What Can Your Brand Do With Google+? — Part 3
The Advanced Guide
In my previous article, I took you through the various ways in which Google+ is able to help your business when your profile has been setup correctly. If you missed this article, I encourage you to go back and look through it here, “What Can Your Brand Do With Google+? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”.
While most brands choose to simply sign up for Google+ and never touch it again, the benefits that using Google+ actively and correctly can have for your brand is near limitless depending on your business goals. In the article below, I will take you through the do’s and don’ts of using Google+ for your brand, based on some of the best practices set forth by industry experts who have used the platform with success.
“Learning agility is the key to success in sales.” — Jill Konrath ( Keynote speaker | Sales strategist | Bestselling author of 4 sales books) @jillkonrath
What Should You Watch Out For When Using Google+?
In this article, I will cover…
#1 The Do’s Of Using Google+
#2 The Don’ts Of Using Google+
Let’s get going…
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#1 The Do’s Of Using Google+
In order to make the best use of Google+, you should take advantage of the wisdom brands before you have passed on regarding which best practices have been most beneficial to their efforts on the platform. I will take you through some of these below.
Take Advantage Of SEO Value
Google+ might be considered just another social network to most, but it’s owned and operated by Google. Doesn’t that just say it all? This means that one of the biggest benefits of using the site is that there is built in SEO value. By taking advantage of combining the power of Google+ with your Local Page and your Google Business Page,you can gain one big benefit. All products owned by Google are integrated, meaning that the more time your brand spends on its various sites, the higher your chance of being recognized by Google, whether in your SEO rankings, or more. By connecting all of these Google elements, you will be more likely to rise in Search rankings during general, and location-based searches.
Use Visuals
Adding images of your business headquarters to your Google+ page helps users to stay engaged with the page. Furthermore, these images will show up in your brand’s search engine result pages (SERP) if you are locally verified. In general, users will feel much more secure in working with your business online if they can see where you are located and what your offices and employees actually look like.
Strategically Share Content
An enormous part of getting leads through to your website from Google+ is using it correctly.The trick to generating leads from Google+ is that you have to post first as your page, but then use your personal profile to share that post to communities you’re involved with. People prefer a personal connection, so make sure to add a personal comment on the link, preferably in the form of a question, instead of just link-dumping. This will increase your likelihood of receiving comments, +1’s, and shares.
Claim Authorship
A great tip for Google+ for businesses isn’t necessarily something to do on Google+, but it will grow your business’s page: implement the rel=publisher markup on your website. This will link your Google+ page and your website, so that when someone searches for you on Google, your page information comes up on the right side of the search results. Searchers can then view information about your page and follow it, right from search results. It’s a quick, one-time task that will continually help you grow your audience on the network.
Make Your Posts Stand Out
Format your postings with bold, italics and indentation. Include images in your postings that are attention-grabbing. Use #hashtags in your postings so that there is an increased likelihood that other users searching will find your mini-blog postings.
Actively Grow Your Audience
Work to gain a large group of followers. Add people to your circles in the hopes that they will add you to theirs. I like focusing on people in my same industry, as well as potential customers and professional acquaintances. Once you reach a certain number of followers, that number will appear next to your link when you show up in an organic search result on Google. Additionally, a high number of followers in your circles boosts your authority with Google, which also improves your search rankings.
Target Your Audience
It might seem simple, but doing your homework can go a long way in ensuring your content is reaching the appropriate audience. What do consumers of your product like? What are they discussing? Are they largely male or female? Are they located on the East Coast or West Coast? You don’t want to waste time on content that’s not reaching the right people.
Put A +1 Button On Your Site
The most important thing is to get people to share and +1 your website. That means having the +1 button on your site and encouraging users to click it. We’ve found that Google+ +1/shares have much more of an impact on improving Google search rankings than a similar amount of likes/shares on the other big three social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). This may surprise people considering Google+ commands less direct engagement than other social networks, but it’s important to realize that the value of Google+ is mostly behind the scenes: When someone endorses your site with a share or +1, there are indicators that improve the visibility of your site for people across their extended Google network, which includes Gmail contacts and even other social connections Google mines from Twitter and Facebook!
