The changes to Google+ are further evidence, if any were needed, that Google+ is far more than a social network. Google+ combined with Google search, is an influencer management system that enables Google to build a social graph of each user and a semantic history of their web usage.

In Google’s case these combine every interaction that you make on the web via Google’s services.

Using this data Google personalises search results and content to you. If you sign into Google search with a Google account you’ll already see this in action. Results from your network on Google+ and prior web history are prioritised.

Public relations: Google is in the influence and relationship business

My view is that Google is a web infrastructure and services company that is in the business of public relations and influencer marketing. Its vision is to help users find information on the web. Its purpose is to connect individuals and organisatons as efficiently as possible in a two-way engagement.

Approximately 80 per cent of searches on the web worldwide start with a Google service according to comScore data reported by Danny Sullivan in Search Engine Land in February 2013.

Google is working hard to improve the consumer appeal of Google+ over Facebook, its main competitor. The platform launched in November 2011 and according to Google’s own data reached 500 million users at the end of 2012. The user demographic so far is tech savvy, media and Internet innovators and early adopters. But it’s changing, and fast.

It’s no surprise that many of the product announcements this week from Google I/O relate to Google+ interface and applications. Google wants the drive sign-ups and engagement via the platform.

Reviewing and testing the new Google+ features

I’ve spent the last few days reviewing announcements from the Google I/O event with colleagues from Ketchum and road testing some of the new features to bring you our view of the changes and what they mean for organisations and users.

The majority of the new features have been enabled immediately. If you’ve spotted something that I haven’t please share it via the comments and I’ll update this post.

Form and function – the layout of Google+ has changed. It’s much cleaner and slicker. Many commentators have compared it with the Pinterest interface.

The news stream remains centre screen. The wholesale use of white space promotes content on the platform over applications and features.

The Google+ navigation menu has been tucked away on the left hand side of the screen, accessible by rolling over the home button.

Likewise a Hangout menu is tucked away on the right hand side of the screen, accessible via a green speech mark button. More on that shortly.

Stream layout – The Circle filters that enable your stream to be organised by the content posted by individuals in each of your Circles appear on the top of the screen.

There are two options for how content is served in your stream. You can either pick a single sequential flow or a modular magazine-like two or three-column layout. The latter is optimised to the size and orientation of your screen.

Cards – Google+ serves posts in a white card or tile-like format that stands out from the muted grey of the interface. We first saw cards on the Google Now personal assistant service. It’s a neat way of organising and serving content.

The analytics for each piece of content, containing information about interactions and sharing, are accessed by clicking the drop down menu and served on the rear of the card. It’s a neat design feature.

Sharing content – Google+ has changed the way that content appears in the stream. Text posts are truncated with an option to click to access additional text. There doesn’t appear to be any standard rule for how the text is abridged. If you’ve figured this out I’d love to hear from you.

If you share a link, the headline and URL appears alongside an image. The meta-description from the associated webpage is no longer shown. The lesson is clear. If you want Google+ users to click through to your content you need to optimise your posts and links.

Hangouts – Gmail chat and Google+chat are both gone and have been merged into Google Hangouts. This is a powerful platform in itself that enables two or more people to participate in a live video discussion via the Internet.

Up to 10 people can participate in a Google+ Hangout but more can follow via Google+. Once the conversation is over it can be saved, shared and searched via YouTube.

#hashtag conversations – New Google+ posts are automatically tagged with a hashtag. You can override this feature in the Google+ settings, you can remove hashtags manually, or you can add your own. Hashtags are shown at the top right of each post.

When you click on a hashtag on a post, Google+ collates all the related public posts, or posts that have been shared with you by your network. It serves the results either on the reverse of the post or card, or in a new window, depending on the volume of content. It’s a very neat feature that allows you to quickly retrieve posts on a topic or issue.

Trending topics and the most popular posts on Google+ are displayed via the What’s Hot option on the Home menu.

Images – Google has embedded some powerful technology within image sharing on Google+. It is clearly a feature that Google is seeking to use to draw in new users.

If you use Google+ on a mobile phone or tablet it automatically uploads any photo that you take in the background to Google+. Alternatively you can manually upload images. All users will have 15GB of free storage space according to Google (my account hasn’t been upgraded yet from 5GB).

Google+ has rolled out automatic image enhancement to tweak images to brightness, colour, contrast and noise. Its goal is to make your images look as good as possible.

There’s more. Google+ will automatically identify what it believes to be your most important photos and automatically organises these into a dedicated highlight feed.

