https://vimeo.com/bravodesignince

How NOT to Get Brandjacked on Google+

Posted on June 17, 2013 by skulkaew

Sometime last week, a few of us at the studio were wondering how we might procure a vanity URL to replace the 21-digit ID our Google+ profile currently has.

The thought process being that if we had something more manageable like plus.google.com/bravodesigninc, it’d be easier to share on assets (e.g., on printed materials like business cards, stationary, etc.) or over the phone.

After some digging, I found that Google rolled out vanity URLs for verified pages in August of last year, but that they weren’t made available to all G+ users. I’m late to yet another party. Initially, Google had indicated that it “should be available to many more of your business pages over time.” Ten months later, that isn’t really the case, even for household brands.

Coca-Cola (989,781 G+ followers) and The Coca-Cola Company (4,774 G+ followers) each have their vanity URLs. Pepsi (703,818 G+ followers) does not.

When searching for PepsiCo, I found this:

And since people and pages are grouped together in +search, it goes on and on and on.

Six sites, three “official ones.” Seems legit. I’ll get to that momentarily. Using Google, I searched for the Pepsi Company which populated a G+ profile in the site’s metadata/link section.

Here it is:

Womp, womp. Each of the unofficial “official” pages has more followers.

What threw me for a loop is that when I went back to see if I had set up the Bravo Design, Inc. G+ page correctly, I found that I can create what seems like an unlimited number of Google+ profile pages despite the fact that a verified listing already exists with a vetted phone number that corresponds to our local listing. Not cool, Google. I can only imagine that the ability for random people to create profiles using your brand name at will would be a vulnerability.

Unlike Twitter, which allows parody accounts, Google has a ban on all pseudonyms used on G+ profiles, and they’ll suspend you if they catch you. Tell that to the 300 PepsiCo profiles.

Brandjacking happens when “someone acquires or otherwise assumes the online identity of another entity for the purposes of acquiring that person’s or business’s brand equity.” An example of such would be if I hypothetically pretended to be 50 Cent, borrowed [read: stole] part of his following and used it draw attention to my own personal causes (e.g., distributing my mix tape).

Notably, it has happened to Starbucks, Nestle, Exxon and British Petroleum.

Bank of America was infamously brandjacked on G+ when a satire page was created advertising its “new” slogan: “We took your bailout money, and your mortgage rates are going up.” While obviously a fraud, it stayed online for a week before being pulled. I don’t know how that could have possibly happened. But reputation risks aside, knock off pages could include redirects for phishing purposes or to spread malware.

We recommend verifying your G+ business page. All you have to do is add a G+ badge or snippet of code to your page, request a PIN if you have a Local page and fill out an application online. It’s pretty painless. This won’t stop someone from setting up G+ pages with your name, and it won’t guarantee you the option to claim a vanity URL in the near future, but it’ll help differentiate your verified page from an imposter if both come up in a search query.

Just for kicks: another site that has a vanity URL is K-Mart. Its competitors, Target and Walmart, do not. In-and-Out, Burger King, McDonald’s and Jack in the Box don’t. Wendy’s does. Wendy’s. There is no justice in this world. Just kidding. Kind of.

To follow us on Google+ and/or come up with ideas to create an imitation Bravo Design, Inc. profile: click here.

https://vimeo.com/bravodesignince

Why You Have One Less Reason to Use Google+

Posted on August 14, 2012 by skulkaew

When “Search Plus Your World,” the feature that ranked Google+ content at the forefront of search engine report pages (SERPs) was initially unveiled in January 2012, Amit Singhal, head of Google’s core ranking team wrote, “Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of web pages, images, videos, news and much more. But clearly, that isn’t enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to… all from one search box… We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships” much to the ire of its competing social media networks (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.).

Social graphs, a term popularized by Facebook to describe its social network and, essentially, the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related, have worked their way into ranking algorithms having been designated as an attribute based on trust and authority. And though it was expected that G+ would eventually garner more momentum, which would be reflected more heavily in SERPs, Google has announced that results would no longer be prioritized at the expense of the aforementioned rival social networks. This last Sunday, Singhal told Emma Barnett, a technology and digital media correspondent for The Telegraph, that the company had found a “better place” for results linked to G+. In defense of “Search Plus Your World,” Singhal went on to say, “I think it’s a learning process – even for us. We experiment, we learn, we improve – that’s what Google does.”

What happens now is anyone’s guess. It might be safe to say, at least for the time being, that if you had few reasons to use G+ prior to this update, you have even fewer now.

https://vimeo.com/bravodesignince

Google Apps – A Great Value for Small Businesses

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Daniel Arriola

So you’re a small business owner, and you’re looking to take advantage of the internet marketplace. Well hopefully you’ve already considered getting a website, and you’re at least familiar with the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. You’re also familiar with Google, and if you’re not I suggest you check out Wikipedia, it’s like an encyclopedia but made out of electricity instead of paper.

All joking aside, Google is an amazing resource and you won’t get a better service at their pricing. Google offers their Apps for free (up to 50 users) and they offer extended services for businesses at a rate of $50 per user per year (not even $0.14 a day). “But what if I don’t want to sign up for a bunch of services?” If that’s the case, then you probably shouldn’t be starting a website in the first place, and you really shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘But.’ Who are you? Robert W. Burchfield?

Here’s the beauty of Google, it’s pretty much all a one-stop-shop. Create your business Gmail account, mybusinessname@gmail.com, and you’ll be able use your Gmail account to gain access to a wide variety of Google’s products and functionality. Learn more about Gmail. Here are a few of the the biggies:

Google Analytics
Track your website traffic and visitors in a plethora of dimensions.
Google AdSense/AdWords
If you’re interested in search-engine marketing, whether you plan to advertise your business or offer space on your website to advertisers, you’ll need a Gmail account.
Recaptcha
Great service to link up to your website’s contact forms, to prevent unwanted spam feedback. Ever seen the crazy text blocks you have to re-enter at the bottom of a form? Chances are that’s Recaptcha.
Goo.gl
If you’re looking to post links on Twitter, you’ll need to shorten some URLs. Goo.gl will let you enter an impossibly long URL and it’ll spit out a cute short URL to post on Twitter without losing all your characters.

These are just a few of the services that Google offers free-of-charge. So back to Google Apps, you’ve just created your website and now you need to set up your email. Hold it! Before you go spending an unnecessary amount of money on an email account with your hosting provider, set up Google Apps for your site, Google Apps Free. You’ll need FTP access to your website, and/or access to your DNS (domain name servers) panel, and/or access to your web developer (just tell him/her you want Google Apps).

Better yet, Google offers their entire Docs system absolutely free (with Google Apps Free). You’re able to create, edit and print .doc, .xls, .ppt and .pdf files online from anywhere when logged into your Google Apps account. Look out Microsoft Office, Google’s gunning for you! So what’s the advantage if you’ve already purchased Microsoft Office for your computer (don’t curse the gods just yet)? All the files you create/upload in Google Docs are backed up and available online, and administrators (you’ll be one if you set up the apps account) are able to edit the permissions to decide which users are able to access which files. Learn more about Google Docs.

If you knew what DNS stood for before I parenthetically spelled it out, feel free to check out this great link walking you through setting up your email accounts through Google Apps. Just click on “Creating MX Records,” select your domain host from the list below and follow the steps to completion.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Google Apps edition comparisons:

I hope I’ve helped sway your opinion, or at least provided you with a couple links to do some research of your own. There’s a reason why Google is the vanguard of the internet… they’re awesome.