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Google+ for small businesses & organizations

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7 Tips to Master Your Google+ Page

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CONTENTS

#1 Realizing Your Potential on Google+…………………………………...........3

#2 Adding Value to Your Profile………………………………………………...........4

#3 Creating Quality Posts…………………………………………………………..........5

#4 Building a Content Strategy………………………………………………...…......6

#5 Sharing Photos & Videos………………………………………………..…….7 & 8

#6 Engaging with Comments & Responses…....……………………………….9

#7 Inviting the Conversation…………………………………………………..…......10

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..................11

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Google+ is a powerful social media tool that can accelerate your businesses digital marketing presence. By understanding all that Google has to offer your business, you will be able to better plan your digital marketing execution to reach your full social media potential. All social media platforms are designed with different intentions and have various benefits. A key takeaway you should understand from this white paper and your own experience with Google+ is that the population of users on this platform is a unique and high quality audience. By engaging on your business’ Google+ platform you will reap many benefits including the

opportunity to communicate with a concentrated audience of your most powerful customers.

In this white paper you will learn how to make the most of your Google+ account and the impact it will make on your

social and digital media presence. After reading this you will have an overall understanding of how to jump into this social media platform, but as you familiarize yourself with Google+ you learn new ways to use the platform to best fit the needs of your business.

# 1 REALIZING YOUR POTENTIAL ON GOOGLE+

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There is great potential in leveraging Google+ platform, and much of the benefit is gained by simply creating a business page profile. Before creating your profile, it is important to understand how your Google+ page can become one of your biggest social and digital assets. Much like your LinkedIn page, every word entered into your profile is searchable. However, because this is Google, that search functionality is weighted even more heavily with SEO benefits. This means that with any Google search, the results will encompass Google+ connections. If your business is at the beginning stages of digital and social media, then the majority of SEO opportunity lies in the content of your Google+ page. This is precisely why a Google+ page is so important for all small businesses to operate. The business benefits of having a Google+ page are endless.

By simply creating a Google+ page for your business you already have a Google My Business dashboard. This tool will provide access to all services Google offers to businesses. After creating your Google+ page you will get a URL in the format http://www.plus.google.com followed by your Google+ page I.D. After your page has been created, verified, active for 30 days and is in good standing Google will offer you a vanity URL which is usually in the format of http://www.plus.google.com/+ followed by your domain.

After you’ve created your page, you will want to add as much information about your business as you wish to share. Remember the more you tell Google, the more Google can tell your customers. You’ll want to enter you business name and biography as well as a profile photo, contact information and additional photos.

You can use your Google+ settings to change which tabs are visible to your audience. Try to add as much information to these tabs as

possible to tell your story. The tabs include About, Posts, Photos, Videos and Reviews.

The About tab is everything that you have outlined in your Story, Links, Contact Information, People & Communities. This is naturally one of the first tabs your customers will click if they are interested to learn more about your business.

Posts are the most engaging part of your presence on Google+ because they will not only exist on your profile, but also live in the Google+ stream where your potential audience can find you. The Google+ stream is the collection of updates made by Google+ members in your circles. The stream is updated in real-time, and shows updates in chronological order. The Posts will naturally collect as you begin sharing posts on your Google+ page. To make good use of this tab simply post engaging content relative to your business on a regular basis. You will find that this tab can become an asset to showing your history, and a good tool to reflect on your overall messaging.

The Photos tab is simply a collection of images that best describes your business. You are allowed five photos to complete this tab on your profile. Try to use all five photo options and use them wisely. These photos can be powerful in showcasing your business.

By verifying your address in your Google My Business dashboard you will be able to secure your location on Google Maps. You will also be able to see insights of your Google+ page as well as website analytics through the creation of a Google Analytics page.

Because Google+ is built from a leading search engine your business can benefit from a variety of additional services available from your Google My Business dashboard.

# 2 ADDING VALUE TO YOUR PROFILE

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By creating relevant posts on your Google+ business page you are essentially crafting your businesses content to be optimized for social searches. In doing so, you will want to post mindfully based on what you feel will represent your business in the most accurate light. Be sure to post regularly using keywords that are relevant to your industry. This does not mean that everything that you post on your Google+ page needs to be centered around the same topic, but be sure to tie your content back to what your business offers.

