Why Google+ is an Essential Part of Your Social Strategy
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While its 2011 launch debut was easily forgotten, Google+ usage has quietly but steadily been growing. So much so, in fact, that usage of the site now surpasses both LinkedIn and Twitter, with over 343 million users and 34% of all social logins, according to a recent study commissioned by Janrain. Google+ now seems more poised than any other social media platform to dethrone Facebook in terms of social sharing.
For businesses that haven’t integrated Google+ into their social strategy yet, let’s take a deeper look at just why you should be taking G+ seriously and how you can make the most of all it has to offer.
Why Businesses Should Use Google+
1) Social Logins Matter
Businesses and marketers need to gather crucial information on potential users signing up for their site, but the more hoops people have to jump through, whether that’s the number of clicks or the number of information boxes that need to be filled out, the less likely they’ll continue through the process until they’re all signed up.
Social login eliminates that problem by allowing users to sign up for and into accounts with their favorite social media sites. For businesses, that means that the more people who sign up for G+, the more pressing it is to provide G+ as an easy sign up option. Doing so will also help provide instant permission-based access to the user’s social profile data, which includes demographic, psychographic and social graph data, all of which is really invaluable to targeting relevant marketing efforts.
2) Google Search Loves Social Sharing
Google’s search algorithms matter (Obvious, right?). And those algorithms really care about social sharing, as each share tells them that any given piece of content is valuable and trustworthy. That’s true regardless of the social media site you’re on, but it’s all the more powerful with G+, as it ties in directly with Google’s search products. A G+ business page, particularly a Google+ Local page, will go a long way in ranking you higher in search results. Doing so will get your page instantly displayed on the side bar for local searches, along with a host of reviews and user rankings that will immediately build trust with searchers.
3) Customers Trust Google+ Business Results
According to the Janrain study, the G+ social login is particularly trusted when used to access brands and retailers. This may be another favorable indication of just how much customers trust Google as the provider of accurate information and products. When businesses use G+, they get to piggyback on that trusting relationship.
4) Google+ is a Part of the Google Suite
The great thing about G+ is that it comes with all of Google’s other awesome products. Want to lay a few things out for customers in a Google Hangout? Just install the Google Drive app and you can present right from your video chat. Want to instantly provide any web searcher with all of your information and all of your social content? Google+ lets you do that too. It’s an all-in-one marketing platform.
5) G+ is Visually Engaging
More visuals, less talk. That’s what it seems many of today’s web browsers prefer, and that’s what G+ embraces. With a stunning cover photo and a diverse, Pinterest-like feed, your content will be instantly compelling in G+’s visually pleasing format.
Best Practices of Google+
So how can you use G+ and its many powerful new tools to your full advantage?
1. Diversify Your Content
Posting on G+ (and really, on any social media channel) means going beyond the traditional advertising approach. No one wants to hear you shouting about your products while they’re just trying to chat with some friends about the latest grumpy cat meme. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to think of 80% of your content as media content and 20% as promotional. This means keeping your media approach relevant, helpful, fun and varied.
Get to know your audience. There’s no use making a joke about spaceships if your audience isn’t interested in spaceships. As more people join you, take the time to read their profiles and feeds to get a sense of just who they are and what kind of content they like reading. Then categorize them into circles so that you can share only the most relevant content with them and so that you can drop in on them from time to time to keep your relationship warm.
Become a member of the media. There are two strategies for getting great content: make it yourself or curate it. To do the latter, follow great content creators and influencers so you can repost what they’re posting. For your own content, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to write a long expertise blogpost every time. Instead, try how to videos, a vine-like short that gives your customers a glimpse into your offices or brand, photos or infographics. Try hopping onto one of G+’s trending topics so that you know you’ve got an instant audience for whatever you’re posting.
Get on a schedule. The quickest way to get off track (and start procrastinating) is not having a plan. Take the time to plan out your G+ posts a month ahead of time so you’ll always know what you’re supposed to be doing. This doesn’t necessarily mean knowing exactly what you’ll write, but it does mean knowing that on this coming Monday, it’s time to post a photo. No excuses!
2. Post With Engagement in Mind
Posting a great photo on G+ won’t have much use to you if nobody shares it, checks out your website or moseys any further down your sales funnel. User engagement is absolutely key if it’s going to be worth your time.
Make sharing easy. Link your G+ page to your website with a G+ badge so your followers can easily see and re-share your content, whether they’re at your G+ page or on your website. For that matter, make sure that when you post to your blog, each post has a plus 1 button at the bottom.
Use hashtags. Just like on Twitter, hashtags on G+ highlight search terms, so if you have keywords you’d like your users to use to find your content, just put a hashtag in front of them. When users click on a hashtag in your post, they’ll find other related articles. Later on, they’ll also be able to re-find that great article you wrote, just by timing in that search term. That makes them much more likely to share, both at the time and further down the road.
Draw from user content. Hey, no one said you had to make all of your content yourself. Why not ask for user submissions to fill out your feed? Let’s say you market for a cupcake company. Why not invite followers to bake their own creative cupcakes and submit their photos for posting and voting? Followers will be a lot more likely to re-post and engage when their cupcakes are on the line!
3. Make Sure Your Google+ Strategy is Synced to Your Overall Brand Strategy
You don’t want your Facebook feed promoting one thing and your Google+ promoting something completely different, campaign-wise. You’ll totally confuse avid fans who follow more than one feed. Each social media channel should host different messages of the same campaign, but not the same exact message, either. Which is to say, content on your Google+ shouldn’t just be a carbon copy of the content you post on your other channels, or else you’re just spamming your followers with duplicate content and giving them no reason to follow all of your social media platforms.
Instead, show your followers that you have an expert grasp of the tools and audience available on each channel by crafting your posts to suit each platform. That cupcake company, for example, might tweet out hilarious 140 character cupcake haikus on Twitter while saving a live baking session for a Google+ Hangout on Air, which later can be archived and re-shared on YouTube. When you stick to the kind of content that’s intended for that particular social media platform, you’re much more likely to get shares.
Further Resources for Understanding Google+
To get started on Google+, start with Google’s own setup guide as well as this extensive Small Business Guide to Google+. With these resources, you’ll be a Google+ expert in no time, and the businesses you market for will reap the benefits. See you on Google+!
Feature Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com
Graph Image courtesy of Janrain.com
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