Using Google+ As A Marketing Channel

Understanding Google+ and how it can be used as a marketing channel.

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http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog

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Google+ is the social network and the power behind it is the people. I’ve learned success on the network is all about building relationships which requires engaging your audience and establishing trust and authority.

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The ultimate goal with social media is to give more than you get – Eric Enge

Why Should We Invest In Google+ As A Social Network And Marketing Channel?

© 2014 SEER Interactive | All Rights Reserved page 8

Why Google+?


Why Google+? • It’s a Google property• Google is using our likes,

interests, connections and search history to personalize our experience and to better understand and resolve our search queries. I believe Google is fully committed to utilizing this personalized search data for more targeted ads – it’s not going anywhere

• Frequent and consistent integrations with other Google products and services

• Opportunity for community building, brand awareness, and authority

• Content amplification and discovery

• Events/HOAs• Hashtag Search• Semantic Search• Increased SERP real estate

both in and out of personalized search


Google+ is a Social Layer

In addition to being a social network, Google+ is the social layer for many of it’s other products and services.


Google+: The Rise of a Social Network

What started as an invitation only “field test” has grown to be the world’s second largest social networking site behind Facebook. Google+ now claims over 500 million user accounts worldwide. In October 2013, Google’s former Senior Vice President of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, announced that Google+ had 300 million monthly active users.


Future of Google+?

• “We’re superexcited about it because it’s a big service, growing continuously, since we launched it, at a high rate, and we’re making it better and better every day.”


Not Provided

With the introduction of not provided in 2011, online marketers saw the rise of logged-in searches continue to grow.


What Does That Have To Do With Google+?

More people searching logged in = more personalized search results


2012 Search Plus Your World

• In January 2012, Google introduced Search plus your World which deepened and expanded personalized search results by introducing Google+ people, pages, and profiles into the search results of logged-in users.

Who thinks an endorsement from someone you know might impact CTR?


New Element of SERP Visibility

These new results added a new element to SERP visibility that was no longer dependent on the algorithms Google traditionally relied upon to rank and display search results.


Quality vs. Quantity

While Pinterest and Facebook were responsible for driving the most referral traffic to websites, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn drove the most engaged visitors even though they were responsible for the smallest number of referral visits.

An Active Presence On Google+ =

Increased visibility in Google Search, Google Hashtag Search, Google+ Search, YouTube & Gmail


Visibility in Google+ Search

Optimizing your Google+ page and profile will increase the chances it will appear for related search queries in Google+ and Google Search


Additional Real Estate in SERPs

Verifying a Google+ brand page through a meta tag or Google WMT can provide additional visibility for branded queries.


Google+ Posts Are Getting Indexed


Personalized Results - Additional Branding

Indexed brand posts can now display a branded thumbnail in personalized search for users that have them in circles and engage with the brand.


Author Stats: Google+ Posts


Events Are Getting Indexed


Gmail Integration

Google is pushing for a brand’s Google+ page to become a destination for visitors. This is FREE adverting space Google is giving brands which reinforces Google’s commitment to Google+.


Gmail – Google+ Integration


YouTube Google+ Comment Integration

YouTube comments appear on Google+ streams, and Google+ video shares and comments appear as YouTube comments. This integration is allowing Google to stream huge amounts of traffic to Google+ from the world’s 2nd largest search engine.

© 2013 SEER Interactive | All Rights Reserved page 31!

Google Search Integration: Hashtag Search

Use relevant, searched for, hashtags in posts for additional discovery and visibility in Google’s hashtag search. This feature is one more way Google is integrating Google+ into Google Search.

© 2013 SEER Interactive | All Rights Reserved page 32!

Google+ Embedded Posts

Embedding Google+ posts is a great way to provide context to a topic and additionally allows readers to join an already active conversation.

Google+ provides an easy way for users and brands to embed Google+ posts into your articles with just a few lines of HTML code.

This feature allows users to +1 and comment, or follow the author or brand directly from the post.


Google Brand Badges

The Google+ badge allows visitors to engage with your brand directly from the badge itself.


Google+: Get Crawled Fast


The Indirect Ranking Power of Google+

Create

Publish

Discovery

Share

Earn

While there is currently no evidence that Google+ post engagement leads to rankings improvement for a webpage, when used correctly, Google+ can be an effective content amplification tool.


Google+ & Semantic Search• Google, and other search engines, have begun to

incorporate Schema markup in conjunction with machine learning, predictive analysis, and certain elements of semantic search to help it understand the contextual meaning behind webpages and the intent behind user’s search queries.

