Google+ Features to Improve Marketing

Google+ is commonly misconstrued as having been created to compete with Facebook. But there is a lot more to Google+ than meets the eye. In fact, Google+ has a whole set of functions and benefits that Facebook can barely keep up with. The tools that Google+ offers are extremely useful for marketers, but they are admittedly not particularly easy to wrap your head around.

To help you out, here is a list of tips for using Google+ to help market your business:

Google+ Embedded Posts is a feature that allows you to put your Google+ posts directly onto your blog. Whenever you post something on Google+, it will eventually get lost somewhere along the news stream. By using Google+ embedded posts to revive your post, more people will be able to see what you’ve posted about when it’s included in a recent blog post. In addition, the Google+ posts you add onto your site can gather +1s (the Google+ version of a ‘like’) and shares from users who are visiting your site.

Google+ Auto Awesome allows you to create GIF-like animated videos from photos and/or videos that you have on your phone or those you’ve uploaded onto your Google+ profile. The best part is, you don’t actually have to create the video because you can simply upload it onto Google+ and then wait for a few minutes for the video to be made. To have your video made, just download the Google+ app onto your device and enable the Auto Backup, Auto Awesome, and Auto Enhance settings.

Hangouts on Air is a free video broadcasting service that allows you to stream a live feed to your YouTube channel. It’s completely integrated with Google as well. Hangouts on Air allows you to reach out to a larger audience by allowing you to build your own audience and visiting Hangouts on Air Shows held by other Google+ users.

Google+ Circles allow you to segment your audience into different categories. Depending on the circle and the type of content you want to share, you can instantly create circles that include certain people. For instance, you can choose to create a circle for shareholders where you share business-related information and another circle for subscribers or potential contacts wherein you can share info on the latest promotions.

+Post ads allow you to amplify your content to create conversations among more people. +Post ads create ads based on different Google+ posts and runs is across Google’s add network. What it does is it encourages people to comment, join a hangout, +1 or follow you from within the context of the ad. In other words, the viewers don’t necessarily have to be in Google+ to be able to interact with you from within the ad.

Use pictures, because nothing grabs users’ attentions more than great images. The images you upload onto Google+ aren’t restrained to certain sizes and resolutions, like the ones you would upload onto Facebook or Twitter. Google+ doesn’t resize or crop out your image, so you can take full advantage of this feature by adding more uncropped and untouched visual content onto your Google+ page.

Speaking of pictures, did you know that you can also use your Google+ account to store pictures from your phone? Google+ is a reliable spot where you can upload images and delete them from your phone to free up some memory. Once the images have been uploaded onto Google+ you can then enhance them or edit them or create image galleries. If you like, you can even share all these pictures with some of your Google+ circles.

Try formatting your posts so readers can know which parts of your posts are important. For instance, you can try highlighting the keywords on your posts for added emphasis by adding “*” before and after the text to make it bold, and “_” to make them italic. Using these formatting tips, your readers can easily scan your posts for keywords that interest them.

Keep the hashtags relevant. Hashtags can also be used on Google+. By using the right ones, you’d find that reaching your target audience will be a lot easier. Like Twitter, Google+ also has its own set of trending hashtags, so you can use any of the trending topics that relate to your business.

Use YouTube integration to reach a wider audience in your Google+ circles. You can post YouTube videos into your Google+ posts. This can also act as twofold engagement since the comments people leave on your Google+ posts will also be posted onto the comments section of your YouTube video.

Track your social media marketing efforts. There are many ways to track whether or not your marketing campaign is generating traffic or not. However, there are three reliable analytics tools that you can use for Google+. SumAll gives you a visual summary of published posts, how much engagement it gets and the new Google+ followers you’re getting. CircleCount provides you with a database of influences, and they can be turned into valuable connections. Lastly, Steady Demand’s Google+ Brand Page Audit tool can analyze your brand page to ensure that you’ve set up all the functions and options that can optimize the way your brand uses Google+.

Google has created an almost completely unique experience in being able to integrate so many functions within Google+. It offers many innovative new ways for your business to promote itself, and to engage with potential customers or clients. Social media marketing is far more than just posting ads here and there. Companies need to be able to create an online presence to create meaningful interactions with their customers. And Google+ is definitely the platform to do it!

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/michael-bird/2370001/google-features-improve-marketing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29

10 Amazing Brand Twitter Profile Pages

What you see is what you get. Can it be that we’re all so shallow as to subscribe to this statement? The science seems to back it: new research has found that first impressions remain incredibly hard to dislodge.

On the other hand, according to Vivian Zayas, a psychologist at Cornell University, “the present research shows that such judgments about the cover are good proxies for judgments about the book – even after reading it”. It seems that there is a good reason why we’re so quick to judge – it’s usually spot-on!

This is a crucial factor for marketers, especially those in the business of social media where a tweet can appear in front of a reader for less than a second before getting swept away by the torrent of other competing messages.

If you want onlookers to stop and consider your Twitter profile page, much less have a good impression about your brand, you’re going to have to work on the real estate you have been given i.e. your Twitter brand page.

Ready to make some great first impressions? Here are 10 of the best brand Twitter profile pages in the twitter-verse right now.

