Google+ For Business by Chris Brogan
Several reports and studies over the years boil down to the same thing, we buy from people we like – Chris Brogan
Google+ is tied to search, so by using it well you can improve your primary websites findability for folks searching for it.
-Google+ enables businesses to add more information to search results.
-Google Analytics integration with business pages on Google+ means that not only do you understand the analytics of your primary websites, but now you also have the visibility into how people on this social network find your information.
-YouTube is already integrated with Google+
-If circles are are organized according to interests you may end up with a much more interesting stream of information
-Google+ works really well for fostering a community of interest.
-It is different because Google is more ‘open’ than Facebook. It’s more ‘deep’ than Twitter.
-What makes Google+ so interesting is that it is tied to the No.1 and No.2 search engines in the world.
Facebook doesn’t even let search engines index content…Google+ dwarfs Google+ as a user base. The thing to keep your eye on is that search is how people find your business, and the no.1 search engine in the world now pays close attention to what people do on Google+
HANGOUTS and CHAT are two powerful features.
-Hangouts enables up to 10 users simultaneously to talk back and forth on video.
-Chat – you can use it to IM clients, and as an open chat room with your clients.
>>From a technical standpoint, the experience feels cleaner in Google+
CIRCLES
-Collaboration – you can make a circle just for co-workers to share information with.
-Build outbound circles – an outbound circle is a list of people you want to share specific information with. IE Press
-You can promote products and services that aren’t yours but that would help your constituency. These are all big opportunities to build value for others and build relationships in general.
-Find who has circled you recently: https://plus.google.com/notifications/circle
-Who you choose to circle impacts what you see when you look at the regular stream, and it impacts who sees what you choose to post, and so on.
CREATING CIRCLES AND NAMING THEM
-Click on the circles tab (fourth button on top of the Google+ screen. The little circles down at the bottom of the screen come prenamed, but you can change them to what you want them to be.
-You can put people in more than one circle
-YOU CAN SHARE A POST WITH SOMEONE NOT ON GOOGLE+ by including that person’s email address in the sharing are below.
-You can share within your circles AND extended circles as well.
The new profile options in Google+ really improve your ability to make potential relationships and grow your business, but only if you take the time to prepare yourself to receive opportunities.
Customer support :: You can connect with consumers – as a representative of your company you could invite customers into a video hangout to talk.
GETTING STARTED
About page
Edit Profile button (upper right hand corner)
Line below your name – summary line, or place for a tagline
POSTS
To bold – put ** around words you want to bold
To italic – but two underscores __ around the words or words
To strikethrough – — around text
Growing an audience is one level of connection, growing an engaged community is more ideal.
If you want to build a stronger audience, you must spend time commenting on your posts and on other posts.
Hang-outs-you can invite other parts of your company into conversation. You can gather neighborhood businesses for a quick mid-day meeting without requiring anyone to leave their stores.
Sharing is just as important (maybe more) as creating original and unique content. People want to follow your interests not just your company updates.
We live our lives online, so the links we share and the collection of information we curate and endorse becomes a critical part of who we are. We are what we share.
There isn’t a specific time or magic to post information – it varies depending on audience.
Think of your business page as a mix of TV station, magazine, a telephone, and business card.
Be the no.1voice in your comment section. Thank people, and respond with requests for help.
It seems useful to have people add you to their circles, because that impacts the results they see in Google.
Tell great stories. Write interesting posts that get influential people to consider circling you.
What Google offers you for a business above any other opportunity is the chance to improve your search results because Google indexes the publicly shared content you create on Google+
Google no longer indexes Twitter.
Pages shared in Google+ social network appear to be crawled and indexed by Google’s search engine very quickly (within an hour, often faster.)
Keyword stuff updates-create posts with terms that others might tend to search for later in Google.
People respond much better to other people than they do a corporate logo.
