Social Mediarology

Here’s a video that shows you exactly what Google Friend Connect is and how to use it, but I’ll give you a quick run-down. Google Friend Connect provides website owners with the quick and easy ability to implement social networking ‘widgets’ to their website using a quick copy and paste. No coding needed!

Google Friend Connect can help turn your website into more of a community space where users can comment and rate stories, add their own pictures and even see who else is participating on your website. When you come across a website with Friend Connect installed, you can sign in using your existing Google, Yahoo or AOL account information, and you can invite friends from your Facebook, GoogleTalk, LinkedIn accounts and more. Every time you come across a site with Google Friend Connect, you can sign in to that website’s Friend Connect and all your information is right there waiting for you.

Google is looking to the next phase of social networking and the next phase of where I believe the internet is headed. Call it Web 2.5 or Web 3.0 if you wish. I think the internet is heading in the direction where every website you visit can be a part of your community. Rather than having to join proprietary networks like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to be a part of a community, it will more like being members of a big public university. You’re all connected, in that you’re all a part of the same University system, but you have different classes with different people, and you spend your free time differently too. But if you meet a new friend in class, you can invite them to be a part of one of your extra-curricular activities.

Maybe I went a bit overboard with my college analogy, but I think it works. Right now Google Friend Connect is only being rolled out to a select group of users, but before long, I expect this will be opened up to anyone interested.

If you read this blog for long enough, you’ll find out that I’m impressed with just about everything Google does. Google Alerts are no exception. Cindy left a comment for me on my last post that mentioned Google Alerts, so I thought I’d post about it.

So, what is a Google Alert? Quite simply, you enter a search term and Google sends you an email every time they find a mention on the internet. You can also set up your Alerts to be sent in a daily “digest” so you aren’t inundated by emails. For example, I have three daily Google Alerts sent to me. One is for Indiana Tourism, one for Indiana Travel and one for Tourism Tech Corner. Each day, I receive a digest containing the top articles, blogs and other mentions on the web for each of my search terms.

Here are a couple of examples:

In my What are Blogs? post, I mentioned the Holiday World blog, the Holiblog. Sure enough, within an hour of that post going live, I had a comment from Holiday World, thanking me for mentioning them on the blog. Similarly, in my Get The Most Out Of Flickr post, I referenced and linked to a great article about how nonprofits can get the most out of Flickr. Again, within about an hour, the author of the blog posted a comment thanking me for referencing her work.

It’s very likely that each of them is using Google Alerts to see when and where people are talking about them online. This works very well for attractions, especially if you have a fairly uncommon name like Holiday World (or Indiana Beach for that matter, who has their own blog: View From the Crow’s Nest). This can also work well for CVBs or other Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs).

The key is how you respond when you get that Google Alert in your inbox. If you just read it and delete it, it’s probably not going to be all that helpful for your business. But if you become engaged with the people who are talking about you, you’ll do nothing but help out your business.

Let’s say that I get an alert tomorrow that someone has mentioned Indiana Tourism on their blog. The best thing for me do to is become engaged in the conversation. I’ll head to the blog that talked about us and thank them for the mention. I might also talk about some of the things we’re working on here at Indiana Tourism to further engage others who read the blog.

Similarly, if I run across a blog entry where someone mentions a bad experience they had in Indiana, I have the opportunity to try to make things right. I can offer information about other trips to take in Indiana or find out what their interests are and suggest that they give Indiana another try. DMOs, attractions and hoteliers can even offer freebies as an apology to a dissatisfied customer.

I think that the use of Google Alerts, and how you respond to them, should be considered part of your customer service plan. If I had a bad experience at an attraction or hotel and they personally responded to me with an apology, I’d be much more likely to either visit again or recommend a friend to do the same. At the very least, I’d respect them for a great customer service effort.

What do you think about using Google Alerts as a part of customer service? Do you think that word-of-mouth (both positive and negative) is the most effective form of ‘advertising’? I’d love your comments.