Google + – Why building your circles is the key to success
After a redesign in April 2012, Google+ is gradually increasing its presence in the vast array of social media. One feature of the social network that stands out from other platforms are ‘Circles’. What are the purpose of Circles? Ultimately to organise people and share information with the relevant target audience. Google state that Circles help you organise your connections “according to your real–life social connections”, therefore enforcing the social aspect that some social media sometimes forget. Creating Circles Google embrace simplicity, reflected in their latest redesign of G+. It is simple to search for people or brands then drag and drop them into the relevant Circles to group them as you wish. ‘Google is working hard to introduce new algorithms to match users based on friend connections and interests, ensuring that it can continue to boost engagement on its network.’ reported The Next Web. Targeting Circles can allow businesses to specifically target content to the appropriate users. Therefore, in theory, people only see the information that is relevant to them and they aren’t exposed to irrelevant posts which could cause annoyance. This could be likely to increase the chances of sharing and interaction. Sharing As well as sharing content with people in your Circles, the Circles themselves can also be shared. So, if you were to create a specific Circle containing news sources for a particular field, then this could be shared with another Circle of people who would be interested and find it of value. Transparency Circles can also be used for businesses to display their employees publicly and to communicate with them. The employees Circle implies transparency online and can make the experience more personal for users. Building Circles and being connected to a large number of other people’s Circles is one way to try and get your business profile ‘verified’. The advantage of this is that as usernames cannot currently be secured on Google+, duplicate pages can be created by anyone. If a page is verified then it demonstrates authority given from Google. Join in Targeting Circles effectively with interesting and engaging content can give people a reason to want to share and involve themselves, therefore boosting your profile. Integration with your website, blog, or other platforms can increase awareness and encourage users to add you to their Circles. The introduction of the Facebook style cover image provides more of an opportunity to personalise your Google+ profile and make it more attractive so it catches the attention of passers by, possibly provoking interaction. Search Earlier this year, Google launched “Search, Plus Your World”. When Google+ users are logged into their account then their Google search results will be enriched with relevant information shared on Google+ by their connections. Influencers Each post on Google+ has the option to view its ‘ripples’, in other words how the post spread through the platform from user sharing and re-sharing. This assists in the identification of key influencers that you might wish to add to your circles and interact with. Google+ Circles are an integral asset to the platform for building relationships, sharing information and improving transparency. For brands, building their Circles is one way to try and get their page verified, therefore increasing authenticity and making it easier for the page to be discovered. Each time Google+ updates or redesigns, the usability and functionality improves. So what is next for the platform? Jennie Stamp is a Social Media Executive at Yard Digital in Edinburgh
A Guide To Making Shareable Content For Google+
In the first of a four part series (every Thursday) through a series of expert guest bloggers we hope to unravel and help you understand Google+. Here’s part 1: Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve no doubt heard of Google Plus. You may have even already created a page for your business on this ever-expanding social network. Well, whether you created your business page out of curiosity, to protect your brand, or just out of fear of not being on it, one thing is for certain, you need to do more than just create a business page to get any benefit from Google Plus. Whilst this sounds really obvious, the kind of content that you share on your Google Plus business page, and the way you share it, can really determine whether your brand is successful on this social network. Why should you care if your content is sharable? Isn’t enough that you’re just putting content on there? Well, the answer is simple. Like the basis of all social networks, sharing and engaging is fundamental for building up a strong touch-point with potential consumers on Google+. This will encourage users to ad you to their circles. Not only this, but the more authority Google see in your Google Plus page, through the amount of users that have your page in their circles, the more likely Google are to use your page as suggested content for users. In this post, you will discover how to make your updates and the content you post as ‘sharable’ as possible. Is your content relevant? Making sure your content is relevant is basically about giving a good level of consideration to what’s going on in the world, your audience, and your brand. Keeping your content and updates in-tune with your brand is beneficial to building a strong brand, whilst ensuring your content is relevant to current events and also relevant to your audience, it is going to have a greater appeal to your audience and therefore be more ‘shareable’. Newlook clothing retailers put a nice spin on the topical event of London 2012 Olympics and the Queens Jubilee, and relate it to a trend they are pushing for the season. The result is a topical update which they have made relevant to their brand and target audience: Viral Content If you can create content that is likely to go viral, then this is an obvious way to increase the likelihood of your content being shared. It’s easier said than done as often viral content happens by accident. You couldn’t have dreamed up the way that Fenton (or Benton if you prefer) the dog went viral. If you’ve got the time and the resources to create content that’s likely to go viral, this is a sure-fire way to get your content shared. Alternatively, if you’ve got your finger on the pulse, you can be one of the first pages to share content that others have created which looks to be increasing in popularity; keeping your eye on trending topics within social media is a great way of achieving this. Users are still likely to re-share your share because the content is still relatively new. However, steer clear of content which has been viral in the past, but is no longer popular, no one likes old news. Share your audience’s content If you share content that was created originally by your audience (and give them credit), the audience member is more likely to share your page’s content in return. Other users will also see this and make more effort to engage with you, in the hope you share their content too. Everyone loves five minutes of fame. The Pinterest Google Plus page does this well: Original Content As with most social platforms and the web in general, original content is the best content! If you can’t think of anything completely original to write about and are planning to write about something that is being covered by a lot of other brands online, try to at least make sure you take an original angle on it if you can. Try to offer something unique (even if it’s a unique thought about a well-covered subject); this way, your audience are more likely to share your content. I tried to do this with a blog post I wrote about a recent AdWords update which was being perceived as a negative update for AdWords specialists. The angle I took was to explore the positive aspects of the update, rather than being negative like much of the coverage at the time. I then shared this content on Google Plus: Whatever you do, do not copy and paste someone else’s content. How you share is as important as what you share Formatting Things are more appealing when they look nice. Now, we’ve always been told to never judge a book by its cover, but most of us still do. At the very best, we might just about take into account the blurb on the back of the book. The online equivalent is judging content by its thumbnail, and possibly reading the description that goes along with it. So, choose a half-interesting thumbnail-image for the content you’re sharing. This will get your audience’s attention and increase the likelihood of your content being shared. When you share a link on Google Plus, it usually pulls in that page’s Meta description as standard, so if you have control of that Meta description (e.g. if the content is from your own blog where you can write your Meta) make sure it’s engaging and prompts an action. SEOmoz did this here: Don’t Just Paste a Link There is nothing worse than seeing a page which has posted a link to some content, without a description of it. Your audience will be left thinking, ‘so what and ‘why is this relevant to me?’. With any link that you post, make sure you include at least a couple of sentences to introduce the content and inform your