We have another rocking post for day two of How to Make Money with Social Media Week.
As mentioned yesterday, we’re doing a series of blog post from famous authors and social media experts throughout the week. Our stated intent is to provide you with tools and tips to help you grow your business using social media. (Our actual intent is to leverage the fame of my friends in an effort to promote the launch of the new edition of How to Make Money with Social Media.)
Today’s post is from none other than Martin Shervington, who has over 640,000 followers on Google+.
Yes, you heard right. Over six hundred and forty thousand. (And to think that his parents said he’d never amount to anything.)
Okay, ready to get started? Let’s dive in with Martin’s post.
To Begin…
Arriving on Google+ is like setting up your home in a new, exciting metropolis. The thing is … in order to get yourself known, you’ll need to go out and meet the neighbors. They’ve been having a street party for quite a while now! In fact, for the past three years people have been building their personal networks and, as you will see, influencing people’s Google Search results too. (We will get to that.)
But for now, it’s important to know that you could have the best health tips, give sound business advice, be the most brilliant author or even make the best cupcakes — but they may not know that you’ve arrived on Google+.
In order to fix that, let’s make sure you have everything set up ready for the crowd.
Your Profile
Set up your profile with a clear headshot. People relate to people best, so as much as you love your dog, cat, or even axolotl (Google it, they are weird things), no one needs to see them here.
Next have a look at adding an attractive image as the ‘cover photo’ – this is your chance to WOW people. Really do make sure you don’t use one of the generic Google ones, people will think you are, well, a bit lazy.
Profile/Pages/Website
Ok, link your website to your Google+ Profile and add some Google+ badges — this is a good way to help people following you when they visit your website (i.e. growing your network).
Also, don’t rush to set up a Page unless you are a company. People tend to relate best to ‘profiles’ when they are new to Google+.
Find People to Whom You Relate
Next, you want to find some people to follow. As such, use a hashtag to search for people with similar interests (e.g. #health #science #cupcakes). Add those people into our circles.
Add in Whole Circles
Also, this is a very cool thing about Google+ — you can add in circles (up to 500 people at a time). Search for hashtags and ‘circle’ e.g. ‘#Science Circles’ and add those — if people relate to your profile it is quite possible many people will add you back.
Engage
What next? Well, then go and +1, comment and share those people’s content when you relate to it. But don’t just share, add your own commentary and views about the content in the box above.
Tip: if you are adding in lots of circles then you can ‘hide who you have in circles’ as it may look a little unbalanced until more people add you back.
Just click the edit button, and then you can uncheck the box (see below).
Create a ‘notify’ circle of people you want to ‘know your name’
Here is a super tip for you. Create a circle of people who you most want to ‘know your name’ i.e. with whom you want to build a relationship.
From ‘People’ drag the circle towards the top of the rest of your circles and it will appear when you go to the Home Stream — note you will have to ‘name it notify’!
Then, from the Home Stream, click on that circle and click the bell. This will say ‘on’ and means you will receive a notification every time someone posts content who is ‘in’ that circle.
From there you can +1/comment/share their content to show them your love.
If you want more on how I manage my circles, then click the YouTube image below. This content will rock your world.
Join Communities
Google+ has hundreds of thousands of community, many of which have tens of thousands of members.
As such, check out communities you find interesting and focus on commenting instead of posting your own content. They all have their own guidelines so keep an eye on ‘house rules’ but they are a great way to find like minded people, and once the timing is right for you, you can post your content into a friendly environment where you may well find people are ripe to engage.
Watch Events And Make Comments
As well as seeing great content, events are often excellent social occasions and you can meet some new people in the live comments. This could well be an hour well invested if you can become a friendly/insightful/supportive guest.
Use Hangouts
Hangouts are video calls and text/image based. If you are not using them yet you are missing out. When you connect with people in hangouts you will find your building relationships very quickly.
They are also great when working in teams.
Use Hangouts-on-Air
Start running your own broadcast channel using Google Hangouts-on-Air, live streamed to your YouTube channel! This is a very cool thing about Google+, it integrate beautifully with the world’s second largest Search engine — YouTube. (Google.com is the biggest).
Also, you can choose ‘who sees what content’ in your YouTube setting for a particular video, even sharing it just with a select circle of people. This is a great way to make your ‘tribe’ feel special, after all, they are the people closest to you and the ones who will tell others that you are worth following as well.
Once you have created content on your channel, you can even download it as an MP4 and then edit it into sections, embedding each one as a new YouTube video e.g. on a new blog post on your website. This is a super way to re-package your content.
Things to Avoid:
Just like a party, be social on Google+, but don’t run around handing out your business cards. As such, best not to ask people to share your content or beg people to add you to circles.
Don’t check ‘notify by email’ and +mentioning every time you are posting — this will tend to get a ‘reaction’ from old hands on Google+ and many people get muted or blocked before they get going.
Sites and tools you need to know:
- CircleCount.com – great for seeing stats on engagement, who has added you into circles and much more.
- Circlescope.com – this helps you to manage your circles even better
- Nod3x.com – great for Social Network Analysis
- SteadyDemand.com – ideal for extra info if you are managing Pages.
Personalized Search
I mentioned from the start that Personalized Search is important, well here is why…
- Google.com defaults to a ‘private’ or personalized setting
- Google indexes every post shared on Google+, and
- Those posts, whether private or public, can show up in Google Search for the people who have the rights to see them
When you factor in that Google wants content to surface that you will consider to be most relevant for you (e.g. it answers your question) you will often find posts on Google.com from people who are within your circles. Then, flipping it around, if more people have you in circles i.e. your build your presence/your network, then there may well be the opportunity for you to be influencing people’s Search results as well.
This is part of a much bigger conversation, but also know that Google+ is awesome for Social SEO, it is about ‘who’ engages on ‘what’ content which allows the signal to Google Search that would seem to determine what Google surfaces as authoritative content, even for those outside of your circles. You can find out more about that on my PlusYourBusiness.com website.
Google+ is A Friendly Place
Finally…let people know you if are ‘new here’ — people are friendly and will usually assist. From there you feel part of the global party that keeps on getting better.
Enjoy! It is a great ride.
Martin Shervington is a consultant, speaker and interviewer who attended the University of London and is currently residing in Newport, U.K.