Another Must-Know Social Media Tool

Another Must-Know Social Media Tool

Overwhelmed by social media? It’s a lot to keep up on. Guess what? Today I want to tell you a bit about another social tool with which you might not be as familiar with. Today I want to talk about Google+. What’s Google+? Why should you care? I’ll tell you:

Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz, and introduces new services Circles, Hangouts, Sparks, and Huddles. Google+ will also be available as a desktop application and as a mobile application, but only on Android and iOS operating systems. Sources have declared it Google’s biggest attempt to rival facebook, which had over 750 million users in 2011. On July 14, 2011, Google announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users just two weeks after it was launched in a “limited” trial phase. After less than a day of being live, the Google+ iPhone app has the number one free spot in the Apple app store. After three weeks in operation, it has already reached 20 million users. Here’s how you can use this tool to help grow your business:

I came across this article in Forbes that details 10 things that will help you use Google+ as a marketing tool to jumpstart your business. The author says:

1. A social network made by Google impacts search. Google isn’t saying it like that, because they wouldn’t want to cause a panicking stampede, but think about this: Google has all the data from Google+. They can’t get any data from Facebook. Google controls search. Where would you cast your vote for search-improvement activities?

2. Google+ evolves from Gmail. No matter what the kiddies say, email is still the digital communications backbone of the modern world. SMS might feel like second place, but it’s a distant second. Google+ is very tied to Gmail, with hundreds of millions of users. It feels very natural as an extension in a way that Twitter and Facebook do not.

3. Business pages are coming. Early reports from users are, “It won’t matter. There’s no support for business pages.” That’s not true. Business pages are being developed now. Imagine the power of Google Places, Google Local, and several other Google products that formerly seemed lame and disjoined now acting inside one unified communications environment. Yeah.

4. 10 million users in the first two weeks. There’s limited access to Google+ at the time of this writing (Google did this with Gmail back in the day), but Larry Page reported on their earnings call that they’ve already let 10 Million users into the system. Some aren’t active, and you’ll see reports of that, but most are learning a whole new way to connect.

5. This blends personal and business. Google+ allows users to categorize their contacts into “Circles,” and then allows you to message those circles individually. Thus, your “prospects” circles could get your business information, and your “drinking buddies” circle can hear about that great new Belgian wheat you tried. Both will add value.

Stay tuned… Next week I’ll share with you five more tips from Forbes on Google+.

Michael
mhammond@nexleveladvisors.com