But why should we care? As consumers, what implications does this have for us? And as business professionals, what lessons can we take away?

Competition breeds innovation.

Google and Apple – two companies with formerly divergent products – now compete with hardware, software, and even advertising. When two similar brands battle, greater innovation and lower prices ensue, and consumers inevitably emerge victorious.

Google has struggled to profit from anything but search, which is why hardly a week goes by without word of another Google innovation. The Nexus One left the iPhone in its dust with features like a better camera and copy/paste capability. Only time will tell how Apple will retaliate. (Some speculate that Apple may eventually lower prices.)

Brand trust is a must.

Google had been criticized of rushing to get Nexus One on the market, and letting customer service fall by the wayside. While Apple conducted years of research and nailed down all necessary patents before bringing the iPhone to market, Google’s entrance into the mobile market was rushed in comparison.

This raises the question of how much money consumers will invest in Android apps, knowing Google might not continue with the Nexus One. Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, already has apps that will work on the iPod and iPad. For the time being, Apple has the key advantage of higher consumer trust.

All eyes are on search.

It’s obvious that there’s plenty of money to be made in search, specifically in paid search. Turning search queries into leads has become huge business. Google commands this market, generating money through online advertising. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster recently predicted another significant result of the feud: Apple’s foray into the search realm:

We believe the odds of Apple developing a search engine in the next five years are 70%. One hurdle for Apple in developing its own search engine would be generating enough advertiser interest to form a competitive marketplace; however, we believe the rationale for an Apple search product is to protect data rather than generate profit.

Apple may not seem like a big threat in the search world. However, since it controls more than half of the mobile Web market share, Munster suggests Apple can use the data it has captured from having Google maps and search accessible on the iPhone to improve its own products, ultimately surpassing Google in the search arena.

According to the complaint, “Google, through its Buzz social networking tool, has unlawfully disclosed its customers’ private communications and records, including but not limited to, the automatic and unauthorized importing of its customers’ private e-mail contacts into the Buzz social network. Buzz has raised privacy concerns including, but not limited to automatic importing of private contacts and showing them to friends and importing without authorization the customers’ private photos onto the Buzz social network.”

Souvalian’s attorney, Peter N. Waslyk has this to say about the lawsuit: “a very important issue with respect to individuals’ privacy rights and their right to be alerted when their privacy is not being honored online.”

It seems as if the complaints keep piling up for Google.  Last week, an amendment to a separate complaint was filed against Google stating that they violated users’ privacy by using contact lists for unrelated reasons.

Google rolled out Buzz earlier this week.  The Gmail service allows users to give status updates and share interests through their email account.  Sound familiar?  That’s because, according to Yahoo and Microsoft, they have been doing it for years.  “Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”  Yahoo makes a strong claim that they were the original.  In a recent tweet, Yahoo posted: “Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/”

You can’t argue with that.  In fact, it seems that Google didn’t even try to be creative by coming up with an original name.

Google has not enjoyed much success in the social networking arena.  Does anyone remember Orkut?  What about Google Wave?  You don’t hear much about them any more, do you?  Google Wave was supposed to kill email and was a trending topic on Twitter for weeks, maybe even months.

Since Google Buzz is fully integrated with Gmail, they have initially added 176 million users (according to com Score) to their new social network.  This is an amazing number for any new social site, even one with the name “Google”.  However, they haven’t had much social networking success in the past and they are already facing some serious concerns with this one.

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way .

Within the past year, Google has managed to throw their hat in the ring in social networking and mobile phones. Their play in the mobile phone arena has even caused a potential partnership between Microsoft and Apple. With their announcement today, one could only wonder if Verizon and Comcast are working on a collaboration of their own.

The last two major announcements Google made came with a lot of hype and high hopes. Google Wave did not live up to the hype and the jury’s still out on the Nexus One. If their high-speed internet lives up to the hype, Google can corner the market in ways we never thought of before.

If your business is brand new to social media, start by creating profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites. By taking this simple step, you will begin taking ownership of your company name on search results. This is an easy reputation management tactic.

The idea is that when someone searches your company name, you want to control the results they see; particularly on the first page. Instead of seeing things that are out of your control like a bad customer review or lousy press, the searcher will see your home page followed by the social media profiles you set up and perhaps some other IYP and directory listings. There are only ten spots on a search engine results page. By creating these profiles and utilizing some basic SEO tactics, you can control all ten results without much effort. (Tip: creating a Wikipedia page is also a helpful way to control the results).

