Since it launched last summer Google Plus has been somewhat of a mystery to many people.  What confuses them the most is not Google Plus as a whole or how it works, but finding out that the game of social networking has changed.  I take it from the many people placing me in their G+ circle that most of them did not get that memo about the change.  There are still millions out there who still feel developing fake popularity is part of social networking.  Boy, are they in for a rude awakening.

As little as a few months ago achieving fakedom was the drive for most people in the social spaces.  It was the primary part of the game many played to develop a large community of anything that generates a social profile.  The feeling most people had was the need to be popular.  This feeling was also mixed by their need, or in some cases their requirement, to have a large base of Things to broadcast to their promotions.  Their feeling of worthiness in the social space was based on the number of people they had in their Following.  If someone had few followers they were marked as a loser, millions of followers they were a Rock Star.

At the beginning of last year this act in futility was starting to fall a part as people started finally seeing that nobody in their very large community was listening.  Report after report was coming in from everywhere that people were just fed up with the constant pounding of self promoters and spam and just walked off leaving millions of inactive profiles.  Even the celebrities of the social spaces who were getting hundreds of comments to each of their posts were seeing it not accomplishing their goal or being fulfilling to their personal or professional needs.  A dark shadow was falling over the entire social networking arena all because the lack of trust was building in the core base of people using the social spaces.  Most had given up that there were actually any real people left to interact with.

Google Antis Up

So in walks Google, the master of the internet, the lord of supreme knowledge and senior of all internet icons, to pull up a chair to the table where the high stakes game of Social Platforms and anteed up to play by laying on the table their crown jewel..Google Plus.  Pokerface is not how I would describe Facebook’s and Twitter’s reaction to Google stepping into their little high stakes money game.  I envision the expression would be more of a look of them feeling nauseated knowing the big dog finally has entered the playground.  This move Google made less than a year ago the game of social networking changed.

The game of gathering up thousands of people to fulfill whatever need also stopped.  The rules of quantity over quality changed and all of this came at the perfect time.

G+ started off a little rocky and made changes to allow people use fake names that will probably bite them in the butt, but over all the game of social networking on G+ is much more real.  Yes, you can still go into G+ and start accumulating hundreds of people to put in your circle.  What that will get you is nowhere because those people in the circle can’t see anything you do until they put you in their circle.  Are they going to put someone who has thousands of followers in their circle?  Well that is where the game has changed.

Lesser is Cooler

More than likely a person with any intelligence is going to see quickly someone who all of the sudden entered G+ with several thousands people is probably up to something..mostly no good.  The game now is who to put in your circle since who you put in your circle is who you want to see what they offer.  What you have to offer is what is going to get people to want to put you into their circle.  If you have nothing to offer, look like you have nothing to offer or giving off any smell that you having nothing to offer you are not going to be put into anyone circle other than those who also having nothing of value to offer.

Google Plus offers up a real simple game now and it being accepted by more and more professionals, businesses as well as the regular social butterflies.  Yes, G+ has a way to go to get things ironed out so it is more visually appealing and easier to use, but the concept is outstanding.  The game is not really a game anymore.  It is the direction Social Networking is heading which will at the same time change how social media will be used.

It’s all about social now people.  Google holds a solid hand and is set to be a spoiler for the social spaces who are still playing the numbers game.  When you get social, you get real.

Let me know how I can help.

It has been over eight months now since Google launched it’s social network… Google Plus.  I am glad I was amongst the few who were invited in to be part of the first wave of people to use the platform.   I can say without a doubt..I have seen it all and Google is onto something with Google Plus.

A lot of what I saw at the beginning of G+ reminded me of the other pre-launch review groups I was in. I was in the beta review for Twitter, I was allowed into Facebook before it was open to the public.  So, Yes..I have seen it all..over and over and over. 

For the past half year I have averaged 10 hours a day seven days a week on the G+ platform.  Maybe saying I have seen it all is an understatement.

WHY?

The question I am asked most by those who do not use G+, or don’t like it, is…WHY?  Yes, that is a big question if you look at all the ways it can be used.

Why do you waste your time? 

Why are you not on Facebook with the rest of the Real World? 

Why are you bothering using G+ when the masses have not accepted it as a social network?

Does it get old to hear these questions asked over and over?  Yes! However, validating the answers I give to the questions keeps me digging in to testing the Google Plus platform to make sure I am  NOT wasting my time and lessening my professional image.  So far, all the testing substantiates my investment in my time spent.

