3 reasons why your business should check out Google+

As Google+ continues its staggered launch, we look at how this new social networking platform could help you market your business.  Here’s a more general Google+ demo if you haven’t checked it out yet.

Sharing relevant content through ‘circles’ or groups

One of the five key components of Google+ is its ‘circles’ feature.  It enables you to create your own groups of contacts so you can share selective information with different groups.  This means you can create circles for, say, employees, clients, prospects, journalists, analysts, industry peers and other influencers, and target your content accordingly. Your audiences will thank you for sharing relevant information – and not wasting their time with off-message content.

Use video ‘hangouts’ for collaborative working

Possibly the killer feature, ‘hangouts’ allows up to 10 users to meet by video. So you can create a particular circle and hook up for a video chat for more interactive, real time collaboration – or whatever information sharing you require.

+1/Plus one (‘like’) button for SEO

Google’s +1 button enables you to endorse websites you like or think are particularly relevant to your search. You will also see fellow Google+ networkers’ +1 recommendations in your feed when you perform your search.  But here’s the boom for SEO: the plan is to incorporate it into Google’s search algorithm, which should apply to both organic and Adwords search results.

Should you add a +1 button to your site?

It’s still in the testing phase and Google has said they are working on optimising it further for business (integrate with Adwords etc.) but stand by to add a couple of lines of simple code to set up a +1 button on your site.  If it helps increase your web presence and searchability, why not?

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• Emerging trends
• Google+
• social media