7 Benefits of Using Google+ For Your Business

1. It’s Your Personal Access to the Outside World

Google+ gives you a level of authority and ownership of your page. That means that you are the owner of your individualized page. This can be great for if you’re really trying to establish your brand among consumers. It also provides a special opportunities for smaller businesses who don’t need a complex website to use Google+ as their webpage.

2. Google+ Local

Local pages allow for users in your area to review businesses and places they’ve visited. It’s similar to Yelp in its review capacity, but with the feature of a social network behind the local pages, you’ll get even more exposure from it. Google+ is mandatory if you want to show up in local results on Google.

3. Use Hashtags

Hashtags on Google+ can gain you exposure on the Google search engine as well. If you’re unsure about what hashtags to use, Google+ will even suggest hashtags to include in your updates, which can make your job a lot easier.

4. Cover Photos

Similar to Facebook, Google+ has the option for a cover photo, which can be a very fun way to personalize your brand and also promote your new sales or products. Be sure to make your cover photo as large as possible to really personalize it. You can add your brand’s location or even highlight a contest you’re running.

5. Host a Google+ Hangout

A Google+ hangout is basically the new version of a webinar for your business. You can hold a video streaming with an unlimited amount of users joining in to host online seminars, virtual shareholder meetings – whatever you want! The best part about these hangouts is you can also link them to your YouTube page, to attract even more viewers. It’s one of the most useful features of Google+.

6. Google+ Communities

Like fan pages on Facebook, Google+ communities come in wide varieties. Try joining a community or suggest a type of community for your users to attract a new audience or expand on your original one. The more visible you are on Google+, the more fans you’ll attract. If you’re worried about spam from the community feature, don’t. Google+ has the best spam tracker on all of the social network sites.

7. Rel=Publisher

If your company has a blog it’s critical to join the entire website to Google+ through rel=publisher. Not only will this add an awesome image next to your website in the search results, but there are other special privileges to connecting with rel=publisher and rel=author that can help your page rank.

7 Steps To Get More Followers On Google+

1. Treat your Google+ account like a blog

If you sit back and just passively add comments or upload pictures not so often, then you’re passing up valuable opportunities for people to find you and be recognized. Make sure you are updating your account daily, even throughout the day if you have the time. Although it is important to stay current, be wary of posting needless information, especially if you’re posting for business purposes. You sell yourself and your work and try to think of each post as a response to an interview question.

2. Roll in the same Circles

As compared to it’s other contenders (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr), Google Plus isn’t quite as popular, therefore everyone you add is important and reflects on you. This may seem a little odd, but even adding relevant people will improve your profile. If you follow people you’re interested in, then it’s likely that they’ll follow you back because you have something in common.

3. Be Relevant

Engage with your followers and make yourself known. Ask questions about their day or inquire about new offers and discuss the things that connect you. This is a quick and fun way to gain more notoriety and they’ll likely tell their followers about your input. This means that you shouldn’t just +1 as you go through your feed. Be interesting and entertaining in comments, provoke thoughts, and participate in relevant hangouts.

4. Timing is everything

Keep track of what time your friends and followers are posting. This goes hand-in-hand with being relevant. What good is if a great post if it’s put online at 3am and no one reads it? Participating in the feed while people with common interests are on and gives you maximum exposure.

5. Be Aware of Notifications

It’s easy to annoy people with a constant barrage of needless notifications and to get annoyed in return. Being aware of what you trigger is important, so go into your settings on your profile and press “Receive Notifications” and uncheck anything you don’t want to trigger. Try to avoid sending notifications unless they’re something you’d want to receive yourself.

6. Ask for Extra Points

Asking for your followers to +1 your posts is an easy way to up your following. If you don’t want to seem rude, integrate the suggestion into your post. For example, just add “+1 if you agree” onto the end of your post. Just make sure that what you say is +1 worthy first.

7. The Ripple Effect

Ripples is a cool feature on the Google+ network and lets you see the important people “making waves”. If you really want to be one of the top followed people, then keep a close eye on that. Find people who relate to your specific niche and rub elbows with the elites.

There are a ton of ways to up your popularity on Google+, but you also are able to meet new and interesting people with ease. With useful tools and engaging conversation by following these steps you can promote yourself and become the center of your social circle.

What’s Up With Google+?

Have you been wondering what’s been going on with Google+?

Toward the end of April word leaked that Google+ would no longer be considered a product. Instead it would be a platform – ending its so-called competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Change is in the air. And, one thing we know for sure is that Google shelved its policy of requiring Google+ integration for all Google products. Yet, Google plus has always been about making every Google user a signed-in Google user. I’m thinking this will never change.

