What Assets Do You Have To Divert Attention?
September 21, 2011 
Author 
In 
Google.com is clearly one of the most powerful pages on the web. The might of this page is undeniable, with previous reports estimating around 38 million visitors per day (sorry I wasn’t able to find a more recent stat).
Regardless of the number, Google is using one of their most valuable assets to draw attention to their exciting new social play Google+. Why? Because they can. And they should.
The fact that Google is the start page for so many aside, the point is this is an asset to funnel community and they aren’t afraid to use it as such. It is another example of how Google is fully embracing social. This, in addition to compensation tied to social and hiring of top talent shows in black and white this is not a skunkworks project for their company. But that’s been clear for awhile.
What I want to point out today is what Google is doing that a lot of brands seem to miss:
Google is pulling levers on powerful owned marketing assets – and so can you
Having a high-trafficked page where you’re able to focus attention somewhere new to drive conversions is hardly unique to Google. And while many web start-ups and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs get this, so many brands ignore it.
Many seem to be disregarding their owned assets (like their website and blog) in favor of the stream. Yet when it comes time you need to divert organic attention somewhere new, those who do this find they have no ability to consistently send traffic anywhere. You don’t own templates in the stream, and you’ll piss people off if you flood them with updates. And even if you do achieve viral growth of a social media outpost, realize they’re overvalued. Especially without tagging back to a home base.
Yes, I know the reality is you might not be able to build a powerful and useful app like Google, but you can easily focus opt in at the source with content. This creates a megaphone for your brand on the web: both to break into real-time but also to provide sustainable returns outside of real-time. Don’t ignore the power of templates, calls to action and creating high-trafficked assets that are independently owned. And yes, many brands do play with calls to action on their homepage, but a majority don’t create legitimate reasons anyone would actually want to go there in the first place (let alone return).
Funny enough, in a real-time web money pages (pages that get extremely high amounts of traffic) become even more valuable as they keep being discovered in search and re-shared in the stream. And designed right, they convert too.
What assets do you have to funnel community or conversions of some sort? If none, it’s time to start creating them.
And now that Google+ is open to everyone: if you want to add me to your circles, you can do that here.
Max SEO Blog replied | Sep 23, 2011 (1 comment)
Eversince they started their Google+ Platform it has gained attention but since most didn’t notice it i guess they wan’t people to see it so they can use google+ service
Julie replied | Sep 25, 2011 (1 comment)
Surprised that since Google+ threw open it’s doors there hasn’t been more activity on there. Haven’t noticed much difference at all. Only about 5 new people and even they haven’t added to the stream.
Brian Maher replied | Sep 26, 2011 (3 comments)
I disagree – Facebook launched from a dorm room in Boston to go on to become the worlds largest social network. This was in spite of some other established networks such as Myspace, Bebo and friendster. If Google+ is sticky enough as a product it does not need this kind of exposure. Sadly I don’t think it is
Adam Singer replied | Sep 26, 2011 (597 comments)
Hi Brian – the point of this post wasn’t about Facebook vs. Google+ or the products. It was about building high-traffic assets to divert attention somewhere else – that way when you do have something of value, you’ll actually be able to get people there :)
Brian Maher replied | Sep 26, 2011 (3 comments)
Hi Adam, thanks for the reply. I get the point but I also feel we live in a world where good ideas can go viral – and there is no shortage of social places to promote these. High value traffic assets – this could be a blog, twitter page or youtube channel?
Peter Rimmer replied | Oct 10, 2011 (1 comment)
Google just can’t seem to do social networking that well. There was Buzz, which didn’t really work, and now a huge arrow to +1 . I can see why they did it, but it hasn’t really seemed to capture much attention.