After you have set up the profiles, what next? A good place to start is at search.twitter.com. This search tool from Twitter allows you to search their entire stream for keywords, like your brand name or your products and services. Enter your company name and perform a search. If someone Tweeted about your company, it may be a good idea to try to connect with them. Politely @reply to their message and if they are unhappy, see if you can address their concern. If they are saying how great your company is, thank them for the support.

For many small businesses, their company name isn’t being discussed everyday and repeating this exercise can be a waste of time. Instead tools like Tweetbeep will do the work for you and send you emails when someone Tweets about your company. There are a lot of articles about Twitter tools, but there are a few good ones: here, here and here.

Finally, develop a long term plan. Remember that social media is about community building. If you can give advice and become active among industry experts, your community will grow. The new local trends feature shows what people are talking about in your area. Become active in community discussions. If you use Twitter simply as a way to consume information rather than provide information, you will have a hard time building a community. But if you can create a community of people interested in your Tweets, you will improve your brand name and your company’s ability to retain clients.

Comcast uses Twitter to scan for complaints and engage with customers. The idea was born when someone in the company realized scores of public complaints against Comcast were being vented via Twitter. In response, the cable company built a team of 11 people whose function is simply to scour the site and respond to Comcast-related tweets. Much to many users’ surprise, the Comcast team responds to tweets, identifying themselves as a company representative and asking if they can help. Comcast execs are highly satisfied with the unique dialogue Twitter has enabled, noting that the conversations are dissimilar to the typical phone complaints the company receives. “[Twitter is] a little more personal. More back-and-forth discussions, and it’s less formal. And it gives immediacy to interactions,” says Frank Eliason, Comcast’s director of digital care.

For instance, an angry Comcast customer wrote, “I would suggest you tell the people in charge of the money to do their jobs.” A moment later, she was compelled to tweet again: “P.S. If my credit score is negative, it is your fault for not paying enough attention or not calling off your dogs.” In response, Eliason suggested (to a BusinessWeek writer who was observing his work) to reply and simply thank her for her suggestion, with a period at the end. “I wouldn’t do a smiley face when we’re doing a collections issue,” he says. Although not a quick fix for some deeply rooted business issues, Eliason and his team’s work has made Comcast accessible and trustworthy to customers. When Twitter users think Comcast, they think Eliason. “Right now I have 5,700 followers. They know about my family Web site. It gives a face to Comcast,” he told BusinessWeek.

A number of corporations have followed Comcast’s lead, using Twitter as a means to reach out to consumers and resolve complaints. Travel companies like Virgin America use Twitter regularly to communicate everything from vacation specials to possible flight delays. But Virgin takes its Twitter presence a step further than the competition, communicating much more than just deals and flight status, and asking for open communication from its customers in return. And its more than 20,000 followers deliver, filling Virgin’s Twitterstream with photos of themselves aboard Virgin flights or on vacations made possible by the airline. Virgin also retweets its passengers’ posts. During one flight, a recent medical school tweeted her excitement about her accomplishment and about being aboard Virgin America. Rather than congratulating her, Virgin retweeted and asked someone to buy her a drink on the flight. There was an immediate response and the surprised grad was quickly presented with a drink, compliments of Row 11.

Businesses and organizations have also made use of Tweetups to further their brand. For instance, in April 2009 the National Hockey League (NHL) worked with fans to organize a series of Tweetups that occurred simultaneously around the world. The Tweetup effort brought together 1,200 fans in 23 cities, and reached an estimated 240,000 through Twitter and millions more through press coverage, which included a mention in USA Today. Increased Twitter action on the day of the Tweetups also spurred countless brand impressions. On the opening night of the playoffs, the term “NHL” was mentioned on Twitter more than twice as often as on a normal day. And #NHLtweetup became a trending topic for the day. Now the league has a dedicated social media department and has planned more Tweetups for the 2009-2010 season.
Twitter has emerged as the hottest brand building and customer service tool on the market and, ironically, it was not created for that purpose. But corporate tweeting has spread like wildfire and has been met with praise from consumers, who appreciate the fact that there is a human being at the other end of that Twitterstream – a welcome change in today’s impersonal business world of stiff corporate policies and procedures. Using Twitter is not just for the large corporations. Twitter also gives smaller, local businesses a voice and a solution to some of the complaints of the consumer. Look out next week for some strategies and helpful tools to help you monitor your brand on Twitter and other social media.