Fullfilling Interactions

I am just blown away with how much more supportive the G+ community is and how fast I was able to organically grow my community.  I will also add, I have not played any games to accumulate the community.

I am unlike many others who feel they need to validate their existence as the most popular person on the face of the planet by gathering up anything and anyone to be in their community.  Matter of fact, I have flushed my Circles on G+ three times now to get to the number of real people I have in my circles today.

I have tested several times on several platforms to see if in fact having a trillion people in my circles produced anything of value and it did not.

Testing

Just like the tests I have done on Facebook and Twitter, having a large number of people in my following (at one point over 10k) required me to spend a large amount of time adjusting the platform settings to keep the knuckleheads of the world out of my streams.  This is also the same results many of the businesses report finding.

Since the end of last year I have built, what I am finding to be, a very robust G+ community of Real People who know the benefits of social networking and have come to G+ to get away from the relentless pounding of irrelevant posts.  The lack of interaction with anyone in those other social spaces has also been brought up as why many people give up on other communities.

At first I was startled with the high volume of  interaction amongst the users of G+.  It was strange to be able to post a question in a social space and actually get an answer.  That rarely happened on Facebook or Twitter any of the test I preformed.

It also is refreshing to hear from people contacting me on G+ who actually are interested in discussing doing business. It also was exciting to know they found me through their Google Search.

Paralleling Results

Of course my review of G+ went along with parallel testing of the other social spaces.  I would post the exact content in G+, Facebook and Twitter both under my name and several test accounts I created (yes, I am not the only one who uses trumped up accounts to do testing of content. Why do you think FB and Twitter have so many users?) to make sure the responses were not made out of people personally knowing me.

The results clearly showed the interaction, quality of remarks and responses weighed heavily in G+ favor on all accounts.

I have used all of the social spaces in many different ways.  Over the years I have had thousands of Friends on Facebook, even more Followers on Twitter.  I played the Social Butterfly, the Linkster, the Quoter, the Video maven, the Blogging machine and many other characters.  I use this same method of testing in my offline efforts as well to see how people react to different personalities.

Social World

As you see, I have actually spent the time to find out what works and what does not.  Yes, that is a lot of time socializing, but it has paid off.  The world of social networking is finally stepping out of the fog of lackluster internet marketing and into becoming what it was intended to be..Social.

I understand many other people feel they are getting positive results using other less social methods of social media.  Many marketers don’t care about the social space or people in it, they just want the people in them to buy.  Many more businesses and individual still want to hang on to the thought that if they have tens of thousands of users connected to their account they will get at least one sale.  To all that I can only wonder how much more productive everyone would be if they were just more sociable to fewer person, places and things.

I also understand many businesses and business people don’t have or want to spend the time I spend online to get the results I get.  I hear them loud and clear and is why while I am in the process between projects and writing another book I took the time to test what works in hopes what I find will prove to businesses and business people they need to be more social.  They need to find the time it takes to adjust to the change in the way business is being done today.

More Social World

The world of social networking is full of different people with different attitudes and who have different missions in life.  Many people feel more secure when they think tens of thousands of people are listening to them.  The tests are showing it takes a lot of energy to maintain a large volume of friends, followers or users.  Wouldn’t it be easier to know everyone in your reach and know they care about what you say or offer?

Google has been sitting back for sometime now looking at how the ‘Bookers’ and ‘Tweeters’ are going after making a lot of noise just to be seen.  I like how Google has walked softly into the social space carrying a big stick and without a multimillion dollar trumped-up extravaganza launch at SXSW snuck in an opened a social space that is as solid as they come.

So my question back to those who still feel wearing rose colored glasses while wailing away their time on Facebook and Twitter is going to stop those sites from bleeding to death is….would I spend this much time and effort to test out G+ if there was not something productive with this platform?  I think you know the answer to that.

Let me know how I can help.

It seems I have been around the world with this issue with businesses only being interested in managing one Social Network.  As I can see their logic in how the economy is forcing them to quit using the shotgun effect of marketing online I have to wonder if there ever will be a single social network.

I am sure as more and more businesses start evaluating where they are getting the most sales from they will quickly jump to the conclusion they only need to be in that one space. I am sure many in the Digital Strategy industry will disagree with them on focusing on just one space.

However, I see in the near future businesses who advertise heavily on a social network to start pulling out of less productive social spaces because that space is not working and/or they are finding another one is working better. This move of revenue from one site to another will eventually level out the playing field in the social spaces.  This move to a more productive online environment could very quickly sift out to there really only being one place to go to find value these businesses are demanding.

