6 Tips to Market Your Business on Google+
Google+ offers multiple features that empower businesses. It is linked with all aspects of Google: search, calendars, Gmail, Hangouts, etc., and provides a social base with circles, new communities and video Hangouts. How can marketers leverage this platform to market their companies.
1. The first step is to create a Google+ profile for your business:
Take a quick look at your major competitors' profiles, as well some of the top Google+ business profiles, to get an idea how companies are using this space to position themselves and interact with their followers. Once you have done this, click on Google+ for Business page to create your page.
It is a good practice to get a verified name on Google+, as it shows your page is official, rather than created by an impostor. This is similar to a Verified Name on Twitter. Go to link your Google+ page to your site. The site admin will then ask for your Google+ ID number, which is mentioned in the address bar. Choose your preferred badge style and paste the code into your site.
2. Use About page to promote your company highlights:
One of the best opportunities to tell the story of your business is the About Us page. Apart from sharing a brief overview, you can also use this space to describe your products and services, awards you've won and important milestones reached by the company. You can also link back to specific website pages from here, directing potential customers to important information on your website like expanded descriptions, blogs, testimonials, contact pages, etc.
Since one of our primary objectives for using Google+ is better search engine ranking, it makes sense to include keywords that have high numbers of searches on the About Us page. One caution: do not go overboard with the use of keywords. Aim for a balanced copy that is easily understandable.
3. Publish content to communicate with the world:
Your business profile is like a bulletin board on Google. People will come back to read your updates if they find them interesting. Engage users by publishing insightful blog posts and interesting product updates, demos and interviews. Set them to be available to the public. This will allow Google to index your posts to their search engine and make them visible. Having these updates linked to source pages on your website or other networking sites like your YouTube channel will direct traffic through Google+ and create a multiplier effect.
4. Add videos and photos to tell a story:
Google+ lets you add videos to your business profile, which helps to make your brand appear more authentic and gives you a chance to connect emotionally with prospects.
Similarly, by uploading photographs of employees at work, training workshops, team parties and more, you show the people behind your company and engage potential customers. You could also post pictures of events attended or sponsored by your company to gain mileage online.
Angry Birds has videos of their new seasons, updates and sneak-peeks of Angry Birds toons episodes on their Google+ profile:
Toyota uses its Google+ profile to share Toyota 75 photo collection of their history-making cars:
5. Invite people to connect and interact:
The Events feature can be used to send out customized invitations to anyone regardless of whether they are Google+ users. It has an automatic sync with Google Calendar and events show up as soon as users confirm attendance.
In addition to sending out invitations to webinars, product demonstrations, sales meetings, work functions, parties, etc., Google Events can also send out invitations for Google+ Hangouts. This way Google+ gets your business in the habit of using Hangouts and helps to increase the awareness and attendance of the events you're already hosting.
6. Use Google Communities for targeted reach:
Google+ Communities help you become a useful authority to people who might never have discovered you otherwise. The site recommends communities that relate to your industry and interests. Since your business profile page cannot circle someone until they circle you, it's important to build relationships with your personal page and then introduce your business page's content where appropriate.
These communities can be used to trigger conversations with customers where they share positive experiences, voice their opinions and concerns and benefit from the regular stream of updates and inputs that affect them in a meaningful way.
Android's Google+ page is the most popular business page with more than four million fans. Unlike many other big brands' business pages, Android's audience is engaged and posts are averaging hundreds of +1s, comments and shares. Their engagement model includes enticing promotions like ten-cent app promotions, announcements, infographics, videos of Android game developers, a demo of their Hangouts on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone and animation highlighting their more than 900 million Android activations to date.
Google+ is a powerful business networking site that provides value to businesses with capabilities such as video Hangouts, free voice calls and slick integration with all of Google's other tools. What do you think of this site's potential? How do you plan to integrate your efforts on Google+ with your other marketing initiatives?
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