Google Plus Local

Google Plus may not have many (in comparison to Facebook) users, but it's importance to business is increasing with the migration of Google Places in to the ever expanding G+ world. This move is driving more traffic to the ghost town of a social media site and creating a need for your business to join up with G+ as the new Google+ Local pages will be indexed by Google search.

As of today, if your business already has a G+ page it will remain separate from the G+ Local page for a little while, as word on the street is that Google is going to match up and merge the 2 in the near future. Until then, you might want to go update your new Google+ Local Page with your website and verify you are the owner and the location is correct so that the match up works for you.

Here's a link to setting up your Google Plus Local Page: http://www.google.com/places/

Google Plus Local? What's the point?

Well, Google has done it again, rolled out a major change without notice and very little info regarding the change. This morning they migrated all 80,000,000 Google Places listing into Google Plus creating a "Local" section to the barely breathing social media site.

I'm assuming this move is one they believe will revive G+ from almost certain cyber-death after it's months of hype but little actually activity on the site. My biggest question today is will current Google Plus business pages be automatically merged with their corresponding "Local" page or will it have to be done manually and if so how?

I think one of the downfalls to Google Plus and other changes Google has made recently (new dashboard here on Blogger and personalized searches) is that there is really no instruction to how to use them or why the change will really make things better. They like to pretend like they give us that information, usually in a video blog that is just a vague commercial for the change and has little to do with the actual changes.

I'm sure the Google big boys are watching the Facebook stock decline and thinking this is where G+ will make it's great emergence, but I'm doubting that they will ever really get that foothold no matter how much of their kingdom they integrate into Google Plus.

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Like, Follow, Share! Phase 2!!

I finally got actually sat down and typed all the ideas I had for phase 2 of the Like, Follow, Share campaign.

If you haven't read my first blog on Like, Follow, Share, you might want to go back and read if first.

Now that you have your friends and employees following you, it’s time to get your clients, customers and potential customers to follow you. Hopefully, if you’ve had a website for a while, you have printed your website on everything from invoices to Frisbees to get it out in front of people. Getting people to your social media isn’t quite as subtle a message and you don’t want it to be.

Adding “Follow us at twitter.com/yourcompany” and “Like us at facebook.com/yourcompany” to all your forms, letterhead, and promotional items is kind of overwhelming and somewhat tacky. If you have a store or office where your customers visit you can very easily create a sign to sit out with your social media addresses on. Another option for stores is brightly colored bag stuffers.

There are other great options that everyone can use. If you are a company that sends out paper invoices, you can include a brightly colored slip of paper (a 1/3 a sheet of paper will work) with your social media information on it. If you have a physical or email newsletter you send out to your customers, include not only your social info, but an article getting them excited about your social media.

Watch for Phase 3: Gaining followers outside your friends, employees and customer base.

Like, Follow, Share

Social media is social. I know this is a pretty obvious statement and you know how important being social is, after all, that’s why you have social media. (If you haven’t started using social media, skip to the bottom to find out how to start.)

It is your goal to grow your business through your website and social media and you may post specials, promotions and news about your business to your social media accounts, but you may not see much growth in people following (Twitter) and liking (Facebook) your business.

Part of my job is to provide pointed updates for our clients various accounts. In doing this, I’ve noticed that was spending time creating daily updates for social media accounts with only a hand full of followers. I thought to myself, I think we can grow these numbers and the quickest way is to invite the client’s employees, friends and family to follow/like their businesses, so I created the Like, Follow, Share campaign.

Like, Follow, Share includes several tips and elements to use to reach more people in your personal social circle, to help get the word out about your business. Below is the first phase of Like, Follow, Share.

Phase 1:

Your friends and family may have contacts that you don’t know about that are in need of your service or product. Plus, you can brag about the great things your business is doing without actually bragging!

Getting your employees involved in your social media is great for getting them excited about new things happening and makes it easy for them to share with their friends and family.

A few ways to grow your social network through your employees are to add links to your various social media in employee newsletters, a slip of paper in paychecks and post a sign in employee break areas.

Letting friends and family know is even easier, because you are probably already connected to them on Facebook or Twitter so all you have to do is to click the “Share” on your business’s Facebook page. To share your Twitter, just post the Twitter link below on your Facebook or mention (@yourbusinesstwitter) in a tweet on Twitter.

--Dan The Man

Watch for Phase 2, covering getting existing customers to follow/like your business, coming soon.

If you haven’t started using social media yet or aren’t sure where to begin, we would love to provide this service for you! If you prefer to do it yourself, I recommend getting copies of Twitter for Dummies and Facebook for Dummies.