic on a Web site. (Reed College of Media, 2015) Because GA is free, businesses, especially small to medium size business, “can invest in optimizing their website layout, rolling out an internal site search solution or search engine marketing” as opposed to spending money to hire an outside firm that can produce Web analytic reports. (Reed College of Media, 2015)  By placing a tracking code on the web site, site owners can use GA to “configure profiles and utilize more advanced features” such as dashboard reporting. (Reed College of Media, 2015) 

            “Every report in Google Analytics is made up of dimensions and metrics” (Google.com, 2015).  Google defines dimension as the “characteristics of users, their sessions and action” (Google.com).  For instance dimensions includes city from where the session was initiated.  Metrics are “quantitative measurements” such as the number of session and/or pages/session.   The amount of information GA provides is almost endless.  GA is an amazing free tool.

WebTrends - Overview

            WebTrends is private company as oppose to Google, a public company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon.  Similarly to GA, as mentioned above, WT has many reporting that provide solutions to digital marketing efforts .  But the difference, in the author’s opinion, is WT goes beyond what may be considered basic reporting.  WT “Analytics are no longer limited to visitor counts and website hits” (Webtrends.com, 2015).  The author is under the impression that WT provides individualized, customize reports for businesses using customer support which GA does not.  WT describes their reporting structure as a way to:

Perfect your customer journey with WT

Don’t rely on your gut to design your brand’s customer journey. With Webtrends Optimize, you can build a foundation of behavioral data, optimize the customer journey through A/B and multivariate testing and develop targeted experiences. Don’t know where to start? Our expert team of Optimization Consultants can manage an end-to-end program for you or help develop your team’s expertise, so you can build tests and targeted experiences yourself. (WebTrends.com, 2015).

            WT advertises that their “portfolio of cross-channel, real-time, individualized and actionable solutions pairs superior technology with a team of experts who ensure your unique goals are met at every step” (Webtrends, 2015).  WT is not free and even notes its value by reminding customers that “data collected via analytics solutions belong to the customer” (Webtrend.com, 2015).  “Vendors who offer so-called ‘free’ solutions today actually make use of that collected data to drive their ad revenue” (Webtrends.com, 2015).  This remark is directly aimed at combating GA’s free tools.

            To conclude, Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0, “compares buying a Web analytics tool to buying car – you can do all the online research you want, but you have to take the car for a test to see

how you really feel about it” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Unfortunately, the author could not test drive the WT car.  Given Microsoft and several larger business noted on the web site, WT maybe a company better suited for larger ecommerce business that have the money to invest.  Rather than hire the expertise in-house, in the author’s opinion for these larger companies, it may be wiser to hire company with tremendous knowledge in this complex, constantly changing environment.

References:

Google.com (2015).  Dimensions and metrics.  Retrieved November 21, 2015 from: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033861?hl=en&vid=1-635783780143482033-594387579

Cleary, I. (2015).  How to use Google Analytics to measure engagement on your blog.  Retrieved November 12, 2015 from: http://www.razorsocial.com/google-analytics-measuring-engagement/

Reed College of Media. (2015). 642 – Lesson 4: Tools Introduction and Selection

Reed College of Media. (2015).  642- Lesson 5: Google Analytics

WebTrends. (2015). Retrieved November 21, 2015 from: http://www.webtrends.com/

GoPro's Social Media Best Practices

          With so many social media platforms available to marketers, the question becomes should a company choose only one platform as its main/primary channel.  Like the answer to most questions, this depends.  Regardless of the platform, the author agrees with Novak that “Conversation is king, content is just something to talk about” (Novak, 2010).  “Content is just something to talk about that puts human interaction at the center of the picture,” which then creates conversations (Novak, 2010).  Social media platforms provide the tools to create conversations that lead to customer engagement. Even if conversation is king, content must still be interesting or conversations do not occur and then warranting the real power of social media platforms as almost useless.      The real power of social media is to generate conversations and interactions.  Social media platforms are a two way conversation vehicles.

            Conversations encourage customer engagement.  “When thinking about social optimization (aka social media), we’re actually trying to drive engagement and interaction” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Chris Lake states “the objective of any social media strategy [including choice of platform] is to provide the right tools, so that people can engage with your brand/people/products/service onsite and offsite” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Using this approach, a company creates “a community-centric organization” involving and investing in customer engagement, which is key to any social media strategy. 

          “Social media isn’t a fad or trend.  It’s an enduring reality of online existence…and is an indispensable tool for marketers”(Helmrich, 2015).  Each platform has features that work best for particular businesses and its audience.  Figure 1 shows the numbers for these platforms that include:

Figure 1: Social Media Numbers

• ·         Facebook is this largest social network with more than 1.39 billion active users. This is great tool for connecting people from all over the world to a business and is a great starting point for most businesses.
• ·         Twitter is next with more than 974 million users and allows for easy interaction through hashtags.  With interesting content, Twitter is a great tool for quickly spreading the word and is a good tool for handling customer service issues.
• ·         Pinterest is a digital bulletin.  Considered more of niche network than Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is used most by females and is great platform for create categories for later reference. 
• ·         Instagram is “visual social media platform based on phone and video posts.”  This is a platform “where more artistic niches excel.”
• ·         YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.  What is best is “a video doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy in order to effective in brand promotion.  It just needs to be on YouTube.” (Helmrich, 2015).

