Using Google+ to Boost Your Social Media Marketing

There are currently 250 million users on Google+ and while that isn’t close to a power media presence like Facebook, it is quickly growing, especially since Google is not making it mandatory for Gmail users to also have a Google+ account. While this has been one of the slowest growing social media networks, it is getting to the point where it can no longer be ignored and savvy social media marketers are all ready starting to beef up their presence. If you want to boost your social media marketing, you will want to increase your presence on Google + too.

Not only can Google+ help promote and educate the population about your products, promotions, hours and anything else you want to share, it will also give you a significant boost with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts to get higher search engine rankings at Google. Much of the best practices to setting up a product Google+ presence is the same as you would do for any other social media network.

Make sure to include important keywords and relevant links in your Google+ About Page for starters. In fact, the About Page is a great opportunity to introduce others to your products and service as well as offer a quick overview of your company. Including the links back to specific pages on your site, including your lead generation page and others will create some important SEO weight and allow visitors to quickly click through to your website. For the best results set this page up with a social tone and make sure it doesn’t sound like a big advertisement as Google+ users do not want to feel advertised to.

After you set up your About Page, make sure your Google+ page is also linked to from your website. That will allow Google+ users to immediately like or join your Google+ Circles or “+1” your page which will give you additional benefits in social proof and search engine weight.

When you have your About Page and links set up on Google+ you can start to engage with Google+ users, add them to circles and share news, comments and engagement with them the same as you would on any other social media network. Remember to use high quality images and embed YouTube videos as well. Since Google also owns YouTube, the cross postings can further benefit your overall social media marketing efforts.