The BPS Blog

Social Networking For Business – Google+

11/05/2012

Google offers several products for businesses, but did you know about their marketing component Google+? Similar to Facebook, Google+ allows you to share your thoughts, links and photos with circles. You can also use spontaneous video chat to have conversations with as many as nine people at once.

The strongest difference between Google+, and other social media options is the ability to segment content via user-defined Circles. This allows you to target new customers in a different way than you do long-term clients. You can target the tone and type of information to those in the circle.

First Steps: Create your Circles and put connections in the appropriate circle.

Don’t do this quickly. Put some thought into how you group or bucket your contacts. An example of how you may want to group your contacts includes:

• Customers
• Colleagues
• Frequent Blog Commenters/Social Engagers
• Vendors
• Local Community Folks
• Client Wishlist

Once created your circles and added contact you can create customized content for these groups. You can turn your Blog Commenters Circle into a makeshift idea forum where you “test out” potential blog post ideas to see if they spark a conversation. You can use your Vendor circle as a way to create a company newsletter to let them know what you’re working in and get input about how their product can help you. Once you have your Circles down you can become a whole lot more strategic with your content, while still housing it all on one platform.