Mention Google+ in a room filled with people managing and monitoring social media in higher education and wait for the snickers to start.
They laugh because, while they all have accounts and occasionally login to update them, they are keenly aware of the perception that no one actually uses it. Their target audiences — namely prospective students and alumni donors — just aren’t active there.
Colleges and universities were some of the first on board when Google+ in November offered brand pages to organizations. Mashable highlighted the trend in “16+ Universities Dive into Google+ Brand Pages,” but it’s depressing to look at what has happened to those 16+ brand pages since the post first appeared.
Nine of the 16+ universities haven’t posted anything to their brand pages since the week when Mashable touted their activity. Only 25 percent of the 16+ highlighted pages have posted Google+ content in the past 90 days.
We’re missing the boat. Google+ doesn’t need to overtake Twitter or siphon users from Facebook. It’s all about search.
While Facebook continues to grow as a top referral source to university websites around the world, it still doesn’t come close to the traffic driven by Google’s search engine. The potential to have your college or university rank higher in the search engine results page simply because of its activity on Google Plus is reason enough to engage on the platform.
Edward J. Black, the president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, last month wrote about the changing world of search when he said:
Links may be the foundation on which the Internet was built, but they are not its future. “Likes” have become the new links that drive our connections online.
And in the case of Google, it’s taking those “likes” — or +1’s if that’s what you want to call them — and tying them to traffic that matters in search engine results.
It’s time to get back on the boat.
While I deplore the use of auto-publishing programs between social media sites, what would you think of using an auto-publish app between FB/Twitter and Google+ if the main/only goal is to improve search (rather than cultivate a community)? Does such an app exist yet?
Patrick – two thoughts here.
1) maybe the point is that regular search as we think about it using Google isn’t as relevant as it used to be and definitely not for profiles like this. People assume that you will have a Facebook one and just use that.
2) People are tired of all these social media accounts. They don’t want another one to keep up with even if it hurts their search rank a little. School get tons of traffic as it is and I’d argue they do a TERRIBLE job of managing it properly.
I hear what you are saying about the importance of search but how much will it really help?
Great points, Kyle. I think it’s less about searchability within Google+ and more about the overall serachability of content crawled by Google’s search engine. And I entirely agree here: Schools get a ton of traffic and do a TERRIBLE job of managing it properly. The challenge is to do a better job of managing that traffic AND taking advantage of clear search opportunities where they exist.
Davina, I’m sure you could find such and app, but like you, I deplore the idea of actually using it.
“The potential to have your college or university rank higher in the search engine results page simply because of its activity on Google Plus is reason enough to engage on the platform.”
I can’t agree. I’ve been looking hard at Google+ and how it can be utilized in our higher ed environment and search has not been on my mind at all. After reading this article, that thinking hasn’t changed.
The thing that excites me about Google+ is Hangouts and Hangouts On Air. Hundreds of traditional brick and mortar universities are scrambling now to deliver on-line content and offer distance learning opportunities. There are a lot of different solutions out there and, to me, Hangouts has the most potential to deliver what we’re looking for.
Many Universities are not using the main platforms of social media (linkedin, facebook, twitter) effectively, so why expect Google+ use to be any better?
Universities could be at the intersection of networks and interests and some are building in this direction. But from my analysis (mashable.com and other sources) and experience in raising money and building alumni networks in Canada and the UK, there needs to be a more strategic approach by determining concrete goals and objectives as well as (rather than the sales funnel) determining a “brand loyalty” funnel.
From what I’ve seen, organizations in general seem to post on Google+, but there’s really no discussion/interaction with the posts…seems like kind of a dead end when it comes to engagement.
Thanks for your article, great thought. The issue though is that too often Alumni administration think about social media as a magical technology that will help for everything: communication, branding to prospective students, alumni relation, event registration, fund-raising …. But social media are a only support. If the service has no real added value to the users, whatever platform is used it will remain useless.
Google + has a lot of potential as the other social platform for universities for some aspects of their alumni relations. Another issue remains how to provide services of real added value to alumni and which tools can help reaching this objective.
Nice post and great follow-on discussion. As always, it depends on your audience and goals; social media platforms are merely tools to foster engagement. It’s how you use those tools that leads to success.
Another example, Google local pages being converted to Google+ pages, without business owners’ consent.
Google is an epic battle with Facebook, and we can anticipate each platform to do whatever it can to serve its shareholders. That means brands without Google+ or inactive Google+ profiles no longer showing up in search results, just one example.
Who knows what’s next, in order to stay relevant to our audiences, we have to remain alert and, for lack of a better phrase, play along.
You nail it in the post Patrick, Google+ is all about search. Some universities seem to have unrealistic expectations of the tool, looking to it as alt Facebook or a powerful “engagement” channel. But there’s no real focus there, just one more place to try to be all things to all audiences.
Maybe the the power of Google+ for higher ed is in the ability to create content around specific, focused topics (sound familiar? you talked about it in your 2011 post) to SEO benefits not really possible with other social tools. But that requires strategy, difficult editorial decisions, and of course, focus. At NC State, we use the “central” Google+ channel specifically for research news. We can reach science/tech/research writers here and use it as a pitching tool to generate news placements. A commitment to that approach keeps the channel credible (fewer pretty campus pics as posts) too. That audience seems to be a sweet spot, at least for us. There’s not a lot of “engagement” per post, but if we get placements instead of +1, we’ll take it.
Tim, I think that’s a great strategy for using Google+. And I imagine the value of a placement is always going to outweigh the value of a +1.
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