The power of Google Plus for Small Businesses

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All business owners continuously look for the venue that will help them to get the most out of their marketing strategies and that earns them the most customers. The goal of all businesses large or small is to make sales and profits, and one of the fast increasing methods of doing that has been through Google Plus.

But what exactly is Google Plus and how can it help the average small business owner? Here is some information on this exciting and innovative venue:

Why is Google Plus so Powerful?

Google Plus is a type of social networking platform owned by Google. It is also the second biggest one of its kind next to Twitter, which it surpassed in members in January 2013. It is estimated to have more than 500 million members and is being used by about a third of all smartphone users, thus it is also the fourth most used smart phone application.

All businesses, especially the small businesses, must be proactive in learning how to use new and innovative methods of marketing such as Google Plus to get their name and brand out to the general public quickly and efficiently. If they learn to use these new methods of advertising and marketing, they will be able to compete with the bigger brands much easier since they can get their client’s trust and loyalty faster and more efficiently in the fast paced online world.

What can Google Plus do for Businesses?

Google touts Google Plus as more of a platform for sharing rather than just being a mere social network like Facebook or Twitter. It is meant to be a place where a business can develop a relationship with its customers and post data on their products, new deals, or just to talk about themselves and try to establish their brand.

While this may sound just like Facebook or Twitter in some ways, it is organized very differently. Instead of the way it is done in those social networks, the sharing is done through a series of “circles.” Plus a business can put buttons on their websites to invite clients to “Follow me on Google Plus” or use “direct connect” to put their info directly onto the search engine pages.

Circles: A method of organization

The circles in Google Plus let members organize contacts into sharing groups in a similar fashion as Facebook does with the Friends List. However, there are more privacy settings for circles and members can only see the people that are listed in their own circles. Each circle can receive posts shared by other members of the circle they are in.

This allows a business to dictate which circles receive certain types of promotions, emails, deals, etc., as they can form different ones to meet different types of customers. It also means that a business can form circles that hold their employees so they can share internal information or to their corporation, while posting things like coupons, sales, product info inside the circles for their targeted customers. So, a business has the advantage of forming internal and external circles and being able to keep the posts totally separate, something not so possible on Facebook or Twitter.

Google Plus Gets Small Businesses Noticed Faster

Google Plus can also help a small business get noticed easier if they join Google Plus Local. Google Plus Local was the replacement for Google Places, and it lists local area businesses and allowed their customers to post reviews, pictures, maps, and ratings on these businesses. This allows potential customers to get an idea of what the business has and how well they appease their existing customers.

This is highly valuable, as it means that any small local business listed in Google Plus Local can get ahead of the pack of similar places and gain loyal customers. It helps them to compete better against larger companies who have more finances and other means of getting out the word about their companies. With the help of Google Plus, the small business is potentially put on the same playing field as the larger companies that they compete with for clients.

Google Plus aids in SEO Strategy

Google Plus also aids small businesses in SEO or search engine optimization practices because companies can put trending keywords into their posts. Google has made it possible for Google Plus to be searchable, so this will help raise search engine ranking for all types of businesses big and small.

The business owners can also use Google Plus to add photos, videos and other valuable content to their postings. Unlike Twitter, they have much more leeway as to how much info can be published and aren’t, for instance, limited to a mere handful of characters that causes it to be hard to word the data they need to get out to their customers.

All in all, this makes Google Plus a vital tool for all businesses, especially the small business owners who need a method that lets them better compete with their larger competitors.

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