Can Google+ Be A Business Asset?

In addition to its promotional tools, Google+ is an ideal social network for business’ because it fosters communication and collaboration. Tools such as the stream, circles, and hangouts, in particular, make this possible. As you are busy promoting your business on Google+, you’ll also want to interact with customers on the social network to keep them coming back to your page. The easiest way to do this is to use the stream, which allows you to post content in any format. Your business can use the stream to broadcast a message to everyone, or a to a more targeted group of people through circles. On Google+, you can easily organize people into circles, or groups, based on how you want to communicate with them. This way, if you have a message to share with a specific group of people only, you can share it with just that circle. Ideas for how businesses can use circles include grouping people based on loyalty, geographic location, or products/services previously purchased. For example, if your business has multiple storefronts and only one is running a special, you can easily share the message with only the people who go to that store and not confuse those customers who go to your other locations. The ability to send more focused messages makes communication on Google+ seem more personal than on other social networks. However, communicating with customers through Google+ can become even more personal when your business hosts a hangout. With hangouts, your business can host a multi-person video chat and conduct screen sharing. This feature not only makes communication more personal, but it also enhances your collaboration capabilities by allowing you to work in real time with others no matter where they are.

If your business is serious about marketing on Google+, it’s important to know how much your hard work is paying off. The ability to track your progress on Google+ is yet another reason why this new social network has proven itself ideal for businesses. You can easily monitor how well you’re doing with your social media plan through tools like ripples and analytics. With ripples, you can determine where content that you have posted on Google+ ends up and how it got there. Specifically, this tool enables you to discover who is sharing information you have posted to Google+ and the people with whom they are sharing. This information allows you to figure out what type of content is the most effective for your business to share and who your business’ best promoters are. Your business can also utilize analytics to see all of the activity that occurs on your Google+ page and to manage your +1’s.

Google+ is different from other social networks because of its promotional tools and its features that encourage increased communication and collaboration. Taken together, these are huge assets for businesses looking to improve their online marketing and connect with customers via the internet. Additionally, tools like ripples and analytics make it simple for your business to develop a specific plan for Google+ based on informed data. With all that it has to offer, it’s no wonder that Google+ has made a name for itself as the premier social media outlet for businesses.

Sharon Shapiro is writing for Cloud Sherpas. Cloud Sherpas is a leading cloud service provider and was named the “Google Enterprise 2011 Partner of the Year.” As one of the first Google Enterprise partners, Cloud Sherpas has migrated over one million users across a variety of industries from legacy, on-premise messaging systems to Google Apps, helping organizations adopt cloud computing to innovate and dramatically reduce their IT expenses. A Google Apps Reseller in Atlanta, GA, Cloud Sherpas has regional offices in locations including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Austin and Sydney, and has more Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialists than any other partner in the world.