Chapter 13

Google+

In This Chapter

Finding out how Google+ can help your business

Getting started with Google+

Interacting with other Google+ users

Hanging out, circling, and building a community

This chapter explores the ever-expanding features of Google+, the social networking platform (also known as G+) developed by the big search-engine company Google. Think of G+ as being a cross between Facebook and Twitter, providing the longer-form posting of Facebook with comments directly attached to posts, and the ability to group content as you can with Twitter Lists.

Trust us when we say Google is not satisfied being like Facebook or Twitter and is working nonstop to be different and better. At this writing (Global Web Index, January 2013), Google+ is the No. 2 social network, with an estimated 343 million active users, compared with 693 million on Facebook and 288 million on Twitter.

Checking Out the Benefits of Google+

Google wants to make sharing easy and natural no matter where you are online and its suite of online communications tools dominate the Internet. Google+ is still a work-in-progress, and the company seems to be pretty responsive to feedback from users regarding features. The main features of G+ are

Profiles: Like all the other social networks we discuss in this book, G+ starts with your individual profile, including a photo, occupation, skills, and employment details. Google profiles are for individuals and contain many of the same features as other social network profiles, such as a photo, an About section, and a content stream. See Figure 13-1 for an example of a G+ profile.

Figure 13-1: A Google+ profile.

Circles: A G+ Circle is a grouping of your connections. You can circle connections such as business contacts, work colleagues, or personal friends to direct your posts to specific people or to filter your home page content stream and see only posts from specific circles.

Communities: Like Facebook or LinkedIn groups, this newer feature is ideal for group discussions and collaboration.

Photos: Upload, organize, share, and even edit images using the G+ suite of photo tools. G+ is a visual network, so photos are showcased nicely with a slide show feature.

Events: Invite others to your event, and you can add the event to everyone’s Google Calendar.

Hangouts: Organize face-to-face video conferencing with up to ten people, including screen sharing and Google Docs integration.

+1: You can publicly recommend a page on the web by clicking the +1 button that appears either on the site or on Google. +1ing — as Google refers to the action — is similar to clicking a “like” or “favorite” button.

We discuss all these features in this chapter.

Getting Your Feet Wet on Google+

Setting up a Google+ account starts with signing up for a Google account, which is your single access to all Google sites and tools. To sign up, you fill out a standard registration form in which you enter your name, a username, password, birthdate, and gender.

You are also asked to include your mobile number and current e-mail address, meaning something other than a Gmail account. If you already have a Gmail account, then you can log in to all Google products using that account, including Google+.

After you sign up and sign in, you’re ready to move to the next step: creating your profile.

Building your personal profile

When you first set up your G+ account, you are given a chance to fill in your profile. As with setting up a profile in any social network, we recommend filling out as much as possible from the start. You can also return to your profile settings by clicking on the Profile icon to the left of your G+ Home page.

As you build your profile, you are prompted to enter the usual information such as an introduction or bio with a photo, your occupation, employment, education, and contact information. G+ also provides a field for a tagline and “bragging rights” or your accomplishments. You can control visibility for all elements of your G+ profile except Tagline and Photo.

To make your profile easier for people to find, make it visible in a search by selecting the Profile Discovery option. You should also be able to claim or change your custom Google+ URL in the same section of your profile.

The Google+ registration page also includes several optional fields: Relationship, Looking For, Birthday, and Gender. You can fill them out or not; it’s up to you. Make your choices based on what works for your public image as a representative of your company.

Google+ vanity or custom URLs for your personal G+ account or business page are rolled out by Google over time. If you don't see a blue Claim URL button at the upper-right side of your page when you set it up, you might see it later. In the meantime, you can use a site like GPlus.to (http://gplus.to) to claim a shorter URL.

After you verify your website can be — or is — listed on Google’s search engine, add this line of code to your site:

<a href="https://plus.google.com/[yourpageID]" rel="publisher">Find us on Google+</a>

To find your G+ page URL, go to your page and copy the web address straight from your browser address bar. Then link your website to your Google+ page by editing your profile and clicking Website, then adding your website URL to your G+ profile. Google does the rest.