In reality..these social networks..Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and the multitudes of others..are only out for the money, not the people in the network. They are going to go where the money goes or change to keep the money.

Which network will it be the site of preference?  Can we tell today?  What do the social spaces have to do to keep the businesses who write them the big checks each month? How will the people in the special spaces react?

All these questions are being asked. I wonder if the social networks are listening? I would say they better be.

I have always been very concerned with how open online social networking can be and have been vocal on how using location based social platforms like Foursquare send out more info to more people than most people realize.

In a recent article posted in the Dallas Morning News: Leave Facebook at Home, the Dallas police warn people on posting in their social spaces information about them being on vacation.

I agree. Since the criminal element is now becoming even more tech savvy and social friendly than ever before and more reports are coming out on how what someone posts in their social network..Face, Twitter and others…was how the criminal used to find out someone was not at home or locating their whereabouts.

There have been reports from all over the world on how Foursquare has served as a radar system for burglars and muggers.  It simply is amazing how so many people completely disregard their personal safety in an effort to gain influence or win a prize.

The world has changed in so many ways.  Now you can’t go on vacation and enjoy it with friends afar without worrying who else is enjoying your absence.

Let’s be safe out there over Spring Break and let me know how I can help.

It truly is amazing what people, places and things will do online to get attention.  Maybe amazing is not the exact expression on what many people are doing on line.  Maybe Sad is a better description of how people look online when they act like a Knucklehead.

1. knucklehead

From the 1930′s (circa). Refers to a person of questionable intelligence. The size of the brain being given relative size of a human knuckle. Similar to pinhead.

2. knucklehead

A dunce. A dummy. A very stubborn person or animal.

I was originally going to title this blog..The Things Idiots Do Online…but thought I would hold it for a total different blog since what this blog is about has to do with the people who know what they are doing but really don’t seem to care what people really think of them.  They are more of a Knucklehead than an Idiot even though both have similar character traits.

This Let-Me-See-What-I-Can-Get-Away-With-Online attitude has been there since the beginning.  The internet, with its ability to allow someone to be almost completely anonymous, is used like a cloak by many people to hide behind.  Usually there are other reasons people have other than grabbing people’s attention.  Things like hiding who they REALLY ARE! or the type of business they REALLY profit from.

Truly, the people who do not post:

• a photo of themselves,
• anything on their profile stating their philosophies of life,
• anything relevant 
• anything based on reality…

…usually are being a Knucklehead for missing a great opportunity to be included in the social spaces.

So why are these people who know better want to be a Knucklehead?

Most claim they don’t want a certain person or group of people..like their bosses..to know they are online.  Many will become a knucklehead because they are deprived of attention in their real life.  Sometimes the real reason for fooling around with not being real has to do with some sort of malice actions they want to inflict on others.  Many who rather post a photo of a slogan, logo, brand or other character as their avatar do so as part of the failed attempt to draw attention to themselves factor. 

Still there many many of these knuckleheads who feel it is a violation of their privacy to tell anyone who they are or where they are.  Many think the information on who they are and where are will be used for other reasons. 

Their being unaware of the negative image people have of them is why they are called Knuckleheads.

Where do Knuckelheads reside?

Most of this foolish takes place on sites like Facebook and especially Twitter.  Google Plus and LinkedIn are not immune but at least they do cut many of these Knuckelheads off at the knees when they start doing something foolish, like spamming people or making foolish comments. 

Still, what is up with these people not wanting anyone to take them serious?  Most of the Knuckleheads feel they are being serious or at least feel people should take them serious.  When confronted they usually take to mounting a defense of their reasoning for not posting a photo of themselves as being ‘None of your business’ or the more famous rationalization I have received for being a knucklehead is ‘Oh Yaw!  Well I have more Friends on Facebook and Followers On Twitter than you!’..when I hear this I keep waiting for them to say “So, nah, nah, nah-nah, nah!”.

Real World View

So how do people really see those who do not post photos or provide vital information about themselves? 

In a recent study I did with my online and offline contacts, 85% said they would not and will never place anyone who is not taking themselves seriously into their network or community space. 10% said they usually confront people who attempt to Friend them on Facebook or Follow them on Twitter who do not provide photos and clear credentials. 4% said they don’t even acknowledge their existence.   Only 1% said they don’t care who Friends them or Follows them as long as that person Shuts Up and Listens.

