In the End, Google Fiber is About More Than Just Google

When Google announced they would be taking applications from cities interested in receiving free fiber optic broadband, there was a surge of interest from cities across America – it grew into over 1,000 responses to Google’s request for information (RFI) – and, with some unspoken encouragement from Google’s RFI around community spirit, many of the cities involved in the initiative began to leverage digital media to raise awareness for their efforts, to drum up active support from community members and to show Google exactly how excited they are to be considered for the “grand prize.” In most cases, the people responded. Many who had an interest in bringing Google’s promise to their city acted as brand champions, spreading the story everywhere through both traditional and non-traditional channels. For many of these champions it became a highly competitive race to get Google’s attention, showing the vested interest participating cities have with Google’s fiber broadband technology.

As we began to monitor conversations around the initiative and the participating cities in the digital landscape, several cities stood out as clear leaders. These leaders had over ten thousand Facebook fans alone, with some breaking twenty and even thirty thousand. Pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos and more all supported the digital media presence of active cities, showing how very hands on participants became – fiber became a catalyst for community growth in cyberspace and beyond. And I say beyond, and this is a key learning for everyone, because the cities that controlled the largest share of digital voice were those that not only pulled together strategies for deploying digital media but carried it through to PR and experiential activities as well.

As Google’s March 26th deadline loomed closer we monitored even more excitement online as many cities saw last minute increases to their fan bases. This was likely tied to the flood of nationally recognized events various cities used for promotion, as well as the effect of word of mouth and the variety of media coverage that backed the buzz around Google’s fiber initiative.

So here we are, just over a month since the fiber ‘storm’ passed. It’s been interesting to watch how conversation around the initiative in the digital landscape waned. The leaders in the Facebook space continued to grow, but each added just a few thousand fans since the deadline. And many of the cities vying for Google’s fiber have seen a significant drop in their online conversation since the deadline for the RFI. Basically, Google thanked everyone for applying and relegated share of online voice to its position in its decision making process, and, for the most part, most participants gradually stepped back their efforts. Really, the only major additional event since the close of the application process happened on April Fool’s Day (April 1st) when Google changed its site name to ‘Topeka’ as a tip of the cap to Topeka, Kansas which changed its name to ‘Google, Kansas’ as part of its campaign.

What is surprising is how little uproar there appears to be from all of the cities that invested a great deal of time and money in participating in this initiative. We were expecting to find a good of negative sentiment against Google for not choosing a city faster and leaving America waiting with no clear date on when the selection would be made. With the large number of content contributors in cities such as Grand Rapids, Duluth, Topeka, Greenville (South Carolina) and Pittsburgh, one could draw the logical conclusion that a high number of comments and negative content speaking out against Google would appear in the digital space, or at the very least, the conversations would intensify generating more content around their desire for Google’s fiber broadband. But that isn’t the case. Something more interesting is happening: there are new initiatives being driven by cities that submitted applications to Google focused on creating local support for broadband fiber lines, regardless of what decision Google makes. That’s an interesting twist and a really brilliant example of how powerful WOM can be. In this instance, though Google created the initial groundswell, generating a mass of interest on a large scale, the bit of subject matter seems to be of greater interest than the actual Google campaign itself. That sounds like it should naturally be the case, but think about it. This is a solid example of WOM being used to sell a simple, good idea. I like to think that even if Google never intended to pull the trigger on installing broadband fiber anywhere, the awareness for the technology that this campaign raised would justify the investments.

To illustrate what’s currently happening, on April 15th “Google Island” (Sarasota, Florida’s Facebook page) posted:

“Due to the overwhelming support and momentum from the community…our leadership at city and county are putting together a team of key people to continue to push a broadband agenda.”

It sounds like Sarasota is pretty committed to fiber broadband (whether it’s from Google or not). That begs the question: did the mayor really need to jump into a shark-tank to spark activation with consumers? The honest answer is maybe. We tracked spikes in online conversation and activity around events such as the Google, Kansas rename, Duluth’s idea of renaming all firstborns Google and many other similar events that all certainly raised awareness for the fiber initiative and educated consumers on the value of having it available throughout their respective cities. The question now shifts from “How do we get Google’s attention?” to “How do we develop a strategy that will take the online interest generated by awareness for broadband fiber and translate it into something tangible for our community?”

Two people seem to be addressing that question. Jay Ovittore and Craig Settles started an initiative to carry the momentum of Google Fiber into something tangible by supporting communities and their leaders as they try to create fiber broadband on their own, without ‘winning’ fiber from Google. You can get more information on Communities United for Broadband here.

In another initiative that has popped up after Google’s deadline for RFIs had passed, Greenville, (South Carolina) has taken the initiative to make a website where people can vote for cities which they feel are most deserving of being awarded Google’s fiber. Not surprising, Greenville’s enthusiasm, which has been constant throughout the submission period, earned their city over 300,000 votes on the site. However, Asheville, North Carolina recently took the lead with over 400,000 votes. Duluth, Minnesota came in ‘third’ with over 12,000 votes with other cities on the list having far fewer votes, but the ‘ranking’ is open until May 6th.

The initiative is a great vehicle to continue to generate awareness, but there are questions as to how this site will ultimately contribute to getting broadband fiber connectivity. However it plays out, it will need to generate an opportunity outside of the Google initiative, because according to Greenville Online, a South Carolina news outlet, Google’s Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll said, “To be clear, our decisions will be based entirely on the responses and data we’ve gathered for our Request for Information.” She added, “This web site is not authorized by Google.” But the brains behind Greenville’s efforts thus far have been diligent, and it seems likely that they’ll look to create an angle to position their cause.

So where does all this leave us? Shark tanks, babies named ‘Google’ and more brought us to here, and now all the people who put so much time and energy into their efforts on behalf of their respective cities are playing a waiting game while Google decides how they want to proceed. And yet, many of the people involved in all of this don’t seem content to wait and are now turning their efforts toward picking up the broadband fiber torch independently of any help from Google and continuing their local groundswells in pursuit of what they set out for – better connectivity.

No matter how things turn out, the most relevant insight in all of this is that a good idea is a good idea (high speed broadband fiber connectivity), and if you craft a solid strategy for communicating its value proposition (like Google did), people will take ownership of the idea and respond. And regardless of who owned or owns the share of voice online for this initiative and ultimately who Google chooses to work with to install Google Fiber, this campaign is a fantastic example of how effective (and ineffective) traditional and non-traditional communications can be used together to not only generate awareness, but to inspire whole communities and affect real change.