Google enraged the masses last week by changing their privacy policy  - mainly because it reminded everyone that Google had a privacy policy. The company who was formerly a poster child for open source, flipped from serving the 99% to acting like the dreaded 1%. Just before that, Google changed their search algorithm to promote their own social networks (Google+, YouTube) over Twitter and Facebook. The public outcry was so intense that it culminated into bookmarklet called Don’t Be Evil.

Don’t Be Evil uses Google’s very own search results to prove that they are altering their own search results. Confused? This video might help clear it up.

Altering search results? This seems bad, like voter fraud bad. Gerrymandering comes to mind.

Google just recently went “black” alongside Wikipedia, Reddit and other popular companies to protest a government bill aimed at suppressing information, and now it seems they’re trying to do it themselves? Are we going to let them get away with this?

The short answer is: probably. The internet may seem like an ethical place when it takes on Washington, but DC is the outsider. Google is the internet’s Capitol and we can’t afford to fight a war on two fronts.

So what does this mean for you? If you want to continue to get results from SEO, you’d better brush off that Google+ account.

This is really frustrating because most of us have too many social networks. Fortunately, there are several ways to bundle all those social platforms into one seamless action. Here are a few resources:

• Wordpress to Twitter to Facebook
• Update Facebook from the Google
• Facebook to Twitter
• Facebook to Tumblr

One clever way is by using Google+ to email your Facebook status, Facebook then sends that to Twitter, Twitter to Tumblr, Tumblr to Wordpress. (Of course by that point, who knows what you’re actually publishing.) But check out If This Then That - it is incredibly easy.

If you’re wondering more about what to post than how to post, we’ll be covering that topic soon.

Consider this: When potential customers look up your business online and see your Google Maps listing, they’re hit with a promotional ad for your services. Genius, right? Well, maybe.

This hypothetical can easily become a reality as Google Adwords recently extended their reach to include their Google Maps service. It’s time to gather your marketing team because with the right approach, there’s a lot of potential here for your business. However, while you’re doing that, you might want to gather your public relations team, too.

So, what could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: everything.

While there is nothing stopping you from running an ad, there is also nothing stopping a competitor from doing the same. Since this service runs on their auction-based ad network, the best you can do is to set your ad placement for Google Maps, add the appropriate keywords and hope for the best. Strangely enough, all Google Maps listings are fair game – including memorials.

That said, if a competitor has a higher quality score, more relevance and a high bid, they’re going to appear in the ad spot under your listing. Imagine owning a small, local bookstore and having Amazon.com advertise on your listing – this is now possible. Worst of all, there doesn’t seem to be much that you can do about it (there is speculation that Google will allow you to pay them to remove unwanted ads, but nothing is in place yet). The first shots of reputation warfare are already echoing on the internet.

Blumenthals.com compiled a series of screenshots showing the new ads in action, including a completely tasteless advertisement for a tour company on the 9/11 Memorial listing.

Overall, from the small and medium-sized business owner, this service feels like a huge miss. It seems that the real winners will be Google (who will get your Adwords dollars) and large businesses that have the resources to advertise on your business listings.

by Daniel Hadaway

It really is an inevitability: At some point in the life of your business there is bound to be someone who has a bad thing or two to say about your company. Even if you always do everything right, someone isn’t going to like you, and they’ll be determined to tell the world about it.

More often than not, the first place people go when they have something negative to say about a company these days is Twitter. Of course, they do this because all of their friends are on Twitter, but they also do this because they know your company is most likely on Twitter too!

Twitter (and social media at a higher level) have become the main medium for expressing dissatisfaction with a company or brand. So you need to be prepared to deal with the negative posts when they start showing up. Here are a couple of ideas for how to do that:

Address the issue in private, and ask the poster to remove the negative post.

Finding a way to address a customer’s complaint via the medium he or she used to express that complaint can do a lot to solve negative feedback. Doing this says “We’re paying attention to you and your criticism and will meet you where you are to resolve this for you.”

Once you’ve resolved the issue, it may be appropriate to ask the person to remove the negative post. This should only be done when you perceive the original post to contain factual inaccuracies or exaggerations about your business. The idea is not to erase the incident from existence, but to ensure the truth is being told about your brand. If someone says “I came to XY Restaurant yesterday and my sandwich was horrible”, you should leave it be.

In situations like the one above where it is not appropriate to ask someone to remove a negative post, you should encourage him or her to create a second post, highlighting the positive outcome and how you addressed their complaint. In the above scenario it may be “Big thanks to XY Restaurant for contacting me and giving me 2 free lunches in the future, in order to make it up to me!”

Many times addressing the issue directly can turn a negative into an eve bigger positive!

Provide an alternative location for customers to voice complaints.