Gone are blurred images, multiple copies of the same image, and snaps of people with their eyes closed. In are images of people that are smiling and images that are well-framed.

Auto Awesome creates new versions of your when it detects a series of similar images. I’ve yet to see this feature enabled but it reportedly creates montages, panoramas, high-definition images and short animations.

Final point: if you’d rather than Google+ didn’t muck about with your images you can turn all these features off in your personal settings. In fact the same applies for all the Google services. It’s straightforward to tweak them in your user settings.

Recommendation: jump in, if you haven’t already

If you haven’t signed-up to Google+ yet I recommend that you do.

The relationship between Google+ and Author Rank as a means of promoting content via the network and in search clearly sign-posted Google’s strategic intent for the platform in November 2012. If that didn’t convince you then maybe one of the new features will persuade you to have another look.

The opportunity for organisations is to promote their content via the platform through search and the networks of their employees and partners.

Organisations have the opportunity to use the platform to build their own communities via brand pages. These provide a means to directly engage via audience via the platform, search and Google Maps.

Finally Google+ communities and hangouts provide an exciting means for two-way engagement.

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I’m standing on a commitment to 10 words and 10 pledges for a future-looking Institute committed to professional development. There are three main strands to the campaign.

Media fragmentation
The election has become polarised between change brought on by media fragmentation and the traditional roots of public relations practice.

My view is that public relations has never had such a compelling opportunity to assert its value. We are helping organisations engage with internal and external publics in two-way dialogue.

We work in an editorial environment, listening and creating a narrative to enable organisations to engage with their publics.

Increasingly thanks to developments in measurement and evaluation we can put a number on the value that we deliver to an organisation, making public relations more compelling than ever.

Professional development
Many CIPR members will never see the CIPR’s London-base. The CIPR’s strength lies in its members in the nations and regions.

I’m a member of the North East group. I live in Northumberland and work in London and across Europe. I’m proud to have been nominated by members from around the country.

I know personally that my skills, strengthened through professional development at the CIPR – in my case Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Chartered accreditation – have a direct impact on my income and my career success.

That’s a story that we need to tell to both practitioners and employers. As President, I will make sure every member, no matter where they are, gets the value from membership of the CIPR.

Member engagement
Throughout this election, I have been staggered by the engagement with both members and non-members. I have been listening carefully and engaging directly. It is a very clear example of how our profession is changing.

What is clear is that addressing how the CIPR continues using social media, will drive member engagement locally, regionally and internationally.

As President I will engage directly with members and industry colleagues through monthly discussions. I’ve proposed Twitter but will use whatever media the majority of members prefer.

I will continue to engage with the profession through writing, speaking and blogging.

Please join with a growing number of members who want to see us embrace change, deliver for members and be the go to organisation for professional communicators.

I’m ready to get cracking. Please make sure that you vote and when you do #vote4wadds.

Thank-you.

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Eli Appel, the newly appointed Attenzi CEO, leads the kitchen equipment manufacturer through the changes brought about by the Internet on organisational design, business performance management, marketing, public relations and branding.

Here’s the surprise. It’s written by consultant, author and speaker Philip Sheldrake.

It’s a departure from anything that Sheldrake has done before. His previous published work includes the Business of Influence and chapters for various books including Share This.

Attenzi describes the challenge that organisations face as employees and customers are empowered by technological change. As you read the book you’ll recognise the implications for your own role and those around you.

I’ve blogged for seven years and written and contributed to a couple of non-fiction books but I’ve never written a story. I’ve huge admiration for what Sheldrake has achieved with Attenzi.

I was keen to understand his motivation.

“Storytelling is the oldest way to convey ideas and, if it’s a good story of course, have the ideas retold and passed round,” said Sheldrake.

Attenzi’s message is clear. To be successful in the future organisations need to shed traditional structures and figure out how to put their employees and customers at their core.

It’s a message affirmed by the foreword written by Yammer co-founder and CTO Adam Pisoni.

Sheldrake’s goal is to galvanise executives and the organisations that they lead to embrace this change. It’s also an excellent pitch for Euler Partners, Sheldrake’s own consulting company.

You’ll read the 100-page book in a single sitting. That’s intentional according to Sheldrake.

“I really hope that people find it an easy and stimulating read, and even think it’s something I wrote in a few weeks. The truth however is that it took a year. I haven’t written any fiction since I was at school, so I had to remind myself how it’s done. And keeping the length down was hard too… more than a few thousand words were canned,” he said.

Sheldrake shared an early draft with me last year. Great narrative but not enough sex was my feedback. Sheldrake ignored my comment. That’s probably a good thing.

Attenzi is free and available in all popular digital formats via the Attenzi website where you can also leave thoughts and comments.

Sheldrake has also created twitter handles for CEO Eli Appel (@EliAppel), COO Marcus Wallinger (@MarcusWallinger) and @Attenzi.

It’s social. And it’s the business.

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By Steven Cole

As the title of the blog suggests, I feel rather strongly about Google+. My name is Steve, I have worked in digital marketing full time for the last four years and I am particularly focused on Social Media in my day to day role.  I am also a bit of a nerd when it comes to keeping up to date with the latest social trends and a long time reader of sites like Mashable and The Next Web – so when I heard Google was launching it’s own Social Media platform I got rather excited.

However like most, that excitement began to dwindle after setting up my profile, sending out my first post (no doubt something about it being my first post – how original) and then realising that all of the people I was connected with where elsewhere on the web and not actually on Google+.  I began to feel disillusioned with the platform, then came a torrent of disparaging blog posts and commentary from my usual news sources which I would of liked to defend but it was echoing my experience.

Then came my breakthrough moment. Prior to a long drive to London from my North East home I decided to download an audio-book by a chap called Chris Brogan, whom I now know to be a legend in the social media world.  The book was called “Google Plus for Business” it was about four hours long, roughly the same as my journey, and from that moment, I understood the Google+, how it differed from the other platforms and how to take advantage of it. Brogan also did a great webinar below, it is an hour long but if you are serious about getting into the platform it is a great introduction.

What I love about Google+

1. Google Author Rank – rel=author is the single piece of code that gets me a lot of organic search traffic to my blog.  There are several articles on how to get this to work for you but essentially it surfaces your Google profile picture next to any search results of web pages / blogs that you have authored – making it more visually appealing and clickable.  I love this feature because although I have only been blogging a short space of time it allows my content to stand out against some of the big players and it’s so easy to set up within your Google+ profile – well worth the five mins it took.

2. Communities - this is a more recent addition to the Google+ landscape but it has allowed me to make better connections on the platform, lead to me teaching myself how to use Photoshop from scratch, find a whole new online community around my team (Newcastle United) and shown me how to bake awesome Cadbury’s chocolate cakes!  Essentially communities are a Google+ version of the old Web Forums you used to get but organised, visually appealing and searchable, they are micro communities within the larger Google+ platform.

3. Places - Google’s integration of Places and Google+ has been great, during some work I did for Mecca Bingo we actually got an internal tour done of one of their retail outlets; it’s actually really cool and can be seen here.  This also really helps boost it’s appearance in search.

4. Hang outs - I love doing Hang Outs, I use these for work, education and in my personal life.  There is talk that the Newcastle United community I am part of will be holding Hang Outs during the matches next year which I can’t wait to get involved in.

5. Mobile - I think that Google+ mobile offering is by far the most stylish and user friendly.  I use it on iPhone, iPad and desktop all have a great look and feel and work perfectly.  I spend the majority of my time on mobile devices so having an app that I rate highly is important to me.  I don’t use the auto photo upload as I use different cloud based services for my pictures.

The overriding reason I am a huge fan of Google+ is that it isn’t Facebook, nor does it pretend to be.  You are more likely to connect to strangers and people outside of your real life friends and family (similar to Twitter in that respect.)  Relationships are built around passions, interests and community.  You are not littered with adverts, and long may that continue and finally my blog and other online contributions benefit from me being on the platform.  For me it is case closed, care to join me?

Steven Cole is a savvy social marketer who blogs regularly for Moving Social.  If you would like to connect to Steve he can be found on Twitter @Schtevey and of course Google+.

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If you haven’t blogged before guest blogging is a good way to start. Some of the best guest blogs posts on my site are from smart students keen to get ahead and build networks.

In the public relations sector Behind the Spin, comms2point0, PR Examples, and Rachel Miller all publish content from guest contributors.

Topics can include any aspect of digital marketing, the media, public relations, or social media.

You could write about an area of practice, report on an event, review a book, share your experience, a case study, insight, research, or information about a tool. Have a quick look at some of the previous posts on the site.

Content guidelines
Here are some guidelines for the content of a guest blog post.

