How to run successful campaigns on Google+ (the 5 C's)

Martin ShervingtonCommunity Manager,‘Plus Your Life’ and ‘Plus Your Business’

Introduction and background1. Concept 2. Community Building3. Contribution4. Communication5. Control Room Case studies

Introduction

Over the past couple of years I’ve been working on the best practices for running campaigns on Google+They are a great way of building trust and relationships with the people who may well become your brand advocates. Campaigns create movements.

Why think in terms of campaigns on Google+?

When you run a campaign on Google+ you create a tribe, a movement, a circle of people all connected and relating for the duration. Most of the campaigns I run will tend to be one day long, but sometimes they will extend over a week. It is a great way to bring people together for a cause, or to promote a product.

Some of the key considerations.

Google+ is a global, open network; as such people value openness, transparency and disclosure. The short version is this:be open, be transparent and people will engage and over time trust you and your brand; it takes time to build trust and the more you have paid your dues to your community, the more you will find people will follow.

Why did I run these campaigns? 1. Case Studies,2. To give my community members an enjoyable learning experience, and3. Because I value the relationship with each of every person who is involved, including those who I was promoting.

In order to make campaigns work for you, you will have to invest in building your network, and then finding your community who love what you do; if you try to do this too soon, it is most likely to be a flop.Also, there are stages I have found to planning and delivering upon for a campaign and once you are ready, you may well like to move in that direction too.

In recent days, I tend to call the campaigns ‘Quests’ as people seem to connect well with the concept.

Planning your campaign - 5 Cs

The first thing to know is this: what are you seeking to achieve through running a campaign.There are several different types I consider a) a joyful social experience and brand awareness, b) social leading into action on a website (e.g. fundraising), and c) social on Google+ leading into key Search results.

We will mainly be covering the process and examples of the first two in this presentation, but for the results of the third search for ‘What is Google?’ and you’ll see what can be done.

Once you know the outcomes, metrics and generally ‘how you know it went well’, you can start the asset planning.

Concept

This is the name of the campaign, including the hashtag and the whole kit and caboodle behind what is going to happen.At this stage, you will want to think of the assets you will create in the form of images, videos, blog posts etc. that will help people connect to the campaign.The more time, effort and energy you put into creating really cool ‘stuff’ the more likely people will engage.Take time to cook the concept stage so it is mature before moving into...

Community building

The process I use for campaigns is somewhat ‘old school’ and reminiscent of the days prior to Google+ communities...I use Google Circles.Why? Well, I want to build a notify list to send more information on the Quest to the people who’ve opted in, and with Google Circles you can do just that. This is a dream for the Permission Marketer, a mindset for which I will always be grateful to Seth Godin for instilling in me.

Contribution

I have found that campaigns which involve people are the best; people love to feel part of something and as I said from the start, you are building a mini-tribe for the duration.As such, think of ways that you can ‘make it about them’.

Communication

Send a private message to the circle as to the full nature of the quest, as well as any other communication you may have along the way.

Important: when you ask people permission, also tell them how many times over what period you expect you will send them an email.

Control room

Create a Google Hangout (or two) and invite the circle of people to join - this can be done as a text and image chat, and/or as a video call.I tend to have a circle size of 100 people, but sometimes the Quests may be as large as 250 people in the circle. (They then can ripple out to thousands from that initial seeding group.)Having a control room will allow you to have ‘real time’ interactions and help people feel a part of it all.Now you have everything set up for the launch…

Launch!

When you are ready to rock’n’roll you can make your first post of the campaign on Google+.BIG TIP: make sure you notify the circle of people (having told them you would in earlier communication) in order to best seed that initial post. All being well, it will land in people’s inbox as well as being a Google+ notification. You do this by sharing ‘public’ and then choosing the circle (or circles) and then checking the ‘notify by email box’.

Next you will be in full flow of the campaign.The more you have included people in the process, the more they will delighted to receive your interactions and contribute their own content as well.Really, I’ll say it again...make it about them.Now, here is the thing: you are not really in control once things get rolling, you can adjust course a little but most of what happens will have been generated in the set up. If you chose a hashtag that could be changed and one letter later you have a rude word, guess what? Yep, within the hour someone will have started a counter campaign, a campaign of their own, and they may well find a tribe to share it.

Think of it like surfing; you’ve chosen the day, the waves are there, and you just surf as well as you can. The good news is that you may well have some very pleasant surprises when you trust your campaign members to let loose and be creative.

Tracking

At ‘Plus Your Business’ we work with the Social Network Analysis team at Nod3x.com to track the spread of the campaign. This gives us information including the number of people engaged, the reshare rate, key influencers etc.From that we can work out e.g. how long it takes to create a trending topic and how many people you would need to get involved, resharing each others content etc.

Next, let me take you through a few case studies and the reports for each one too.

Case Study 1: Canva Questhttp://www.plusyourbusiness.com/canva-quest/

Teaming up with Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick to do a promotional event is also going to be fun. This time was to help them promote canva.com, for which they both work.On the occasion we set up two teams of people who created images using Canva.com; people then went through an educational learning experience as to which images and content seemed to get the most engagement. We then capped the event with a Hangout-on-Air with Guy and Peg the next day and featured many of the participants images.

As you can see from the image below,#CanvaQuest trending for most of the day.

Case Study 2: Freak Questhttp://www.plusyourbusiness.com/freaks-shall-inherit-earth-interview-chris-brogan-inc-transcript/

To celebrate the launch of Chris Brogan’s new book ‘The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth’ we went on a #FreakQuest! Centered around a Google Hangout-On-Air, people on the Quest created an expression of their own wonderfully freakish qualities, just like this one below...

It is great to see brands like‘The Huffington Post’ show their love for the content, as they did below...

And once again you can see wesustained a trend on Google+ for many hours:

Case Study 3: Rubik’s Cubehttp://www.plusyourbusiness.com/case-study-rubik-tuesday-data-mining-tracking-insights-using-social-network-analysis/

To celebrate our love of Rubik’s Cube (which happens to be 40 years old this year), we created #RubikTuesday.

In essence we all shared cool content around the cube and its role in our lives.

Below show the explosion as it spread:

Also using Nod3x.com we are able tobring in more data on the reach and views per post:

As you can also see, above, it was great when the man himself - Erno Rubik - also engaged around the day.

Case Study 4: Camfed http://www.plusyourbusiness.com/camfed-fundraising-campaign/

Finally, here is an example of a campaign I supported Google on. I got involved with around 24 hour before they were to hit the deadline and they have been very supportive of the approach I’ve taken:

"Martin is an official G+ Advocate andwas a key player in the Camfed Campaignfor girls' education on G+. Martin used Circles in a brilliant way to galvanize a community of people who care about education to donate to the social giving campaign. His stellar reputation on G+ and extensive experience with the platform were clearly reflected in the success of the campaign, which ultimately raised over $9,000 and sent 30 girls back to school in Africa. Martin's definitely a force worth listening to when it comes to running campaigns on G+."Willa Zhou, Google+ Advocates, Community Manager (December 2013)

The approach taken was exactly that described in the process in this article. Build a circle, a mini-tribe, bringing people together for a cause to which they relate. I also do my best to make them fun as well; people like fun. People like badges too.As you can see, on this occasion I also gave people a badge (that robot chap) that they can display on their website using commoogle.com (an engagement tool I created as a way to give badges to people in your Google circles).

Here was the result:

Conclusion

Campaigns are not easy to run. They take planning, and a tribe of people to make them work. But once you have managed to build your network they will become a lot easier and, as you can see, the results can be superb.