8 STEPS TO CREATING YOUR SMO PLAN

Creating and on-line promoting strategy is important when creating the choice to feature social media to your promoting campaigns/plans. An inspiration is required to assess the viability, grasp what steps you'll get to take and to assist you in staying targeted on your goals.

Your set up also can assist you save time by making certain you follow a scientific approach to the tie you'll invest in social promoting and network. The social networking half will simply take you off beam and eat up some time if you are doing not listen to the image of what you're making an attempt to accomplish.

Here are the fundamentals steps to any social media set up we have a tendency to setup for clients:

Assess

Look at what's offered in your market, what competitors do and decide if your customers actually using these social media channels. These answers could assist you confirm the goals

Purpose

Define your main purpose for using Social Media and determine the varied social media channels to use.

Goals

Set a minimum of three good (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) goals and make an action decide to assist you reach these goals. What steps can you are taking to succeed in these goals.

Content

Create an inspiration for what content are going to be printed - blog posts, tweets, Facebook page updates, youtube videos. This set up ought to embrace the subject of content and conjointly how usually and via what channel it'll be printed

Keywords

Part of the content designing would be finding the keywords your customers use when sorting out your service or product on-line. If your business has some technical jargon that customers rarely acquire on - it's unlikely that's how they're going to search on-line for the answer to their downside (your service or product). It’s imperative to search out keywords they're using and add these targeted key words into your content...

Optimize

Look at all the platforms offered and link them along the maximum amount as doable to assist you save time. I.e. Link your blog to twitter and your Facebook page therefore when a blog post is printed it'll automatically feed an update to the opposite networks. Be sure to create a flowchart therefore you perceive what automatically goes to what network so as to avoid any cross posting.

Track

As much as you'll track your results do it. Keep a record of your contacts/ Facebook friends/page likes/twitter followers/linked in grips /newsletter subscribers and results on Google for your name, business and keywords. Check the results each month and see how it changes. Browse your analytics on your web site and modify keywords/tactics to suit with what's operating well or not type these reports. With social media promoting, businesses could set goals associated with complete identity and levels of engagement.

Schedule

Take time to schedule in all the aspects of your set up and work at it to stay on prime of it and following the set up. Keep targeted and use some time wisely.

Following these steps can assist you network rather more effectively and during a method that doesn't realize you wanting up from your PC wondering where the last hour went. Keep focused!

source: http://websiteseoindia.blogspot.com/2011/01/8-steps-to-creating-your-smo-plan.html

HOW TO: Integrate Paid Search and Social Media for Better Marketing Results

Paid search and social media are both extremely important marketing channels. But how can brands combine the two distinctly different tactics –- the bid-based, conversion-obsessed, ROI-driven world of paid search and the experimental, brand-building, hard-to-measure world of social –- to drive an overall increase in ROI? Marketers large and small are grappling with the challenge of how to integrate their paid search advertising programs with social media programs on networks like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and viral video sites.

Social and Search Should Work Together

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The most important thing to remember when starting a search-and-social integration program is that search and social each provide different benefits to your business, so you should leverage their strengths instead of trying to get them to deliver results that aren’t suited to the medium.

Marketers usually participate in social media to create an active dialogue with consumers around their products and services, with the main goal of building brand value, and a secondary goal of driving sales. On the other hand, marketers use paid search primarily to drive sales, leads, and conversion, and don’t expect the short text of their paid search ads to do much for branding.

But together, the two disciplines can increase the value that each program delivers. By creating social content that attracts an engaged audience, marketers can then craft targeted paid search campaigns to “capture” this audience and turn them into buyers.

As an example of how this works, consider these findings from an October 2009 study conducted by GroupM Search, M80, and ComScore. The report found that consumers exposed to a brand’s social media content are 2.8 times more likely to search on that brand’s terms. What’s more, consumers exposed to social media are more likely to perform deeper searches, going further down the purchase funnel and completing more purchases. Consumers exposed to a brand’s social media are 1.7 times more likely to search with the intention of making a purchase, and, overall, brands reported a 50% lift in click-through rates from consumers exposed to both social media and paid search, according to the study.

