Hangouts, Circles, Ripples, Search Plus Your World, Oh My
Considerations for Google+ Brand Pages

by Bethany Latta, senior account manager and digital lead, Text 100 Rochester

Since Google+ announced brand pages last fall – questions on how companies should approach the new social platform is a topic of much debate for PR, marketing and social media teams alike.
 
How do we integrate Google+ into our current social plan? Should our strategy differ from what we’re doing on Facebook? How much time will it take to manage a Google+ page?
 
If you find yourself asking these questions, you’re not alone. While each business will (and should) approach Google+ in a different way, what can help answer some of these immediate questions is a better understanding of current Google+ features, and how businesses can best take advantage of them. Consider these:
 

• Circles: For anyone who manages a Facebook page, one of the biggest challenges is finding content that will be of interest to the broad range of fans a typical brand Facebook page attracts. From employees, to partners and customers (a group which in and of its own can be very diverse) – posting content that’s relevant to all can be a huge challenge and prohibit you from posting certain content that’s great, but only for one segment of your audience. Enter Google+ Circles. Once a person adds a brand page to their circles, a brand page manager can add followers to circles of their choice (i.e. employees in one circle, customers of product A in another, and customers of product B in yet another.) Then, content can be shared with all, or with select circles – allowing highly customized sharing.
• Hangouts: As with personal profiles, brand pages can accommodate video chat hangouts with up to ten people (plus the brand). From industry roundtables to press conferences or even a private customer chat – hangouts give us a new way to connect directly with our audiences. The video from hangouts can also be shared with a wider audience by linking up a live stream to YouTube – questions can be received via Google+, YouTube and Twitter and shared with the hangout moderator for a live Q&A. Last month the White House hosted the first presidential Google+ hangout with President Obama – great example of how this can be executed.       
• Search Plus: If you have a Google+ account you’ve likely seen a change when doing a general search while logged into Google+. Google now aggregates data from your network and returns “personal results” at the top of the page. While there’s much debate on how Search Plus (or officially, “Search Plus Your World”) does not currently include data from other social networks like Twitter and Facebook, what’s important for those considering a Google+ brand page to know is that content continues to rule – and brands setting up Google+ pages can impact general search results for those who have the brand in their circles. Optimizing your Google+ brand page with keyword rich sharable content is essential, and including the +1 option on your website – connected to your Google+ page – will help you gain credibility with Google. Currently “personal results” are not always relevant to what’s being searched – but this is something Google is committed to improving.
• Ripples:Another cool feature of Google+ is the ability to view an interactive graphic on how exactly a post you put on a Google+ is shared through ripples. To view, just click on the drop down arrow in the upper right hand corner of any public post and select “view ripples.” Brands can see who has publically shared a post and exactly how it “rippled” throughout a network via public shares. Ripples only show public share data for the previous 53 days – but can help you see powerful data on how information you share (or what your competitors share) on a brand page is spreading. Here’s an example of the White House post mentioned above, you’ll see I was able to locate my own share of this post within the ripple: