Google plus for business. Your thoughts.
- Thread starter Young Recruit
- Start date
M
Mark Walters
Google+ offers opportunities for some businesses. Whether it does for your business depends on whether people in your industry and prospective customers are using it. There's little making a big effort with it or everyone in your industry only uses Facebook or Twitter - or even no social media at all.
Google+ probably has some benefits in terms of your search engine rankings, though no-one can say conclusively either way. Personally, I think Google takes note of the data garnered from it's +1 network and factors it into their algorithm. It wouldn't be a major factor though.
Yes, I am, as people in my industry use it. It's a good way to both find good content and to share good content.
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No No No
It's a bit of Google fluff that might help if you are doing things googly but of little value to anyone else.
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S
S-Marketing
And that pretty much sums up why social media is such a bad idea for small businesses. Owners of small businesses are so busy trying not to spend any money, that they see anything that only costs them their time as free. Your time is by far your most valuable resource. Anyone who uses social media should log how much time they spend on it for a week or two. You might want to sit down when you add it up and see how much of your life you are using for this 'free' technique.
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A year ago I would have said to give G+ a Matrix body-swerve.
However, the social space is becoming a battle of attrition, as each network tries to run itself into the ground. Twitter unplugs API from other networks, Instagram blah blah, and now Facebook are only showing posts to 5% or 10% of likers (unless you pay to promote it or forcibly acquire likes for each post).
G+ carries an SEO benefit and has about as good a chance at surviving as the rest of the numpties. I find the channel a lot less noisy, making it easy to interact with people who would otherwise be swamped in a timeline cesspool.
Give it a shot - what have you got to lose, other than a few hours of your life?
However, the social space is becoming a battle of attrition, as each network tries to run itself into the ground. Twitter unplugs API from other networks, Instagram blah blah, and now Facebook are only showing posts to 5% or 10% of likers (unless you pay to promote it or forcibly acquire likes for each post).
G+ carries an SEO benefit and has about as good a chance at surviving as the rest of the numpties. I find the channel a lot less noisy, making it easy to interact with people who would otherwise be swamped in a timeline cesspool.
Give it a shot - what have you got to lose, other than a few hours of your life?
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As long as you can work out your return on time invested and it is greater than other things you can be doing with your time then there is no issue with using free marketing.
I-phone apps and improvement in software tools and efficient software allows you to get some good rewards with very little time invested.
But ultimately your reward is often based on how good your product or service is, how big that market is and what your usp's or value proposition is like when compared to others in your space.
Regards,
Mike
I-phone apps and improvement in software tools and efficient software allows you to get some good rewards with very little time invested.
But ultimately your reward is often based on how good your product or service is, how big that market is and what your usp's or value proposition is like when compared to others in your space.
Regards,
Mike
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S
S-Marketing
Whilst I agree in principle with everything you have written, this forum isn't a place for textbook answers.
What kind of small business (likely to frequent this forum) do you think could get a better return on their time by using social media, rather than using more traditional strategy?
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Q
Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd
I've made a Google+ Page, Local Page, and pages for our major services, and then linked them to our website so searchers have more information at their fingertips when they are Googling us specifically. It is handy for adding additional links to our blog and what not, but the whole circle-follow-y thing seems harder to work than Twitter and Facebook.
One thing that is pretty awesome is Google Business Photos; essentially means a Google Certified photographer snaps the inside of your offices (or more importantly) your shop or restaurant, and then searchers can actually virtually walk through your business as an extension of street-view. Could be pretty awesome for retail and restaurants, less relevant for non-public offices though. Check it out - http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/help/maps/businessphotos/
Cheers,
Ryan
One thing that is pretty awesome is Google Business Photos; essentially means a Google Certified photographer snaps the inside of your offices (or more importantly) your shop or restaurant, and then searchers can actually virtually walk through your business as an extension of street-view. Could be pretty awesome for retail and restaurants, less relevant for non-public offices though. Check it out - http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/help/maps/businessphotos/
Cheers,
Ryan
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Spot on Stretchy. The number of times I have come across this, not just in small but medium (up to £500k) businesses. "We used our salesman to assemble the furniture because then it cost us nothing"
I am afraid that there are a lot of deaf ears out there though.
G
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S
S-Marketing
I was with you right up to to the point you added blogging to the list.
I'm not against social media altogether, sometimes spending a few hours so you have a presence is useful. What i am against is thinking it is free and should be used instead of much better techniques.
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- Original Poster
- #23
Yes, business photos offers a chance for retailers to standout. Won't be long before this forum is flooded with Google+ 'how do I do this' questions.
I suspect lots of businesses in your arena are using Google+. For other less tech savvy sectors now would be a good time to jump on board before their competitors do.
JA
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Google+ does have some district advantages for business, primarily the links it provides to your website. It has the potential to be a very good social media site. You can build your own communities which could be very beneficial to talk to likeminded business. It certainly holds more sway that Facebook and Twitter when it comes to Google, as you would expect. Unfortunately, most people don't have a Google+ account, or, if they do, they never use it, so whether you will make those valuable contacts is debatable. But, you've gotta be in it to win it. It doesn't take much time and as far as we are concerned, anything which raises your web profile can only be a good thing. We have an account which we add to regularly. We also sign all our clients up to it. Good luck!
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Google+ doesn't have the mass audience but the general content curation is in my opinion better than other social networks. It's clearly not a place where you go to see what your friends are up to but I think it is quite good that it is different from other social networks in this respect. I'm quite happy to have different services with different functions. It is still a challenging place for businesses and it will take a complete rethink to appeal to the users that have chosen to be there rather than Facebook, Twitter or even Pinterest.
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I'm not convinced. I heard Chris Sacca (ex Google) say that he thinks Google struggle with social networking as they are not particularly good at dealing with art problems. Their specialty is in the science problems like search.
I think Path will be the Facebook alternative.
And who knows what the new Myspace will spring up.
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M
mariacntg
There are so many social media platforms that it's hard to know which one will actually help. I'm trying to keep up to date with all the major ones. I think that the only way Google plus could help you more than the others is from a SEO perspective.
You won't know until you try I guess, just make sure you monitor everything.
You won't know until you try I guess, just make sure you monitor everything.
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I agree that, Google Plus offers Business opportunities. i am using it for a 2 months and i had made a wonderful circle where every person is related to my industry. Even i know, Its is way behind Facebook and twitter. Now more business guys are there on google plus. Even it improves you traffic.
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