Setting up a Google+ business page

Although you may already have a personal presence on Google+ through an individual account, Google encourages you to set up a business page. A G+ page looks similar to a personal G+ profile, but is for a brand, organization, or company. You can have a company profile and post updates to your content stream. See Figure 13-2 for an example of a G+ page.

Figure 13-2: Beth’s Cafe in Seattle has a Google Local Place page.

Pages require a personal profile to “own” a business page, but the identity of the page owner remains hidden to page visitors. After you complete the initial page setup, you can add other managers, similar to Facebook Page administrators (admins).

Some main differences between G+ profiles and pages are

Restricted circling and sharing: Pages can’t add people to circles until those people first add or mention the page. As an individual with a profile, you can circle anyone and any page. Also, pages can’t share to extended circles. They are limited to sharing to their direct circles.

No instant chat: If you have enabled the instant chat function as an individual on G+, you will see your connections who are currently online on the right side of your home page and can message them directly. Pages do not have access to individuals via chat.

+1 restrictions: Pages can’t +1 content on the web, even if there is a +1 button because it will always show up tied to your personal profile. Both profiles and pages can +1 content inside Google+, such as posts, photos, and videos.

Pages contain the +1 button so people can endorse the page itself. On profiles, only content you post can receive +1s.

Administration: Pages can have multiple managers. Profiles are for individuals so unless you give someone else access to your personal Google account, only you can manage your profile.

Think about your Google+ page as another way to increase your company presence online, giving you more opportunity to show up in relevant Google searches. Your Google+ page also enhances any advertising you’re doing or plan to do with Google.

Setting up an effective page

To create a new page on G+, you can either go to www.google.com/+/business or click the Pages icon on the left side of your G+ Home page. To set up your page, you need to do the following:

1. Choose an appropriate type of page.

If your business has a physical location where customers can frequent, for example, select Local Business or Place when setting up your G+ page to have your page show up in Google Maps. Google+ prompts you to enter your phone number so it can find you through your phone company listing. Other Main categories are Product or Brand; Company, Institution, or Organization; Arts, Entertainment, or Sports, and Other.

2. Choose a category.

When you select Company, Institution, or Organization, you then have to pick an appropriate category for your page such as Media, News and Publishing, or Travel and Leisure.

You can’t change your category after you create your page, so choose wisely.

3. Add info and agree to Terms of Service.

Fill in your company name, a website, and specify whether your page content will be appropriate for all G+ users or restricted to specific ages such as over 18 or over 21. Alcohol companies must select Alcohol-related. Select the check box to agree to Google’s Terms of Service, and then click the Continue button.

4. Add your “story,” contact information, and change your images.

Enter a short statement — limited to ten words — about your company that gives people a clear first impression. This feature is not available to Local Pages. You’re also prompted to change your cover that appears at the top of your page as a banner.

Hover your cursor over the rectangular image at the top of your page and click Change Cover Photo. Click Upload on the left, then click Select a Photo From Your Computer if that’s where your photo resides. You can select photos and cover images that you’ve already uploaded to your page. Once uploaded, click your cover image and drag it to reposition it as needed. Cover image sizes can be as large as 2120 x 1192 pixels or as small as 480 x 270 pixels.

Upload your page’s profile image that is 250 x 250 pixels. As with any social network, pick an image that best represents your company and looks good at a reduced size. This could be your company logo or another image consistent with your brand.

At any time you can return to Edit mode to continue modifying your profile by clicking on the About tab on your company’s G+ Home page. The sections within the About tab — People; Story; Contact Information; and Links — are editable by clicking the Edit text link below each one.

5. Add admins to your page to help handle page management.

Add admins on the Settings page: Click the gear button under the right corner of your cover image or in the drop-down menu in the upper-right side of your G+ page. Click Manage; then invite other page managers by entering their e-mail addresses in the open field and clicking the Invite button. You can also transfer page ownership from here.

Start posting to your content stream to attract attention. See “Posting multimedia” later in this chapter.

If you don’t have a lot of people in your page’s circles yet, start circling strategically. Since you have to wait until someone circles you back before they can see your posts, you should post an invitation to your new G+ page publicly through your personal profile for a wider reach. If you want a more targeted reach, send your announcement to specific circles of people within your personal profile.