1. Be useful, original and insightful. Tell me something that I don’t know.
2. Considered and thoughtful argument is good. If you want to rant there are plenty of other places on the web.
3. Aim for 400 to 800 words. Use subheads to break up your copy.
4. Follow The Economist Style Guide.
5. Write for the mobile screen in short sentences and paragraphs. BBC News is excellent at this style of writing.
6. Please supply an anchor image for the home page (160×120 pixels) if you can.
7. Add any embedded content such as images, video or Slideshare decks, that helps you tell your story.
8. Include a photo of yourself, a two line-bio, and links to any social profiles.

What next?
If you fancy submitting a guest blog post please give me a shout with an idea.

I rarely publish guest blogs that are submitted speculatively. It’s social media after all.

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I asked my network on Facebook last week what we did really well as a profession. Three people suggested beating ourselves up on Facebook and other forms of social media.

The irony is delicious.

In PRWeek last week brand editor Ruth Wyatt returned to the issue of the profession’s image problem citing Max Clifford and three separate cases of fraud involving practitioners.

Meanwhile PRWeek columnist Ian Monk applauded Clifford’s response to his arrest for 11 accounts of indecent assault as a public relations coup.

These aren’t descriptions of the profession that I recognise.

I have long argued that we need to create separation between Clifford’s craft of publicity and the management discipline of public relations.

Instances of fraud are unwelcome but it would be interesting to benchmark our profession against the accountancy and legal professions to discover if we have a systemic issue or if these really are isolated incidents. It is almost certainly the latter.

My view is that the public relations industry lacks confidence.

The advertising and digital industries aren’t debating standards and waiting to become the adviser to organisations as media fragments and brands seek to engage in two-way conversations with audiences. They are getting on with it and taking our ground.

The public relations professional has the most potent proposition for organisations. We work in an editorial environment, listening and creating a narrative to enable organisations to build their reputation by earning attention, rather than buying it.

Increasingly thanks to developments in measurement and evaluation we can put a number on the value that we deliver to an organisation. This is the story that we should be focussed on and not isolated cases of fraud or media manipulation.

The public relations profession has a higher calling.

We are helping organisations engage with internal and external publics in two-way dialogue. That dialogue is seldom easy. You can see the evidence of those organisations getting it right, and wrong, scattered across the web.

The profession is under scrutiny like never before called out by the self-same critical publics. Our response, a shift towards the rigour of a profession, remains a work in progress.

Public relations will either become incredibly valuable as a management discipline in the next decade by tackling these issues or it will become irrelevant.

There has never been a more exciting time to work in public relations but we haven’t got much time.

This post first appeared on my PRWeek blog - Speaking up for the public relations profession.

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During the session we explored how Google has changed its search algorithm over the last 18-months coupled with the launch of Google+ and Author Rank giving the public relations industry the opportunity to regain the ground that it has lost to search marketing in the last decade.

Author Rank marks-up content in search results with an image of its author. It is intended to reduce spam results and promote authoritative content. The early signs are that this improves click rates. It’s human nature that we’re more likely to click on content from a real person, particularly if they are are a trusted source.

We also discussed the potential of Google Hangouts as a means of direct audience engagement and Google+ Communities to engage with an audience around a topic or issue.

During the Q&A several people asked how you link content from a branded web site or a blog to Google+ using Author Rank. You either need to hard code or use a plug-in for your Content Management System (CMS). For example, if you’re a WordPress user I’d recommend Author Sure.

If you’re new to Google+ here are some helpful resources to get you started.

• Why you need to use Google+: Author Rank and social search
• Google gives the public relations industry a second chance
• Review: What the Plus! Google+ for the rest of us by Guy Kawasaki
• Google+ is an untapped PR opportunity for brands

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Here’s a Slideshare summary of my ten words and ten pledges.

The election kicks off next Tuesday 7 May and runs through to 21 May. Watch out for the election email and please ensure that you vote.

Throughout the election period I’ve been blogging two of my words and pledges each week and answering any questions that have been raised by members.

Last week was social and lobby. In this final week I’m onto my final two pledges and words: transparency and voice.

Transparency

All members of the CIPR agree to abide by its Code of Ethics when they sign up as members. The Professional Practices Committee (PPC) deals with complaints and has the authority to expel members that break the code.

The work of the PPC is under reported. It operates quietly and discretely. That’s right and proper, but we need call out examples of industry bad practice as a means of defining the standard by with CIPR members operate.

This is exactly what PPC co-chair Sarah Hall did last week in a blog post about the legal case that involved two practitioners (non-CIPR members) embezzling nearly £19,000 from Activision.

This is a defining Charter commitment. Employers need to know that if they employ a CIPR member they get a practitioner committed to CPD that operates within best practice guidelines.

