Bank of America's Google+ Page

The bank America loves to hate got another slap in the face, although this time it wasn’t over debit card fees.

Shortly after Google announced that businesses could have a Google+ page, which is the equivalent of a Facebook Business Page, some scallywag jumped Bank of America’s claim and created an unflattering – yet amusing – page.

Funny pictures of former CEO Ken Lewis, a tagline proclaiming that “We took your bailout money and your mortgage rates are going up,” and a post about a company foreclosure party in house #2340087 could be found on the page before it was taken down.

Screen shots of the page showed that it already had 550 followers and 342 +1′s.

Whether you have sympathy for Bank of America or not, you have to admit that whoever did this was pretty damn creative. And sneaky, for apparently they even caught the almighty Google by surprise.

The question needs to be asked, “Why didn’t Bank of America claim their Google+ page as soon as the announcement was made that they were available?” Now I’ll ask you a similar question, “Did you claim your company’s Google+ page yet?”

About a year ago I wrote a post about a friend of mine who found out that the .co variant of their domain name was hijacked by a competitor. Sadly, she wasn’t aware this was happening and after I alerted her of it, a few phone calls to lawyers resolved the issue. But how many sales were lost because of this? It’s pretty easy to be typing in a domain name and accidentally leaving off the “m” in .com. The unscrupulous use this to their advantage, as was done here.

If you’re doing business online, it’s important that you protect your brand by not only registering the different domain name extensions for your business, but claiming your company name in Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other social media sites.

Bank of America isn’t going to suffer any damage due to the bogus Google+ page, but a small business like yours could. Imagine what a disgruntled customer could do if given the opportunity. The time you spend running your business is way too important to be spent running defense because of a simple oversight on your part.

So, did you claim your company’s Google+ page yet?

If you haven’t registered all the available domain name extensions for your business, what are you waiting for? Don’t get caught off guard when you find out that someone is squatting on a domain that is rightfully yours. Network Solutions is offering big savings on domain registrations, click here for the deals.

If your business doesn’t have a custom Facebook Business Page, web.com will build you one for free. Click here to learn more about this promotion.

With the launch of Google+ I got to thinking.

Will this be the Facebook killer that many are waiting for?

Will it leave the social-sphere quicker than a church full of Catholics before the second collection?

Or will it hang around on life support just to piss off Zuckerberg?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I’m feeling cluttered.

Let’s take a look at my social meanderings:

Twitter – Like many I’ve been there, done that and have moved on. The 140-character universe quickly turned into a dumping ground full of get-rich-quick tweets, religious quotations, celebrity droppings and other assorted dung. It’s still popular and the folks in charge keep trying to make it more attractive, but isn’t it all just like putting lipstick on Sarah Palin?

Foursquare – My mayorships are plenty, but my reign is coming to an end. Foursquare was the hip way to “check-in” to your favorite places, earn useless badges, and become top-dog at places you frequent the most. The aforementioned Facebook, more or less knocked these guys down a peg by releasing their own version of the “check-in” which I quickly moved over to.

Classmates.com – That was so 1999. Do I really want to connect with people I haven’t seen, or care to see, since high school and college? Nope. Next!

Google Buzz – The big G’s first attempt at social networking. I never got into it, and apparently it wasn’t just me. Those that remember the Buzz recall it for being somewhat of a failure.

LinkedIn – Who doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile? Guess you have to if you’re among the ranks of the employed and want to show off all your fancy degrees and letters after your name which don’t amount to a whole heck-of-a-lot. I have a LinkedIn profile. I’m connected to a bunch of people I don’t even know and log-in about once a month. This attempt at social networking is more about job hunting. If I want to be bored I’ll watch a golf game on TV or log on to LinkedIn.

MySpace – Ok, I admit it. I was on MySpace once or twice. Maybe I’m too old. Maybe I’m just not hip. I didn’t get it years ago, and I still don’t get it today. Unless I’m 16, like the singer Pink and have more holes in my body than nature intended, this ain’t for me.

So what about Facebook? To me, Facebook is to social media as Amazon.com is to eCommerce. When the dust settles and the only two living things left on planet Earth are Cher and a cockroach, Facebook and Amazon.com will be there for them.

Google+ may get some adoption, but Facebook users aren’t going to jump ship. As humans we tend to stick with things we’re comfortable with. Facebook is like a hot bowl of chicken soup Mrs. Goldberg dropped off when she heard I was sick. Google+ is like horrible tasting cough syrup the doctor sent over.

I was excited to get a Google+ invite, but after a few days of poking and prodding, I’m sticking with what I like and know best. After all, when I want to thank Mrs. Goldberg for the soup, chances are she’s on Facebook.

I’ve come to notice something very interesting on one of my eCommerce stores and I’m beginning to wonder if this is just a coincidence or something that can be attributed to Google.

MyOutwardHound.com is a small, niche store that primarily sells the Outward Hound line of dog gear that includes car booster seats, dog strollers, dog life vests, and outdoor gear for dogs. The manufacturer of these products is the Kyjen Company located in Huntington Beach, California. Since the site is pretty keyword rich in “Outward Hound” terms, our search engine placement is good – which is a double edge sword. People looking to buy Outward Hound items find us pretty quickly, but so do people who think we’re the manufacturer and are looking for replacement parts or warranty information.

To help those customers who aren’t looking to buy, but need the contact information of the manufacturer, I added the following text to the customer service page:

Outward Hound Product Warranty Question or Information:
For question regarding replacement parts, accessories or warranty claims on Outward Hound pet product, please contact the manufacturer directly at:

The Kyjen Company, Inc.
P.O. Box 793
Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Phone: 800-477-5735
Fax: 714-841-8979
E-mail: info-mail@kyjen.com

Since that text was added, nearly 16% of site visits for February MTD comes from the state of California, which is more 3 times more than the second highest state.

I started noticing the number of orders being shipped to CA and I had to dig further into why, and the numbers got me thinking.

Is Google (or other engines for that matter) crawling pages like this looking for information that may determine where orders ship from and geo-target search results based on where the search originates from? Or, do these products fit the California lifestyle?

That same page has an address on it for our office in Wilkes-Barre, PA, but traffic from Pennsylvania is just like any other state according to the sites analytics. I want to ride out the month of February before making changes to this page, but come March, I’m going to remove the California address and do a test to see if site traffic from California users decreases.

I’ll keep you posted with my findings. In the mean time, if you own a dog that you spend a lot of time with outdoors, check out MyOutwardHound.com – even if you don’t live in California.