What these statistics show is that stronger brand awareness through social media helps drive paid search effectiveness in three ways:

§  Target audiences are more likely to search (more impressions on your ads)

§  Target audiences are more likely to click (more clicks on those impressions)

§  Because of higher clickthrough rates, ads are placed higher on page (higher quality score)

Smart Strategies

There is no silver bullet for integrating search and social, but there are several concrete strategies every marketer can use to start bringing the two disciplines together. Here are a few tips to help you optimize social and paid search programs to work in a complimentary way to boost overall ROI.

§  Make your social campaigns search-friendly. Make sure your social media programs (Facebook, Twitter, viral video, etc.) are appropriately tagged and indexed, and that metadata for pages includes your top keywords. This will allow people searching for your brand content to not only find your paid search ads and natural search results, but to find your social media content as well. The first step to building brand engagement through social activities is to enable consumers to easily find your content.

§  Experiment with keyword advertising on social media sites. Facebook and YouTube both allow for keyword targeted advertising, but the way that these ads work is vastly different from how advertising works on Google or the Content Network. Facebook ads allow you to target users based on preferences they list on their profile. For example, a retailer selling DVDs would create ads that target interests such as “action movies,” “horror,” or “funny movies.” YouTube’s advertising system allows you to target specific user queries. However, remember the queries that occur on YouTube are different than those on Google, because users on YouTube are searching for content, not products. For example, people may be trying to find “Avatar trailer” or “car scene from Modern Family,” rather than searching for a particular DVD, so make sure to target your ads to these more specific types of search queries.

§  Create social media-influenced paid search campaigns. Closely analyze the topics and discussions taking place around your social media campaigns, and then mine these discussions for new keywords you can use in paid search campaigns on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Whatever people are talking about, bid on keywords that reflect these conversations. As always, you should measure the performance of these campaigns to prune non-performing ads and increase investment on terms that are more likely to capture downstream conversions. In addition, consider running controlled experiments with social media advertising turned off and on, so you can measure the impact these campaigns have on your paid search programs by observing changes in your paid search click-through and conversion rates.

By quantifying the uplift that social media delivers to your paid search programs, you can gain insights into your marketing programs that search marketers who limit their view to just one channel do not –- and improve the performance of both your paid search and social programs.

Souce: http://mashable.com/2010/04/01/paid-search-social-media/

Social Media Statistics: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin and more…

The way we communicate online has gone through a sea-change over last few years – Infact, majority of netizens spend most of their time on social Media / Networking  sites. Even though India Software companies are lagging behind in adoption of social media, others are flocking them in large numbers.

Twitter has been a rage over past 1 year, Facebook has become one of the most visited sites on the web, Professionals are flocking Linkedin and keep their profiles updated. Do you want to know the numbers behind these uber-popular social media sites?

EConsultancy recently published following mind-boggling statistics on their blog – Here is a peek into the numbers

Social Media Statistics

• Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would meanat least 175m users every 24 hours.
• Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis.
• LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide..
• Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250m…This means over 40% growth in less than 6 months.
• Flickr now hosts more than 4 billion images.
• More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day. 
• Wikipedia currently has in excess of 14m articles, meaning that it’s 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months.
• Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month.
• Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130.
• Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, with more than 65m users accessing the site through mobile-based devices. In six months, this is over 100% increase.
• There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook.
• There are now 11m LinkedIn users across Europe.
• Towards the end of last year, the average number of tweets per day was over 27.3 million.
• The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3m.
• 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging, according to Technorati’s new State of the Blogosphere.
• At the current rate, Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year.
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the USA.
• India is currently the fastest-growing country to use LinkedIn, with around 3m total users.
• More than 250 Facebook applications have over a million combined users each month.
• 70% of bloggers are organically talking about brands on their blog.
• 38% of bloggers post brand or product reviews.
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008 and more than 60m Facebook users engage with it across these external sites each month.

