Google+, which recently celebrated its first anniversary, has gained a reputation as a desolate wasteland of a social network. Google has fought back, claiming an ever-growing userbase (75 million daily active users today) but the calculation methods are sketchy at best.

Given the platform’s lack of popularity, should you bother maintaining a Google+ presence for your small business? Absolutely.

Why? There are two reasons, says Jacob Smith, digital marketing specialist for Zumba Fitness.

- Should Your Small Business Be on Google+? by Alex Fitzpatrick

I’d like to personally invite you to attend Explore with me on Thursday and Friday, Aug. 16-17 in Minneapolis. Jason Falls is bringing his event and an incredible lineup of speakers and topics to The Twin Cities for an intensive two days of learning and networking. The content is designed to help businesses who are trying to move past the tactical minutiae of social to a comfort level more grounded in strategy. Jay Baer of Convince and Convert and co-author of The Now Revolution will open the day with some awesome ideas on social media and content marketing and the topics that will be covered include creating social media strategies, integrating social and traditional mediums, mobile marketing opportunity and innovation, content marketing strategy and more. I’ll be speaking about B2B Social Media. I’d love to connect with you there and am certain you’ll get a lot out of the days.

Registrants get two days of learning, breakfast, lunch, a cocktail reception and an invitation to an exclusive Explore community for ongoing learning and connections! I have discounted tickets available so contact me for more details! Register now at http://ar.gy/exploreminneapolis.

Can’t wait to see you in Minneapolis on Aug. 16 and 17! This event, as Jason says, “Will rock.” See you there.

What if you could tell exactly when a customer was interested in purchasing from you? With social media monitoring tools, it’s often possible to infer intent to purchase based on the content. There is evidence that Facebook may be working on a “want” button as way to indicate purchase intent. Christoper Carfi weighs the pros and cons of Faceobook’s method along with more organic methods that exist on Twitter. What do you think?  Good idea or not?

A question of intent

The concepts behind Facebook’s rumored “WANT” button are rooted in the idea of the “intention economy” and are generalizable beyond the Facebook ecosystem. Both customers and enterprises, using today’s existing infrastructure and conventions, can create and listen for intention signals using open, lightweight mechanisms,…

via: www.customerthink.com