Marketers often neglect Google+ and choose to focus their efforts elsewhere, In fact, when Google+ first launched it was largely derided by many marketers and businesspeople. At the time, an overcrowded social media market was certainly going to be tough to penetrate, but Google+ has made rapid progress.
Twitter can feel like being lost on the highway, while over on Facebook a fan or customer must initiate the first contact. Google+ is different — information isn’t hidden amongst a swamp of social noise, and it’s easier for marketers to make pro-active steps to engage customers.
What follows are some tips on how you can find key influencers on Google+ and how to use the platform to grow your business.
Build Relationships by Taking a Human Approach
Taking a human approach to your marketing efforts will pay dividends. Interacting with highly influential individuals within your niche is obviously preferable. Searching out these people can be laborious and time consuming, but fortunately there are a few handy tools at your disposal.
First, there could be people who mention you, but don’t necessarily plus mention you (similar to tagging). So how do you find these people? Google+ has a useful feature: Google Ripples. Simply click the drop down arrow and choose ‘View Ripples.’
In the example image below – from a great Google+ resource Gplus Expertise – you can see that all the circles near ‘Will Humphries’ without names are people that haven’t plus mentioned the post. Without selecting ‘Ripples’ these accounts would have gone unnoticed.
Another great tool is NOD3x, which is a fantastic piece of web-based software that allows you to find out who is posting about the phrases and terms that are relevant to you. A basic account is free, but there is a limit to the number of projects, and you can only search Google+ and YouTube. The software also allows you to search Twitter, Facebook, etc. if you invest in the paid version.
The first step is to do some hashtag research on Google+. Simply enter your desired hashtag in Google+ (#conversion for example) and it will return associated hashtags.
You can then use these to set up projects in NOD3x, you can also define your demographic by selecting countries, languages, etc. You have to wait about 24hrs for a project to return some data, but once it’s up and running it will be really useful, and you will be able to identify the key influencers in your niche.
Join Google+ Communities to Connect with Thought-Leaders
The community groups within Google+ allow you to participate using your business profile, a unique feature among the large social media platforms. The advantages of this should be immediately obvious, you can target relevant groups and showcase your brand alongside your expertise.
You might want to consider starting your own community, especially if you feel that your brand is strong enough to warrant a community based around it or one of its main products. This community will then be listed on your ‘About’ tab. Your business will also be listed at the top of the community page, which can be great for driving traffic towards your site. Fox Business is the first visible finance community on the listings home page. Obviously most communities are highly unlikely to ever achieve a placing this high, but it does shows the potential.
If you’re posting links in a community that you haven’t started, be aware that they will not be posted until they’ve been moderated by the administrators, and will only be posted if they offer value to the community. So spend some time building the trust of the community and interacting, before simply trying to fill the community with links.
Careful and considered interaction with Google+ communities will grow your network. After a period of interaction, a relevant post with a link could drive traffic to your site
Use Hangouts on Air to Build Awareness
Hangouts were initially just solely a video chat/conferencing tool, but the addition of ‘on Air’ has allowed businesses to easily produce their own video shows or vlogs. For the uninitiated, ‘on Air’ is a recorded video that can also be easily published to YouTube. Barack Obama famously participated in his own hangout, so it’s certainly a trend that has caught on quickly.
So what is the benefit for your business? In simple terms it’s mainly brand awareness and an increase of YouTube and Google+ subscriptions. Which is great for growing your network and credibility. Another benefit is that if you involve an influential peer in your hangout, then those in their circle are also going to be exposed to your business. It’s a good idea to share some of their content as a follow-up, and hopefully they’ll reciprocate.
The Bottom Line
Many marketers are missing out on a great opportunity by ignoring Google+ and its communities. The methods outlined above will enable you target key influencers and interact with them. If you portray your brand in the right manner, then Google+ can be a great tool for conveying your brand’s ethos to a wider audience.
About the Author: This article was written by John Philips from SSLs.com. SLLs.com resells SSL certificates from the likes of Comodo, GeoTrust, and VeriSign.