Google+ has been slow burn and as yet is a long way off taking over social platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, however, it’s not one to be ignored. There are some SEO benefits in adopting SEO and we will go over this in more detail in another blog post, for this one though we will go over some of the basics and a little bit about how it works.
As Google+ notices are posted inside your Gmail inbox, you get 100% real-time Gmail deliverability. If your Circle friends Google a subject that you’ve written about on Google+, your comments and links are displayed automatically on page one of Google, giving you free traffic without any back-linking or on-site optimization. These are just some of the things that make us think it is a social media platform that will probably stick around and grow in popularity.
What makes Google+ special?
- It is focused on targeted sharing within social subgroups you’ve set up (your Circles)
- There is also a section within Google+ that is specifically for viewing, editing and managing multimedia, and which includes an image editor as well as privacy options and sharing features.
- It has introduced a new group chat feature called Hangouts. You can click ‘Start a hangout’ to immediately enter a video chat-room and a message will go out to your social circles to let them know that you are ‘hanging out’ and invite them to join you.
Many businesses are already beginning to see the value of building a Google Plus presence, especially with the new Pages feature. A Google+ Page looks similar to a Google+ Profile except that it has a small square icon next to the brand name to indicate that it is a page. Other users can add your brand to their circles, check out your information and browse your photos. Each time someone adds your brand to their circles, it helps to increase your follower count.
Your business needs to get ready to integrate Google+ into its social media marketing strategy, so in my next blog post I’ll look at how to build your Google Plus presence and build a Page for your brand.