SO!  Why do these people keep being knuckleheads?  Most do it because they have thousands of other Knuckleheads who support them.  Why?  Well we could keep going on attempting to answer the Why questions forever.  What it all boils down to why Knuckleheads want to be knuckleheads is because they are…. Knuckleheads.

Enough said..right?  Let me know how I can help.

Have you ever really thought about what you are seeing online as being Real or Not?  Better yet, have you really thought about the Twitter and Facebook streams the mainstream media..Television and Radio…show during their broadcast? 

Of course, like you, I have and those News Media programs using a mockup stream of their online social spaces during their Live broadcast  paints a sad picture of their lack of understanding of how those LIVE feeds make them look to their viewers.

I hear all the time from people attempting to convinces me they are profiting from their Twitter and Facebook feeds.  I will admit, many probably are, but are they profiting from posting content on those social sites or are their results coming from the offline efforts related to their online endeavors?  I have found the later is more likely since more and more studies are showing large amounts of consumers leaving Twitter and Facebook due to the increase in spammer, self promoters and narcissist broadcasting of worthless services/products.  Even the celebrities, who made Twitter and Facebook popular, have tired of the multitude of people attempting to get attention at their expense and are now handing the reins of their social spaces’ accounts over to PR Firms to represent them online. 

So the question most people and businesses ask today, after being on Twitter and Facebook for more than ten minutes, …is all this effort really worth it?  Who is it who sees these spaces as places to find products and services? Who sees these spaces as places of entertainment? So, who is it using these spaces since more and more people are leaving and why is there some much media saying these sites are growing each day?  If they are growing, who is it and are they people or things generating this growth?  Nobody can provide validated proof the majority of new accounts for any of the social spaces are created by real people. 

There is a growing belief amongst the billions of real people who frequent the internet that the majority of activity, on the so called popular pages and sites, is contrived.  Rumors have been many over the recent years on how a business will include in their startup fund enough capital to pay the salaries of dozens of people to open dozens of accounts on Facebook and Twitter and bombard their business’ Facebook Page and Twitter feeds with gushy posts.  Of course the sources of those rumors always beg for anonymity to providing the information knowing it would get them fired from those huge gravy trains.  However, like everything else generated from the internet, those rumors become the truth to many and that information is spread through the social spaces like a cancer which places the thought in everyone’s mind of apprehension everything posted online as possibly being contrived..or fake.  

But back to the mainstream media and their uses of Twitter and Facebook feeds scrolling across the screen during the live program to substantiate a point.  Naturally, the news anchors, on the most part, are just reading a script and furnishing a smile for the news they are reporting and have little understanding of anything going on with the way the story they are telling is being presented to the viewers.  Granted, recently I have seen a number of the news personalities backing off their constant posting of stuff on Facebook and Twitter.  Hopefully this means they are seeing that their efforts are like shouting to an empty room.  However, most of them still see and think the fast scrolling posts being streamed on the screen behind them reflects their popularity.

In fact, what their viewers are thinking is…who is  posting this stuff on the news station’s Facebook Page?  This is just the first of a long list of questions viewers have when they see the news channels’ Twitter or Facebook account scrolling at an unreadable speed.  That’s not the way it looks on Facebook!

The bottomline..the majority of viewers are unimpressed and mostly do not believe the news station has that many viewers interested in their program.

Granted, there are millions..maybe even trillions..of persons, places and things, roaming the internet who could possibly have posted a remark to their feed, but are they?  Indications are they are not. 

So, the main question becomes… Who are these people posting to the national news’ Facebook Page and are they REALLY people who are wanting to be heard…or people being paid to post to the feed so it appears the News’s channels Facebook Page is popular? 

Let’s remember..those News Stations are businesses and they make their revenue solely from sponsors.   And who just so happens to be displaying advertisement on the Twitter feed and on their Facebook page?…you guest it..their sponsors. This seems to be the reason the mainstream news media is broadcasting the streams on the Live program.  It is their attempt to push consumers’ attention to the sponsors sites.

So, are the Feeds being streamed on the TV Screen during live broadcast from real people..maybe?  Could they be faked?  Absolutely.  How will the skeptical online consumers, who have been scammed , spammed and schemed to death, see these feeds?  Yes again..most people are not going to believe the remarks posted are legitimate no matter how much anyone tries to substantiate it. 

So why are the News Media’s attempting to use these feeds to substantiate a point on an issue?  Why are they using them at all?  Is it because they have fallen for the same bad advice as many other businesses?

Lots of questions here..do you have any answers?  Would be exciting to hear them.

Let me know how I can help.