Google+ tips for starters (Part 1)
Last Friday the digital team went to see Google to learn more about what we can do to help our clients use Google+. Having training from the pros was very useful in helping us to firm up our thoughts about the growing social network.
Google+ is one of the newer platforms to join the big social media networks. It recently became the second largest social networking site behind Twitter and currently has over 500 million registered users globally with 235 million of those active each month.
The network allows users to group their contacts into ‘circles’, helping to define how you communicate with each individually. So you can target some updates to all your work colleagues and simultaneously update your family on the latest news – without blurring any lines.
The big differentiator is the ‘Hangouts’ feature. This is a video chat facility similar to that of Skype but with the added bonus of not having to download a separate application to run it.
For brands, ‘Hangouts’ can be shared across followers and can be run live with ‘Hangouts on Air’. ‘Hangouts on Air’ provide the additional facility of adding multiple participants (up to 10), so can work really well for debates, Q&A pieces or panel type conversations. Brands can also create ‘Community Pages’, owned by the brand but not necessarily about the brand – so an insurance company could own a page on home ownership, for example.
So what are the important bits? The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) value of the site is a big bonus. The more you update the platform the more often your posts appear in search. The Google+ team don’t deny the service is intrinsic with search but are very limited on how much SEO insight they provide.
Our tips for why it could be right for you are:
- SEO value, the more you update the more your updates will appear in search
- Hangouts are the perfect place to host debates and discuss new launches
- YouTube is supported well, both platforms work simultaneously for Hangouts
- You can own a Community Page for the brand
- It supports a review system that links to search via Google, so useful for showing positive recommendations