• Google will utilize information from Google+ to analyze connections, interactions, and search history to quickly and accurately evaluate, personalize, and resolve user’s search queries.


Google+ & Schema.org

Google+ automatically adds the schema type of a person using schema.org/person markup and defines the properties of name, description, image and URL. For business pages, Google+ automatically adds the schema type of webpage and defines the properties of name, description, image and URL.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Hangouts On Air


Google+ Hangouts on Air (HOAs) Hangouts on Air allow you to broadcast live conversations through your Google+ home page and YouTube channel.

All verified accounts on Google+ can create a Hangout on Air

Your HOA will be automatically uploaded to a linked YouTube account making it an effective way to build your Google+ and YouTube channel following.

• Discuss industry trends• Discuss upcoming events or

conferences• Review a product• Discuss a new solution • Resolve a question for your

audience• Who are your client’s SMEs?• Who are your client’s partners?• Who does your client sponsor? • Who are the influencers in your

client’s industry?


Link Google+ YouTube Channels

A quick way to see if your Google+ and YouTube channel are connected, is the YouTube navigation link that will appear on the page once the properties are linked.

Resource: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2897336?hl=en

Creative Ways Brands Are Using HOAs


HOA: Toms


HOA: Cadbury Egg

Cadbury was the official treat provider for the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games and held an HOA with Olympian Rebecca Adlington


HOA: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola held a Racing Member Family Hangout that gave fans an opportunity to ask Nascar drivers questions.


HOA: Dell

StorageIO is an vendor independent information technology (IT) advisory consultancy firm providing services to the IT industry and acts as a consultant for Dell. Dell invited Greg Schulz to have a HOA to discuss Backup. U Data Protection


HOA: Al Jazeera America

Al Jazeera promoted the hashtag #OpenEditorial, to encourage their audience to post thoughts on stories that weren’t receiving adequate coverage by the national news media. The best commenters were then invited into a Hangout On Air to discuss the story.


HOA: The Process

HOAs are an effective way to engage your community, increase visibility for your brand, and simultaneously create an asset to be shared on all shared/owned properties.

G+ YouTube

Blog


Google+ Communities

Engage AuthorityDestinatio

n


Google+ Communities

Google+ communities provide brands with a unique opportunity for thought leadership and community building. Having an established, active, community could also increase relevance for topics and keywords related to your brand which could lead to visibility in Google+ AND Google search.


Recruit Moderators

• SMEs• Industry or topic experts• Users who are passionate about your community• You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting


Good communities are…

• Moderated• Moderators engaging with community members• Community members engaging with other

community members• Is considered a resource/destination for questions

regarding a product, topic or solution

Posting to other communities


Posts That Get Flagged Get Rejected


Don’t Spam!!

• Google+ has an aggressive spam filter in place. If you share, be selective on where you share.

• Do share a unique post with a community that is properly categorized and encourages meaningful discussion

• Don’t share the same post to multiple communities or to your profile + a community.

• If there are multiple communities that could benefit from the same information, I'd recommend spreading it out over a period of days and creating a new message unique to each community that encourages engagement.


Google+: Engagement

• Don’t build your own ghost town!


Give people a reason. Little effort = little engagement


Follow Posting Best Practices

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Great Content Matters

View counts for business pages have replaced the +1 button and the aggregate count for all +1s on a brand page. A view is counted as a view of your profile or page, and all of your images and posts that you share.

Engagement & Advocacy


The story of Jon

Sambazon thanked Jon on G+

Jon Shared That He Likes

Sambazon on G+

Likes


Brands Supporting Their Community

I Share BuzzStream Shares

Moz Shares

Inbound links increase the authority of profiles, pages and communities

6666http://searchengineland.com/how-google-plus-profiles-pages-gain-search-authority-176828


Google+ Communities


Google+ Communities

• Communities can gain authority and visibility.

• Both inside and outside personalized search!!!!!

While the query matches the title of the community, it’s important to note that its outranking other articles that are also optimized for the query.


How is this happening?1. They are providing a great user experience2. Because they are providing a great user experience they

are earning links

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Building a Community on Google+ = Building Relationships With Your Audience

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Build the authority of your community and page by providing a great user experience


How To Succeed on Google+

Optimize

Engage

Create an experience

Turn followers into advocates

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I’ve Only Scratched The Surface


www.google.com/+brianjensen

Using Google+ As A Marketing Channel

Technology

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