Simon Salt's Blog, page 7

Is Social Too Hard For Most Businesses?

Over the past week I've seen an amazing number of what can only be called "missteps" in social and it got me wondering whether being social is just too hard for most businesses. In particular what has amazed me is the number of those who have been less than careful with their social presence who are supposed to be in a position of advising others on the use of social media – marketers and PR companies in particular.

Social Is Too Hard

Economically times are tough. Every one is pressed for time. The "do more with less" philosophy is running rampant and driving business is what is expected of everyone at a company. It seems that in reducing the amount of time any one channel receives being social has become too hard for a lot of businesses, particularly businesses who are supposedly associated with being social. This is a worrying trend. What seems to be missing from these organizations is the understanding that while social media are channels through which you can communicate, the receivers at the end of that channel have to be nurtured, relationships have to be built, trust has to be gained. All of that takes time, time that apparently cannot be spared by these companies.

Over the past week I have seen small businesses berate and argue with customers on Twitter, large PR company employees use their personal Twitter accounts to comment disparagingly about people, conference organizers make demands of speakers in return for nothing and small PR companies use Twitter like a Press release outlet. Are we all so rushed that we have given up even the pretense of being social? Are we all just so desperate to get our message out that we don't care about the image we portray?

Has Social Become Too Hard For Us?

There is no doubt that being social is hard work. It is time consuming and can sometimes lead to disappointment. Anyone who has been in business longer than five years knows that this has nothing to do with social media. Before Twitter we went to events and networked. We would "work" the room, dipping in and out of conversations, hoping that someone might be interested in what we did for a living and  maybe just maybe we would make a useful contact that we could nurture into a lead and eventually a sale.

Many people still work this way, without the help of any social media channels and do it well. They take the time to develop relationships. I know Car sales people who are selling cars to the third and fourth generation of family members and have been in the business 20+ years. They don't use Twitter or any other social media channel, the build relationships. For them being social is as natural as breathing. Perhaps social isn't too hard, perhaps the technology is making us lazy?

Social Isn't too Hard

The reality is that social isn't too hard, but it is time consuming and of course there are plenty of automated tools out there that will make tweeting, posting to Facebook or Google Plus or your blog less time consuming but those are just the media. The real success stories in social come from those who actually nurture relationships. Finding that even people who align themselves with "social" as part or all of their business failing to recognize this fact is a trend that I find concerning.

PR companies that berate their audiences, small businesses that argue in public with their customers, Tweets that start with "For Immediate Release" and conference organizers that threaten to pull sessions if speakers don't use their social networks to promote the conference should be things of the past. I've always been an advocate of content being king, but the ace that trumps it is relationships.

Is Social Too Hard for you?

 

image used under CC Licence by meehanf


I'm glad you took the time to read this post.


If you enjoyed it I'm sure you'll enjoy my once a week newsletter - Did You See..? - I'll send you a few stories from around the web that cover Social, Digital and Mobile Marketing that I found useful. It's a quick but informative read

 

 

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When They Call Your Baby Ugly

Over the past week we saw a social campaign creative team have their baby called ugly. As creatives we know that from time to time this is going to happen. What seems like a great idea to us, something that carries the message in a way that is engaging etc turns out not to resonate with everyone. Not only doesn't it resonate it actually annoys people to the point where they point out how ugly our baby is to all and sundry.

That's An Ugly Baby!

For those of you who are parents (or dirty dancing fans) you will immediately know what this feels like. Whether it has happened to you or not, the thought of someone calling your new born child ugly is unspeakable. The bile rises, anger ensues, rationale goes out of the window. It is hard to hear that someone is critical of your baby. The reaction is no less when the "baby" in question is the product of a team of creatives who have brainstormed, included, rejected, thrown around countless ideas before finally crafting the finished product.

When criticism is given it is hard to receive when you have poured hours of labor into producing the piece that is being criticized. The usual reaction, an understandable one is to become defensive. We want to defend and justify our creative decisions, we seek to try and  explain our creative process to the people criticizing us. We want them to understand our thoughts and our process so that they will stop their criticism. Unfortunately we can't do that, not really. Instead our defensiveness makes us unable to hear what is really being said.