The CIPR must continue to be an open and transparent organisation working in the public interest.

Voice

My call to displace Max Clifford as the mouthpiece of the public relations industry has attracted more comment than any other of my 10 words and 10 pledges.

Clifford doesn’t represent me when he speaks on a public relations issue. It’s simply not acceptable that he represents our profession in the popular media.

The ongoing Operation Yewtree investigation may deliver this pledge sooner than I envisaged. Whatever happens, as President I will promote the expertise of our own communicators to the media through social media such as blogs and Twitter, and via speaking opportunities.

Questions and Answers

Ged Carol has blogged about the CIPR election on his PRWeek blog suggesting that the new President needs to be a catalyst for change.

Neville Hobson invited me to join him on For Immediate Release this week as a guest. We spoke about the Associated Press Twitter hack, UK versus US political campaigning, international public relations and Share This Too book.

Admiral PR, the regional agency that I chair, has run a Q&A about my ambition, motivation and vision for the CIPR.

Bournemouth University’s Professor Tom Watson raised some interesting issues about creativity in public relations on his blog. He asks whether public relations should be part of the creative economy.

I did an audio interview with PR Moment ahead of the PR is Changing conference this Thursday. I’m speaking about the future skills requirements of public relations teams.

The discussions in the CIPR LinkedIn group remain noisy and engaging. Finally, Andrew Smith has blogged about the importance of voting in this election.

If you have any other questions please get in touch either via the comments below or email.

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Each month I have been blogging about the most popular content on my site in a bid to understand how visitors consume the content. Lately I’ve started to scrutinise the journey that visitors make through the site, the content that they consume and the time that they spend on the site.

Every metric is up on my blog this month: page views, unique visitors, dwell time and pages viewed per visit have all increased.

It’s no surprise. I’m a candidate in the CIPR elections for President and I have been blogging regularly throughout the process.

If you want insight into the impact of the Author Rank and Google+ on the Google algorithm I’d urge you to head to Google and enter the search query CIPR election.

But I have made a few nips and tucks to the structure of my blog in the last month after scrutinising data from Google Analytics.

Content about the CIPR election is dynamically curated via tags on a single page. This has become a destination for people searching for information about the election.

After some of the older long form blog posts repeatedly made the monthly top ten list of popular content on my blog I added a ‘Trending content’ widget in the right hand column listing some of the more popular content. Each month I’ll manually add links to the most popular content on the blog to the widget.

This month traffic to the ‘Trending content’ blog posts has increased three and four-fold in some instances. It’s a very simple change that has proved incredibly effective.

Here are the top ten blogs posts on my site in April:

1. Essay: The future of public relations
2. Grunig revisited: digital communication and the Four Models of Public Relations
3. CIPR Election: 10 words and 10 pledges for industry leadership
4. CIPR Election: Community and confidence
5. Mention takes aim at mainstream monitoring market
6. ‘Crap detection’: Ernest Hemingway and the Associated Press Twitter hack
7. CIPR Election: Social and lobby
8. The iPad office
9. Trolls: a scientific look at a public relations problem
10. Ketchum’s leader on leadership communication: drawing as storytelling

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The award was created in 2011 by organisers Don’t Panic, Stuart Bruce and Mark’s wife Clare, in memory of Mark who died that year. It celebrates the new wave of bright and talented 21st Century communicators that are making their mark on the industry.

In his obituary in The Guardian, Clare wrote that Mark had three obsessions: social media, the Labour party and Everton FC. He was a passionate advocate of online engagement. He used his expertise to benefit clients at his agency Wolfstar and the Labour Party.

Mark was generous with his time whenever anyone connected with him online. Above all he was a great communicator, always willing to share his knowledge and do his bit to move the industry forward.

If you know someone under-30 that is fitting to win this award in Mark’s memory please complete an only entry before 12 July – there’s no cost other than your time. Perhaps you know somebody that has led a great campaign, is building a team, or is leading an area of best practice.

The Mark Hanson award is one of 20 awards in the UK Social Media Awards, that celebrate excellence from the best use of networks such as Facebook and Twitter, through to best agency or in-house team. Now in its fourth year, the awards will be held for the first time in London at The Emirates Stadium on Thursday 24 October 2013.

I’m a long-time supporter of Don’t Panic’s work and am chuffed to have been asked back as a judge this year. In fact I jumped at the chance as they gave me the Outstanding Contribution to Social Media award last year.

This year’s awards are sponsored by UK Fast, media partner PRmoment and are supported by both the CIPR and PRCA.

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