Google+ is often disregarded, but it is actually much more prominent and effective than people give it credit for. It may not have caught on as the Facebook alternative as far as social media goes, but there are many privileges having a Google+ account affords you that you can’t obtain through any other social media site.
Priority on Google Search
Google+ has one thing going for it that the other social media sites do not: Google. Google is a dominating force on the Internet, and it has been using its power to boost the success of Google+. If you search for something on Google, relevant Google+ posts are given high priority. So if you regularly post new, relevant information, your posts will have an easier time achieving success on the Google search results than posts on other websites would.
As with any other search engine, keywords are a big factor in these results. So your posts should be frequent and be littered with relevant keywords. But don’t just put those keywords in your posts; put them in other aspects of your Google+ page as well, such as your About section. You should also use your Google+ account to link back to your original website.
Getting a Google Authorship
As Google+ grows in prominence, Google search results are popping up with more and more links to articles or posts with images of their author to the left of them. This is called a Google+ authorship, and they tend to catch the eye a bit more than regular links. Plus, they are given higher priority in Google searches, so having one is a must. However, it takes more than just having a Google+ account:
First, you have to be posting on a regular basis, making sure that you note that you’re the author of each post. Once you’ve established yourself, you can request authorship status from Google. If they approve, then your Google+ profile picture will begin appearing next to posts that you’ve written. It may sound inconsequential, but next time you do a Google search, see which result you’re more likely to click on: the regular blue link or the official-looking article.
Claiming the Right-Hand Space
Look up something prominent on Google. Notice how this search differs from other searches: the right-hand space. On the right-hand side of the search, there is a very prominent box with information about the prominent thing you looked up. With businesses, for instance, it will show a map, address, telephone number, hours, rating, website link, etc. All at the very top of the page.
Google is constantly updating, gathering new information, so it’s certainly not too late for your business to have a right-hand space of its very own one day. As usual, Google pays more attention to Google+ accounts than anything else, so if you regularly post about things that are relevant to your industry on your Google+ account, you get closer and closer to appearing in the right-hand space.
Google+ Ripples
Google+ has a powerful analytics tool called Google+ Ripples. It’s basically an interactive circle graph that shows you who all has shared a particular post. Just lick on the small down arrow in the upper-right corner of any of your Google+ posts and click View Ripples. This will show you who has shared your post.
However, it doesn’t just show which of your followers shared the post. In the center of the graph is the original poster. From there, you will see circles radiating out from the center, showing some of your followers that shared it. But from there, even more circles will stretch out, showing which of their followers has shared it from then, and so on and so forth.
But what makes Google+ Ripples outstanding is that, of the people that have shared your posts, you can see which of them are the most influential on Google+. Knowing who your important followers is crucial. You can make a group of your most influential followers (which is very easy to do with Google+) and periodically send them important content they might want to share. You might even consider sending them coupons, which would surely incentivize them to share from you even more often.