Defending The Ugly Baby

At first we might reject the criticism, then we become really defensive and start to attack back. We want to find fault with the other person, to point out their shortcomings. Accuse them of being incapable of creativity or making anything worthwhile. Of course all this does is reduce our argument and its effectiveness. Onlookers see only someone who is avoiding addressing the issue and has now resorted to personal attacks. Of course our justification for this is that the other person was personal in the first place by calling our baby ugly. But as creatives we have to have thicker skins than that. Comments, observations, even direct criticisms of our work are not personal attacks, though they feel like it.

Responding as though these attacks are personal only aggravates the situation. Often making it much worse than it was originally. The more defensive we become the less we listen to what is being said. The less we listen the more likely we are to find ourselves in a place where the argument reaches a point of no return. An impasse where neither side can see a way forward so both become entrenched in their position. This is a situation that can arise in any relationship but it is particularly visible when the two parties concerned are high profile professional communicators.

What To Do With The Ugly Baby

As professional creatives and communicators we have to find ways of both making critical observations and receiving criticism in ways that doesn't lead to that impasse. When the talking stops and the arguing starts the discussion is over. Regardless of intent, criticism can be helpful, even if it wasn't intended to be. However being open to listening to it, weeding out the useless and retaining the lesson contained inside it can be an exercise is patience and discipline that escapes even the best of us.

In the internet age where critics are given their own name – "Trolls" and over sensitive creatives run screaming to their fan base for help fighting the trolls we are at risk of losing sight of the benefit that critics can bring. They can make us revisit our assumptions, push ourselves to try harder in our attempts, even to rethink and create something even better.

So how do you give criticism? How do you receive criticism?

I'm glad you took the time to read this post.


If you enjoyed it I'm sure you'll enjoy my once a week newsletter - Did You See..? - I'll send you a few stories from around the web that cover Social, Digital and Mobile Marketing that I found useful. It's a quick but informative read

 

 

Mobile: not the future, the present

This post started as a comment on Google +, but I realized that it was a bigger conversation, why is Google ignoring Mobile? What? How can I possibly say that? They own the android mobile operating system, which is the largest selling mobile operating system in the world. They just bought Motorola Mobile. They are obviously taking mobile very seriously and are fully committed to it.

Mobile and Social

A few months ago I wrote a post questioning whether it was possible to have a social media strategy that didn't include mobile. I don't believe it is. Google has built the fastest growing social network in the history of online social networks. For a company that, on the face of it seems so invested in mobile (let's not forget they launched their mobile payment system last week), the Google + mobile app, both on the android platform and the Apple iOS can only be described as ridiculously bad.

While Google rolls out new features to the desktop version like search, circle sharing etc. The mobile app doesn't allow for the basics like link sharing, people tagging or search. I know  the naysayers will tell me, hey it's early days yet, the platform hasn't been out a full quarter, they will have those features soon and all the other excuses. It seems to me that Google came to this project expecting a failure, similar to Buzz, Wave and their other social attempts and so decided not to invest in the product.

Mobile Is Social

To miss the opportunity of building and delivering the best mobile experience is completely bewildering to me. 50% of all internet searches take place on a mobile device, by 2014 more than 50% of all internet searches will be from mobile devices – did Google forget they are a search company?  Google's biggest competitor in the social space – Facebook – is taking mobile very seriously apparently (though again we have yet to see any real evidence of this in their application). Erick Tseng, head of mobile products at Facebook was quoted as saying that "Mobile platforms are becoming as important — if not more so — than desktop releases".

If Google seriously wants to compete against Facebook then it has to take that attitude, and given that it is already light years ahead of Facebook in the mobile space it really shouldn't be that hard. The phone is arguably the most social piece of technology ever invented. True the amount of time that early adopters spend actually using the voice functionality is declining but the mobile device remains connected in the minds of the user with being social, whether that is sharing a location, updating a status, playing a game or yes even talking.

Mobile And Google

Google doesn't have the excuse that so many companies trot out about the lack of development for the android version of an app, "we haven't had the time/funding/development skills" They own the platform, this was/is their opportunity to showcase what the platform can do. Ok so recently they launched Hangouts for mobile – great if you happen to have an android device with a forward facing camera (I do but many don't) but what about the basics?

The approach from Google has been to build out functionality for the desktop – which is understandable, given that they view the majority of their users as being there and then trickle the features over to the mobile application, this is also the model that Facebook has followed. Because these behemoths of social take this slant, other companies, who are looking to them as models on which to base their own social behavior are following this pattern. Erick Tseng also doesn't see the changes at Facebook coming any sooner than the next 12 – 18 months, which is a very long time, given the speed of change in the social space (18 months ago who was predicting Google would have the fastest growing social platform?).

