Top Google+ Social Media Marketing Tips 2013

Continuing on from our recent Facebook and LinkedIn social media marketing guides, it’s the turn today of Google+. Like it or loathe it, Google+ is becoming an increasingly important social network, so it may be time to jump on the Google train. Read our top tips for an introduction to some of the recent Google+ changes in 2013.

If Google+ has recently appeared on your radar as a new channel to add to your social media strategy, you’ll probably want to know how to go about creating a business page. 

These are very much like the ones you would find on Facebook or LinkedIn, so if you have one of these set up already, it’s a reasonably simple task of cut and pasting across your company information. Also, if you use Gmail, Google Docs or sign in to Google Search, you'll already have a Google+ profile that you can set up very quickly.

One major difference between Google+ and its rivals is its enormous cover image, which is 2120 x 1192 pixels if you want to make the most of it as branding real estate. You can go smaller with the image – just make sure the proportions fit a ratio of 16:9, and don’t go too small otherwise your image will pixelate or blur.

Finally, beware the circles! The new profile logo is displayed within a circle, so if you upload a square image the corners will be clipped off.

Here are two great examples on business page visuals from Coca Cola and Ford. The latter really shows how the cover can be used like an advertising billboard or magazine spread: 

This resonates somewhat with the success we’ve had on LinkedIn Groups, the idea being to participate in discussions to promote yourself as a thought leader and influencer. 

However, Google+ goes one further by allowing you to post to communities as your business page, unlike Facebook and LinkedIn where you can only post outside your business page as an individual.

As with LinkedIn, focus on a few communities to begin with. Engaging in groups and communities can be time-consuming. It will also take you a while to work out which communities are the most relevant and receptive to your input.

You can of course start your own community if you find that one is lacking in a particular area – perhaps your industry has yet to be represented in your region, on Google+?

Remember Google Places? This was merged into Google+, so if you have a local business and want Google to associate it with an address (so it will appear on Google Maps) and your contact details, setting up a Google+ local business page is essential.

A local business page is different from a standard business page – you’ll need to provide a physical address, phone number, and, of course, a website. All of this will be verified by Google, either by phone or mail (postcard).

The importance of setting up a Google+ local business page, if you are a small, local business, cannot be stressed enough. It helps you get found on local directory listings run by Google, and flags you up as a place on Google Maps. Customers can also leave reviews, and you can add events that will appear in Google listings elsewhere.

When your Google+ business page appears in search results, underneath it will be your most recent posts, so keep it fresh. 

If you’re running a blog with keyword optimised articles – which we hope you are – always post the content to Google+. If you’re already syndicating content top Facebook, it’s easy enough to paste the exact same update to Google+. However, you’ll be missing out on the advantages arising from one key difference: Google+ posts rank in search results for keywords; Facebook posts do not. 

This really could be one of the deciding factors in the battle between Facebook and Google+. We’ve always known that Google would put its search muscle behind the success of Google+ – we now have Google Search Plus, for example – but only recently has it emerged that certain posts appear on search results pages for certain keywords.

Essentially what it means is that Google+ will have a greater effect on search rankings – the realm of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). To make the most of it now, post more of your blog content to Google+ than you would normally on Facebook.

Rather than posting a one or two-line teaser with link to your article, post the first third or even half of your piece – you want to get as many of your keywords on to Google+ as possible. This way you can still drive traffic to your website by offering up no more than half your article, and there's the added benefit of increased ‘shareability’ – Google+ users in particular are more likely to share entire articles than simple teasers.