Good Morning everyone! I hope you are enjoying the cooler weather that we are finally having as fall starts to creep into our area. I have been doing pretty well at building my profile and engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter but I was having some issues getting better engagement with my Google+ social media account so I decided it was time to do my favorite thing – research. After researching I came up with some great ideas on increasing engagement so I thought I should share them with you too in case you struggle with this social media platform like I have.
I want to preface these top 10 tips that I came up with by saying that I have had my Google+ account for a few years now and I had already made some adjustments to try to improve my reach, but it just didn’t seem to be enough. So this is the next step up for me – what will hopefully take my Google+ account to the next level. I hope you have some success with these tips too:
Top 10 Tips to Improving Engagement with Google+:
- Plus and comment on people’s posts– If you want people to engage with your posts, you have to remember to get out there and engage with others. I know, what a crazy idea?!?!? Too simple you say? Well, I found that I wasn’t engaging with others like I was looking to have people engage with me, so I really can’t expect others to make the first move and act like I’m some superstar.
- Share other people’s posts with your own comments- Just like we want others to share our posts to get better visibility, we should be sharing others’ posts in our communities, our circles, and on our walls. But don’t forget to engage your followers by putting your own comment at the top of the post when you share it – it gives the personal touch.
- Use @ sign to tag followers- It’s important to remember to tag others on Google+ when you engage with them in your comments by using the @ sign before their name so they see you reaching out to them.
- Use Hashtags to increase visibility in searches- Using hashtags should be second nature by now if you’ve been involved in social media marketing for any length
of time, but don’t think that you have to limit hashtags to just Twitter. Just like they can be invaluable on Instagram, they will help get you noticed in search engines when you use them on your Google+ posts too. Remember, Google is one of the predominant search engines, and your Google+ account is more visible in the searches. - Search for communities to join in your niche- Whatever niche your business falls in, there’s bound to be a community on Google+ that you can engage with fellow business owners. Search for small business owners or social media marketing communities if nothing else to connect with others in your field.
- Search AllMyPlus and Circle Count for competitors- Utilize these 2 sites to find people who are influential in your niche. What are they discussing and sharing? What is getting the most engagement on their accounts? Use this information to give you a step towards mimicking their success.
- Look for popular posts in your communities- Similar to the above tip, look in the communities that you’re already connected with and see what gets the most engagement to give your ideas what your target audience is interested to hear.
- Organize your followers by circles- You already have a bunch of followers…that’s great! But if you wanted to know which followers are authors and which ones were marketers, could you tell easily? Creating specific circles and organizing your followers helps you find the right audience you want to share your posts with in the blink of an eye, and we know that anything that saves you time and makes marketing easier is a huge bonus!
- Share your posts in multiple locations- I was always very faithful with sharing my blog posts on my wall on Google+. But I kept forgetting that it’s okay to share the post in my communities and with specific circles too, so I could get the most
engagement. The key to better engagement is to get your posts out there, so Share! Share! Share! - Format your posts for your audience- This one is actually like getting some bonus tips, because I’ve got 5 tips under this one for you. Here are some key ways to maximize your post’s attractiveness to your audience:
- Use headlines and bold titles in your posts
- Use markdown language (plain text formatting that can be converted into HTML) to format in a more engaging and attractive way
- Use large images in your posts
- Start with a summary under your headline, then add your image below the summary, and finally put your links at the end
So there’s the top 10 tips for increasing your engagement using Google+. I’d love to hear what other tips you’ve used and had success with – I’m sure you’d all agree that all the help we can get is always a good thing! Don’t forget to share this (while following the tips for the best engagement possible!) Happy writing!