How important is mobile to your social life?

I'm glad you took the time to read this post.


If you enjoyed it I'm sure you'll enjoy my once a week newsletter - Did You See..? - I'll send you a few stories from around the web that cover Social, Digital and Mobile Marketing that I found useful. It's a quick but informative read

 

 

Is Google + little more than an Echo?

I was browsing Google + earlier today and came across an interesting comment by Michael Brito – "I have no idea of what to share here on Google+" he wrote. It struck me as a very good observation on the platform and on Social Networks in general. Of course quite a few people weighed in with their thoughts on what makes Google + such a great environment and what should be shared there. As Michael pointed out he was already sharing the suggested content elsewhere – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. so what is left for Google +?

Google + as the Echo chamber

So what is left for Google + from our sharing? After all we only lead one life at a time. If we are posting work related items to LinkedIn, pictures and funny items from the web to Facebook and Twitter and sharing blog posts to all three, is there any original content left for Google + or is it just an echo of our other activity?

Certainly I have played around with different formats for Google +, from the short "Twitter-esque" to the long, almost "blog" post style. I've posted pictures from vacation, reshared interesting items that I have found on the web and even on Google + itself. The engagement is there. My posts are "plussed" or reshared but I have to say that it depends greatly on how I share items. Which leads me to think of Google + as being an echo chamber for certain people.

Google + and original content

What I find is that when I share with the "Public" stream I get far more response than if I share posts with "My Circles" and "Extended Circles" – of course that is a function of who I have put into those circles. Which makes me rethink the whole process of circling people. By circling people I already know on other platforms I'm sending content to people who are used to my style and have certain expectations of my content. When I share to the Public stream I am sharing with those people too but also with people who don't know me and therefore have no such expectations.

So perhaps the answer to Michael's question is share here content that you are not known for and with people who you don't know. Leave Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn for the people you already know and think of Google + as moving to a new town where you don't know anyone and have the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

Google + – Where The Streets Have No Names

Yes, just like the U2 song. This is how I see Google +, there are no street names, no map, no expectations to be met. By circling the same people you have on other sites you are simply exposing yourself to the same information that you can get anywhere else. I'm not suggesting you don't circle those people – after all they might be sharing different information, but perhaps you put them in a circle that you visit less often. Add people you haven't met yet – either virtually or in real life and see what they are sharing. With the new search capability finding new people based on topics or location is very easy.

So what do you share on Google + that you aren't sharing elsewhere?

 

How Real Is Real in Social Media?

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How Real Is Real?

I made a "Rant" post on Google Plus the other day – I specifically called it out as such – about the way some Social Media "dahlings" who for whatever reason, are being offered experiences that five years ago would never have been offered to them. It is becoming increasingly popular to offer interesting experiences to bloggers, in the same way that Journalists have often been sent on trips, exposed to unique experiences, all in an attempt to position a company, brand or product in a different way.

This is a great thing for many bloggers and Social Media advocates. They get to have experiences that the rest of us can only dream about and then relate those experiences without the, sometimes overwhelming, polish of a true journalist. It's more like hearing about it from a friend or at least a good acquaintance.

How Real Is Life?

What I have noticed among some writers is a sense of them being too "good" for real experiences. I started to wonder about where these people have lived and worked prior to deciding to jump on the Social Media bandwagon. Sure enough the people that had posted the articles that made me wonder have come from other industries – some from entertainment, some from real estate, others from apparently no where in particular. What they all have in common is that they are strong advocates of Social Media being "real", they are happy to berate brands when they perceive them as having "faked it". However, when they are given the opportunity to take part in something that can only be described as being very "real" they describe it as intense or shocking or strange.

Which begs the question – where do you live? I have to remember of course that not everyone enjoys adrenaline fueled experiences, and, I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie – I've certainly had plenty of weird and wonderful experiences in my life, so perhaps I am a little desensitized to some of the things that happen in life. But for the life of me I can't imagine that these people, having reached the age of majority and then past it by at least a decade have managed to live such sheltered lives.

How Real Are Brands?

Given that brands are in fact totally fabricated, insisting that they "keep it real" seems somewhat ironic. It of course depends on how you define "keeping it real", at one end of the spectrum you have pundits who's persona is that of the angry "anti-everything" guy. He posts articles and videos whose only purpose is to berate and belittle. This type of person defends their actions by saying they are only interested in "real" conversations. At the other end of the spectrum you have the social media accounts run for celebrities by teams of "people" – about as fake as you can get.