Mind-blogging statistics uhh…. Think how they will change in next 2-3 years ! We will literally be living our lives online rather than offline !

source: http://trak.in

How to Build Social Media Presence in Three Simple Steps

Even as more and more companies hire Community Managers to give them a social media presence, the general attitude towards social media is, "Everyone's doing it, so we need to do it too."  If this is where you're coming from, you're most likely to cover the tactics with little strategy and mixed results.  A better way to go about it is to follow these Top Three ways to build a kick ass social media marketing presence.

1. Have a strategy.

Having a Twitter account and a Facebook page does not a social media strategy make.  The first question is not, "What are you doing online?"  The first question is "What do you need to see in three years to know that your business is succeeding?"

Once you know the answer to this question you can look at the numerous tools and tactics available through social media to create a strategy.  This strategy needs to be based on your business goals and ideally will integrate your social media marketing actions with every department of your company. 

If a social media expert acts like a hammer looking for a nail and talks about what social media will do for you without first asking you about your business, RUN.  I'm amazed at the number of social media firms that don't practice offline what they preach about online. Listening isn't just a tactic, it's a way of operating that makes every person and every business better.

2. Define and express your brand personality.  If you don't know what your brand stands for, no amount of social media marketing will help you. Write down the three words that you feel best describe your company. Then ask your partners, employees and customers to tell you three words they think of when they think about your company.  

Chances are that they will tell you something different.  If so, then it's time to do further research on what your customers most want.  Then make sure your brand offers what they want.  This is much more important than what you think they want or what you think you should give them.  Listen to them and then deliver what they ask for.  It's a simple concept that most companies ignore.

The message that most companies think they are sending is usually not the one that the public is receiving unless they have millions to spend on broadcasting the message incessantly.  Volvo means safety, but what does your local ice cream store stand for?

Your brand personality is the foundation for your social media marketing actions and should be the foundation of how your company operates in every department.  If your message is unknown or not consistently practiced daily by every employee then it is false and the public will figure it out faster than you can Google comments about your company.  

This personality needs to affect what you tweet, who you follow, how you respond to people, what contests you do or don't run on your Facebook page, whether you make videos, if you ask fans and followers to make videos, what context you come from when you announce something, whether you have an online TV show, how you build relationships and alliances online, and much more.

3. Establish your social media presence with your goals and message in mind

Yes, I said presence, not campaign.  You can't do this short term.  Social media marketing is as essential to your business as customer service and good accounting practices. People live online now.  If you aren't interacting with people where they hang out, you will be left out.  No two ways about it.

Strategically decide if you want to be on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, UStream or whichever social platforms you choose.  Depending on your company size, your industry, your budget, where your target audience participates and lurks online, and other factors, you will have to prioritize your online activities.  

Once you know where you want to be you can plan out when and how you will launch and develop your presence to meet your business goals.  Have realistic goals with grounded plans of how to reach them and always be anchored to your core message.

I have had clients who pull numbers out of the air like expecting 10,000 Facebook fans in a month.  Well, that's a nice goal in short time frame, so how do you expect to get there?  What are you going to give people to make them care about you enough to "Like" your Facebook page?  Why do you want 10,000 instead of 1,000?  How will you entice them to come back again or to tell others about you?  How does this number, or how you get to this numbe, represent and enhance your company goals?  What demographics do you want to make up this 10,000 number?  Do you realize that 100 rabid evangelists that love your company are worth more than 10,000 people who click "Like" and then don't pay any more attention to you?

Social media marketing, like all streams of marketing, is part art and part science. If you develop your brand and your communications in authentic ways with your goals and your customers in mind  you'll be thrilled with the results.  What other tips would you give companies just starting out on the social media marketing road?  What tips can you add for companies maturing in this space who are looking to improve their results?

This article was originally posted at Oxstein Labs.

Change Facebook Fanpage Vanity URL In Just 6 steps

Facebook is really nice platform to share your Social things as well as it gives leverage to Business owners to take advantage of this powerful medium. When we talk about Business then we must thinking of Facebook Fanpage because if you want to use Facebook for Business then Facebook Fanpage is must for you.


