The internet has continually evolved, and the newest evolution is Google+. This platform is changing the way businesses work and promote themselves. There are many great advantages for businesses that use Google+. These pages act as a sharing and communication tool that tells your audience “if you aren’t here then you are missing out.”
Google+ acts as a social component that sits on top of all of Google’s other products. You have many buttons available to you because Google wants you to use the Google+ page as a platform for access to their other products.
Any business, large or small, can reap the benefits of the new functions that Google+ has to offer. As a business, you can keep better track of the people within your company by creating specific office circles where your employees can share news, ideas and just simply communicate with one another. By doing this you can view their information and share with them information easily, and avoid the standard privacy issues which accompany Facebook or Twitter accounts for businesses. As a small business or a large corporation, there are great ways in which you can benefit from using Google+.
You can utilize individual Google+ accounts for each of your employees for better communication. When each of your employees take the time to establish individual Google+ accounts, they can be afforded better opportunities for streaming content such as music, documents, and current events. They can continue discussions relating to posts for the company, upcoming events, etc. Your company can enjoy the additional security measures employed by Google+, and the ability to sort employees as well as clients based upon hangouts.
As a small business, you will be able to implement the “1+” button within your website and blogs, so that it works more like the “like” button for Facebook users. This will effectively show the Google algorithm the value of your website and boost your rankings. Google+ allows you to use that button for articles and for blog posts where you can increase discussion and bring discussion back to the original articles and blogs.
The +1 service is much the same as the Facebook “like’ button in that you can use it all over the Internet. When you are given search results and logged into your account, you can hit the +1 button to store particular content relevant to your business to your profile like a database. This feature is similar to Pinterest’s ability to store pins on a board.
This particularly useful if you are reading the news or a press release about your company or business and you can add the article on to your Google+ profile. Over time you will be able to build a list of articles that are relevant to your business that your users can track.
For those who are starting small businesses, it is especially important that you locate things which pertain to your business. This includes news updates, other companies, competition, etc. With the sparks tab on your Google+ account you can locate content that is of interest to you and your company. This integrates Google Alerts into your Google+ to instantly find you articles of interest.
Google+ also provides you with the feature to set up Google Authorship. This is the ability to link everything you write on another domain to the Google+ profile. In other words you can create a link between your online publications and your Google+ page. This feature also offers a more visually appealing result when people search the web. It allows your results to stand out above the crowd. You can test different background colors and different expressions. When you use this, an image of the author appears alongside the search engine results that adds credibility to your content and therefore your company. There is also a link to the Google+ page of the author. It also shows that the author is involved in many circles.
Another tool you can use is AuthorRank. This helps users find reputable authors in a given field. It weeds out spammers and provides only relevant content that is influential in the niche area or industry. This means your company will enjoy higher recognition within the Google+ community because you can be credited as an expert in your field or niche.
Almost everyone uses Google products. As such Google+ offers a better way to share content and files via Google products. If your company is not involved in Google+, you will miss out on the opportunity to share in these products.
You can enjoy better messaging control via Google+. You can organize lists of peers and customers and add them based on the measure of sorting you prefer. You can channel your messages to specific groups and only notify those who need to be notified.
A great tip would be organizing your Circles into B2B, B2C and Employees. This way you can create content that is specific for those circles. This will boost engagement and you can locate and re-circle the users that are consistently engaging with your brand.
Your business rankings will improve with the use of Google+. You will enjoy new analytics tools that will help your site get higher rankings. You can already use tools like CircleCount that allow you to track the number of followers you have on your Google+ page and see how many people have commented on your posts or shared your posts.
Google+ also brings your company SEO benefits. Your Google+ page will be shown in results for keywords and non-brand keywords. You can also use Google Places in conjunction with Google+. You can link directions to your location with recommendations and host events as well to your page.
The hangouts now offer better video conferencing than Skype because you can add up to nine other people. You can also switch between real time collaboration and your desktop monitor. You can also use your Google Calendar to schedule hangouts instead of copying and pasting contact information. You can reduce time spent traveling between dealers, suppliers or other branches with Google Hangouts. You can enjoy brainstorming sessions via a video conference and not have to pay for plane tickets or gas mileage.
Link, Link, LINK! Google+ gives you the option to create as many links are you like. This is perfect way to add some SEO juice to your website and articles. Be as specific as you like!
With Google+ your business can effectively build a community that engages with the audience. You can embrace Google+ into your social network family. You can link your Google+ business page to anything you want.
Some Practical Things You Should Know About Google+
There is a lot to know about Google+. Anyone can create a profile now and enjoy the many features and facets which are offered. With Google+ you can create a profile, upload photos, seed articles, view news related to your interests, talk to people with group video chat, and actively engage in the same features offered by social networks within the privacy concerns and limitations associated with other social networks.
Google+ is a social network and recommendation engine that borrows some of its core elements from both Facebook and Twitter. Like Facebook, users are able post rich content and detailed status updates to their profile and have this content show up in other user’s newsfeeds. Unlike Facebook however (and similar to Twitter), Google+ users are able to follow anybody that they want to without requiring their target to accept a ‘friend request.”
Users receive a notice but they do not know inside which circle they are placed. You can follow updates for other people through a follow circle like Twitter and add people to develop hangouts more tuned to your growing interests. When you add someone to a circle you can then share with them your updates and see what they have shared with you. They receive the notification and then appear on your public profile.
Once you have your hangouts established in Google+ you can take advantage of streaming and “bumping”. By clicking on your home button you can see the stream area. It is here that you will be able to stream information from people in your hangouts below their profile picture. You can select from which hangouts you want to stream, or you can enjoy the default streaming from all hangouts.
The incoming option will show you messages which have been received from people who are not in your hangouts, while the notification option will provide you with information similar to Facebook notifications relating to comments, when someone adds you to their circle and the sparks section which contains conversations.
As with any social network, the biggest factor is the instant chat. This feature sits in the same position it did with gmail. You can limit the people who are able to chat with you when you use Google+. You can select only a few key hangouts for chat availability. When you post updates using Google+ you have the option to post a status update, add a link, or post an image but it is not visible to everyone. Instead, when you post an update you must select the circle or the individual with whom you will share the update.
When you edit your chat features you will see your hangouts. From there you can select which hangouts are able to see you when you are online and chat with you. Any existing Google chat personnel will be saved automatically. This provides additional security in that you can determine which people are able to see your email address via Google+ chat and which people are not.
When a person comments upon an update the update is moved to the top. This keeps you up to date on what is new and interesting to users. This is referred to as “bumping” a thread. To remove a person from their particular circle you just hover your cursor over the circle. As you do this you will notice the circle expand to show all of the people in the circle. Take the person you want to remove and drag them to the panel area away from the circle.