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    Categories: Social Media Marketing

Social Starter: A Beginner’s Guide to Google+ Marketing

Putting it simply, Google+ is a marketer’s dream. Sure, there are a few ins and outs you will need to learn to use it well, but it will be well your time. So, let’s kick off and explore the ways it will help you and your business fly.

Build targeted email lists using Google Circles

Google Circles are powerful, but so many people are not seeing this advantage yet! Imagine you have a super niche email list of people who want to receive information you have. That is what many diligent marketers are building up using Google+.

When you’ve built them well, you will be able to notify people through targeted emails and increase the engagement on your content.

Related Class: Google+ and SEO Reputation Management: Why Your Business Must Set Up an Account

Top of mind awareness

There is real power in the plus one button. Every time you ‘plus one’ someone’s content they receive a notification, which brings you and your logo to their attention. The deeper you connect with them, the more powerful an impression you will make. And when, of course, the time comes to make a choice between you and the next brand, you will have already given them a reason to think of you.

Google+ communities

With over 150,000 active communities, these are hives of activity within your niche that are just waiting for you. When you get the ‘feel’ for what’s going on, you can engage and increase the reach of your content as well.

Shares and +1/recommend

There are loads of really subtle features on Google+ that are built in to help you market well. In short, when you understand how information flows around Google+, you will be able to increase your reach with a simple +1 of content that matters to you most; by plus one-ing the ‘shares’ of your own content, you can enable it to have fresh life, and more eyeballs.

Social activity leads to visitors

Do you want more visits to your website? Of course you do! But you also want the right visitors, who are most likely to take their engagement and turn it into action.

When you post the right content for your niche, well formatted and using appropriate hashtags, you will enable more people to find, engage and ‘click’ to visit your website.

From there they are in your ‘house,’ and it will be a case of serving them accordingly.

Google Search

Google+ is Google. Google owns ‘Search.’

This is HUGE. If you search for ‘Google Plus Marketing’ you will probably see one of my posts sitting very near the top. As a case study (included in the OMI course), you’ll see how you too can build a community of people around you who will then fall in love with you and your brand. It only takes 100 brand evangelists for things to get very interesting.

Related Class: Using Google+ for Search Rankings & Brand Reach

This type of social SEO is often considered the future of Search Engine Optimization, and you should specifically consider it as your way to generate quality traffic, long term, to your website.

If you Google many topics about Google Plus Marketing, you may well find that content from Plus Your Business is ready for your attention.

Networking

Business is about people, and relationships. Google+ is technology that helps people to connect in new ways. To the outside observer they may well see ‘the stream’ of content that flows in the social network aspect, but when you dig deeper you will a new world. There is a thriving community of people who have populated this virtual space; there are daily events on just about every subject you can imagine, all of which are attended by people you want to know. Just drop by and introduce yourself. It will be just like going to a networking meeting, without all the hassle like parking and bad coffee.

And you can meet some really cool people there too:

(yes, that is me chatting with Sir Ben Kingsley on a Google Hangout…)

Remarketing

So, let’s say people visit your website – they pay you attention, but then leave. What next? Well, when you understand the Google eco-system, you will be able to use Google Adwords to remarket to people as they move around the web. This is such a powerful and under-utilized tool, and when you add using both Google+ and Google Search to generate relevant visitors, you will be ahead of the game.

Conclusion

There is so much more to Google+ than meets the eye, and this article is just a super quick introduction to the many ways in which you can use it to up your marketing. Have fun and get engaged with Google+, and this great platform will be well worth your efforts.

Go more in-depth on this subject with many classes from OMI on how to use social media, and how to integrate your content marketing with social platforms.