Create A Community
Communities are a newer, underused feature of Google+, that is great for connecting with others in your industry, potential clients, and strategic partners, all depending on who you gear your community towards. For example, I am the marketing manager of a managed service provider. Our ideal clients are local companies, so I created a community specifically for businesses in our county. We also belong to a managed service providers community where we can ask questions and have discussions with others in our industry who are on the same level as us when it comes to social media. There are so many communities that have not been created yet, get in there and be ahead of the game!
Ask For Reviews
Earn positive reviews from your customers by reaching out to them and offering your Google+ link to leave a review. Reviews will help build credibility for your business and make you stand out from your competitors.
Follow Other Businesses
Follow other businesses and figures in your industry. This could lead to potential business opportunities down the line or just keep you abreast of relevant industry news and updates.
#2 The Don’ts Of Using Google+
While bearing Google+ best practices in mind, there are a few tips the best brands have put out there to help guide you through what you should not do on the platform to help ensure you leverage it to your advantage and increase your chances of seeing success.
Forget To Claim Your Business Page
The main things for businesses to do is to either set or claim their business page.
The easiest way is to Google the name of the business and see if there is a page already there, if not, go to www.google.com/business to set one up. Then, if you are a local type business, make sure you verify the address. Also look to link up your website (if you have one) and add the “follower button” to your site. From there, you will want to add in content to your profile, for instance, saying a little about yourself.
Neglect Your Profile
First and foremost make sure that all the pertinent business information is filled out in your Google+ business page. Don’t skip any important details and be sure to add as many images of your business as possible. Make sure to use keywords you want to rank for and keywords your customers are using to find your business when filling out your profile. Also be sure to link out to important pages on your website within your profile as Google+ allows you to do this. These will help with your online visibility. Use video and images as much as possible as customers are more likely to interact with profiles that have media.
Wait For Customers To Come To You
Take advantage of Google+’s awesome openness toward interacting with followers. On Facebook it is very hard to communicate with your customers because Facebook won’t let you reach out to them via your business page. They have to reach out to you first. Imagine the power you would have on Facebook if you could proactively reach out to your customers. You could offer them discounts, coupons, or simply just check in with them and continue building a relationship. With Google+, that’s exactly what you can do. Google+ allows as much two way conversation as you would like. You can tag people in your posts before they reach out to you. It’s great. Go ahead and be the first to engage in the conversation with your customers, don’t wait for them to come to you!
Forget About ‘Circles’
Segment your customers. Most business have different types of customers, and if possible, add customers in different circles on Google+. This can let you drip more targeted content and have a better chance of engaging your audience.
Spam Users Or Communities
If you think that you are beginning to post too much in a community, or you feel that you are being too annoying, then you most likely are. In our experience, people on Google+ are there for a reason and are able to pick out spammers from a mile away. If you get blacklisted as a spammer, you will have a very hard time getting off that list and making headway in the community.
Confuse Google+ With Other Networks
People see a myriad of food pics, baby pics, lifestyle pics. All are great for Facebook or Pinterest, etc., but NOT if you are using Google+ for business. Keep things professional to get the best results.
Confuse Google+ With Other Google Pages
Don’t confuse the difference between a brand and a local page. Google’s new My Business feature gives you the option of creating a Brand page, a Service Area page, and a Storefront page. The main difference is that Service Area and Storefront pages have a physical location that you can verify (equivalent to Google local pages), whereas a Brand page is more for national or international businesses that don’t necessarily have a physical storefront.
Make Google+ Your Social Media Bread And Butter
One thing to keep in mind about Google+ is that its number of users, and more importantly, its number of engaged users is much lower than that of other social media powerhouses like Facebook and Twitter. So before a small business decides to venture into Google+, it’s important to understand how it aligns into their larger social strategy and if their target audiences are active users of this channel. In other words, one major “don’t” for Google+ is to make it the center of one’s social strategy. It should be a complementary effort.
Cars.com steers toward 2 million followers with Google+. Read more about this success story here.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this article set on how you can leverage the power of Google+ to help your brand see success online. We are constantly working to bring you more article sets on what your brand can do to improve its sales and marketing efforts online, so check back with our publication, Inside Revenue, for the release of new content regularly.