Is it any wonder that marketers are left scratching their heads and wondering how Social Media is supposed to work? Of course "real" is a very subjective term. What I consider to be real, might not be real to someone else. But if those of us within the world of digital marketing who are acting as thought leaders/consultants etc. can't come to a consensus on how real is real then we can't honestly expect anyone else to either can we?

So how real do we want things to be in Social Media?

image used under CC License by the G™

Bloggers & Business:Caution Amateurs At Work

Bloggers & Business

This past week I've been watching people in the PR/Social Media business take Ketchum the agency of record for Con-Agra and Con-Agra themselves to task over their treatment of some bloggers, the whole event should be a lesson in caution for both Bloggers & Business. For those of you not familiar with the story, here is a rough outline. Ketchum, on behalf of their client, reached out to a group of bloggers and invited them to a dinner in New York at a restaurant run by a celebrity chef. They were promised they would enjoy a "delicious four-course meal," the opportunity to learn about food trends from a food industry analyst, Phil Lempert. The were also told that they would receive an extra pair of tickets as a prize for readers and that the dinner would include "an unexpected surprise".

Bloggers & Business:Not All As It Seems

Believe it or not this sounds like fairly standard fare (pun intended) for PR outreach to Bloggers. The hint of celebrity, the ability to increase reader engagement with a giveaway and a general air of "you are special". Bloggers are increasingly being courted by brands and PR/Social Media companies are offering this as a service to their clients (FULL DISCLOSURE: my own agency does this for our clients). Where the issue started was that in fact the meal that was given to the bloggers was in fact not prepared by a celebrity chef but was from the Marie Callendar line of foods which is a Con-Agra brand.

The bloggers were "outraged" that they had been "duped" in this fashion. Many of course took recourse in the only way they know – they wrote about their poor experience on their blogs. This forced both Ketchum and Con-Agra to issue apologies. On top of that, other PR/Social Media companies jumped in to point out how they would have handled the whole situation differently. The one thing that no one has pointed out here is that the bloggers were willing participants in this and this is where the problem lies.

I have worked with numerous brands as an advocate, both online and offline. I also run a business and one of the first things you do when setting up any type of partnership in business is to do your due diligence. Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is, so check it out. I have not seen a single post from these bloggers that states they asked who the company was that Ketchum was representing. Having been told it was Con-Agra they should have been no surprises that all was not as it would appear. I have a list of companies that I will not work with at any price – either as an agency or as an advocate – Con-Agra is at the top of the list – I won't go into the reasons here.

Bloggers & Business: A Cautionary Tale

The lesson here for businesses is that they need to remember that most bloggers are amateurs, what I mean by that is, they lack the business skills that other business partners have. Of course this is not true of all bloggers, some have very successful businesses behind them and have built enterprises around their blogs, but they are in the minority. Of course for the less scrupulous in the world of PR/Social Media this makes some of these bloggers ideal targets.

The cautionary tale for bloggers here is don't get too excited when a brand approaches you, either directly or through an agency. Do your due diligence, find out who you are getting into bed with and find out exactly what is expected of you. Brands want something out of the exchange, find out what that is before you sign up.

What is your advice for bloggers working with brands?

The Groupon Loyalty Fail

The recent Groupon loyalty failure is yet another indicator of how shaky a business model they are running. It's no secret I am not a fan of Groupon and that overall I think they and their other daily deal competitors are bad for small businesses.

Groupon Loyalty Failure – A Taste of Their Own Medicine

The basic problem with deal of the day sites is that they appeal to price shoppers, which, given the current state of the economy, is just about everyone these days. The problem for small business owners is that the discounted prices that they offer through sites like Groupon are not sustainable. While these sites drive new customers to the business they are not loyal customers. They will switch to the next deal when it is offered. For the types of business that use Groupon, like restaurants and local businesses this is very bad news.

When Groupon acquired Pelago, creators of social location marketing app Whrrl, I was dismayed. As soon as they announced the purchase they also announced that they were closing down the service. They instead produced Groupon Now, their own social location marketing app that shows where Groupon offers are near to you. I wrote about what was wrong with that model at the time – it lacks loyalty. This past week Groupon's email provider failed them – the daily email didn't go out. The result was – no one cared. Groupon's own subscribers didn't notice and when they resent the email they experienced a huge dropoff in reads.

