Google+ is relatively a new player in the social media arena with just a few years smack in the heart of the social action after it was launched last June 28, 2011. In began as an invite-only model but the social clamor calls for something much bigger than this kind of social network model, so Google+ opened up its doors for all to enter.
And enter was what people did.
Registered users started filling up the social media rafters at Google+ in a rate so dizzying that it send social network giants Facebook and Twitter wondering what just went buzzing bye. In such a short span of time, Google+ rose to become one of the fastest growing social networks that are making digital marketers’ head turn Google’s way – a fact business owners could no longer afford to overlook.
The following are 10 reasons why Google+ is a must for business owners wanting to make a stronger mark in the digital marketing arena. The fact remains that it is simply very hard to ignore how this social network is fast becoming one of the most important Internet marketing tools and social media marketing channels that business owners should have in their digital marketing arsenal – and the list below can perhaps set the anchors for you in this new social arena.
1. Google+ is Now No.2
Watch out Facebook for Number 2 is now nibbling at your heels! It’s of course non other but Google+ which has ballooned to more than 369 million active users and pocketed the title as the second biggest social media network.
Image from: www.soshable.com
Facebook still gets the lion’s share in account ownership at a dominating 70% of Internet users globally. Google+ however is slowly creeping up behind with 50% ownership and is expected to increase even more now that Gmail account users will have a mandatory Google+ account registration – that’s leveraging on the power of Google for you!
Other interesting statistics from a GlobalWebIndex study reported Google+ as the dominant social network in terms of monthly visits, with a high 1,203 million visits per month, compared to Facebook’’s 809 million and Twitter’s 416 million visits. Photo uploads, a social network activity that catapulted Facebook to the social network pedestal is also the most popular activity in Google+, although business owners and digital marketers can leverage on Google+ more compelling banner and image display for branding.
2. Google+ Can Easily be Integrated with Other Google Products
What makes Google very popular among Internet users, particularly business owners and digital marketers, is the wide variety of very useful products that they can leverage on with their digital marketing campaigns. This includes Google Maps, Gmail, Chrome (for PC browsers and users), Google Play (for the Android buffs) and of course YouTube.
Image from: www.socialmediatoday.com
Google+ makes it easy for digital marketers to integrate, manage and share content across all these products that they love to use, making their digital marketing campaigns more efficient. No other social network can boast or even offer such a ton of resources available from within a single vantage point. This will surely be a boost to your digital marketing strategy even if you’ve just started using a few of these tools.
3. Google+ Business Pages Enhances Your Discoverability with Targeted Audiences
Facebook Pages is one of the features this social network offer that business owners and digital marketers are leveraging on to connect with targeted audiences. Imagine if you could enhance these pages even more and make them much more discoverable by your targeted audiences. This is what Google+ did by allowing users to set up their own Business Pages.
Google+ Business Pages has one obvious advantage of course – these pages are easily indexed by the search engines which allow for much enhanced discoverability of your brand, products or services among targeted audiences. These pages can be a very neat extension of your main business website where you can easily make regular updates to help you reach out to your targeted audiences.
But there’s more.
Google+ Business Pages owners can leverage on the rel=”publisher” code to easily link the Business Page they created to any content they have online. This makes for better branding and a very efficient means of enhancing your online reputation.
4. Google+ Communities Provides Better Interaction with Targeted Customers
One of the best features of Google+ which can provide better interaction with targeted customers is the Google+ Communities. You can create one on your own which you can nurture as a focused group that is directly aligned with whatever brand, product or service you are marketing. Of course, bluntly selling your stuff to your community members can turn them off, but effectively using communities as a way to enhance the concepts and values your brand adheres to can create trust and lasting relationships with targeted audiences.
Aside from that, your Google+ profile can also help your brand participate in other focused communities, which can be composed of other individual Google+ users or companies with a Google+ account. Participating in these communities can help increase your brand awareness and content marketing efforts if done right, which can really go viral and reach other Google+ users from around the world – instead of simply waiting for people and other users to visit your page.