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Getting into the Flow of G+

As we mention earlier, Google+ is similar in certain ways to both Facebook and Twitter. A main difference among the three networks is that only G+ lets you filter streams of content by particular groups based on the circles you’ve created and the people and pages you’ve designated into those circles.

For a while, G+ was the only service to let you sort your contacts into groups to target the posts you published. Now Facebook lets you group your friends and then post targeting Public, Friends, Friends except Acquaintances, Only Me, and Custom. The Custom options on Facebook and G+ are similar, allowing you to name specific people to add or exclude from your targeting. Customizing and targeting your content is still a core aspect of Google+.

Leveraging long-form publishing

Google claims that you have no limits to the number of characters you can use in your posts on the service. Most people, however, still post shorter updates with just a few sentences. Others treat the G+ platform as an alternative to a blog, posting on average between 400 to 600 words.

When you have more to say, you can do it on G+ easily. Only the first portion of your post shows up, but after someone clicks the link to read more, the entire post opens. Information designer and consultant Dave Gray created the long-form post shown in Figure 13-3, discussing G+ benefits such as long-form posting.

Figure 13-3: A long-form post discussing long-form posting.

In terms of readability and people’s attention spans, more words aren’t necessarily more effective.

When you post, you can put an asterisk (*Aliza*) on either side of a word to make it bold, and underscore (_Danielle_) when you would like to italicize a word. Use these styles to help your text stand out in the G+ stream.

Posting multimedia

Just as visuals win on Facebook Pages, photos and videos are important to attracting attention, generating +1s and comments, and garnering those coveted shares on Google+. Text alone as a post may disappear in someone’s content stream with so many eye-catching things to look at and react to as the stream moves by.

Photos and video

Author C. C. Chapman engages frequently on his Google+ profile and posts a variety of content from other sources including articles, blog posts, and video. He also provides links to his own blog posts and includes a lot of his own images in those posts. Figure 13-4 shows how he uses visuals.

Figure 13-4: C.C. Chapman’s use of video in his G+ account adds visual interest to his content stream.

Documents

On G+, you aren’t limited to photos and videos. You can enrich your updates with your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, PDFs, and any other file types supported in Google Drive. People in your circles can then open and interact with these documents directly in your stream without having to leave G+. You can set any file you want to share to Public On the Web or Anyone With the Link.

Slide shows

When you upload photos to G+, especially as photo albums, people can view your images as a slide show. Use high resolution images to take advantage of the bold and dramatic interface of the slide shows with your images appearing in a large format on a black backdrop. See Figure 13-5 for an example of a G+ slide show on the web.

Figure 13-5: Google+ lets you display photo albums in slide show format.

Interacting in the stream

Google+ enthusiasts will tell you that one of the things they love about the platform is how active their streams are and how much G+ users participate. Although we tend to agree with this, the truth is that your G+ stream is active only if many people have circled your page and if you are very active on the network.

When you first log into G+, you’re accessing as yourself — an individual — by default. You can easily access your page and use G+ as your page in several ways: Click the Pages icon on the left side of your G+ Home page and click Switch to Page. Or hover your cursor over the Pages icon to see a list of the G+ pages you’ve created.

Another way to enter Page mode is on the upper-right side of your G+ screen; click the upside down triangle to the right of your profile photo and select your Page. The Manage Your Pages screen, shown in Figure 13-6, displays the pages you’ve created, as well as the pages you manage along with some cursory stats for each page. If you manage more than one G+ page, they all appear here. You can also create a new page from the Manage Your pages section.

Figure 13-6: The Manage Your Pages screen.

Once you are accessing G+ as your page, you can be active in a number of ways similar to individuals, including by

Posting regularly: Whether you post text, photos, or videos, or whether you post your own content or links to other people’s content, developing a regular rhythm for posting on G+ is key to successful engagement. To get noticed, G+ requires more frequent posting than a Facebook Page, but not necessarily as much as needed on Twitter, although it couldn’t hurt.

+1ing other people’s or pages’ posts: The +1 on Google+ is similar to the Like on Facebook. It’s a quick acknowledgement and positive endorsement of content or a page.