Groupon Loyalty – Not Even To Shareholders

The Groupon organization has been criticized heavily in the financial papers for its somewhat dubious dealings prior to their IPO. While it is not unusual for executives to be paid large bonuses for success, especially in the run up to an IPO or in fact for them to sell stock, Groupon's team took it to extremes, fleecing the company as fast as they could. Now they have had to restate their initial IPO filing to be more transparent about the huge losses the company made. They are now admitting for example that they incurred a loss of $102m in the first quarter of this year. This is a world away from the statement made by their co-founder Eric Lefkofsky who claimed the company was "wildly profitable".

If Groupon is overstating its own business, how much more is it overstating the success seen by businesses using it? When their daily email didn't go out, price shoppers simply went to competitor sites, like Living Social or they simply didn't bother. Groupon is learning that loyalty isn't cheap.

Groupon Loyalty – The Real Deal of the Day

If, as a small business, you want to offer a deal of the day, then definitely do it, but offer it to your loyal customers first. Spend the time to actually develop a group of them on your own. Yes this is extra effort, yes this will take you away from operating your business and yes it is the most effective way of spreading the word about how amazing your business is. Customer evangelists will bring you a lot more business than a Groupon offering 70% off your normal price. What's more, the new customers who are brought to you by customer evangelists will stick.

Recognize the fact now that you have to invest in your customers to earn their loyalty and to keep it. Groupon Loyalty doesn't exist.

 

Does Pressure Help You Work?

Does pressure help you or hurt you? Like a lot of people I've been spending time on Google plus over the past week and a half and yesterday Chris Bailey shared the Nike commercial featuring the US Women's soccer team. The video is below. The video made me think about pressure that we impose on ourselves to try and make ourselves better.

Pressure as a motivation

As a writer, blogger and speaker in the marketing world I have a lot of peers, and like most people I measure myself against them. Some I feel are in a different league to me all together, with others I feel I am further advanced than they are.

When the people I respect and admire like Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, Brian Solis, David Armano produce great content I feel the pressure mounting. Not because I want to be better than they are, but because they are elevating the game, raising the bar for audience expectations. If you have ever seen any of these guys speak you will know what I mean. They can command a room because they know their subject extremely well, they relax and become friends with the audience.

In that way pressure becomes a motivator. I recognize that the audiences I will speak in front of, the audiences that will read my posts want more and so I impose pressure on myself based on what I have seen others deliver.

No Pressure - No Achievement

But, what if, like the video asks, there was no pressure? Would you still succeed? Would you still give it your all? I know, speaking for myself that I doubt I would. Without others raising the bar, I wouldn't elevate my own standards. Not because I'm lazy, but simply because maintaining the status quo is what we are good at. Of course I'm not talking about the type of stressed out, boss screaming at you, not enough money in the bank, kids home from school type of pressure - that is a whole other thing.

This pressure is the type that comes from within, the pressure you put on yourself to get better at what you do and to continue developing yourself as a professional. I am constantly surprised by the complacency I encounter, especially in the corporate world where I speak to marketers who haven't picked up a new business book since they graduated ten years ago but consider themselves to be professional.

Pressure As A Negative Influence

Of course pressure can be a negative influence, you can end up convincing yourself that you will never raise your game to the level of others. That other people have some kind of "secret sauce" that they are using that makes them better at what you do than you are. In reality that isn't true, the truth is that those other people are also measuring themselves against a benchmark individual or group of individuals and applying that same pressure to their game, to drive themselves to achieve more.

So does pressure help you work?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E851cINimc0

image used under CC by gfoots

Social Media isn't altruistic

I've been hanging out in Google Plus (or Google+ or G+ whatever the cool kids are calling it today) for the past week. Overall its been an interesting experience. Because of the low volume of posts last week it was actually very easy to get eyeball time from influencers – as the week has progressed that has become less so. That is to be expected. I see more and more people arriving everyday and unfortunately what comes with them is the mindset that pervades the rest of social networking sites – how do I make this work for me?

Age of the Customer

Of course social media has long been pimped as the hailing the true age of the customer – now its all about you. In presentations I refer to it as the age of entitlement – social MEdia. But honestly the level to which this has risen or at least is noticeable on Google Plus is remarkable. Marketers/Social Media experts talking about the democratization of purchasing, throwing out terms like "customer empathy", as though, through social media somehow marketing changed and has become this altruistic pastime that only the good, the great and the godly should engage in.

