Facebook Places and Google Places: What’s in a Name?
Last night, Facebook sprang its new Facebook Places product on the world. At its core, it’s a lot like Foursquare. It allows you to “check in” at a location using the GPS on your mobile device. The major 
difference is that while using Places, you’re not competing to become “mayor” of anything, as you are on Foursquare. With Places, you’re simply sharing your physical location with Facebook friends.
Google has its own location product. Interestingly, it’s called Google Places.
Despite using the same names, Facebook and Google Places are completely different products.
Facebook Places is simply adding another way you can tell people what you’re up to, by using geolocation.
Google Places is a re-branding of Google’s Local Business Center. It launched back in April, and included a ton of new features. Its basic goal is to get local businesses to “claim” their Google Place page on the web, fill it up with information, use it to serve things like coupons, and then (hopefully) buy advertising with Google to direct people to it. Geolocation is a feature, but it’s not even closely related to how Facebook is using it.
For Facebook, this new product is a great idea. While squashing competitors Foursquare and Gowalla (I know those two companies are “partners” in Facebook Places, but that’s really only because they don’t have much choice but go along) a logical function is also being added to Facebook. You can already tell your Facebook friends what you’re doing. With Places, you can show them where you’re doing it.
Google Places is also a great idea. It’s an attempt to expand its local search offerings. Search and other Internet services are what Google does best. There is no social aspect to Google Places, which is a good idea given Google’s lack of success in social media offerings.
We’ve determined that these two services are only slightly related … so, why do they have such similar names? I can’t imagine. Maybe all of the words that don’t mean anything (see also: Twitter, Gowalla, Foursquare, Vimeo) are already taken?
Time to Give Up on Google Buzz
Before I get started … one thing: Some would say this is the second “Google bashing” post in a row, with the other one slamming Google’s “Me” before it even gets off the ground. One could say that, and I suppose it would be a fair assessment. I do want to let it be known, however, that I am anything but against Google. I’m a huge fan of their services, such as Gmail, Analytics, Docs, and of course their web search. However, something seems to be missing with Google when it comes to creation of a social media service. With word leaking out that they’re working on a new service to go head-to-head with Facebook, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at their last attempt.
When was the last time you “Buzzed”? If you’re anything like me, you can’t remember the last time you logged on to Google’s attempt at a social media service. All evidence indicates that while Google Buzz does have its users, it doesn’t have anywhere near as many loyal users as Facebook or even Twitter. Mashable noted back in April that 89% of the traffic on Buzz is automated. That percentage is way too high. Here’s another piece of evidence that Buzz isn’t a big hit:
Will Google’s “Me” Succeed?
No. I don’t think so.
Before I explain my educated guess, let’s back up a bit and get everyone caught up.
There have been rumors for a while that Google is working on a new social media site. Those rumors yesterday seemed to be confirmed in an article on Techcrunch. The site is said to be called “Google Me”, and while Google seemed to have Twitter in mind when it created it’s Buzz service, Google Me is said to directly target Facebook.
Assuming all of this is correct, it means Google is trying to create a Facebook killer. Will it succeed? Obviously it’s too early to tell, but I’m going to go out on a limb anyhow. If “success” is making a serious dent in Facebook’s dominance of the social media market, then I believe the answer is “no”. Here’s why:
Now Public Relations Actually Relates with the Public
I was thinking yesterday about some of the calls I used to take when I worked in corporate communications for a national retailer. Most of the time when my phone rang, a reporter was on the other end. Every so often, however, a customer with a complaint would call. Customer complaints weren’t really my department, but I would listen and try to help if I could. Quite often, I would have to transfer them to customer support. At times, this caused the customer to become irritated. I would calmly tell them that I worked in public relations, and I needed to send them to someone who could more effectively handle customer issues. On more than one occasion, this led to the customer to say something along the lines of, “You’re in public relations, and I’m a member of the pubic … why can’t you handle my problem?”
The PR Circle of Life
I’m probably not blogging anything that hasn’t been blogged before when I type this, but I’ll type it anyhow: There are more tools available to the PR professional now than at any point in the industry’s history. You probably think I’m referencing social media and social networking. I am, but there’s so much more to it. And, it all connects in a way that precious few public relations pros seems to realize.
If you look on the EndGame PR services page, you’ll see a pretty long list. There’s a reason for that. I want to be able to do everything I can to help my clients. I’m talking about not only social media, social networking and traditional PR tactics such as media relations, but also search engine optimization (SEO), web content creation, and even web design. Imagine these skills and tactics as part of a never-ending “circle of life”. Quality media relations campaigns can equal links back to a web site, which helps search rankings, which in turn can help a social media audience find you, which in turn can help you promote your quality web content, which can add links back to a web site, which can help SEO …. lather, rinse, repeat. All of these strategies and tactics work well together, and should not be stuck in silos, as they are in so many organizations.
Perhaps the best part of thinking about PR in this way is that you’re not reliant upon one single tactic. If your media relations campaign isn’t going as well as expected, perhaps another portion of the “circle of life” will kick in and help you.
While I’m not suggesting that all PR professionals should know what a 301 redirect is or what to do with the .htaccess file (I do, but I’m a geek), they should know the basics of SEO. They should also know how (or have access to someone who does) to create a basic web video. They should also have the writing skills to be able to write an entertaining and thoughtful blog post. Feel free to judge whether I possess that last one or not .. I won’t assume.
I am going to assume, however, that most everyone reading this knows at least a little bit about social media. You ARE reading a blog, after all. Not near as many have knowledge of the SEO basics. Here are a few, with an example at the end of how the circle of life works:
- Keywords: The basic strategy for figuring out which keywords to use is to think of what words you WANT web searchers to use on Google in order to find your content. Then, work those words into your title and copy (in a natural way, please .. no keyword stuffing). If you want to get more precise about which keywords to use, try playing with the Google Keyword Tool. Most important, however, is that you include those keywords in the headlines and copy of your news releases and other online content.
- Backlinks are king: One of the most important things you can do to improve your site’s search ranking WITHOUT digging into web site code, is increase the number of other sites linking to your site. From a PR perspective, this can be done two ways. First, create original content that people will want to link to. In other words, people will enjoy it and want to blog about it or post about it on Twitter or Facebook. Another tool in the SEO PR toolbox is online news release distribution. Check out my sort-of-annual review of online release distribution sites for more information about this.
- Promote your content on social networking sites: Obviously this isn’t ALL you should be doing on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz and all of the others, but it’s one of the things you should be doing. Obviously, the more people who know about your unique content, the more people who could potentially link back to it from their sites. See?! Circle of life!
What it comes down to is that PR pros need to learn everything they can about these tools, even to the point of teaching themselves a little bit of HTML and even how to use CSS. These skills come in handy much more than you would expect, and can improve the service provided to clients or employers.
And, don’t blame me if you walk away from this blog post humming an Elton John song from a certain Disney movie. That’s your problem, and I accept no responsibility for it. It’s less annoying than Hakuna Matata, at least!
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