5. Google+ Events Provides Interactive Ways to Promote Your Projects
Marketing your projects like events and special promotions can be done much more effectively through an interactive channel. This is what Google+ Events offer its users, which has an increased level of interactivity as compared to Facebook Events. As a Google product, it can be linked to your event guests through their Google Calendar which has an internal system of reminding their account holders of upcoming events.
Aside from that, Events owners can send out invitations to either individual Google+ users or members of a Group, reaching more targeted audiences you may be interested in what your events has to offer. You can invite people to a webinar you are offering or an offline meeting that you have scheduled – it’s all up to you how you can be creative in leveraging Google+ Events for your business.
6. Google+ Local Can Help Promote Your Business Locally
Reviews about your business establishment or photos uploaded by satisfied customers can be used to your advantage by making use of Google+ Local. This feature is an evolution of the previous Google Places where local businesses can put up a business listing page where important business information as well as contact information is displayed together with customer reviews, ratings and user-uploaded photos.
This can put greater credibility for your local business, as Internet users will most likely trust recommendations from real people with real photos and real user accounts. On top of that, Google+ Local is also leveraging on the power of the Google network, connecting your business page to Google Maps as well as getting enhanced visibility and discoverability when a targeted user makes a local search.
7. Google+ Allows Better Options for Messaging
One of the features that make a social network a very powerful tool for digital marketing is the option for messaging. Google+ however makes messaging a much better and easier to use option that digital marketers can leverage on. You can specify which group a particular Google+ connection will be grouped together with. You can easily group friends or family from your business prospects and other classifications you may have in mind.
This allows you to communicate directly with specific sets of information to a particular group who may be interested in what you may have to say. This is a better way of reaching out to a targeted audience instead of broadcasting information to everyone including people who have no interest in your product or service no matter how good these may be.
8. Google+ Connects You to a Wider Global Audience
Facebook is a big social network and has a wide reach that can connect you to a global audience. Google+ however goes beyond that. Facebook is only limited to its social network realm, while Google+ can connect to everything that is Google. This can open new and wider doors for your brand or business to any people who are using Google’s products particularly the crown of it all – the search engine.
Google is moving towards Social Search and one of the very important steps towards this direction is making Google+ posts, business pages, and user profiles to appear or be incorporated in search results. That’s the power of the +1 button and if more people +1’d your business pages, it can have greater chances of inclusion among searches that your targeted customers from all across the globe are making.
9. Google+ Authorship Can Help Establish You as a Content Authority
An Infographic that we will launch this week tells business owners and digital marketers the importance of Google+ Authorship and Author Rank have in influencing the behavior Google’s search engine will have in the near future. It’s all about creating good, relevant and high quality content that your targeted audiences are so much interested in, and your Google+ Authorship will help make your content much more discoverable and available to your targeted audiences.
Google+ Authorship links your Google+ profile to your online content. What this will eventually do, particularly if people share or interact more with your content, is to establish you as a content authority. With a higher Author Rank, you can have greater chances of appearing high in search results than other business owners with no significant author ranking. As a content authority, people will go to your sites for information. The more people come, the greater the chances for you to get more business.
10. Free Conference/Webinar Tool with Google+ Hangout
If there is a very powerful tool in existent that no other social media network can offer, its Google+ hangout. This tool allows you to broadcast webinars in real-time to all Google+ users. While webinar tools are not that cheap, Google+ hangout is your best alternative in broadcasting real-time webinars to prospective clients/customers or have a conference to your employees and team members all over the world for FREE! You just need a Google+ account to do so as well as your prospects or employees.
11. Google+ is Google
Lastly, the most obvious reason why your business should use Google+ is simply because it’s from Google. That’s more than enough reason for any business to be in Google+. Digital marketers are scrambling to be on top of Google’s search results so it is quite obvious that being in Google+ and leveraging every tool and digital marketing technique it offers would be to your greatest advantage.
Google+ has grown bigger and in such a short span of time that growth is nothing but spectacular. Google of course has more plans for this social component of its wide network that will eventually place it on top of the social media ladder. So why wait for that to happen when your business can now leverage on what Google+ has to offer – and ride the strong Google Social Media wave to your success.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.