Google Evolution - From Answers to Helpouts

Starting with Google Search in 1997, Google has always been trying to find the best answers to its users' queries.

In order to provide a more dedicated response to users' queries, in Aug 2001 Google decided to launch 'Google Questions and Answers'. This service allowed users to send their questions by email and for a flat fee of US$3.00 Google staffers would reply to those questions. Unfortunately the service ran for only 24 hours, after which it was shut down due to excessive demand¹.

This was followed by 'Google Answers' in April 2002. This  was different in the sense as the users were asking other users (researchers) for answers and were willing to pay the researchers  between $2 to $200 to for an answer. Google were charging 50 cent fee for posting a question and was keeping 25% of the reward money.

Although the service was receiving more than 100 questions per day but Google decided to shut it down in Dec 2006 saying that Answers community's limited size and other product considerations made it more effective for Google to focus its efforts on other ways to help its users find information².

Then came Knol, which was launched in 2007 as a method for authors to work together to create authoritative articles about specific topics that they know about.

In Oct 2012 Google decided to shut down Knol and said that it was prioritizing its product efforts so it can make things much simpler for its users and devote more resources to high impact products.

However, in order to continue the fostering of creation of very informative and authoritative content, Google worked with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum whereby all of the content from Knol was passed over to Annotum (launched on November 22, 2011 as an open-source, open-process, open-access scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress).

And now, on November 5, 2013, Google has launched Helpouts where users can get answers to their queries via a live one to one video chat (using Google Hangouts) from over a thousand pre-screened 'providers'  (experts from all different fields). The providers include individuals, small and medium businesses as well as well known brands and they have the option  to offer their services for free or ask for a set fee for a specified amount of time or even charge by minute. Payment transactions are done using Google Wallet and Google takes a 20% cut out of the fees.

This seems to be a great opportunity, specially for those individuals and businesses who are already providing educational and informative videos on Youtube, to sign up for Helpouts and generate some serious income rather than simply relying on the ad revenues.

Helpouts have some great features.  Google's Udi Manber, VP Engineering,  posted in his blog, "Once you’re in a Helpout, you can do more than just talk—you can share your computer screen, collaboratively edit a presentation, or record your Helpout. And if the experience doesn’t meet your expectations, we offer a full money back guarantee."

The concept of using 'one-to-one' live video chat for business was taken up by eBay in 2005 when they acquired Skype. It wanted to connect buyers and sellers in the eBay marketplace via Skype but failed badly as the marketplace continued to use email as their preferred mode of communicating with each other. However, with the offer of a full money back guarantee Helpouts may prove to be successful.

Whether Helpouts is a success story or not, in my opinion marketers should still tread with caution when having a presence on this platform as it is a new B2C business model where the services provided are rated along with users' comments. Also, a company's or an individual's position in Helpouts internal search is based on the heading, keywords and the 'reputation'. And, I personally think that as Helpouts are one of Google's latest products, its content will start showing up 'more' in Google's organic search. So, no matter how tiny, but it can still play a part is SERPS.

References:

1  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers

Why you need to consider ROE on Social Media

The days and ways of traditional marketing are changing. While companies are still pumping hard cash into print, TV and radio ads, Social Media has become a key ingredient of any marketing plan. However, there is a major difference. While in traditional marketing, once the ad/s have hit the medium, there is not much one can do but, to sit there and calculate the return on investment (ROI) using various campaign measurement metrics. On Social Media it is a different story altogether. As Social Media is always alive', the marketers need to remember that they have to engage with the customer 24/7 and 365 days of the year. This 'constant contact' allows you to approach, respond and react in real time.

Hence to achieve better results a continuous effort has to be made by businesses to satisfy the ever intelligent customer on Social Media. And along with that comes the measurement of Return on Effort (ROE).

In August 2012, a report published by Gartner, Inc. said, 'By 2014, organisations that refuse to communicate with customers by Social Media will face the same level of wrath from customers as those that ignore today's basic expectation that they will respond to emails and phone calls. For organisations that use Social Media to promote their products, responding to inquiries via social media channels will be the new minimum level of response expected.' And now, in 2013, Justyn Howard, CEO of Sprout Social, a platform for social business, says, 'The growth, relevance and reputation of today's organisations are being shaped by social conversations. Customer care and communication have changed forever. In order to succeed, you must #BePresent.' Still, there are many businesses who think that Social Media is just creating a Facebook page and, a little more extravagantly, setting up a Twitter account and then counting the 'LIKES' and 'FOLLOWERS' and then dwelling on it. No, Social Media measurement and analysis go far beyond that. Following are some key elements to measure while analysing your Social Media campaign.

Measuring your Social Media campaign

As social media marketing requires investment of time rather than money, ROE (Return on Effort) is the best way to capture the cost of social media marketing. If we start measuring the effort then they key elements will be the time spent engaged in an activity such as being on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn etc. No matter which activity you do on social media it has go to be focused, based on the goal/s you have set.

The goal/s may be lead generation, sales conversions, increasing visibility, building new business connections, sharing of information or anything else, these must be monitored and measured to check how near or far are you from your goals. For example if the goal on Twitter was lead generation and you generated 10 leads out of 100 followers then it would be much better than generating 1 lead out of 1000 followers. And these figures should be measured against time as well.

