Google + Communities/business Page

[Louis1]

Hello guys,

I'm working as a marketing intern in a young startup.
I have heard a lot of things about Google+, both good and bad. Honestly, from a business point of view it seems quite interesting to me, but I have not much experience using it.

My question is: do you use much Google+ for your business and the community pages to share your content and create contacts? Is that effective?

As we are a company selling services to small businesses, I am really trying to find places to reach our audience. My problem is that with some of the other social medias (e.g.:twitter),I just feel that people just want a lot of followers and share/retweet stuff without even reading it or engaging.

I thought that maybe Google+, with its system of circles and communities, could be a more interesting place to connect with other small businesses in Scotland/UK. I'm also creating a community for small businesses in Scotland, since there are none at the moment (but a few for the whole of the UK),I thought it could be interesting to try to gather Scottish small businesses in a place where they can exchange, make contact and share content.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Louis,

Welcome to SBF

We do have a Google+ page ourselves but use it sparingly. To be honest I don't really understand the platform that well or how to get the most out of it.

We get lots of value out of Twitter and we can definitely see people who engage with us on there sign up and become part of the forums. Facebook in my opinion will always be B2C dominant and I've not seen many examples of a successful B2B approach to Facebook.

Like everything social it only works if it's consistent and you're adding value otherwise none of it works.

I wouldn't dismiss Twitter you can mine a huge amount of data off of it and it's likely more of your target market will be on there. You just have to keep testing things to try and find them. Google+ doesn't have anywhere near the same size of audience or engagement as far as I can see.

Good luck with setting something up though and we'll certainly try to join up and take part

 

[Louis1]

Hi,

Thanks for the welcome and the answer!
Indeed, it seems that nobody really understands how to make the most of Google+. I have to admit that I do not know the platform very well either, and I think a lot of people are in the same situation.

I will not dismiss Twitter, the good thing is I am not the only one looking at our social media pages. It's true that we still get some engagement and conversation with Twitter. I'll definitely look more into it. I looked into the advanced search engine and diverse tools not long ago, I still find it hard to find meaningful conversations, but I guess that's the hard work part!

I will give google + a chance I guess. Even though the audience and engagement is smaller, I really like this idea of community pages, it looks like it can be a great tool to target a specific audience (whereas I sometimes get a bit confused by the amount of things that is happening on Twitter ).

Oh, and thanks for joining the G+ community page!

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Louis,

Guy Kawasaki wrote a book on Google+. I actually have it on my kindle but have never read it yet! You can read more about it here http://www.guykawasaki.com/what-the-plus/ - It may be worth investing in that.

Twitter made much more sense to me when I figured out how to work with lists. There is so much noise on Twitter that it can seem completely irrelevant but once you master lists you can start to really focus in on your target market.

I think I would also ask you to bear in mind that building a community takes a long term commitment. I know this myself given the amount of effort we put into these forums

 

[justDAJ]

I've been on the G+ bus for almost three years (personally) as I was an early tester. It's a great platform, but like all social media you need to work at it and engage. Firing out posts every now and again gets absolutely no return. I've only recently started a business page on G+ but I have made some great contacts and got a few bits of work too.

Your choice of social media platform is almost entirely dictated by your target market -- you need to be where they are. For me Twitter works great. I don't use FB at all for business, nor any of the visual Social platforms (like Pinterest & Instagram) as I do not believe I can offer anything visual on there.

 

[Jennie Stamp]

Hello guys,

I'm working as a marketing intern in a young startup.
I have heard a lot of things about Google+, both good and bad. Honestly, from a business point of view it seems quite interesting to me, but I have not much experience using it.

My question is: do you use much Google+ for your business and the community pages to share your content and create contacts? Is that effective?

As we are a company selling services to small businesses, I am really trying to find places to reach our audience. My problem is that with some of the other social medias (e.g.:twitter),I just feel that people just want a lot of followers and share/retweet stuff without even reading it or engaging.

I thought that maybe Google+, with its system of circles and communities, could be a more interesting place to connect with other small businesses in Scotland/UK. I'm also creating a community for small businesses in Scotland, since there are none at the moment (but a few for the whole of the UK),I thought it could be interesting to try to gather Scottish small businesses in a place where they can exchange, make contact and share content.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading.

Hi Louis, I love Google Plus and get loads of benefit from it. However, as with any social media platforms, it isn't right for everyone. I have two accounts, my personal account that I use to share anything that interests me and my blog posts (https://plus.google.com/u/1/+JennieStamp/posts). I also have a FreeAgent account (https://plus.google.com/+JennieStampFreeAgent/posts) that I use for work purposes.

When using both of my accounts I find the G+ communities to be the most beneficial tool. I am a member of a super active nail art community in which I share my personal blog posts and get lots of +1s. I am also a member of lots of different small business communities for work. Here I can offer advice and share any relevant content we produce. I hope this helps!

Also, I just had a wee look around at Appointedd - it looks great How long will you be an intern there?

 

[Louis1]

Hi,

Thanks for all your answers. I started my internship in late April and I will stay here until late October, so that's 6 months. I wish I could stay longer actually, but since the French government apparently changed some regulations regarding internships, I could only do 6 months or a full year, nothing in between. I'm very happy though, it is great working here and exciting being part of a growing startup!

I've also joined a few Small business related communities. I shared some content there and then, it was more for testing than anything else. Got a few +1s though so that's not too bad I guess. Communities look great when it comes to find interesting content and active bloggers.

I've juste received "What the Plus", it looks very interesting (and cost me something like £2.38 so that's great!). I'm reading it right now, I really want to get to use Google + more and in a better way, it sure looks like a great platform. I want to engage more on Google +, so it's great having a resource and your advices!