The large post limit size is arguably one of benefits that set Google+ aside from other social media platforms. Google+ currently offers the largest post size with 100,000 character spaces per post. For a frame of reference this is enough character space to post a small book. This larger than average post size allows you to use Google+ as a blogging option. If you find that you would like to elaborate on a particular topic, it may behoove you to host the depth of the information on Google+ to capitalize on the optimization of all keywords. You can then reference the topic in a smaller post with a link through to the full post on Google+. This is a great way to reap exposure benefits on Google all while using the Google+ platform for housing large amounts of shared content.

This leads to the benefit of cross channel exposure. As you know you can find your audience anywhere on the Internet. You can do your best to define whom you wish to target and what social media channels they tend to visit regularly. However sending one mass message on all of the individual channels isn’t always going to grab the attention of your target audience. Similarly you can argue that all of your customer demographics are engaging on different social media platforms. Cross channel promotion of content is quite possibly one of the best ways to cast a social media net across all social media channels where you might find your current and potential customers. Google+ can assist in making this possible. Due to the character space available on Google+, it serves as the perfect foundation for content. In using Google+ as your source to host a topic of content you can customize a smaller message to the audience you wish to target on each social platform and include the link to read more on your Google+ page. You can then treat this just like a shared link post on other social media outlets; Facebook and LinkedIn will even allow you to upload different images. Utilizing these many options for optimization will market your brand, and offer more ways to connect with your customer.

# 3 CREATING QUALITY POSTS

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Once you’ve developed a firm idea of what posts are best for your business, you will want to consider the variety of messages you plan to send through Google+ as a social platform. Take a moment to envision your social presence from a birds-eye-view. Create a content calendar to organize the variety of content that you plan to post. Do not hesitate to post an unplanned post, or be reactionary on your social media channels, but be sure that you

review your content calendar to send a clear overall message. For example imagine your organization has a posting cadence of 2-3

posts per week on your Google+ page and has managed a good content calendar relevant to your business and local

community. An event such as the high school sports team going to state would make great material to tie

into your content calendar.

It might help to strategize a goal of how you want your audience to respond when they see your posts. This goal should drive the motivation for all content that you post. You want your audience to look forward to reading your posts. Ask yourself what it takes to create the excitement you want your audience to feel when they see your posts,

and solve for that equation.

# 4 BUILDING A CONTENT STRATEGY

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Much like most other social media platforms posts should have an image or video to help draw attention. When you post on Google+, your post is set sail in a sea of other similar posts. There is naturally a competition to gain the attention of your audience. The best way to be sure your post stands out among the competing content is to use an attention grabbing image or video. Put yourself in the mindset of your intended audience when you begin to visualize what your post will look like. Google+ is a platform that gravitates attention from business professionals with busy lifestyles, so we can be certain that users will not have time to read all of the posts in the Google+ stream. An

image-less post among all other posts in the Google+ stream

might get a quick read at most, but most

will go completely unnoticed. So as you plan your content, try to Imagine what the information would look like visually.

When selecting the image that best fits the content you would like to communicate, be mindful of the recommended sizes and specifications. When a Shared Image post is displayed on Google+ the image displays best when sizing to 497x279 pixels. The maximum Shared Image size that can be uploaded is 2048x2048 pixels.

If you’re linking through from a website that hosts an image in on the article, Google+ will auto-populate the image for you. This is called a Shared Link. Depending on how many images are hosted on the website you are linking through to, you may have the option to scroll to choose a different image by clicking the gray arrows. If you prefer to use a different image, you can upload a new image by clicking the camera icon and uploading a new image from your computer. The size of this image will display at a 150x150 pixel size. So you may need to re-crop the image to size correctly.

Unlike most social media platforms Google+ offers a creative kit to touch up or edit images before you post. If your business is operating social media pages without photo editing software this will prove to be a very useful tool.

# 5 SHARING PHOTOS & VIDEOS

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If you use photo editing software such as Photoshop, it is recommended that you fill out the “metadata” with keywords so search engines can find your image as they crawl the site. Without adding metadata to your images your images are invisible to Google.

Furthermore, if you’ve gone through the work of editing an image you should brand the image with your logo. Adding your logo to an image gives your company credit for the creative work, and associates the image with your business. If you choose to add your logo to images, place it somewhere on the lower half of the image so as to not distract from the image itself.

Google even allows you to do video tours of your to give the feeling of really being at yourbusiness site. This is fun, effective and very easy to do.

# 5 SHARING PHOTOS & VIDEOS CONT’D...

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To really capitalize on your Google+ engagement you will need to stay aware of comments to your posts. Based on the size of your audience, this may be very few or several comments per day. The first step to responding to your comments is to find them. There are a few ways that you can manage your notifications on Google+. You can monitor your posts periodically after sharing each post.