Following are some key elements to measure while analysing your Social Media campaign:

·        Buzz Volume: This will give you the volume of mentions (of your brand or competitors brand) over a given time period.

·        Top Mentions: This will tell you how and what the consumers are talking about your brand. This is also an excellent way of getting the 'keywords/phrases' for your website.

·        Sentiment: This tells you how many interactions/comments made by the consumers are positive, negative and/or neutral.

·        Influencers: This gives you the details about those who are most influential to your brands be it bloggers, tweeters or Facebook 'friends', depending upon the number of their readers, followers and friends respectively.

·        Location: This will tell you where your customers are coming from. This, when cross referenced with 'languages' will allow you to decide whether you need to communicate with your 'audience' (customers) in more than one language or not.

·        Gender: While this measurement is still quite ambiguous, it roughly tells you which gender is more engaged with your brand, again, allowing you to respond and react accordingly.

Beyond this, there are some additional measures as well that can be incorporated e.g. age etc. but still they are not extremely reliable as yet.

My 'Baqra Eid Eve' ordeal

I went to the shops earlier this evening. The town was like as if it was Xmas eve. Total chaos. To my disappointment I found out that my regular shop had run out of chicken. This meant getting chicken from some other shop.

After a bit of driving around I found a 'local' meat shop. I parked up and walked in. The first thing that hit me was the mixed stench of chicken feathers, beef and mutton. After a few seconds, when I was able to regain consciousness  I looked around. There was a cash counter to the left where a fat bearded man was sitting. To my right there were three service windows with butchers behind them. 

There were a few people in chaotic queues at the windows so I joined them and stated edging in from the wide. As I got closer I was able to see the chickens in the cages behind the butchers. The poor chickens were cramped together and had this frightened look in their eyes which only asked one question, "Who is next?". 

When I eventually managed to stick my head through the window the fat butcher asked me what I wanted. I asked for five chickens. The butcher repeated my order as loudly as he could for the whole world to hear. Out of nowhere a minion appeared, opened one of the cages, stuck his hand in, grabbed 5 birds, tied them all together with their wings and tossed them on to a weighing scale. All this in less than a minute. Then he yelled,"9 kilos." The butcher asked my if that was okay. By this time I was already in a trance and I must have said yes because they were briskly passed on to another guy who apparently cut their throats, bled them and pulled their feathers/skin off. Thankfully that was out of my sight. 

#184229404 / gettyimages.com

Two minutes later the once alive chickens reappeared, naked, without any feathers, head or skin, next to the chopping board (which was almost half a tree trunk), to the same guy who initially took my order. He wore a grey t-shirt with DKNY written in big (what were once white) letters. I bet if Donna Karen was able to see that t-shirt she'd quit her designing career altogether and probably commit suicide. The bottom half of his t-shirt, his hands and lower arms were all drenched in a combination of dried and fresh chicken blood. 

He swiftly sharpened his knifes by rubbing two knives against each other and started slicing the chicken away like a highly qualified heart surgeon. Once he had chopped the legs and thighs off, with one chop he sliced the chicken in two through the sternum, looked up and asked me, "three or four?". I was still frozen by what was going on so he yelled again, "Saab, 3 or 4? Hurry up, its Eid, we all have to go home and there are people waiting.'

This brought me back to my senses. I, kind of, realised that he was asking how many pieces of each breast I wanted. I said four and probably that was his cue. It sent him into an auto pilot mode. Chop chop chop. One by one he started piling the chopped chicken pieces in front of him on the giant wooden chopping board. Once all of the 'whole' chickens had been converted into 18 pieces he expertly shoved them into plastic bags. One chicken per bag.

As soon as five bags were ready he yelled to the guy, who had initially slaughtered and skinned them, "Giblets for the five chicken order?". Suddenly, out of nowhere, a plastic bag came flying and landed on his chopping board containing the giblets. With his bloody hands he pulled a plastic career bag from the hook, shoved the 5 bags and the bag containing giblets into the career bag and thrust the blood stained career bag in my hand. Reluctantly I grabbed it, failingly trying to miss the blood stained areas and headed towards the counter. No sooner than I had reached the counter I heard another shout from behind, "9 kilos." It was meant for the fat bearded guy behind the counter who seemed engrossed in a thick filthy diary. He was apparently discussing who owed him what with another fat bearded guy who sat next to him. He nodded once to acknowledge the 'chopper' and returned to his diary and discussion. I waited and waited and after about five minutes he eventually noticed me and asked, "9 kilos?" I said, "Yes." He then picked up his rather large calculator and madly tapped on the keyboard. He looked at the figure that the calculator had revealed and brought the calculator closer to his eyes. Probably not satisfied by the answer, he punched the numbers again, once again looked closely at the answer and without making any eye contact said, "1350." I had my wallet open in my hand and it must have been the fastest draw in the world. Within a micro second I had 1500 Rupees out that I shoved in the guy's hand. Unfortunately I had to wait to get my change, which the fat bearded guy at the counter counted 3 times. As soon as he gave me the change I legged out of the shop, took a deep breath in the 'not so fresh' but 'without any chicken stink' air and dived into my car. Immediately I turned the ignition on which was followed by the air-conditioning at full blast, shut the door and flopped on the driving seat.

That was my 'Eid Eve' ordeal here. And I'm never doing it again. Superstore for me, any time.