Thursday is not even wrapped up yet and we’ve already seen a flurry of activity from of some of the biggest brands in social media and search this week. Google, Twitter and Klout all rolled out enhancements designed to make it easier for friends and colleagues to share content with each other. The result is there are three new buttons you should know about.
Google +1
Google first rolled out the +1 button, which allows people to visibly give their stamp of approval to individual search results, in March. But this week Google made it possible for brands and publishers to embed the +1 button directly on their websites. Google’s following some simple logic here: How do you know if you like a search result until you’ve seen it for yourself?
For publishers the benefits are obvious as well. People can view content, press a button to recommend it, and their network of peers will see that approval when searching content online. It’s unclear how this may shake up the SEO world. But for now it Google is obviously taking search in a more social direction.
Klout +K
Maybe it’s the week of the “+” too. Klout, which is trying to become the leading source for measuring online influence, rolled out a new +K button this week. Basically Klout uses the same algorithm it uses to assign people an influencer score, to suggest topics other people in your social network may be experts on. Each day, registered Klout users get five +K buttons they can give away to friends or colleagues, thus boosting their score on that topic.
As of now, Klout is assigning the topics to users, but in the future it expects to let users create their own topics of interest. The point is Klout is trying to give your social network more say in just how influential you are.
Twitter Follow Button
We’ve already dedicated a whole blog post to this development earlier this week, but the short story is Twitter made the “Follow” button more like Facebook’s “Like” button for brands and publishers. In the past, publisher could install the Twitter icon on their web properties, but the user was then sent to Twitter to approve the follow.
Publishers and marketers can now add the new “Follow” button so users can skip the extra step of being re-directed to Twitter. This could result in far more followers for content-makers.
Will use any and/or all of these buttons?