Till now Fanpage URL was having some ugly style but now you Can change your Facebook Fanpage URL. You can have some unique name for your Facebook Fanpage. Like www.Facebook.com/yourcompanyname.


The name which you are looking for must be free. Earlier we shared a simple tutorial for finding the Facebook Profile/Page ID and we are going to see a tutorial on how to change the Facebook fanpage vanity URL in just 6 Steps. 


Let’s see step by step procedure for changing Facebook Fanpage URL.

#1 – Logon to your Facebook account.

#2 – Open http://www.facebook.com/username/

#3 – Select your Desire Page name from dropdown list.

#4 – If your page is having more than 25 people then you will get an option to select new USER Name. Type your desire Username and hit Check Availability.

#5 – Facebook will prompt you if the desire USER ID is free. You need to confirm the same.

#6 – Guess What ? You are done with your job. Check the new URL for your Fanpage and don’t forgot to update it at relevant pages of your Blog / Site.

Curtsey: http://hellboundbloggers.com/2010/10/05/change-facebook-fanpage-vanity-url-in-6-steps/

Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies

Internet marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for your business, and enhance branding of your company and products. If you are just beginning your online marketing strategy the top 10 list below will get you started on a plan that has worked for many.

1. Start with a web promotion plan and an effective web design and development strategy.
2. Get ranked at the top in major search engines, and practice good Search Optimization Techniques.
3. Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively.
4. Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller, and associate programs.
5. Request an analysis from an Internet marketing coach or Internet marketing consultant.
6. Build a responsive opt-in email list.
7. Publish articles or get listed in news stories.
8. Write and publish online press releases.
9. Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your web site.
10. Blog and interact with your visitors.

By following the above tips you'll be on your way to creating a concrete internet marketing strategy that could boost your business substantially.

source: http://marketing.about.com/od/internetmarketingstrategy/a/internettips.htm

Social Networking and Blog Sites More Popular – 75% of online users

Social Networking and Blog Sites getting even more poular, social

network or blog sites are visited by 75% of online users, reports Nielson.

Despite a fast-growing net population, India due to its present

low numbers, fails to appear in the list of top 10 socially networked countries.
A comparable developing country Brazil has highest percentage (86%) of Internet consumers visiting a social network. The popularity of social networking in Brazil is due to the Orkut phenomenon, which continues to be strong there. In India, Orkut is steadily losing ground to Facebook.

Social networking usage by country

Country
% Reach of Active Users

• Brazil - 86%
• Italy – 78%
• Spain - 77%
• Japan – 75%
• United States – 74%
• United Kingdom – 74%
• France – 73%
• Australia – 72%
• Germany – 63%
• Switzerland – 59%

Facebook has captured two-thirds of the active unique audience in Italy, making the site relatively more popular in Italy than in the three major English-speaking markets, Australia, the U.S. and the UK.

In contrast, Japanese people have the least appetite for Facebook, with reach and time spent markedly lower than in any of the other countries measured.

Facebook reach and usage by country

Country
% Reach of Active Users

• Italy - 66%
• Australia - 63%
• United States - 62%
• United Kingdom - 62%
• Spain - 57%
• France - 57%
• Switzerland - 45%
• Germany - 27%
• Brazil - 26%
• Japan - 3%

Thanks to Business Technology.in for this Information

Facebook Ads versus Google Adwords

Google Adwords has dominated the online advertising space for the last three or four years but Facebook I believe is positioned to really challenge Google for some of those advertising dollars.
We recently ran a series of campaigns for local events on Facebook and I was really impressed with the ROI that we got. It was much higher than anything that we have gotten using Adwords. So how did we do it?

Demographic Targeting

Unlike Adwords, Facebook users are not actively searching for your product or service. But by using Facebook’s demographics and location data we were able to really focus on our target audience.
Since our campaign was specific to a location we were able to target just the people who liked the brand we were promoting and who lived within 50 miles of the event.

