On Monday, January 21st, Social Media specialists from all over the country gathered to pick up tips and tricks for maximizing Google Plus from guest expert, Annalise Kaylor (@annabelleblue). Ms Kaylor is Director of Social Media at Intrapromote. She built her first social network in 1992, back when 14.4 was considered fast and the “internet” was $8/hour. She was the editor for “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pinterest Marketing” (Penguin, 2012), and speaks at many social media conferences including SXSW, SMX Social Media, SMX West, and PubCon.
What follows is a recap of Annalise Kaylor’s personal walk through of all things G+.
Q1 @annabelleblue Let’s start with the profile. What are the benefits and tips for establishing a G+ personal profile?
Annalise: Many reasons, but search integration is amongst the highest. You want spaces you control to dominate search engine results pages (SERPS). The quality of audience is stellar, and think of Google+ as Google socialized, not a social network. For tips, definitely connect all social profiles in your G+ profile. Also, keywords and phrases in your profile help searchers in G+ as well as via Google search itself.
Q2 @annabelleblue Communities, what are they and how can we use them?
Annalise: Communities are new; they allow you to interact with people around a topic G+ communities. They also provide insight into target markets, inspiration for content mktg, etc. The beauty of G+ is that you can post so easily to different groups – having a personal AND professional ID thanks to circles and communities. Communities have been around the internet for a long time in other forms, but they work with the G+ crowd who tend to be early adopters and tech geeks. G+ communities can be public or private, too. My agency is vastly virtual and communities allow us to connect and share anywhere.
Q3 @annabelleblue What are some great marketing uses for Circles?
Annalise: Custom content for your elite influencers, invite-only hangouts or sneak peeks, definitely events. Brands that do G+ circle marketing well: @MNTimberwolves , @CadburyUK , @hellokitty Use circles to identify people who interact with you across many social channels. If they do on 3 or 4; they’re your people. Also, “What’s Hot” on G+ is algorithmically determined, so when your circles LOVE your content, take note and keep creating.
Q4 @annabelleblue Why do businesses need Pages on G+?
Annalise: SEO SEO SEO. Search and social are closer than ever and personalization is not going away anytime soon. In particular it’s great SEO visibility for business. Again, you want to have everything on Page 1 of the SERPs to be a digital space YOU control.
Q5 @annabelleblue What is the difference between Local and Pages?
Annalise: A G+ Page is a social profile. G+ Local ties to search results and Maps. You can MERGE the two for better SEO. If you had a “place” page at one time, it’s now Google Local. Merging your G+ Page with G+ Local makes your listing more dynamic and enhances your organic SEO efforts. When I said G+ is “Google socialized,” it’s that dynamic result in SERPs that I was referring to.
Q6 @annabelleblue How do we establish Authorship & why do we need to?
Annalise: Authorship connects your original content ANYWHERE on the web to you, and G+ Authrshp provides enhanced search results like a rich snippet & aids in control of content thievery. Your friends see you, and then when their friends connect, they see you, too. Authorship is validity, relevance. Authorship is not quick and easy to set up, but in the end that’s a good thing. The best guide I’ve seen for establishing authorship is by @marktraphagen – How to Establish Google Authorship
Businesses need to implement rel=publisher, which is the Pages equivalent to personal authorship. Publisher ties G+ to whole site. With rel=author, your headshot shows up in SERPs. With rel=publisher, your G+ business page shows up in branded results.
#SocialChat BONUS
If you would like to meet and learn more from Annalise Kaylor, she will be speaking at SMX West in San Jose, CA March 11-13. The hosts of SocialChat, Alan K’necht and Michelle Stinson Ross, are bringing all the interactive learning of SocialChat to SMX Tornonto March 18-21. On March 18th Alan will be teaching a full day workshop on SEO with Digital Always Media partner, Jim Hedger. On March 19th Michelle and Alan will be team teaching a full day workshop on Social Media Marketing. They will both be presenting on the panel sessions during the conference March 20 and 21. Early bird pricing has been extended, so don’t miss the opportunity to take your internet marketing game to the next level.
On Monday, January 28th, #SocialChat will be celebrating its 2 year anniversary with an open forum discussion of the best platforms for reaching men and women. You don’t want to miss a moment.
