Hi Alex,
Thanks for sharing this article. It's relevant to this conversation.
Stay well.
Cheers,
Bernie

Alex,
Indeed effective SEO is not possible without some level of social networking. And, like it or not, Google+ is a player. This announcement on Search Plus Your World makes social networking even more important.

Thanks for your comment.
Bernie Borges

Jeff,
I generally agree with your points, which essentially reinforce my sentiments in this blog post. The only piece you didn't mention (unless I missed it) is the concept of being socially responsible. This is "the other social." I don't believe a social business is simply one that embraces social media from top to bottom. That's just part of it. I think it also requires having a "higher purpose" mindset by inspiring employees to give back at their local level and for the business to give back at the enterprise level.

Thanks for your comment.

Regards,
Bernie Borges

Cindy, lunch and learns are great for many reasons including the content it feeds into your blog. Thanks for sharing that excellent example!

Brendan, as you know I refer to this issue as "getting more rowers in the boat." If you can convince others that their contribution helps their personal brand and the company's competitive viability, some of them should respond to that. And, when some respond, others will eventually respond. Keep the faith! ;)

J.P. while it's true that Google is a for profit company and they give you a filtered view of the world, they are under a lot of competitive pressure. They know that if you don't have a good search experience, you have other options. So, I think they want us to be successful at organic SEO. It feeds into their PPC engine.

BTW, sorry about all the spam comments here. I recently did a migration and I'm still dealing with spam clean up. I appreciate your comments!

Hey Carter. I'm glad you enjoyed this post. Just visited your blog and I like it! Have you received any feedback from Mari Smith or Guy Kasawaki on calling them hypocrites?

We just launched our new website and we're still cleaning up some details such as posting the correct blog feed URL. Here it is: www.findandconvert.com/blog/feed.

Thanks for your engagement!
Cheers,
Bernie

I understand your point. My own use of G+ has declined since it first launched. But, the reason I think it still has potential is they have not yet launched business pages. When they do launch and Google includes Google Analytics, that will be powerful. The question is will businesses use the business pages? And, will they attract visitors? That remains to be seen.

Google+ doesn't have to beat out Facebook to be successful. It just has to have tight integration with all the other Google properties and have 100 million users and that will result in enough success to make it competitive to Facebook. And, Facebook needs competition or they will become too powerful for the good of the consumer.

Thanks for your comment.