As
Track Influencers
A key principle to inbound marketing is to leverage industry influencers to help promote your content. This can be done a number of ways, but ultimately requires a holistic approach to network and relationship development. "One of the highly useful features of Google+ lies in its audience management capabilities. Specifically, the ability to bucket users into group segments, otherwise known as circles. This is valuable to businesses because it means they can track the activity of industry influencers, who can have an impact on their reach," Marc explained.
This "circler segmentation," as he calls it, is a tactic any serious business on Google+ needs to consider. "Creating circle segments for influencers allows you to track what kind of content they regularly share, and how successful that content is. It’s easy to get lost in the noise of a news feed, but segmenting your circles means you can hone in on updates by influencers in your industry, and look for opportunities to reshare that content, comment on it, or provide additional value."
It also means you can make laser-targeted updates to specific types of users. As you engage with these influencers and their audience you open the door to content collaboration and more importantly, audience expansion. As they say, it is who you know, not what you know!
Post Ripples
Google+ ripples are a built in analytics overview of individual Google+ posts. They provide invaluable insights around distribution channels, top influencers, and share velocity for any given post. "Brands can use post ripples to help them better understand who’s shared their content, and what effect those shares had on the post’s overall visibility," Marc noted.
Communities on Google+ are like groups on Facebook or
Communities are a great way to seed your content to relevant audiences, and develop brand awareness. If used correctly, they can be a great tool to drive engagement and traffic to your brand.
"Every business page on Google+ should be looking to engage in popular communities relevant to their business, but if you really want to stand out, strive to build your own community. The most successful kinds are non-promotional and focused on high level interests," Marc explained. When I asked for a good example, he pointed to Adafruit, a DIY gadget provider. "Their company does a great job of this by appealing to inventors, builders and artists."
This ties in to influencer tracking, and works in the same way that @mentions work on
However, you have to be careful. "It’s important not to just mention for the sake of mentioning, though. If your update is not relevant to the person, or not interesting enough you’ll only serve to annoy them. But if it is, you make it easy for them to discover and share you content," Marc warns.
Inter-Linking
Inter-linking is a well-known tactic in the realm of SEO. It involves connecting relevant pages together in an effort to promote page authority, and channel traffic through your content. This same tactic can be employed effectively on Google+ to help bolster your visibility and SEO.
"Rather than linking to content on your site a second time from your G+ profile, link to your initial Google+ update. This effectively allows you to create internal linking within the Google domain that serves the purpose of strengthening the links that you initially shared. The more high quality references to your links, the more impact they’ll have on your visibility. This kind of tactic can even get your Google+ updates ranking in search results!"
By following Marc's tips above you can stay ahead of the marketing curve and maximize the reach of your content.