Another option would be to continually check the red number on your notifications icon. When a number appears there you can click it to see a list of your recent activity to any of your posts. This includes notes about comments on your posts, people who have shared your posts, +1ed your posts, or circled you.

However, arguably the most effective way to monitor your posts might be to set up the Google+ email notifications.

The use of +mentions is the way to interact with other businesses & customers. Interacting with +mentions is a great way to expand your reach on Google+

and to build your audience organically. When someone is +mentioned they will receive an email notification that you mentioned them.

# 6 ENGAGING WITH COMMENTS & RESPONSES

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After having learned about the many benefits to having a Google+ account it can blur your vision of the true purpose for playing in this space. It is important to remember that the reason you are using Google+ for your business is the same reason your audience is using Google+. To be SOCIAL. After all, this is social media and you will be overlooked if you are not staying true to the intention of being social. Your audience is there to have fun and quite possibly looking for some motivation or a reason to laugh. This is how your audience would like to engage in the Google+ stream. So answer to those desires with your content.

The easiest way to invite a conversation on Google+ is to be transparent and genuine. You will not catch the attention of your audience if you are trying to sound like everyone else. Take a moment to think of what sets your business aside from your competitors and you will see how unique and original your business truly is. Now, showcase that originality through your Google+ page. Let your audience see that your business has a fun side.

Don’t hesitate to pave your own path and explore new ways to gain the attention of your audience. Even if you are seeing success with engagement on your Google+ page, don’t be afraid to try something new. It is easy to fall into a rut of how you communicate on your social media channels, and despite the response you get from

your audience it is always nice to freshen up your content. Similarly if you are noticing a pattern to your style of communication on Google+, open your mind to new ideas that might wake up your audience in your Google+ stream.

If you’re currently operating a Google+ page you’ve probably already noticed a difference in the types of content that gain attention in the Google+ stream compared to the newsfeeds and timelines of other channels. It’s no secret that they are all different. Your business is on different social media channels for different reasons, and you will find a different customer set on each channel. So it is easy to see that content that performs well on other social channels may not perform the same on Google+. Unfortunately there is no clear cut definition of what your audience wants to engage with on Google+, and engagement participation is an ever-evolving art. You should expect your business exposure on Google+ to grow with the platform as the channel itself is still in its growing stages.

Be generous with +1s, sharing and commenting. Those features will allow your brand to get noticed for small kind gestures of encouraging engagement from others. You might find that your audience is excited to engage on Google+ and are looking for interesting people to participate in conversations. Be there at that moment and you will gain great credibility.

# 7 INVITING THE CONVERSATION

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Your business has endless potential on Google+ and you should try to find a way to play in the space to some degree. You do not need to dedicate much time to it. Posting occasionally and monitoring daily is a good place to start.

TAKEAWAYS TO REMEMBER

Add as much value to your page as possible. Include searchable keywords within your business profile. Use images that showcase your business in the best light. Get into the habit of viewing your profile as publicand seeing what your audience sees.

Don’t hesitate to post. Get started adding content to your page by way of consistent posting. There are many ways to portray your message on Google+. Stow your indecisiveness, just get your information out there. It is ok to post an entire article one day and a one liner the next. Just be sure you’re communicating with your audience.

After you’ve established your profile and put some thought around content ideas, try to strategize the types of communication your are delivering to your audience. Look at your post tab on your profile to see your overall messaging at a glance. Try to make your communication flow as much as possible and fill in the gaps where you feel content may be light. Use this as a self-review to set a posting cadence and strategy that engages your desired audience.

A picture speaks a thousand words. So let your photos and videos speak for your business. Be sure to add at least 5 photos to your profile and include a video tour if possible.

Engage with your audience, and they will reciprocate. +1, share & comment to your customers & +mention other businesses that you partner with to initiate engagement.

Be conversational and not promotional. If you engage in a conversational way,

your business will gain the traffic and attention to let other promotional media do the selling.

Focus on your Google+ social media page in relationship to all of your other social media channels. Try to balance all social channels as much as possible.

Don’t get discouraged. It is easy to assume that there is a direct correlation to the amount of engagement your page receives and the amount of people listening. Stay confident and believe that you are communicating on your pages with a highly educated audience who may be listening and not necessarily engaging with you.

To conclude; have fun. Google+ is a very beneficial social media platform with endless possibilities. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain, so get started.

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