Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day when we will celebrate and remember his message of nonviolent activism, promotion of civil rights and service to the community. If you are looking to see his legacy’s impact around the world, the web is sure to be alive with videos, stories and projects all about it. Last year, people uploaded YouTube videos reenacting many of his speeches. Right now, there is a huge effort online promoting Monday as a day of service.
I suggest Googling not just the holiday, but terms such as “community service” and “civil rights” to learn about what is happening in the world today and how you can help. If you’re on Twitter, search for the hashtags #MLK and #MLKDay to see how Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is being honored.
And now, the Digital Influence Weekly…
There are so many people upset with Google, you would think they’re Facebook! Google recently integrated
Google+ into their search results, giving a huge boost to the +1 functionality and the new social network’s impact on search. Unless you opt out of this option while signed in to your Google/Google+/Gmail account, you will be given the opportunity to see results which are personalized to you. You will see results your connections have +1’d or the Google+ profile for that search term if it exists.
Here are few reasons why people don’t like this.
It narrows the scope of search to the community you have created. In other words, you’re going to see results from your connections which may not necessarily be the best, end-all results. If my Google+ connections have +1’d bad information on something, then my results would reflect that.
One way to fight this is to connect to only the smart people online. Otherwise you can toggle your results with a button in the top right of the page if the new search features have been implemented for you yet.
It promotes Google+ over other social networks like Twitter. There are people noticing that
Twitter results are not showing up even if you type in the twitter handle. Google’s response was that Twitter had asked to not have public tweets crawled by Google, keeping those real time tweets out of the results.
I’ve also seen people complain that the right hand column, now reserved for Google Maps or a website preview, will
show Google+ profiles. The idea being that if you don’t have a Google+ profile, you are missing out on prime real estate to stand out from search results. If you’re signed in to your Google account, search for the term “sports.” You should see some Google+ profiles for sports figures. Now search for “sports” signed out and you should get the same thing. This looks to be a tactic for Google+ to promote their social network. Don’t worry because for now this only applies to a few general terms and should have no implications for your personal or business search results. If you searched for “oil and gas” or “banking” you would find no Google+ profiles displayed to the right.
Do I need to be on Google+? Like any social network, you have to evaluate that yourself. Activity on other social networks, if successful, can still boost your rankings in the search engines or make you an influencer with your target audience.
For now, I’m enjoying Google+. First, I’m finding new, relevant influencers to follow and learn from. It also allows me to create a new network with some new people to converse with and influence.
Second, if the game is to make sure you or your company appear in relevant Google searches, why not do everything you can? Every little bit helps and leads come from every corner of the world. The argument that, “it’s just one more thing I have to stay on top of,” doesn’t work. This is a new development and progress or change in any industry is full of them.
We will continue to look into new developments with Google+ and update you on new ways to get the most out of it for social networking and search. You can also find our updates and other interesting items on Google+ by clicking
here and adding us to your circles.
Have a great weekend everyone!