This ended up being a really small group, but that was ok because the conversion event and CPC was really good.

Use Pictures

We tested ads with pictures and ads without. The ads with pictures all performed substantially better than those without.

Test Multiple Ads

When we run a paid campaign we always use multiple ad text, but it really is useful on Facebook. We tested new ad content every day until we were sure we had the most optimized copy. Then we let that as run until the end of the campaign.

source: http://social-media-optimization.com

5 Simple tips to efficient user engagement on social media

Okay, engagement is cliché, forget about it. Think of it this way. If you’re a website / product / service owner, how would you measure success with engagement on social media ? One often repeated factor is social media engagement. Build a community around your site on social media, and if you can retain the community with a good chunk of loyal folks, you’re half way through.

Once you create a community, you could do anything with it. Sell stuff, branch out to different levels, you could diversify to different products – anything. The community remains the core.

But that’s easily said than done. Building a community is most important as well as most difficult.

To develop a rich community, certain factors are very crucial

Lets take some ideas.

Stickyness is essential in a community

A community is only as good as a bunch of random people is the users are not sticking to your website. That is they need to come back to your site. There are many tactics to ensure stickyness like exclusivity, bonuses, points system etc. Regardless of the strategy, the core idea is that users/ clients should directly get involved in the core product.

Emotional attachment with the reader

There is essentially only one reason why a reader would come back to your site. Emotional attachment with the site. There are several ways why a user would feel emotionally attached to your site, it could be your picture or your style of talking or the content itself. Whatever it be, emotional attachment to your site is a must.

Engagement is key within the community

Engagement is crucial. What many people don’t realize is that you cannot sell a product or service without letting the user feel that “he is the one”. Every website/product makes a typical user feel or reinforce that he is the right user for the product. Many a times a user carries this mindset in his mind and only needs a reinforcement. Sometimes it could be persuasion with a material benefit or something similar. Either way, the user should feel important as the product.

And social media is the best tool available to build a community and engage uses within.

Here are 5 tips that will help you create a great community with rich user engagement.

1. Brands should come down to the user’s level and be with them

Brands/products/services or websites not easily can adjust to the idea of coming down to the user’s level.  Why ? Because they are insecure doing it. Because most of the times, the user is at a level that is genuine and real. They criticize, they swear, they rip you apart and do all that – and brands cannot stand all that. Their mentality is “We made a product with a great deal of effort – and we deserver a win for the efforts”. Not always true. Unless the brand-and-user come into a straight line in unison, the equation never gets balanced.

2. Make the user feel important, right in the middle of everything

Who does that ? Successful brands. And quite honestly, not everyone can do it because it requires great deal of humility, patience and precise calculation. Either because its too much deal with or because its too risky, most people ignore it. If its a website, and the owner is on social media, he doesn’t answer silly questions being asked to him on the channels. Which is a fail. You are on social media because you’d like to answer those silly questions and questions will always be silly. So if you’re up to it, take it head on otherwise, don’t even bother to try.

3. Formulate a content strategy around the user not your product

Simple mistake isn’t it ? Most folks first decide the product (as they should rightly do) and then figure out ways to attract people. Go the other way around. First find out what attracts people and then create/tweak your product to match their expectations. Easy way out.

4. Engagement doesn’t mean asking questions

Many folks have recently joined Twitter and what they do normally is ask questions to get people to answer. What happens usually is that none or only  few answers. The reason ? Credibility. Anyone who’s making a big evident joke out there is obviously trying to get your attention, and you don’t want that person to be you. Instead, figure out how you can get friendly with the users, be one among them before asking questions. Asking questions is fine but make sure that users trust you and would genuinely be interested in answering them.

5. Engagement probably is the wrong term. How about “Marriage” ?

Okay, lame joke that one. But the idea is that engagement today means another bait. Which is wrong. It shouldn’t be. Social media is an open space and instead of engagement, times have come that both parties, irrespective who’s on the giver-donor side, should commit to each other. Because that is where several other important factors come into picture. A much more transparent and just environment that will provide a win-win situation for each.

