It's all about Google Plus
So Google + is only a few weeks old and it’s already reach 10 million users, been banned in a few countries and has most businesses wondering what’s going on.
It’s like the Wild West – there’s no sheriff, and everyone’s trying to be the new hotshot in town.
That’s good because that means in this initial chaos, the normal rules don’t apply – with a lot less effort than on other platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook etc) effort you can cut through the noise and get noticed by others using it.
Chaos = opportunity for you
That’s why I’ll share the first 10 steps to take to put you ahead of 98% of the people out there…..and into the top 2pc. That’s where you want to be right?
1. Get your profile URL shortened
Remember your Facebook profile address used to look like a bunch of random numbers before you got to choose your name to make it look much prettier like: http://www.facebook.com/howard.kingston1
Well Google+ has started off the same.
Use this cool free tool to change your Google Plus profile from:
This: https://plus.google.com/110883879304480814474/posts?hl=en (ugly!)
To This: gplus.to/howardvk (lovely!)
Add me to your Google Circles while your at it
2. Set up a kick-ass profile
Google Plus is different to other social media platforms in a lot of ways, but similar in one very important one: putting a little bit of effort into your profile pays off.
I won’t bore you with the details as I’m sure you know how to set up good profiles by now (hint: good pic, more about you the better, list your work interests, no nazi flags etc) but instead I’ll just share this very interesting research done by a dating site about what profile photo types are most effective. Ignore it at your peril!
3. Set up your funnels fool!
Think of everything you do as a series of big funnels, filtering people towards your online real estate (blog/social media profiles) at every point of contact.
Remember: You never know where that email/tweet/blog post/comment will go – or who will see it. So make sure you make it easy for people to martch down your funnel if you’ve enticed them.
How to do this for Google Plus ?
- Add your Google Plus profile to your email signature (use the link shortener above of course)
- Add your circle link to your blog with the WordPress plugin
- Put it on your business cards
The more points of contact you touch people, the more you can influence
4. Add all your friends
One of the biggest pains of going to a new venue is that all your friends are still at the old party. So how to get them to your new hangout, fast.
For most of us Facebook has been the our main hangout for the past few years – unfortunately Facebook have put up a few barriers making imprting all Facebook friends to Google+ a little tricky.
But we have a neat trick to get round this (cue evel laugh: Wha hahahahaha)
Watch this video to see it:
5. Get Automated!
Having to do thigs once = good
Having to do things twice/three times = sucks
Get your G+ updates to automatically post to your Twitter stream by installing this great free app
Easy!
6. Optimize every little thing
Google finds you relevant in searches based on keywords you use. So make sure to put in as many keywords, relevant to your industry/business as possible. So help people find you by optimising your content (it’s really very easy). –
Optimise part 1: Google Sparks – Google have intrpduced a new featurwe called Google Sparks where you can add interests. Make sure you add rlevent industry interests here.
My hunch is that, although this area is still in development, that Google will use this area to affect searches in some way. So getting it right now is worth it.
Optimise part 2: Profile keywords – remember me mentioning about relevent keyword into your kick ass profile? If you haven’t done it yet – do it now
Optimise part 3: Ninja trick: Google LOVES what’s called ‘anchor text’ when descriptive words link to relevant material (an example of this is startup marketing tips for this blog)
Change the anchor text to relevant keywords on the right of the ‘About’ section of your Google+ profile keyword relevent links
See my anchor text on the left
7. Open everything, f&ck privacy!
The single biggest reasons why Google+ is so powerful?
Google owns the 80% of the world’s search.
So having your newly updated and keyword optimised profile open to searches is a must.
If you’re a privacy freak – get over it. Just keep the drunken pics for Facebook and keep the privacy settings at the max.
8. Search for yummy stuff
Some people still don’t get Twitter. I think the reason Twitter has become so huge is because of its powerful search engine that allows you to search anything in real time. So for the first time in history you can search what people are saying about topics relevenmt to you, do you can follow and engage with them.
Luckily – you can do the same on Google, well kinda.
Google Plus doesn’t have its own search capability yet, but you CAN search through Google
This is how you can do it:
To search by topic, add this to a Google search – your topic site:plus.google.com
ie: “mudwrestling” site:plus.google.com
Share what you find in the comments below
9. Add +1 to your sites & blogs
Hmmm I feel people are coming to a treshhold of how many buttons we can tolerate – before that happens, we got to add another!
Use this tool to add a Google +1 button to your site/blog – just like a Facebook Likes button. Allows people to spread your great content to their networks easily.
Here’s how you do it:
10. Circle Up…..and circle down!
The most interesting part of Google plus is the ability to add people in different ‘Circles’ – it’s a feature that is already on Facebook (Friends lists) but so cluncky that’s its mainly unusalble.
You can add prospects, customers, clients, people you want to learn from in different circles of influcne and share different material accordingly.
Think about this for a moment – now you can share different material with completely different circles.
Tip: People can’t see what you name each circle so name them anything you like: here are some interesting suggestions
Ninja trick: Want to see who’s unfriended you? Check out this app called ‘Google Minus‘ – it tells you have removed you from their circles.
