THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 6th Annual Shorty Awards

Google Enterprise Lets You Work the Way You Live

Finalist in B2B

Objectives

Google’s move into the enterprise technology space started in 2006, and social channels were not originally a priority for marketing the new product suite. That has changed. Information technology decisions, particularly at larger enterprises, are often influenced by legacy infrastructure and aversion to any perceived risk. At the same time, workers are demanding that employers let them use personal devices for work, whether they’re in the office, at home or on the road. The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend is transforming the way people work, but old habits die hard and technology departments are often reluctant to change. Enter the cloud. Few in the technology world will argue that the future of enterprise software and productivity tools will live on the web, but there is a fierce debate about what the exact model will look like. Google has built an ecosystem of products and services -- called Google Enterprise -- that allows employees to work the way they live, using software and devices in multiple ways, while ensuring businesses’ data is optimized and secure. It is this dual message, to consumers/employees and technology purchasers, that is the foundation for this campaign.In just six months, the campaign increased awareness, share of voice, and brand affinity for Google Enterprise's products and services among key private and public sector audiences by focusing on four platforms where consumers/employees and enterprise decision-makers were discussing technology: Google+, Twitter, YouTube and Blogger. Top-line results include: -- Between July and January, Google+ community grew by 147% to reach more than one million in circles; -- Between July and January, Twitter followers grew by 64% to reach more than 340,000; -- Between July and January, the YouTube channel grew by 41% to reach more than 76,000 subscribers; -- Average engagement (per post) on Google+ and Twitter increased by nearly 50% between Q3 and Q4; -- Total visits to the blog increased by 49% between Q3 and Q4. How we did it: The campaign leverages four categories of content -- thought leadership, product magic, customer stories, and lifestyle moments -- to explain product benefits that enable work transformation--the inspiration that compels companies to Go Google. Content examples: Thought leadership: Eric Schmidt authored a series of tips for CIOs on how to transition properly to the cloud. As chairman of Google, he connected with an audience of top business executives and shared his expertise in the technology industry by highlighting upcoming trends. To maximize impact, we timed the tips series with a public speaking appearance, the Gartner Symposium ITxpo, one of the most influential industry events anywhere in the world. Product Magic: Google Enterprise's best-in-class software applications speak for themselves, and news about them always spreads fast on social channels. To further accelerate the news and improve engagement, we humanized the products by involving the product managers and developers who brought them to market. They directly interacted with businesses on social media channels by responding to questions and educating companies on how to use the new tools. The interactions showed Google Enterprise’s commitment and accessibility. Customer Stories: Deciding which software applications your company will use does not often trigger broad enthusiasm, yet companies that Go Google do so with a sense of pride and progress. Our campaign aims to bottle that enthusiasm so that it can be shared in social channels. We invite companies to share their #GoneGoogle stories on Google+ and Twitter, to join us on Hangouts On Air to talk about their work transformations, and to blog for us so that others businesses can benefit from what they experienced. Brad Feld and David Cohen of TechStars fame hosted a Hangout On Air, the States of Wyoming and Maryland shared their stories of cost savings and improved collaboration, and Whirlpool’s CIO spoke of how Google Apps will be instrumental in the future of his 68,000-employee company. Lifestyle Moments: Our campaign looked for ways to lighten the discussion on enterprise technology through moments in time that thematically connected with the campaign’s purpose. We celebrated “the fuel that every business runs on" on National Coffee Day, asked technology administrators to submit videos of their most ridiculous employee requests on Systems Administers Day (which included a submission from Google CIO Ben Fried), and created a year-end campaign where we invited Googlers, partners, customers and fans to share their #WorkResolutions. More than 8,000 consumers and businesses submitted their resolutions and goals for growing their businesses in 2014.

Strategy and Execution

https://plus.google.com/+googleenterprise/ https://twitter.com/GoogleAtWork http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleApps http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/

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