Now,
I’m pretty sure most of you are on Facebook and Twitter but very few people
actually pay attention to Google+. And you should! As of December 2012 there
are approximately 343 million active users on Google+ which puts it in second
place behind Facebook. And Google achieved that in a little bit more than a
year!
But
Google+ is a ghost town, right? Well, undoubtably Facebook’s active users are
more active than Google+’s (I haven’t seen any stats on this yet), but all
active user counts are suspect, Facebook’s included. Every action that you take
logged in as a social network’s user can make you an “active user.” Facebook
has made its accounts a virtual single sign-in for a a big chunk of the web,
and Google is catching up, particularly when it changed its account system last
year to merge all of its products, YouTube and Docs included, into singular
accounts.
But
there is an important way that these active user numbers do matter, even if
they don’t conform to our intuitive ideas about what it means to be an active
user. The actions that we do on the web are trackable based on what accounts we
are logged in to—and we are often logged in to several services simultaneously.
The future of search, and all of the personalization that can be served up by
that search data, is bound up in how much and what kinds of data can be
associated with each of our different accounts.
Who am I and why
should you care?
My
name’s Stanislav Petrov and I’ve been on Google+ since the beginning. I now
have more than 4,200 followers and I will tell you the secrets I’ve used to get
so many!
How to get followers?
Here’re
some great techniques that you can use to grow your profile.
1. Add people to your
circles
This
is a great way to gain followers. There are two types of circles you can add.
Ones that have content you’re interested in or ones who have active people who
share interesting content. If you are interested in technology just go to the
search bar at the top and type in “technology” and open the first circles that
you see. Then just hit the add button to add all of the people within that
circle. This way some of these people will check out your profile and follow
you. Do this daily!
Some
good circles I recommend are: Circle Me Up, Circles on Google+, circles
Discovery and Social Circles.
And
here’s what you need to do to get THOUSANDS of followers quickly! Go to some of
these pages or all of them and find their latest post which includes their
circle. Share, comment and +1 that post and you will be included in that circle
the next time they share it. And that will bring you a lot of followers! After
that you should check out their pages regularly so that you can do the same
thing every time they share their new circle in order to stay in it
2. Share good-quality
content
You
can popular posts on Google+ by click the “Explore” button on the left side.
There you will find what’s hot and recommended for you on Google+. Be sure to
share some of these posts and learn what people like so that you can share
similar posts in the future.
You
can also find what’s trending on the right side of your feed.
Here
you can find what’s popular. Use some of these hashtags in your posts to bring
more people to your page.
3. Interact with
people
An
important thing to do is to interact with your followers and people who like,
comment and share your content. When someone posts a nice feedback to one of
your posts make sure you thank them and even add them to your circles as they
might interact with you in the future!
4. Timing is critical
It’s
very important to post your content at the right time. Here’s a great tool that
analyzes all your activity and gives you a recommendation for the best time for
you to post.
5. Link Google+ to
your blog
The
first step in getting results from Google+ is connecting your profile with your
blog’s home page. This is the gateway step to claiming your content in the eyes
of Google. It will also go far in generating incredible results, including
displaying your photo next to your blog post links and a wikipedia-style
profile listing in Google search results whenever anyone searches for your
name. Of course, for WordPress publishers, there’s a very easy way to
accomplish this.
6. Build strategic
networks with circles
Circles
allow you to organize connections into the groups you interact with in your
life. Family, Friends, B2B, B2C, Local, Media, Influencers, Quilting (my hobby,
about which I wrote an award-winning book). Not only can you view posts by
Circles, you can send posts to Circles, yet another Google+ first. Circle’s
biggest benefit? People who add you to their Circles see your posts higher in
Google search results. Another SEO boost.
7. Look like a pro:
Offer live video chat with Hangouts
Hangouts
not only up your level of branding by enabling you to host webinars for free,
if you do a Hangout on Air, Google+ simultaneously streams it here and on
YouTube, records the video, and sends you the recording via email. Upload that
Hangout to YouTube, add the link to your blog with a reader-friendly
keyword-rich description, and you’ve got a powerful SEO tool that doubles as a
branding resource, allowing people to see you in action.
8. Use hashtags to
make your posts search-friendly
Just
like Twitter, Google+ offers a hashtag ecosystem that makes searching for
topics simple. It’s a great way to get found — not only inside Google+, but in
the larger world of Google search. Combine your Circles strategy with hashtags,
and you’ve gone a long way toward placing your blog’s SEO on steroids.
9. Link to your blog
posts to rank higher in Google+ and Google search
Whenever
you have a new blog post, link to it from Google+, and make that post public.
By doing this, you’ve made your post publicly available both inside Google+ and
in Google search results worldwide. Remember those people in your Circles? When
they’re searching for your subject on Google, they’ll be served up your results
first.
10. Use Ripples to
add influencers to your Circles
Ripples
are a little-known feature of Google+ that identify people who shared a public
post, as well as how large an audience they have. It’s a great way of
determining who has the power to spread your posts to the widest possible
audience. You’ll definitely see a trend when you start using Ripples and you’ll
notice those outliers who have the power to get your posts seen by a huge
audience. Add these people to your Circles and engage with them.
11. Want engagement?
Write long posts inside Google+
Google+
posts that receive the most comments are resource-type articles with a lot of
links. Those covering Google+ how-to information are heavily shared, along with
any tutorials. Write a killer post and link back to your own blog for
additional resources. Use hashtags with relevant topics so it’s easily found,
and you’ve created an outstanding resource that will get you noticed, and will
increase traffic to your blog.
12. Use Direct
Connect so people can add you to Circles from Google search
The
most powerful feature of Google+ is Direct Connect — think the Facebook Like
Box, available in Google Search. By placing code between the <head> tags
on your blog, people will be able to add you to their Google+ Circles directly
from Google search results. Currently, Direct Connect is available on a limited
basis, and appears to be offered to those pages with a large Google+ following.
To be eligible for Direct Connect, you must have that link between Google+ and
your blog’s home page I referred to in tip #1.
13. Use tags to reach
out to people and brands directly
Like
Facebook, Google+ offers the ability to tag people and brands in your posts.
This is a great way to connect with people and draw their attention to your
latest resources, especially in a noisy digital culture. As an example, I
attended a public relations conference and tagged the people I met at the event
in my Google+ post about it.
14. Display your
photo in Google search results for greater CTR to your blog
Getting
your photo displayed next to your Google search results used to be extremely
difficult to do. No longer. All you need is a Google+ page, and to connect it
to the home page of your blog. See how important that #1 step was? Again,
here’s a shortcut to getting it done. Your photo will eventually appear next to
your blog posts in Google search results. I’ve made sure my photo stands out by
going beyond just a black and white headshot. I’m wearing vibrant colors, which
stands out against the sparse Google white background.
Other
tools
This
website gives you great information about your posts and profile. You can also
use it to find you in what circles you have been included!
You
should also consider using this website
Go
there and create your own unique url that’s short and clean. Then post that url
to all your other social networks and your websites, blogs, etc.
Give yourself time to
master these tactics
Take
the time to learn Google+ and engage with your community here. You’ll see
results far beyond what any other social network can offer: both social
engagement within Google+, and SEO in Google.
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