Now that Google+ has made its mark on our personal Google accounts and our Google Apps accounts, it's time to create a page for your business! Google+ Pages for Business are now available and can be used as an outlet to share your companies ideas and products. You can also use Google+ Pages for Business to promote your business and to connect with current, potential, and future clients or customers.
Let's take a look at how easy it is to take advantage of Google+ Pages for business...
Create a Profile
To begin using Google+ Pages for business, you must have a personal Google profile on Google+. If you do not have a personal Google+ profile account, you can easily create one here.
Create a Page
Now that you have created a Google+ account, you can begin to create your Google+ Page for business by clicking on the 'Create a Google+ page' option located on the right hand side of your Google+ profile page.
Entering your companies information is super easy. Google+ provides a user friendly set up process which allows you to enter all the necessary information in the form of:
- Local Business or Place
- Product or Brand
- Company, Institution, or Organization
- Arts, Entertainment, or Sports
- Other (if your business does not fit into one of the above categories)
After answering a few set up questions and adding a profile picture for your page, you can begin to grow your circles by adding other Google+ users & Google+ Businesses to your circles.
Sharing on Google+ Pages for Business
The reason you created this page is to promote what your business does and how awesome it is, right? So, let's get to sharing these awesome characteristics that make your business stand out!
Begin to utilize the sharing capabilities that Google+ offers by:
- Publishing Posts
- Use your stream to inform your followers about major announcements in regards to your company, BIG sales that are happening at your retail locations, and share videos of your team in action!
- Hanging Out
- Hangouts allow you to connect with customers, followers, and your staff using built in video/voice chat. This is a (one click away) modern age technology way to speak directly with people interested in your business. You can launch a hangout and invite a customer that may have questions about one of your products or host your weekly team meeting with your staff if you are a distributed workforce.
- Managing your Circles
- It's important to get accurate information to the right people. Use the 'Circles' feature to manage your followers so you can provide the right information to the right group. You may not want to inform your investors (if they follow you on Google+) about a 'BLOWOUT SALE -- EVERYTHING IS FREE' because they may see that as a red flag :) You want to inform your direct customers / potential buyers about this sale ... so create a circle for 'customers,' add the right people to that circle, and only send the information to that circle.
Promoting your Google+ Business Page
Getting your name out there is as important as selling your product or service. Google+ can help in the following ways....
- +1's
- The reason you're able to stay in business is because people like you and your product or service. There's nothing like free advertising/marketing in the form of 'word of mouth.' Well, Google+ has their own version of 'word of mouth' in the form of the +1 button. Add the +1 button to your website so people who have visited can click the +1 button and in a sense, 'like' your page and your future viewers will see this when performing a Google Search of your business. The more +'s the better!
- The Google+ Badge
- To assist in promoting your business on Google+, you can get a Google+ badge for your website here. This badge is the +1 button on steroids and will link your website to your Google+ page. This suped up +1 button allows visitors to +1 your page, see personal annotations, and add your page to one of their circles directly from your website.
- Google+ Direct Connect
- People Google everything. That's why it's important to create a Google+ page and enjoy the power of Google+ Direct Connect. This feature allows people to enter a '+' symbol and then your company page name directly in to a Google Search bar so they will be swiftly taken directly to your Google+ page. This feature is of limited availability at the moment but we will be seeing more and more pages with this feature soon. If you wish to learn more about this feature, visit the help center.
Dito has a Google+ Page for business and we encourage you to add us to your circles so we can connect. We use Google+ to inform our followers about new features in Google Apps, upcoming events hosted by Dito, major announcements by Google, and (the best part) pictures of our team!
We hope that you have fun and are as creative as possible when building your Google+ Page for Business. Once your page is created, leave the URL for your site in the comments section below we'll be sure to connect!
