With Google+ Pages, Companies, Organizations and brands will be able to join Google’s social network Google+ and to connect with customers and fans and to build worthwhile relationships. Customers have the possibility to +1 your business and to keep up-to-date on news, events or specials related to your company by adding the business page to a circle. Also it will be possible to start a hang-out with your customers and to let them be a part of the team and the products or services they love.

Google Plus Pages are not available for everybody yet, but very soon you’ll be able to start your own business page here: plus.google.com/pages/create.

The following businesses, tv channels, bands and brands take part in the beta test:

• The All-American Rejects (Oklahoma Rockband)
• Anderson Cooper 360 (News Broadcast on CNN)
• Angry Birds (Computer Game)
• FC Barcelona (Soccer Club)
• Burberry (British Fashion Brand)
• Dallas Cowboys (American Football Team)
• Fox News (News Channel)
• Good Morning America (Morning News Broadcast on abc)
• H&M (Fashion Brand)
• Macy’s (American Department Store)
• Modelland by Tyra Banks (New York Bestselling Author)
• The Muppets (Disney’s The Muppets Theatre)
• Pepsi (Soft Drink Company)
• Phoenix Suns (NBA Team)
• Save the Children (Children’s Charity)
• Toyota USA (Vehicle Manufacturer)
• Train (Music Band)
• WWE (Wrestling Universe)
• X Games (Action Sports Event)
• Zen Bikes (Bike Shop and Bike Manufacturer)

In this context Google Product Manager Christian Oestlien approached business owners and asked them not yet to create profiles for their company or brand. At the moment Google only targets private persons and features for business pages are still in development, Oestlien says. Google will start to test these features with selected companies. If you are interested you can apply for the test of business features here. Google already has started to delete profiles which were not connected to real persons.

How Business Pages could look like

Google recently published a screenshot which shows how a business page could look like. In comparison to Facebook Pages Google+ Pages not only list fans but also employees and management. There will be a functionality to verify business ownership so that fans can be sure that they are really interacting with the original.

Also it will be possible to add more than one location of business by integrating Google Maps and Places. Companies can use Google Offers to include special offers for their fans and customers. The last will be able to use Sparks as a tool to keep up to date in terms of news relating to the brand.

Oestlien also announces that business pages will be able to integrate Google Analytics and Google Adwords.

Business Page Concept: How a Starbucks Page could look like on Google Plus

Meeting and more: Google Plus business features

The Google Plus source code reveals some secrets in terms of new features that might become very interesting for businesses. Thanks to Florian Rohrweck who has brought this to light.

Google Meeting: There will be a “business hangout” for meetings that allows companies to organise, record and archive phone, text and video conferences with up to 10 people. Attendants can be invited via Google Calendar, eMail and Google Chat.

Google Screencast: With the Screencast functionality it will be possible to record the computer screen output and to share it with others so that participants can show or demonstrate things on their computer.

Google Whiteboard: The implementation of Google Docs makes it easy to present, create and share documents during a meeting. Meeting attendants will be able to make notes on a virtual “whiteboard” whose content can be shared with others via Google+ or email.

Google endavours to create the ulitmate online tool for meetings. Google meetings could become a powerful alternative to commercial products which allow companies to hold meetings outside of real offices. This could become very interesting and beneficial not only for international businesses that rely on bridging large distances for real life meetings but also for freelancers and employees who work in home offices.

In May 2011, Facebook “only” counted 3.797.180 users in South Africa. But this doesn’t mean that FB users deleted their accounts. If we talk of “users” we always mean “active users” who logged in to Facebook at least once within the last 30 days. We don’t know the exact reason why in May 100.000 less users logged in than in April. Most probably people in South Africa rather enjoyed the last warm days at the beach and on their surfboard than spending their time surfing on the web

But finally we can tell that Facebook South Africa has more than 4 million active users:

User numbers increased by almost 300.000 over the May-July period, pushing the country’s total user base to 4.095.280.

The following chart lists the demographic distribution of active Facebook users in South Africa:

Compared to May 2011:

In numbers:

An here is another interesting news:

Worldwide, Facebook now has more than 750.000.000 users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday during a product release event (via).