Commenting on other people’s or pages’ posts: Be thoughtful and noncommercial with your comments, adding to the conversation in an appropriate way.

Sharing other people’s or pages’ posts: Share posts that your following will appreciate and that reflect well on your brand. Sharing makes a more meaningful gesture that can lead to an actual connection.

Targeting and tagging people and pages: Send posts into the streams of specific people or pages for greater custom targeting of your messages.

By adding the + sign or @ sign in front of a person’s name or company’s name, you tag them so their name is a link in your post and the mention appears in their streams. They’ll also get a notification depending on how they’ve configured their notification settings. You can only @ mention people who are on Google+. You can share your posts with people who aren’t members of G+ by entering their e-mail addresses after the + or @ signs.

If you are only a manager for a G+ page and not the creator, you won’t see the page show up when you hover over your Pages icon unless you’re operating as the page. You will, however, see all the pages you’ve created and the ones you manage on the Manage Your Pages section.

After you’re operating as your page, your personal identity isn’t visible when you post. When interacting as your page, you can do nearly everything you can as an individual G+ user with the exception of not being able to invite individuals to instant chat with your page. As a page, you can post, create photo albums, edit photos, and upload video.

Building your page audience

Building your page audience goes hand in hand with populating your page with content. As you reach out and direct people to your page, you want to make sure interesting content is there to prompt them to circle your page and engage with you. Like any presence you build in social media, you need to implement a combination of tactics to help people find your page, profile, or account while giving them compelling reasons to connect with you.

To start, fill out your page profile so your G+ page looks professional and complete. Add your company name, add images to customize it, fill out the About section to give people relevant information about your business, and provide more ways and reasons to connect with you.

Some other ways to get people to your Google+ page include

Inviting others to G+: When your page is ready, post an invitation with a link to your page on your G+ profile as an update. Use a third-party social media management tool such as Hootsuite Pro to schedule regular — but not too frequent — posts to your personal G+ account reminding people that you have a business page.

Embedding the G+ badge: Install the G+ badge on your website or blog so your visitors and customers can add your page to their circles directly from your site. The badge lets Google track your +1s from your own site and your G+ page, and higher +1s can have a positive effect on your Google rankings.

Linking to your page: Look for places besides your website and blog where you can link to your G+ page, such as in your profiles on other social networks and in your e-mail signature.

Sharing your page by e-mail: Expand your reach beyond G+ to build awareness of your page. Use your other channels and communications tools, including your e-mail newsletter, Facebook Page, Twitter account, and YouTube channel to announce the launch of your G+ page and repeat that message where and when appropriate.

Sharing your page via social network posts: Pepper in occasional posts on your other social networks to let your audience know you have a page on Google+. Being connected to people in several places where they spend their time online can help you engage them.

Although it may be tempting to circle everyone who circles you, note that some — or many — of those who have you in their circles may not be the appropriate audience for your page. For example, they may be in another country, and if your business serves only a local or U.S.-based clientele, those fans may not be a fit. Or if you’re trying to reach new moms for example, an older male executive may not be your audience. Take a look at their G+ post streams or their profiles to gauge if they’re the right audience for your page.

To further build your page circles, while in Page mode, search for keywords pertaining to your business. For example, if you’re a wine company, you can search for wine and find posts from people or pages you aren’t following. Circle individuals with care and thoughtfully comment on their posts. Follow other pages of companies that are complementary to your business.

You can choose to show or not to show the people and pages you’ve circled or who has circled your page on your page’s profile. To reveal or hide this information, go to the About section of your profile; then click Edit under the People section of your profile. Your choices include which of your circles to show and if the public or just your circles can see that. You can also view who has circled your page in this section and opt to make that list visible or hidden. Once you’ve saved your changes and leave the About section, you’re out of Edit mode.

Expanding Your Google+ Engagement

For all intents and purposes, using G+ as your company page is similar to using the network as an individual. You want to be friendly, attentive, responsive, and interesting. The main difference between interacting as your page or as an individual is that you will probably want to be more strategic as your page and more aware of consistent messaging and branding. The more you reach out to others on G+, you’ll get a greater response and form stronger connections.