         Other social platforms include Trumbler, StumbleUpon, Reditt and a few other more niche sites, such as GoodReads for people who like reading (Helmrich, 2015). With so many social media platforms available, the author believes most companies would benefit from focusing most efforts on

Figure 2

two or three platforms that make sense to that company and the audience it wants to reach.  If a company has little resources to do, it makes sense to generate the best content it can on just one or two platforms.  One company that seems to harness the power of social media extremely well is GoPro. GoPro is winning awards honoring the best in social media presence (See Figure 2).

            GoPro is “transforming advertising as we know it” and truly understands customer engagement/interaction on social media platform particular the ones cited above.  “The company has more than doubled its net income from 2010 to 2011 to $26.6 million but only spent $50,000 more on marketing” (Bobowski, 2014).  GoPro repeated this in 2013 by increasing marketing cost by only $41,000 but made $28 million more in net income. (Bobowski, 2014)

            GoPro uses many of the rules of best practices to engage customers outlined by Brian Solis in “21 Rules for Social Media Engagement”.  How? To elaborate on a few, first and foremost, GoPro empowers users. “GoPro looks externally for amazing social media posts by harnessing the power of user-generated content. The camera manufacturer often encourages those using its product to send in some of their best shots. This not only makes for great content to share on social media, but it also shows off the product in action” (AdWeek, 2015).

            Next, GoPro has “determined the identity, character and personality of the brand and has matched it to the persona of the individuals representing it online” (Solis, 2010).  GoPro is more than a wearable camera.  GoPro “has sold consumers not on the camera, itself, but on something the smartphone can’t easily replace: the experience of using the camera” (Lapowsky, 2014).  Newer models allow users to up load videos from the camera right to their phones using an app making it very easy for customers to generate content. “In place of an art director, acting cast, and a team of videographers,” GoPro “simply hands a wearable camera to amazing athletes and get back advertising and marketing gold” (Bobowski, 2014).  Regular consumers are advertisers as well, “shooting high-quality video, loading it onto YouTube and social networks, and advertising the capabilities of camera to friends, family and even strangers” (Bobowski, 2014).            

            GoPro today is now harnessing it exposure [on social media] to go a step beyond and create a media company. GoPro is using “leading social networks and content platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube” to transform itself into a media company. GoPro to date has 6.6 million followers on Instagram, more than 9 million friends on Facebook, 1.4 followers on Twitter, and more than 3.2 million subscribers to GoPro channel on YouTube.  More than 6,000 GoPro tagged videos are uploaded every day to YouTube.  “GoProing” is now a now and even a hashtag on Twitter used to describe the occurrence.  Go Pro has garnered more than 50 million from 388 videos from athletes sponsored by GoPro. (Albee, 2015)

            Back to the original questions stated in the beginning, should a company adopt only one social media platform as its primary channel, GoPro bears

Figure 3

out that it is not just the company that maintains it presence on social media.  GoPro has connected the power in numbers and continues the conversation allowing its own users to generate interesting content to engage its own audience.  GoPro can afford to adopt more social media platforms because of this power of connecting.  See picture of GoPro’s home page (See Figure 3).  GoPro’s adopts Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. 

            GoPro certainly understand which

Figure 4

social media platform works best with it products with what may be one exception.   

With all of GoPro social media success, Pinterest is the one platform that may not be working well for the company (See Figure 4).  This makes sense. Pinterest is really a bulletin board and works for photos but not as well for video.  The numbers bear out with only 18,500 followers, this may be one platform GoPro could skip using.  Or maybe it has? 

References:

Ad Week. (2015). 10 brands doing an amazing job on social media.  Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/michael-patterson-10-brands-amazing-social-media/624169

Albee, A. (2015).  Get your fans to share their love: what every brand can learn from GoPro.  Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/09/brand-learn-from-gopro/

Bobowski, K. (2014).  How GoPro is transforming advertising as we know it.  Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: http://www.fastcompany.com/3032509/the-future-of-work/how-gopro-is-transforming-advertising-as-we-know-it

Jarboe, G. (2014). GoPro: One of the Biggest YouTube Success Stories Ever Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: http://www.reelseo.com/gopro-youtube-success/#ixzz3qvVvTTdq

Lapwosky, I. (2014).  Why GoPro’s success isn’t really about cameras. Retrieved November 8, 2015 from: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/gopro/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Reed College of Media. (2015). 642 – Lesson 3: Social Media Analytics and Advertising Channels. 

Solis, B. (2010). 21 rules for social media engagement. Mashable. Retrieved January 2, 2011, from: http://mashable.com/2010/05/18/rules-social-media-engagment/