It never hurts to attempt to prevent a negative comment from being posted about your brand in the first place. Create a page on your site, and link to it from your social media profiles, that is dedicated to accepting critiques and feedback from your customers.

Many times this will be enough to encourage the customer to communicate via this direct channel as opposed to a public social media post.

Of course, once you receive the negative feedback via this page/form, make sure to address it! Customer service is still important to your customers and your business, so don’t neglect it!

One thing to never do: Get into a public argument.

The last thing you want as a brand is have your audience become polarized by a public battle with a disgruntled customer. Avoid confrontation in public like (insert scary disease here)! No one wants to see that in their social media feed and it won’t turn out good for you, no matter what!

Negative critiques of your business will eventually happen. It’s important to keep an eye on what’s being said about your brand and stay proactive! Stay on top social media platforms and communities and remember: Your reputation exists whether you choose to control it or not!

David Berkowitz recently posted an article on Social Media Insider that, in exactly 906 words, called Google+ dead in the water. While his perspectives are interesting (and at times, entertaining), they’re flawed. This service has yet to be fully released to the public. Calling this platform irrelevant and bereft of life is premature, at best.

Let’s be honest, adding another social media platform into the mix may be a bit overwhelming for some. Managing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, etc. can be exhausting, and initially I too questioned the demand for another major hitter to enter the game. I was wrong. Everywhere I turned, there was someone pleading for an invite.

This begs the question: Why is everyone so eager to hop on the Google+ bandwagon? Well, it depends. However, here are a few common reasons:

• Remaining relevant by keeping up with social media as it evolves.
• The desire to be a social/digital pioneer. It’s human nature to want to be first.
• The social media reboot. Sometimes it’s healthy to want to leave all of your former high school classmates behind and start over.

Whatever the reason may be, the end result is the same. People WANT this service and they’re flocking in droves to get there.

Berkowitz’s main flaw is that he’s stuck in an old mentality that is deeply rooted in the principles of abandonment. This made perfect sense during the infancy of social media. People left LiveJournal and Friendster and flocked to MySpace. After a couple really good years for MySpace, everybody migrated over to Facebook.

Fast-forward to the present. The Age of Abandonment is now over. Integration is the new black. Generally, people are not leaving Facebook for Twitter and people are not leaving Twitter for LinkedIn, or FourSquare. Instead, we’re bringing all of these different tools together and are leveraging their power collectively to tell a more complete story about who we are.

I don’t believe that Google+ was developed to be a replacement to any one of the aforementioned services. Rather, it’s meant to be a compliment to what we already have. I say let’s give this thing a chance.

Don’t call it dead before it’s born.

Here are 3 strategies you can start using today to get more listening to what you have to say.

1. Give away information – If there’s one thing everyone loves, it’s free stuff. While you can’t give your product or service away for free (or can you?), you can give some information away for free.

Dan Miller is a successful career coach and author. Having multiple nationally published books, Dan isn’t afraid to give information away on his blog, website, or podcast. In fact if you listen and read his content long enough, you can basically figure out the content of his books before ever turning a page.

He’s very open about this and routinely mentions it to his audience. But that hasn’t stopped his success. In fact, he’ll be the first to tell you it has actually fueled his success.

2. Be controversial – This may not be for everyone, but if your goal is to get people talking there’s no better way than to say something controversial.

John C. Dvorak is a tech-journalist who makes his career out of being controversial. Whether he’s raising doubts about the aptitude of the U.S. CIO, or claiming Apple should’ve pulled the plug on the iPhone before it was released, John will say anything to get people talking… And it works. Millions read his blog every month and he’s a highly sought-after author and news-correspondent.

If you’re brave, get out there and speak your mind. Whether good or bad, people will be talking about you.

3. Make Mistakes – There’s a widely-held misconception that you have to be perfect in the eyes of your audience. While true in some arenas,in the arena of digital marketing this simply isn’t the case. The goal is to create dialogue. If you’re providing all of the answers, what is left for your audience to say?

ProBlogger has a great take on this subject:

Play dumb or make mistakes. If you write a fabulous, seamless post, you will likely get comments like “great post.” If you demonstrate that your knowledge is slightly lacking or ask a question of your readers directly or fumble around a bit, you will have people (women especially) clambering to help a poor soul out. There’s a reason women talk a lot… we like to give advice. Open yourself up to be the receiver of some advice, and you’ll get more comments.

Your audience won’t view your humility as a sign of ineptitude or weakness, but rather will see it as a strength that you’re willing to listen to what your customers have to save.

Keep these tips in mind and you’ll have more eyeballs viewing your marketing. Keep in mind, these strategies aren’t the end of your marketing, but only the beginning. Attracting an audience means nothing if you can’t turn them into happy customers. Stick with us and we’ll explore the rest of the marketing process in the coming months!