Circling your connections

Google is the first major social network to provide the ability to share your messages with specific audiences. As a page, you can create circles of your connections based on any criteria you want. Some examples of circles are team members, vendors, fans, competitors, and other relevant groupings. You can also manage the posts you see in your home page stream based on these circles. Figure 13-7 shows an example of the Circles page.

To be able to engage with others on Google+, you need to circle them and they need to circle you back. When you circle them, you see their posts in your content stream. If they don’t circle you back, they won’t see your posts. In a way, circling is like following on Twitter. You can follow someone else and see her content, but until she follows you back, the communication is mostly one way.

Figure 13-7: Create and manage your page’s circles on your Circles page.

You can reach out to the people you follow by giving a +1 (like a YouTube Thumbs Up or Facebook Like) on their posts or commenting appropriately. By doing so, you’re getting onto someone’s radar, and your profile photo and name are visible to the other person. They can still however, choose not to circle you.

Connecting with groups in Hangouts

With your Google+ account comes the ability to participate in or organize a videoconferencing meeting with up to ten people called a Hangout. Pages have the same ability as individuals to create and participate in a Google Hangout. See Figure 13-8 for an example of a Hangout.

You can use Hangouts for virtual team meetings, tutoring, interviews, viewing YouTube videos with others, troubleshooting support, consulting, webinars, and presentations (to limited audiences).

Starting a Hangout

You can launch a Hangout easily by clicking the Hangout button on the upper-right corner of your G+ screen from the home page, your Page’s profile, Explore (the area streaming popular content on G+), and Events and Communities (see more about Google Communities later in this chapter). You can launch a Hangout as a Page or as yourself as an individual. We recommend building your company’s brand and using Hangouts as a Page publicly. You can also initiate a more private Hangout amongst your internal team.

Figure 13-8: Google+ Hangouts can bring together up to ten people in videoconferencing mode.

Take advantage of Hangout collaborative features including screen sharing, Google Docs collaboration, presentation viewing, and group diagramming. After you are inside a Hangout, you can click the Add App button and view the various apps that you can add. You can also take screenshots of your Hangout using the Capture button to the left of your screen with the camera graphic.

If someone can’t join your Hangout through G+, you can call the person and conference her in. Just click the Invite button and then click the +telephone link. Calls to the U.S. and Canada are free through VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology, which allows you to make calls over the Internet. International call rates are low, according to Google.

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Broadcasting interactively with Hangouts On Air

To take your hangouts to the masses, switch on the Hangouts On Air feature. This enhanced hangout option broadcasts your Hangout live to your Google+ profile or page stream, your YouTube channel, and your website or anywhere else you embed the viewer. Like regular Hangouts, Hangouts On Air include text chat so a broader audience can join the conversation and interact even if they are not participating via video. See Figure 13-9 for an example of a Google+ Hangout On Air viewed on YouTube.

Figure 13-9: Digital media consultant Lynette Young’s Women of Google+ show has boosted her professional profile.

To share your Hangouts more broadly, check the Enable Hangouts On Air button as you start a Hangout. While you are broadcasting, you’ll be able to see how many viewers you’ve gained. When you sign off the air, a recording of your public Hangout is automatically uploaded to your YouTube channel. The archived video also appears on your original G+ post when you announced the Hangout.

At the time of this writing, Pages could not participate or organize a Hangout on a mobile device. Both pages and profiles can start a Hangout from a computer, but only individuals can participate in Hangouts through their mobile devices. If you want to start a Hangout for your page, connect to G+ via a computer.

Video is a powerful medium, and you can use live and archived Hangouts On Air for a variety of purposes where using video for public viewing by a larger number of people makes sense. Ideal uses for Hangouts On Air include presentations and webinars, live shows, town hall-style meetings, press conferences, performances, and other events.

Leveraging the power of +1

Google+ gives people a way to endorse web content and to give it their version of “like” or “thumbs up” through their +1 buttons. The +1 button appears throughout Google’s suite of tools including Google.com search results; Google+ pages; and G+ posts including videos, articles, comments, and photos.

People can +1 your page directly or through the content you post to your page. In a more pervasive way, they can +1 your page if they see it on other sites on the web — either owned by Google or in the Google Display Network and through Google search results.

