Social media management is one of Trademark Productions’ specialties, and one social media network companies often neglect is the still somewhat newish Google+.
Yes, the network is barely six months old, but author Chris Brogan has told Mashable he believes it’s a game changer.
When asked why he thought this, Brogan said, “It’s pretty easy to explain. Google+ posts sent to ‘public’ rank fairly well in Google search results. You can’t get that with Facebook or Twitter these days. If almost 70 percent of people start their online trek to your website via search, then that’s fairly self-explanatory.”
In essence, the importance of Google+ brand pages boils down to one thing: search. People are using search engines more than ever to find company websites or information about a company. This is the main reason Google+ is so important for businesses, small or large, to invest time into.
Cultivating an online community is a challenging task that we discussed in a previous blog post, but with Google+, it’s not about the size of the community, but the quality. Google+ offers your brand things that simply aren’t available on Twitter or Facebook. One, as mentioned before, is the ability to have posts rank in search engines. The second is that Google+ Brand Pages are not passive networks like Twitter.
When something is shared on Twitter, it’s just thrown out into cyberspace. There is no guarantee that someone will send a @mention in return or retweet the post. And while those things are not guaranteed on Google+, there’s more room for encouragement. Brogan said, “… the visual appeal of Google+ pages encourages more clicking. Brands can host hangouts and have deeper interaction than on Twitter. Because Google’s search features are far more robust than Facebook, the opportunity to prospect and find more potential community members is much better.” This deeper interaction is why your company needs to invest in Google+.
Facebook and Twitter should not be discounted, though, since they are still the dominant social networks and should be treated as such. But Google+ offers your company a chance to do something different and it would behoove you to take advantage of that.
One of the things Brogan suggests companies do is host a Hangout, Google+’s group video-chat system. Hangouts are an asset that Facebook and Twitter don’t have. They could be used in a multitude of ways, such as giving your community advice or tips about your product. And this is just one of the many ways you can use Google+ to help your company gain better social exposure.
Do you have questions about how Google+ can help your business? Give us a call or shoot us an email! We’d love to discuss how we can help improve your company’s web presence with the use of this and other social networks.
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