MUST READ - 21 Simple Ways to Get More Followers for Your Google Plus Business Page (Part 1) Google Plus has more than one billion registered (and 359 million active) users, as well as some of the most business-friendly features of any social network, this is the time to start building out your business page, if you haven’t done so already. As additional incentive, Google Plus has been shown to dramatically improve search engine rankings, which, in itself, is a sufficient reason to join the platform. By building your brand through this social media channel, you will be able to boost your SEO efforts and increase your business’s online exposure. So, let’s jump in and take a look at some of the awesome ways to increase your exposure on Google Plus. 1. Create a Personal Profile In Addition to Your Business Page Use your personal profile to build and reinforce your business brand. Just because getting followers for your business page is the ultimate goal, that doesn’t mean you should stop using your personal profile altogether. In fact, your best bet is to use both your personal profile and business page in tandem, as this will allow you to improve your personal and business brands. With the potential influence of Google Authorship in SEO, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ensure your personal profile is a strong one. Two of the best examples of people who use their personal profiles for business are Mark Traphagen and Martin Shervington. If you take a look at their profiles, you’ll see that, while the profiles are all about them personally, each post and conversation they get involved in helps to increase the brand awareness of their particular employer or business. 2. Treat Your Google Plus Page Like a Micro Blog, and Post Valuable Content Don’t just comment and Plus One the content of others. Post your own engaging content. Make sure you are updating your Google Plus page on a regular basis. The content needs to be exclusive, valuable, and compelling, both in terms of visuals and substance. Knowing that Google Plus posts are searchable, you should treat them like a micro blog (and a very powerful one at that). For your business page, you should keep the content strictly on topic, but you can use your personal profile to post content on other areas of interest. 3. Add Relevant People and Businesses to Your Circles Follow people and businesses you are interested in, and many will follow you back. Unlike Facebook or some other social networks, where you will find lots of fake profiles, Google Plus is not very crowded. Plus, the restrictions are not as limiting as they are at some other networks. If you have spent time buffing up your profile, description, and image, etc. simply adding relevant people to your circles will result in a majority of the people adding you back. Remember that you should be doing the networking and outreach mainly with your personal profile. That will benefit your business page indirectly, since the more you can manage to get into the circles of other people, the more exposure you will get for your business page, by sharing your business posts. 4. Engage with Other Users In a Meaningful Way Be more than a page. Get active and engage with people in a one-to-one fashion. Apart from posting regular updates, useful links, or images, you need to engage with users on a one-to-one basis. For your business profile, the engagement will be limited mostly to people posting queries, messages, and posts on your business page, with some occasional posts made on some community, etc. But the real networking will be carried out via your personal profile, and it will take a lot more than liking (+1) others’ posts. You need to follow and interact with relatively active people in your niche, take some time to go through their posts and make thoughtful comments, and participate in relevant discussions, communities, and hangouts. 5. Watch for Trending Topics to Find Out What Your Users Are Talking About Use the explore feature to check out what’s hot in your niche. Keep tabs on trending topics, and it will give you an idea as to what kinds of posts, images, or GIFs are getting exposure among your target audience. In most cases, you will notice that a lot of content is not very creative, or entirely original. Again, your content needs to be on topic in case of a business page (though you can use polls, questions, or surveys to make it more engaging), and you always can use some off-topic posts, images, or GIFs on your personal profile to win new friends. 6. Search for Users You Want to Connect With Use the search function in Google+ to find your target audience. While trying to engage people, or simply adding people to your circles, you should be focusing on your target audience, especially the people with active and high authority profiles. To find these people, you can use the search function on Google Plus while using the Ripples feature to see who’s worth investing time with, and who’s not. 7. Figure the Optimal Time to Post for Your Audience Rotate post time until you figure out when you get the best results. Depending on the age group, time zone, or occupation of your target market, posts or updates made at different times can yield significantly different results. Not that the quality of your post doesn’t matter, but knowing the optimal time to post is important for getting maximum exposure and response from your target audience. And, the only way to figure that out is to test and compare. If it’s not feasible to post manually at a specific time on a regular basis, you can use a tool like Bufferapp for custom scheduling. 8. Get Familiar with Notification Triggers, and Use Them Wisely Don’t annoy people with random notifications. Know the notification triggers and use them wisely, but, remember, there’s a very fine line between taking advantage of these triggers and stepping into the forbidden territory of spam. Depending on the preferences set by users, there are almost 20 actions that will result in a notification being sent to their emails or phones. To know these triggers, you can visit the Google Plus settings at your profile, and look under the “Receive notifications” setting. 9. Use Hangouts On Air to Build Your Authority Hangouts On Air are a great way to brand yourself or your business as an expert. If you are an authority on your subject (or you can get an expert on board),Google hangouts-on-air can be a great platform to engage and impress you target users. While it will take quite some time to plan, prepare, and promote a hangout on air, it’s worth the effort. You can build a good following by organizing a successful hangout-on-air every once in a while, and it can be a nice step toward establishing yourself as an authority. 10. Create Events and Invite Your Followers Be social and create events through Google+. To promote your hangout, create a circle of Google Plus users that you are looking to target. Create an event for your hangout, and send the invitation to the people in that particular circle. Use a compelling title and banner to entice more people. Also encourage the invitees to share the news with their contacts. And make it a public event so that anybody can participate (unless you’d like some sort of restriction on attendees). read on: entrepreneur/article/233063
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:00:01 +0000
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