When someone is signed in to Google+ and then clicks the +1 button, Google includes annotations in search results that can show up for his connections, letting them know that he’s endorsed something. Similar to how Facebook shows people if their friends have liked the page of an advertiser right within an ad, Google shows people’s +1 activity to their connections.

As a business, the integration of the +1 button means that you can incorporate other people’s endorsements for your company and content into your advertising and outreach. As you promote your company, people can see when their connections have given your page or your content a +1.

You can leverage the +1 feature several ways, including

Adding the +1 button to your website or blog: You can generate code for a G+ button for your business and embed it into your site or blog, allowing your visitors to add you without having to travel away from your site or blog. Google provides the code and graphics for a variety of +1 buttons for your website or blog; see Figure 13-10.

Connecting your website and G+ account: Connect +1s for your website with +1s on your Google+ page and your Google ads. After you create your G+ page, add a line of code on your site to connect them so Google can begin tracking your combined +1s.

Using social extensions: Social extensions let you link recommendations about your company and content from others to your AdWords campaigns. When you connect your Google+ page to your ads, Google can show your customer endorsements for your business in combination with your ads. A +1 on your ad applies to your Google+ page’s +1 count. The reverse is also true, so +1s from your Google+ page are applied to your AdWords ads. Although AdWords campaigns cost money, any +1s you accumulate on your page or ad through your ad campaigns doesn’t cost anything extra.

Figure 13-10: Examples of the variety of +1 buttons Google offers.

Collaborating in Google+ communities

A new feature offered to companies with G+ pages is the ability to form an online community and invite others to participate in it. The community can be a place for discussion and to post photographs, events, and other content. Figure 13-11 shows an example of a G+ community with updates from members that can be +1’d, commented on, or shared — just like profiles and pages.

Figure 13-11: A G+ community.

The goal of communities is to bring together an affinity group for conversation and collaboration. Anyone can join other communities forming on G+ ranging from industry networks to cause-related groups. Communities take a lot of time to manage, whether you’re building one on your G+ or your Facebook Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social network.

G+ communities are similar to Facebook or LinkedIn Groups in that they are all geared toward deeper discussions among group members. Each is useful for bringing together like-minded individuals or actual clubs, organizations, or groups that have already formed and are seeking an online forum where they carry out ongoing discussions.

The main difference that separates G+ communities from Facebook or LinkedIn is the ability to categorize discussion content. When you create your community, you can add discussion categories such as Photos, Reviews, Q&A, or Tips. As people post to the community, they can select the appropriate category and then anyone in the community can sort content by category. Other than this feature, G+ communities are more similar than not to Facebook and LinkedIn Groups.

To create a G+ Community, click the Communities button on the left side of your G+ screen. To attach it to your G+ Page, make sure you’re in page mode before clicking the Create Community button in the Communities section. You have the choice of creating a Public or Private community. If public, you can choose to let anyone join, or have a moderator approve before letting someone join. If private, you can either opt to hide it from searches, or allow it to be found but require that people ask permission to join.

Your community’s privacy setting cannot be changed after you choose Public or Private, so select with care based on the goals of your community.

After you set up your community, Google+ prompts you to

Write a tagline. Make it short and compelling.

Pick a photo. The optimal photo size is 250 x 250 pixels (like profile photos). Otherwise, you have to crop the image.

Complete the About section. Google also encourages you to include community guidelines in the About section.

Add a few discussion categories. The category feature is a major difference among G+ communities and Facebook or LinkedIn groups. You can pre-establish categories that community members can choose for their posts and more easily filter posts based on category.

After you create a community, Google+ immediately prompts you to invite others to it. If you’re acting as your page, you can invite only people in your page’s circles. After you create a community through your page, you can personally join the community (via your profile) and make yourself and others community managers; then you can invite people to the new community in your personal G+ circles. If you’ve formed the Community as an individual, you can also join the Community as your page and then give your page manager status.

Managing a community takes a lot of time and attention. Not every company needs an additional community beyond the ones that organically form in social networks. Carefully consider if a more active community is right for you before embarking on more intensive community-building.