So user engagement though technically sounds as a one sided process, really is a dialogue, not definitely a monologue. It might sound very easy from an outsider’s view but nurturing values such as trust, transparency and commitment is not easy in a community. If at all anything, they are the factors that matters most today in social media community management and user engagement strategies.

source: dailybloggr

Keys to Social Media Succes in 2010

There are only a few things that you can do to all but ensure success in Social Media nowadays :

• Remind that it’s all about people. Social media is a simple way to get your customer closer and  closer with the internet with the intent of improving and building on your relationships.Think people first and always,they are the most important thing in Social Media.
• Content drives conversations.All you need to do is to transform the content into contacts or even customers.Social media content (blog posts, Facebook posts,Tweets) allows you to demonstrate your value to prospective contents, encouraging the other users to contact you or to follow your accounts.
• Begin with the end in mind.Distinguish yourself with a sound strategy and a goal-driven plan and you’re sure to see the results you expect.Maybe those results are not  appearing immediatly, but if you are a insistent persons , you’ll get a big popularity throught social media networks.
• Listen and learn. Whatever widget or service you sell, you can listen in to the conversation on blogs, Twitter, forums and social networks and and you can see impresions or improvement ideas from your customers or readers.
• Pay attention to keywords.More than a half of customers are using search engines to find the product that are looking for , so , you must pay attention to keywords because your site must be a relevant result for their searches.When you’re engaging in social media, use keywords that identify what you sell and that differentiate you from competitors.
• Do a culture check.An important reason that we see failure in organizations is due to a cultural misfit.Ensure success by asking whether or not you’re ready for the require transparency, immediacy of response, engagement and sharing that’s part of the etiquette in your industry.
• Have fun and engage.The big advantage of this media is that it makes marketing and building your business fun and puts you in touch with real, live customers who are your fans. While you are finding out their blogs or social media account , you can keep them close to you by simply following their accounts or comenting on their blogs.

source: niceblogger

10 Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Google

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” So began the “letter from the founders” penned by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in the company’s securities registration form in 2004. Despite ever-increasing commercial success since that date, Brin and Page have kept to their word.

Google is an unconventional company with a huge stake in our online lives. It is a source of fascination for many, including us, but what really happens in the Googleplex? And what cool factoids and stats exist from the company’s relatively short past?

Here we bring you 10 fun facts about Google to quench our own thirst for Google knowledge as well as hopefully offer you a distracting diversion from your daily life.

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1. The First Google Doodle

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Google’s famous homepage “Doodles” (the changing Google logo graphics) are well known and enjoyed by millions around the world as a way to mark an event or anniversary. But did you know that the very first Google Doodle was designed as a kind of “out of office” message?

In 1998 Brin and Page took the weekend off to go the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The Burning Man doodle (shown above), was designed by the Google guys and added to the homepage to let their users know they were out of office and couldn’t fix technical issues like a server crash.

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2. Interesting Figures from the Google IPO

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While the initial price for Google’s stock at its Initial Public Offering in August 2004 is an interesting stat in itself, there’s more to the story. The opening price for Google’s stock was $85 per share. At the time of writing, the stock price was $483 but has soared as high as $600 in the past year, making GOOG a rather nice investment for many.

A bonus factoid from Google’s IPO process is the value Google stated it hoped to raise on its S-1 form — as much as $2,718,281,828. It may just look like a string of numbers to non-mathletes, but 2,718,281,828 is actually the first ten digits of the mathematical constant ““e”,” showing that even as their company was planning to go public, the Google guys could still geek out with a bit of numerical humor.

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3. The First Google Storage Was Made From LEGO

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As proud hosts to Google back when it was still a research project, and known as “BackRub,” here Stanfordnow showcases the original Google storage from way back in 1996. It’s made up of a whopping 40 GB (less than a modern iPod) and it’s made from, as fans of the building bricks will be delighted to see, LEGO. It even hash funny mini-figures on the top.