Social media is digital marketing. It is the mechanism through which a brand generates awareness of, interest in, demand for and ultimately action that leads to a sale among its customers and prospects. There is nothing wrong with that, it is a valuable profession and one I am proud to be a part of, so why suddenly are we to be ashamed of ourselves and try and preach to each other (because trust me, consumers could careless) that what we are doing is customer-centric, that social media provides a neutral territory for brands and customers to meet and discuss what is best for both sides?

Feedback is Good

Don't get me wrong, social media as part of the feedback loop into product design or customer service is a great thing. But marketing? How many marketers have changed a campaign to suit an individual customer or even a group of customers through social media? I'm not talking about brands who have pulled ads because of people challenging it through social media. I'm talking about feedback being incorporated into the marketing creative during the campaign based on feedback from the customer. Of course that hasn't happened. For those outside the creative process, here is a quick insight into what would happen if you as a marketer, went to the creative team and told them to change their ideas because the customer said so – they would laugh at you.

The day we hand the process over to social media is the day creativity dies.

Image used under CC license - renaissancechambara

Why Twitter not Facebook will feel the effect of Google Plus

Google Plus is the newest social effort from the Google empire. I was never a fan of Google Wave or Buzz and felt that Google had missed the point of social completely with both of them. However, from what I have seen from the Google Plus demo this incarnation has real potential.

Google Plus – Why It's a Threat to Twitter

A lot of posts and articles were published yesterday on why Google Plus will spell the end of Facebook – I disagree. Facebook's hold on social networking is fairly unassailable. Certainly Google is unlikely to make much of an impact in the next year on Facebook's position as the number one social networking platform. However, where I do see it making a clear impact is on Twitter. Twitter hasn't evolved in the past 4 years since its appearance. Sure it has gotten bigger and added things like the Retweet feature and that is about it.

In the past four years Facebook has added and redefined features throughout the site, paying particular attention to both advertisers and brands that want to leverage the platform. They are making money from their modifications. While Twitter, who currently claims it has attracted 600 marketers to run "sponsored" tweets with them is not making money. In addition its lack of innovation and evolution is concerning. Add to this the fact that its creators, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and now Biz Stone have all left the company or at least greatly reduced their involvement and you have to question how much longer Twitter can limp along.

Google Plus Features

Let's look at the feature set that Google Plus seems likely to launch with:

Circles – think of this as being similar to Facebook lists or more importantly Twitter lists. Facebook lists, even by Zuckerberg's own admission are only used by a small percentage of Facebook users (I happen to be one of them). Twitter lists however are what power Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Hootsuite – three top Twitter applications and what make the Twitter stream readable. Without them there would be no Twitter. Google Plus is coming out with these as a central feature, which immediately means that you can sort the noise from the signal.
Hangouts – Facebook has nothing like this, but Twitter does – Hashtags/Twitterchats. Google Plus goes one better by including video. Every tablet, laptop and a lot of Desktops now ship with a webcam built in. I for one could definitely see standout Twitter chats switching to this medium and becoming much more engaging. For example Mack Collier's Sunday evening #blogchat with video would be an amazing show that would be hard to miss for anyone with an interest in blogging.
Sparks – This is basically the incorporation of Google Reader into a social setting – think Twitter search/Hashtags. Tell Google Plus what you are interested in and it delivers it.
Photos – Think of how many picture uploading sites there are on Twitter – YFrog, TwitPic and of course now Twitter has it's own – Google Plus is launching with this feature included but goes one step further by allowing you to decide which Circle in your network can see the pictures. So perhaps you have a Circle of fellow foodies, you take a pic at your favorite restaurant and instead of slamming everyone's stream you only share it with those people you know will be interested.

Google Plus Intimacy

What I see dominating Google Plus is "intimacy". Or at least the ability to create intimacy. A way to truly connect with people without having to reduce the size of your network. By A list comparison I have a fairly small Twitter network at just over 9,000 followers. I find it hard to keep up with all the great content that is sent my way through the network, I have 20 Twitter lists and numerous searches open in Seesmic all the time as a way of filtering that flow. Google Plus seems to recognize both the need and the desire by users for this type of filtering and I'm glad to see them building it into the beta.

I'm not suggesting you shut down your Twitter account just yet, but as soon as you are invited to the Google Plus beta I would make sure that you start to create an environment that allows you to transfer your activity there from Twitter should things pan out the way I think they will. What do you like about Google Plus?