The services did not offer attractive pricing for clients that have used print and radio in the past. The fact that they were not able to get choice positioning was also a negative factor that could have contributed to the downfall of Google Radio and Print ads. It was a good effort on Google’s part to try to bring in more revenue, but the fact remains that Search Engine Marketing still remains to be the best ROI producers for most companies and businesses that advertise. This is simply why print ad revenue continues to dive down year after year.

What we thought was attractive about these two particular services was the reporting capabilities that Google so often emphasized. It is hard to measure these advertising sources and even with Google’s cool tools and gadgets, it was hard to correlate the results to the advertising.

The main lesson learned from this endeavor: Search Engine Marketing is the best bang for your buck.

1. Calls To Action — Sites that lack calls to action tend to receive a lower conversion rate than ones that plaster their website directing searchers to actions. It could be as simple as adding buttons that say, “Sign Up Now,” “Request Info,” etc. From our experience when these simple additions make it on to webpages the conversion rate dramatically increases. Searchers need to be “told” what to do, or you risk losing that sale or lead and your visitor will bounce off your site.
2. Forms — If your goal is to increase leads, it is a good idea to have a simple form on every page. When a form is on every page it increases your chances of capturing your visitor. You want to make it very easy for people to contact you without having to search the whole website.
3. Make your site “sticky” — It is one thing to have an attractive site, but you also need to make sure that your site is sticky. The longer you can keep a visitor on your website, the better your chances of having your visitor complete your goal. When evaluating whether or not your site is sticky, first take a look at your analytics. Analyze the “top content” pages to identify entry and exit pages. Another way to increase site stickiness is to provide a summary of the topic and have the visitor click on a link to “learn more” or to add a call to action at the end of the your summary.
4. Content — Yes, content is still king, but you need to separate content on your main site vs the content you would include on a landing page. Landing pages should provide enough information to get your point across, but shouldn’t be a novel. When people are looking for answers, they want instant answers that they can get from a glance. Bullet points are especially helpful for landing pages. Just make sure you don’t forget your calls to action and forms!
5. Fix Dead Links — You may not be aware of dead links but fix these issues ASAP. Dead links can make your website look unreliable and unprofessional. Regularly check on your website on your own to catch these sandtraps. The last thing you want is a malfunctioning “submit” button.

With a little time and some quick fixes, you should be able to increase sales and leads.

• In 1981-82, businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend averaged higher sales growth throughout the recession and in the following three years.
• By 1985, sales of the businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during that recession had risen 256% over those that had cut back on advertising.
• In 2001, a study found that companies that aggressively advertise during recessions increased their market share 2 ½ times the average for all businesses in the post-recession.

That being said, companies still may find it necessary to cut back on advertising spend. If you are an advertiser and are looking for an affordable solution to spend your limited advertising budget, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising may be exactly what you’re looking for. PPC advertising is a relatively low cost solution for generating traffic to your website; it allows you to see initial results; it is highly measurable and it can give you an immediate return on your investment (ROI) – especially if you’re an e-commerce site.

While it’s important to continuously update your site’s content and optimize it in order to rank organically, it is equally important to have a presence on the search engine results page (SERP) for those keywords that are highly competitive and will take time, through the use of proper search engine optimization (SEO) practices, to have any sort of presence. PPC advertising allows us to have a presence on these competitive queries.

If you decide to use PPC advertising you will not only be limited to the SERPs and keyword bidding game. If you are looking to create a buzz about your site or are just looking to generate more traffic, PPC allows you to create ads (using your own unique and creative ad copy and/or image ad) to display across the web on sites that have similar content as yours through the use of the content network. The content network can be helpful for generating a lot of traffic at a fraction of the cost. It can also be used as a valuable branding tool. (I will discuss the pros and cons of the content network in a future post)

We may all have to make sacrifices during these troubling economic times. If you’re a business owner it is in your best interest to think about the importance of advertising. And if cutting some of your advertising budget is necessary, you may want to consider PPC, which is a viable alternative and more cost effective approach to the traditional forms of advertising you might be used to.

Disclosure: the above statistics were taken from Paul Dunay’s post in Marketing Blog – Daily Fix (11.21.08) http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/11/statistics_on_advertising_duri.html