Google+ appears to have been reorganized around its main features, Hangouts, Streams and Photos are now to be managed as separate products. This has not yet happened, although Google did appoint a director for these specific products in March. Google appears to be playing toward its strengths. Hangouts and Photos have received widespread usage from Google users, even if they weren’t all that interested in posting to Google+.

So what’s the plan?

Murky Signals About Google+

Google hasn’t released a bunch of details about the changes coming to Google+. This may mean the changes are internal only and users won’t see any changes. But, we don’t really know.

Marketingland seems pretty certain it’s here to stay and cites millions of public and private users. WordStream, on the other hand, is waving goodbye. After all, if Photos and Streams become two separate entities, is it still Google+? Where do Hangouts end up?

Hangouts has become Google’s flagship for communications, combining instant messaging, text messaging, Internet phone calls, video messaging and group chats. In light of its presence on Android phones and in the Gmail platform, Hangouts is a pretty strong competitor with Apple’s iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and some other apps too.

Google+ Photos has also proven successful. The photo storage and sharing platform lets smartphone users automatically back up videos and photos to their Google Drive. Google+ Photos are well organized and easily searched.

For those who still want to post to Google+, it appears this will be possible through “Streams.” Google says that it’s hardly giving up on the various components of Google+, and the breakup will only serve to improve the product’s focus. IF there is a breakup at all.

Maybe It Depends Upon What Google Defines as Google+

I’m thinking all this change (if there is to be change) is a slick way for Google to get out from under the Google+ brand that brings with it many negative connotations.

• I remember when it was introduced, I thought, “great, not another social network we ‘must’ be on!” But in fact, I do use it and I like it. I also like that it isn’t as congested as Facebook.
  • The reality is Google+ came late to the social network game.
  • Google+ didn’t adapt to mobile as quickly as it should have if it wanted to compete with Facebook, its purported raison d’etre. Kind of funny when you think about how insistent Google’s been about everyone else being mobile-friendly / responsive.
  • One question I have is, who will really miss Google+ in its present incarnation?

One thing that strikes me is Google+ knows an awful lot about individual businesses that use it. And this is really what Google is all about—being a busybody, a know-it-all.

Here’s an idea: Remember when Facebook said it was going after the LinkedIn crowd and would cater to B2B businesses? That hasn’t gone so well, so far. What if Google ramped up Hangouts and Photos, packaging them for business? They could compete against Skype and Pinterest as well as Facebook Messenger. Seamlessly integrate Hangouts and Photos with Google Drive, Gmail, Calendars and Contacts and have a go at it.

Sergey, Larry, Eric, if you want to call me, I’m right here! Better yet, reach out through Hangouts!

What have you heard about the “New” Google+? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Google Quietly Removes Circle Sharing Feature From Google Plus

If you were one of the few people who frequently used the Circle sharing feature on Google+ then you’ve likely noticed that Google removed the feature earlier this week. Strangely, Google hasn’t given a reason as to why the feature was silently taken out. However, it’s speculated that very few users were actually legitimately using the Circle sharing. Instead, Google was likely finding that those who did often use it were actually spamming constantly resulting in a frustrating cluttered feed.

We don’t often hear about the statistics about Google+ anymore. In fact, Marketing Land reported that 300 million users were active on Google+ back in 2013 but has since been quiet on if that number has risen or lowered. Nevertheless, Google is pushing on to further innovate and offer their own social media option for users around the world. Google has made some recent changes to Google+. One of these brand new features that recently rolled out is called Collections. Through Collections, users were able to create their own groups of interest, photos among various other content media like links and videos. Circle sharing is similar to Twitter lists and Facebook groups. Users can pin together other users into a group known as a Circle. Content provided from within these Circle users will show up in your feed though you can also share the Circle to showcase content that others might find of interest. Lately, the result has been users constantly requesting others to share the content within the Circle which made more spam type posts showing up within various user feeds.

Collections are one of the reasons Google likely axed Circle sharing. Because the feature was being abused by several users, this left Google with a decent reason to take out and remove the sharing option completely. However, it’s important to note that Collections offer a similar function. What separates Collections and Circle sharing is that Collections only shares the content and not necessarily the user. Google has still yet to state the official reason as to why they got rid of a Circle sharing. Also, with Collections being completely new to Google+, it’s unknown how well users will enjoy and use the brand new feature options.