1. Adidas

A creative use of the profile header and background – both joining into a single, delightful portrait of Adidas’ latest product. Many brands use their Twitter profile real estate for teasers and promotions, as you will see in the other profiles as well.

2. Audi

 

Simple and elegant, the color theme matches the car on display well. The sleek design works towards accentuating the branding of Audi as a high-end racing car model, too.

3. Life

 

Featuring a slew of their spectacular covers from past years, LIFE reminds everyone why they’re one of the best magazines around.

4. McDonald’s

McDonald’s always makes good use of their Twitter profile real estate to display their latest marketing campaigns and promotions. The header also blends well into the background.

5. Rolling Stone

Sometimes less is more, and Rolling Stone has approach their Twitter profile real estate with that in mind. A simple way to emblazon their brand name right across their profile page. The transparent effect of the header picture works well in blending with the background.

6. Virgin

Virgin’s most spectacular business is in space travel right now – and they make sure to remind you of it whenever you pop by their Twitter profile.

7. Unicef

Unicef is all about the children, and their Twitter profile does well in reminding you about them.

8. Subway

Like McDonald’s, Subway also makes use of their Twitter real estate to inform their followers about their latest promotions – such as the Flatizza here. The bold and bright colors are also attractive, though some might consider it a bit too flashy.

9. The Home Depot

Another brilliant example of blending the header with the background, the Home Depot makes use of their real estate well by displaying products that define their brand.

10. Southwest Airlines

Last but not least, Southwest Airlines uses a different tact by drawing attention to the plane in their header rather than the deliberately simple and clear-cut background. At the same time, the background also features their brand name (just in case you forget).

Source: http://blog.canva.com/10-amazing-brand-twitter-profile-pages/

4 Social Media Trends Already Shaping 2014

As companies discover there’s more to social media marketing than merely maintaining a presence on Facebook and Twitter, it’s often a little daunting to think about how to expand efforts to take advantage of all the opportunities that a multi-spoked social strategy can offer.

A new infographic caught my eye initially because it led with what I believe are some of the most important tenets of social business. It’s titled Social Media Trends Shaping 2014, and lists seven trends. But after reading it, I noticed a couple of them dovetailed nicely into each other, so I took the liberty of narrowing the list down to four and adding my own commentary.

1. Social Listening

22% of marketers used social listening strategies in 2013, and 24% plan to listen on social media in 2014. But only 31% of marketers think that their current listening strategy is fully effective. The growth in this area continues to be sluggish, I believe, because of the amount of time that it takes to develop, implement, and keep a solid social listening strategy going. It isn’t something companies should take lightly, and it seems like a huge investment in hours to get that up and running.

By listening online, brands can be agile, and take advantage of marketing opportunities that arise in real-time. The best way to put together a social listening strategy is to sign up with a social listening software that not only has wide listening ability across the web, but a service offering that will help you strategize, knowing your specific business goals and objectives.It isn’t enough to have the tools at your disposal if you don’t have a clear-cut idea of how your listening relates to your overall business strategy.

2. Data-based Marketing

Number six and number three in the social infographic below both have to do with leveraging data to build better customer relationships. According to the infographic, data from social sites, campaigns, and other customer interactions is being used to engage audiences. It’s true, but looking at the numbers for social listening, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

The benefit isn’t just for the business, though. There’s two sides of this coin. Think of yourself as a consumer. Have you ever been excited to see something interesting right there in your news feed — or on the sidebar of a blog? (There’s the social advertising aspect: number two in the infographic.) When companies measure and react to their social data, users will receive content that is better targeted to their wants and needs. Businesses will be more effective if they use social and web-based data to figure out the what kind of content the user wants, where they want it, and when they understand the best times for delivery.

3. Integrating Social Media Company-Wide

The social media department isn’t the only place where social media should be used. In fact, your company shouldn’t have a social media department at all. The product development people should be monitoring the web and measuring social results for insight, the customer service team should be responding to customer concerns through social accounts, the HR people should be utilizing social tools to recruit and qualify top talent, and all of your marketing campaigns should have integrated social media components that will help amplify their reach and increase engagement.

Again, make sure you partner with a company that’s not only ready to fill your software needs, but also help you map out strategies for this. Here’s four case studies into company-wide social integration that may help get you started.

4. Visual-based Marketing

With this trend, I’m not talking solely about the rise of Pinterest and Instagram as effective marketing tools. Both Twitter and Facebook have redesigned the look and feel of their timelines recently to accommodate larger images. In fact, 77% of brand posts shared on Facebook are photos.

The right image can tell a story faster and more effectively than the biggest block of text, and that also goes for short video content. Adding a video to landing page can increase conversions by nearly 90%.

I guess I got on a roll there. After getting a little more in-depth into these concepts above, I feel like the infographic is now a bit extraneous, but here it is. If you have scrolled to the bottom of this blog because of the large block of text above (and I know you did, because #4), I urge to to start at the top and read through this real quick-like.

I know your time is limited, but it shouldn’t take too long — and jumping on these concepts now could make a big difference.

Images: bsdconsulting.com, @channingtatum

Source: http://www.spiral16.com/blog/2014/04/4-social-media-trends-already-shaping-2014-infographic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Spiral16+%28Spiral16%29