Who needs another social network to manage like Google+? Don’t we have enough? Isn’t local online marketing complicated already? All good questions and questions that have been asked before the launches of Instagram, Pinterest and Google+. Your ability to get a return on your investment is dependent on whether the social network takes off, allows you to engage in ways that drive your business or provide other benefits.
So what about Google+. As you can see from the giant infographic below, Google+ has a lot of users but they share much less frequently than other networks (30x less than Twitter). But it is much more business focused per capita. Additionally, Google+ continues to be integrated into Google Search. The +1 button was just the beginning. For local businesses, the fact that Google+ is integrated into Google Places to create Google+ Local is a sign that your performance on Google+ will materially impact your return on investment in Google.
With Google poised to be a player in mobile phones, mobile payments, augmented reality as well as of course search – it’s too big to ignore. Geting closer to Google’s ecosystem is a good thing and they continue to invest, most recently with the acquisition of Frommer’s. Google is doubling down on local and has linked Google+ to your success.
So now is the time to start. To make it easier, here are some tips:
- Post similarly to what you post on Twitter. Google+ and Twitter are interest networks whereas Facebook is more of a social network.
- Find content that is unique. Curating main stream sources seems less effective on Google+, perhaps because power users of Google+ are looking for info that’s too hard to find on other networks
- Insert yourself into circles or acquire them from others. You can send someone a list of contacts. That’s both uniquely powerful and also ripe for abuse. See who may have an audience that you covet and see if you can cozy up to them directly or indirectly
- The tools are coming – for now, it’s a pretty manual process to share on Google+. The APIs are being tested by partners so we should see some integrations into tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck coming soon.
That’s it. Without further ado, Google+ by the numbers.
