0Wednesday, February 1, 2012
What can Google+ do for you?
4 Ways to be a Smart “Pluser”
A few weeks back, I posted about Google’s Search plus Your World feature. Since then, the Interwebs has been humming with commentary that ranges from good, to bad to downright misinformed.
After the wave of criticism passed regarding the relevancy of personalized search, bloggers started to offer their two cents as to how Google can work to modify the G+ user experience. One guy went so far as to create a hack that makes Google search work like it did in the good ‘ol pre-social search days.
Suggestions touch on some of G+‘s biggest issues including its 90 million registered—but inactive—users. Quality over quantity, right?
To an extent, it’s great to have a city with 90 million residents, but if those residents never interact with one another to exchange goods and services, then the city will never flourish. In her post, How Google+ Can Win: Make Publishing Universal, Bindu Reddy touches on an obstacle ‘plusers’ often encounter from day one: how to go about building circles.
Reddy’s solution is for Google+ to encourage ‘plusers’ to post about topics that interest them. Then, G+ can connect users based on personal interests, rather than suggesting a celebrity or big-name brand to follow. These more personalized connections will in turn encourage “plusers” to continue to post content relevant to themselves and their newfound followers.
So. What can you do to enhance your and your followers’ Google+ experience?
1. Start posting content relevant to your content marketing strategy
2. Optimize the SEO value of your published content
Say I’m writing a post about e-mail marketing. So, I type “e-mail marketing” into the Google Keywords Tool, and it spits out several variations on my topic as well as their rank globally and locally.
What words can you use that are relevant to the subject of your post AND rank high on the keyword list? Pepper your post with them.
3. Make your circles targeted.
Don’t limit yourself to just having a “following” circle. Break it down by business or personal interests and experiment with posting content that is circle-specific.
If your company has specific buyer profiles, create circles for each market segment; for example, create a circle for current clients and one for potential clients. That way, you can share specific content that will be of particular interest to each circle. The more targeted the content in the post, the better.
4. Don’t be shy when it comes to hanging out.
Google hangouts are probably the coolest feature G+ offers. President Obama hosted a hangout a couple days ago where he answered a slew of questions from “plusers” just like you and me.
An example of how to use Google hangouts would be for your company to schedule a regular client support session. Software companies often do this so that people can jump in and ask questions.
How to Hang Out on G+
Comments