The infographic describes the life cycle of a photo from its birth to his death on the digital image cemetery:

The Life of a Facebook Photo | Infographic by Pixable

Social media becomes more and more important. Most big beauty brands already have jumped on the bandwagon and have leveraged social media to engage with customers and prospects and build worthwhile relationships. But how do they integrate their social media strategy into their marketing mix?

First of all you need to ask yourself what your overall aims and objectives are! On her blog Jenni gives a few ideas on how social media can help to meet these aims and maximise activity:

For instance, product development could use social media for customer feedback and market research for new products. Customer service could use social media to answer queries and complaints, and turn negative feedback into a positive experience. Social media could create newsworthy campaigns that PR can then promote to the press.

Jenni also emphasises that it is important to create and implement a plan based on all of these needs. The plan which should function as a guide and needs to be adjusted as circumstances demand ensures that the social media activity ‘meets the brand’s aims, rather than ending up just doing social media for social media’s sake’.

Social Media is social! Start a dialogue, not a monologue

Social media is communication and communication only works if you start a dialogue with your prospects and customers instead of using your social media accounts to solely push out sales messages.

Always remember that an informative approach is very important when it comes to social media. Listen to your audience, identify relevant conversation topics, brand evangelists and opinion leaders within your field. Connect with them, enter the conversation, interact and build relationships. Always answer if someone asks a question, always react to complaints fast and accordingly.

By doing so you will grow your fan base and create loyal customers who are likely to recommend your services and products to their friends and peers. Word of mouth and recommendation marketing is the key word.

Ok, that are quite general tips. How should a beauty related company integrate social media. Well, let’s look how others have done it.

Give to Get: Generate a loyal following by sharing your expertise

Have you ever heard of Lauren Luke aka panacea81? Everything started when the single mom and taxi dispatch clerk uploaded a few videos to Youtube with tips and tricks on how to (re)create celebrity looks. Within a short time frame Lauren garnered thousands and millions of views for her make-up tutorials and built a loyal following of almost half a million subscribers. Today she has her own make-up line called ‘By Lauren Luke’ and sells her products very successfully to customers in the US, Canada and Europe. Also on Twitter she shares her knowledge and skills with almost 40.000 followers.

Lauren Luke became a celebrity herself by sharing videos on how to imitate celebrity looks

Nice story, but what can a small company like a make-up school which just has started to step into the world of social media learn?

You need to give before you get something back! As I said before you need to add value to people instead of just promoting yourself and telling them how great you are. Step outside the sales pitch and be social. First listen, then talk and share valuable and value-added information! Show your passion, your expertise and share your knowledge and you will attract a huge and loyal following. Also contests and giveaways are good ways to create a buzz. Just make your following talk about you, make them love your brand.

Bobbi Brown answers beauty questions on Twitter

“We need to remove the friction from adding photos to Twitter,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said.

Costolo also announced that users of the new service “will own their pictures” what means that they will keep the copyright for their uploaded images. Twitpic just changed it’s terms and conditions and now has the possibility to sell their users’ images in cooperation with the english image agency WENN.

It turns out that Johannesburg has the largest number of active Facebook users with more than 816.000 users logging in to Facebook at least once a month. Cape Town is second, Pretoria third. These three cities have almost the same numbers of active users and unify most of South African total user numbers.

Durban ends on the 4th place with 189.360 users and P.E. on the 5th place with 64.360 users. Check out the Top 15 of South African Cities using Facebook:

Youtube owner Google now offers a video-on-demand service as an option to Apple’s iTunes, Netflix and Hulu. The service is available in the USA initially but will be expanded to other countries as the service evolves.

Youtube added 3,000 classic movies as well as latest blockbusters to the movie-rental section which are presented in cooperation between Google and the film studios Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Universal and Lionsgate. A deal with Paramount, Fox and Disney could not be closed yet because of concerns that Google had not done enough to combat online piracy.

American users can download and stream movies for $2.99 to $3.99 on youtube.com/movies. Once they bought a movie they have 30 days to watch it. Once they started to see it, they have 24 hours to finish the movie.

via: youtube-global.blogspot.com