2011 introduced a very strange new word to digital marketing – the “Plus One” or +1 from Google. I’m not sure that is even a word – more like when the singer Prince renamed himself in the 1990s to a symbol (which everyone referred to as TAFKAP – The Artist Formerly Known as Prince). I don’t like typing +1, because it requires me to hit the Shift key and remember where the Plus sign is on my keyboard. Hint – it is way up on the top right – next to the overused Backspace button. It is very awkward to hit. You have to twist your hand around to keep the Shift Key down and hit the Plus sign simultaneously. Google may find itself the target of class action lawsuits from people who get advanced carpal tunnel syndrome trying to +1 their favorite content.
+1 joins the Retweet and the Facebook Like as the lexicon of consumer engagement with Web content – both on search engines and on social media networks. If consumers like something on Google or on a Web page – they can +1 it. If they like a piece of content, they can retweet it or Like it on Facebook. These actions are being studied closely for clues as to what they might mean to marketers regarding how they drive customer loyalty.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it is no mystery that social media usage is on the rise – and by “social media” I really mean Facebook. Probably the most interesting statistic I have seen on this is that Facebook has about 750 million registered users, and 70% use the system occasionally, and nearly 30% use it actively. Twitter, by contrast, reports about 150 million registered users, but less than 5% use the system more than once per week and far less than 1% are considered Active.