Legend has it that the reason for the LEGO construction was that the Google guys needed an easily expandable, and cheap way to house 10 4 GB hard drives, and LEGO fit the bill. Whether the primary colors of the bricks used were the hues that went on to inspire the Google logo’s design is up for debate, but we’d guess it wasn’t just a coincidence.

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4. Google’s First Ever Tweet

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Google’s first ever Twitter post was as satisfyingly geeky as you could hope for. The message, sent in February 2009, reads “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.”

For anyone not fluent in binary, here’s a hint — it’s a well known phrase from the company’s homepage. Got it? Yep, it reads: “I’m feeling lucky.”

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5. Google Rents Goats

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This one isn’t actually one of Google’s infamous April Fools’ Day jokes: Google rents out goats. Yes you read that right. It rents goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ.

The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.”

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6. Google’s Impact on Language

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While you’d think the news that the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary adding “google” as a verb to their lexicons in 2006 would thrill the search engine, Google was actually none too pleased with the development.

“We’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services,” the company wrote in a blog post at the time.

The rationale behind the semantic displeasure was that Google had “a brand to protect,” and feared Google would “slip from trademarked status into common usage.” Now, four years later, we have to say Google was fighting a losing battle — just ‘google it.’

However, we’ve found some other Google-themed linguistic delights for you — a Google staffer is commonly referred to as a “Googler,” while a new team member joins as a “Noogler.” Nooglers also used to wear a colorful hat with a spinner on top. According to a former employee, those hats are now pretty scarce in some offices, instead: “Every Noogler gets a yellow smiley balloon and a nameplate.”

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7. Google Is Dog-Friendly

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Google is a super dog-friendly company. It proudly names “company dogs,” like Yoshka (described as a “free-range Leonberger”) pictured above. Yoshka accompanies Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex. Less senior staff are also allowed to bring their dogs to the office.

According to Google’s “Dog Policy”, one indiscretion too many on the Google carpets, or aggressive behavior, means Lassie will have to stay at home in the future. Strong bladdered and friendly canines are more than welcome across the campus.

Unfortunately, cats are not quite as welcome. Here’s an excerpt taken directly from Google’s Code of Conduct: “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.”

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8. Google’s First Ever “Company Snack” Was Swedish Fish

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Back in February, 1999, the chewy candy known as “Swedish Fish” became the first ever company snack (not counting beverages) that was ordered into the Google office.

Although a relatively small event, it has led to big things. Google is infamous in the industry for treating its employees to not just free drinks and snacks on tap, but full-on gourmet meals, three times a day at a plethora of on-site cafes and eateries, as well as regular BBQs during the summer.

Brin and Page have been quoted in the past as saying no Googler should have to go more than 100 feet for food, leading to snack-filled “microkitchens” that are liberally dotted around the Google offices.

In fact, the free food is said to be so tempting that Googlers risk the “Google 15,” similar to the “Freshman 15,” where they pile on weight soon after joining the company. Good thing they also have a Google gym.

Backing this up, here’s a stat from Google — “Bay Area Googlers consumed approximately 5,500 pounds of handmade chocolates from the snack bins in the microkitchens in 2007.” Wow.

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9. The Google Logo Was Not Centered Until 2001

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Google’s famously sparse homepage is considered a classic design in the online world. The Google logo, however, wasn’t actually centered on the page until March 31, 2001. As early users will remember, the homepage had a bias to the left-hand side, and even earlier — back in 1998 — Google sported a Yahoo-style exclamation mark.

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10. Google Has a Company Dinosaur

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By all accounts, there are many wondrous sights to be seen at the Googleplex, but one of the most arresting is surely the gigantic T-Rex skeleton — nicknamed “Stan” after a “real” dino found nearby — that looms menacingly at Googlers in Mountain View.

Joining Stan in the unique campus decorations is a scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, enormous Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-colored phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits. One thing seems for sure — just like the company itself — life at the Googleplex must be far from dull.

source: mashable