11 Best Practices for Your Google+ Brand Page
Social networking sites are helping businesses get in touch with their current customers, gain more social recommendations, add more customers, and basically engage with them on a regular basis. Is it any wonder that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become a haven for marketers and business owners?
Admittedly, we have seen an influx of social networking sites and it would be impossible to create a presence on all of them and still be an effective marketer. A new kid on the social networking site is Google+, but it is certainly one site that you should not ignore.
Google+ has recently opened its doors for businesses to have a profile, and as a business owner, you should take advantage of this by creating your own business page.
Here are ten things you should keep in mind when putting up your Google+ Business Page:
1. Take a look at what the top brands are doing.
Before you do anything else, it is very important to plan your activity very carefully. Your best bet is to take a look at the brands and companies that are already on Google+ and see what they are doing and what is working for them.
Here are just some examples of pages that you might be interested in:
2. Create an account
Aside from the fact that you cannot create a business page without a personal account, it is always a good idea to create your own personal page and be able to check out the features and functionality of Google+. Familiarize yourself with Hangouts, Circles, how to post status updates, or even how to share multimedia content.
This would ensure that you know your way around Google+ and would save you from the embarrassment of making mistakes on your business page.
Once you’re comfortable with how Google+ works, click on the “Create a Google+ Page” (https://plus.google.com/u/0/pages/create) link then choose the most relevant category for your business.
Be sure to read the terms of service and fill out all the fields. This would help you give out more information about your brand or business.
3. Be creative with your Tagline.
Describing your business in 10 words or less can be pretty challenging, but your tagline is what most people would see when they search for business pages.
Be creative in coming up with your tagline and make sure that not only do you need to fully capture what you do and what your brand stands for, but that it is also engaging and concise.
4. Upload great photos.
Photos help you hook visitors to your Google+ page. Make sure that you choose photos that represent your company well. You could use your company logo or even an employee’s photo, or a shot of your store.
5. Put your page URL up everywhere you can.
Make sure that you promote your Google+ Business Page everywhere you can. Include it on your business cards, letterheads, and e-mail signatures. Tell your friends, employees and family to add your page to their own circles. Create an in-store campaign so that your customers know that you are on Google+.
6. Be chatty, but never spammy.
You should be regularly updating your timeline with news, questions, polls or anything that would help you engage your customers. But make sure that you time it well so that your Circle would not think that you are spamming them.
Further, be sure to avoid marketing on your Google+ page. It might be tempting to just talk about your products and services, but this will drive away your customers.
This is because you have to…
7. Aim for interaction and engagement.
Google+ is a social networking site, not a marketing site. People add your page to their Circles so that they could interact with you or get more information about you or even get discounts and deals. They are not there so that you could sell to them.
This also highlights the importance of prompt responses if your customers have questions or comments that they leave on your Google+ page.
8. Plan for your content.
Even with your social media efforts, you should plan on giving out informative, educational and entertaining content that is timely, fresh and original.
It is okay to share other people’s content just as long as you also share content that is exclusive yours. Post your latest blog post, or post some business-specific content such as a video of you baking one of that famous bread that you sell.
9. Add a human touch.
It might be your business page, but your customers would be more comfortable talking to a person who shows emotions, has a sense of humor and other things that convey that they are interacting with a human.
10. Monitor Google+.
It makes sense to see what people are talking about or if they are talking about you. On Google+, it is particularly very easy to do this. Just search for terms that are relevant to your business. For instance, if you run a car dealership, you might want to save search terms such as “used cars” or “pickup truck for sale” or you could set up a search query for your company name.
11. Hold Hangouts.
Hangouts are a great way to interact with your community and do some customer service. Have a regular Hangout and use that time to be on hand to answer product questions, give out tips or tutorials.
A grocery owner, for example, could have a cooking class on Google+ featuring recipes that may be bought from his grocery.
Helping clients improve their Social Media campaigns, whether it be on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook; Search Engine Optimization, Inc. provides innovative marketing strategies revolving around a custom fit SEO/SEM/Social Media Marketing solution that is aligned with the client’s goals and needs.
How many different company pages can one account create? This would be important if you have more than one division, brand or you are an agency with 100 clients where you’re the best bet for being the administrator/creator for each and every one of them.
Also, can you post, comment and +1 as the company or does that always default to you as an individual?
Can you invite your database via a CSV file and/or does that default into accidentally inviting everyone to be in your personal account circles?
Unfortunately, the answers I’ve garnered so far for the last two questions above aren’t heartening. I would like to see the platform become more stable and easy to use like LinkedIn has finally become (Facebook and Twitter still have unstable invite mechanisms for contact lists as of the 12th of December 2011).
I would prefer both G+ pages and FB pages to be similar to individual accounts where we are free to follow anyone whom we know/ want to. The process of people having to find out our page is actually long-winded.
Good tips, will you be providing an update on the new Google+ Local changes that have taken place?