how to fast track your google+ page (2012)

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How to fast track your Google+ Brand PageDirectors Briefing January 2012

02 / How to fast track your Google+ Brand Page

How to fast track your Google+ Brand Page

We wrote about the potential for Google+ back before it was a live opportunity for brands. Now it is and brands are harnessing it for great effect.

There are five benefits we believe your brand can achieve from running a Google+ Presence.

1. Traffic - Google+ acts just like Facebook and Twitter. It can work to engage customers and keep them interacting on Google+ but it can equally drive traffic to your chosen site.

2. Better engagement. We mentioned this in our first Google+ article, the way the circles work mean you can group your followers into different categories, allowing more targeted and relevant updates on the channel. On set up, Google even offers you some standard circles to populate. [insert image Google Circles]

3. Improved SEO benefit: Google encourages you to include a site url in your G+ page. It also encourages you to include a badge on your website. This ‘bridge’ between site and social will help Google measure the combined value of your social activity. Google+ results are already populating personalised search results and will continue to grow as new algorithms for search optimisation. Brands active on G+ will have the potential of greater search positions and resultant traffic.

4. Improved Paid Search - in the same vein as SEO. +1 results will be included in the quality score that defines your price and position point for paid search. Adding in Google+ will at least ensure you have a number against the G+ score. Better G+ will deliver better points. It may not be the silver bullet to invite your campaign but it will be another measure you can compete on.

5. Future Learning - Google is working hard to entwine Google+ into all its products. Whilst this is not being met with universal applause, it will become a defacto element for how Google starts to reindex and classify the web, including your site. Brands that are active now will be in a much stronger position to understand and harness the future Google.

The Fast Track to getting your Google+ Page Up & Running

If you have a Google+ page already, skip this bit. If not, read on, just make sure you have your own personal account first.

Thing you will need in advance (or you can come back and do)

• A small version of your logo. The resize tool isn’t very forgiving.• 10 words to describe your business.• Additional paragraphs to add in for business explanation • Your website url • Additional images to fill out your profile

1. Go to http://www.google.com/+/business/ to create your page

2. Select the type of page you want (much like a Facebook setup) 3. Define who can see the page (anyone, 18+, 21+, alcohol related)4. Agree to the terms and hit create

You now have a page.

There are currently no vanity urls on offer from Google+ but they may come. Remember, Facebook.com/usernames was not immediately available when pages were launched. Do note the Google vanity urls on offer last August were a great wheeze from a smart developer, in no way connected with Google!



Adding more administrators

Like Facebook Google+ allows you to add more people to manage the page. These are called managers. To add more managers simply hit the Google Plus settings ‘cog’ at the top right of your page. (NB you need to be active on your page, not your profile/personal page to get the right settings) Select Google+ settings and ‘managers’ - anyone with a Google address can be invited. Unlike Facebook the person does not need to be active on G+ already (although it helps) nor do they need to be following the page to be added. Clicking on an email verification link will allow you to become a page manager. It is then over to you how to manage the page.

Making it look good

The principle opportunity for design on the Google+ page is the image boxes across the top. You can use these to include images of your products.

Or, like Burberry you can create a picture from the individual pictures Unlike Faceook, Google will allow animated gifs which Burberry have used to great effect to create a snowing image.

For inspiration, we have included some of our favourite examples of brand pages done right.



Content Content Content

Now you have the page up and running you need the content. No doubt the same strategy you deploy for Facebook and Twitter will be your starting point, just don’t start using it as to repost all your existing content. That novelty will wear thing, very quickly.

Like Facebook, Google+ allows you potential to be more visual with your updates including the use of photo albums, videos direct from YouTube and the return of animated gifs! (note the Burberry example before you right them off completely.)

Hangouts and the potential for interaction

Hangouts are one of the potential ‘Facebook killers’ for Google+. In short a Hangout is a means of connecting multiple people at the same time. Google is using them to promote big name speakers. Earlier in January, David Beckham took questions from invited G+ users and Barack Obama hosts his latest session on Google 24th January 2012.

Check out http://dtt.me/muppetshangout for some inspiration! Dell, a leader in social media usage is planning to use Hangouts for customer support. Macy’s tried the hangout, hosted by a fashion blogger and 9 invited users. At present only 10 people can be on a hangout which is 8 more than the Skype to Skype Facebook integration but still somewhat limiting for growth. We expect that to grow in time.

See more examples at http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleplusHangouts/feed

Measuring Success

1. Google+ sends traffic from the url plus.google.com - check your analytics to see how much traffic your presence (page and activity) is generating.

2. Ripples has already been demonstrating some great examples of how you can track the mentions of your content and by whom. The visually appealing way of identifying the ripples will show you the key users who are influencing the sharing of your content.

3. Google Analytics will also offer some social data to help you understand social engagement of your page.

4. ‘In the coming weeks’ [Google’s words] they will be adding on page analytics for your G+ page.

You can find all of the details for Google’s social analytics here http://www.google.com/+/business/measure.html

Need more inspiration?

We have a circle of almost 500 brands we are watching, connect with us and we can share.

Any questions?

Ask away, email [email protected] with your questions or to organise a Skype call, or a hangout!

how to fast track your google+ page (2012)

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