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How To Set Up A Google+ Page

How to set up, develop, and leverage a good Google+ page as part of a social media strategy for businesses, brands, organizations, and public figures.

December 7, 2011

 

Social media strategy. If you don't have one yet for your business, organization, or brand, it's not too late to start. And if you do have one cooking already, I'll bet Google+ is one of the most recent spaces you've explored. The nascent social network from Internet giant Google now supports Pages, which are rather similar to Facebook Pages, with several key differences (explained a little later).

Google+ Pages are not just for businesses, but all kinds of organizations and public figures, from community-focused groups and non-profit institutions, to politicians and candidates, to celebrities, bloggers, sports teams, and social causes.

Whether you're rolling out the next arm of your social media strategy, or developing a new one from scratch, Google+ should be on your radar. Here's everything you need to know, from how to create a Google+ Page, to an analysis of what makes Google+ different from other social networks, to tips to making a useful and eye-catching Google+ Page, and even a checklist of things you'll need before you get started.



Checklist for Creating a Google+ Page
Before you can create a Google+ Page, you'll need a few things on hand, the first being a Google account. If you have a Gmail account, you already have a Google account. If you need to establish one, it only takes a minute and it's free.

Here are all the things you'll need to establish a Google+ Page:

  • Google account
  • The category that best describes your business, organization, or brand: local business or place; product or brand; company; institution or organization; arts, entertainment or sports; other.
  • A tagline.
  • A profile image, square dimensions.
  • Introductory text.
  • List of friends, business partners, clients, customers, or supporters to add to Circles.
  • Five of the best images you have that represent the page's theme.
  • Optional: videos, contact information, topics for first posts

 

How to Create a Google+ Page
Once you have all the items on your checklist, you're ready to set up the page. It's remarkably fast. Here's what to do:

1. Log into Google.

2. Go to https://plus.google.com/pages/create. (Or, go to google.com/+/business/ and click "Create Your Google+ Page.")

3. Pick the appropriate category from the list that best describes what your Google+ Page will represent:

  • Local Business or Place
  • Product or Brand
  • Company
  • Institution or Organization
  • Arts, Entertainment or Sports
  • Other

 

4. Add a tagline (Google suggests ten words or fewer but doesn't strictly hold you to this).

5. Upload a profile banner (square dimensions), click "Continue," and your page is ready.

Now Google+ notifies you that "You are now using Google+ as this page. Your posts, comments, and notifications will be from this page," which sounds like perhaps you obliterated your personal Google+ account in favor of the Page—don't worry! You haven't! What it means is you are currently in the Page mode, so any posting you do here and now will be for the Page. You can get back to your personal Google+ account by typing google.com/+ in the address bar (oddly, you can't navigate there from the page).

You'll notice that creating a page takes very little time (yay!) and information, which means your page will be very sparse at this point (boo!). Next, I outline several tips for making a good Google+ Page.

 

Tips for Making a Good Google+ Page
Because signing up for a Google+ Page is so simple, only the most essential information is required, and as a result, only the barest page is created. Users will definitely need to fill in more information and upload additional photos to round out their pages.

The most essential things to add are:

  • Circle members—without them, no one will know your page exists or see its content.
  • Images—at least five to start, that show off the most monumental or important aspects of your organization or cause.
  • Link to your website, or other site where you ultimately want your fans and followers to go.
  • A Google+ Direct Connect link, which gives your page visibility if people search for your Page's name with a "+" sign at the start—although the link is not available to every user at present.
  • A Google+ Direct Connect link, which gives your page visibility if people search for your Page's name with a "+" sign at the start—although the link is not available to every user at present.
  • Contact information—to whom should your audience go if they have questions or want to get in touch for opportunities?
  • At least ten posts, including original thoughts and commentary, links to information about your work or cause, and a selection of related material; post continuously no less than once a week. These posts will fill out your page so it doesn't appear empty when the first few users land on it.
  • Arts, Entertainment or Sports
  • Videos (optional).

 

While it's extremely easy to set up a Google+ Page, and not much more difficult to add some interesting content, what you really need to keep up your Google+ Page is a clear understanding of its purpose and how it fits into your social media strategy.

Think Differently About Your Google+ Page
A Google+ Page is not the same as, or meant to replace, your website, blog, Twitter account, or presence on Facebook or LinkedIn or any other site. Part of developing a social media strategy is understanding how and why these various social spaces are different, and then playing to their strengths.

To leverage Google+ in any useful way, consider how it differs from the other online representations your organization or brand has.

For starters—and this will vary by organization—look at the different community demographics of the various platforms you use to reach your audience. The conversations and posts you put on LinkedIn may not be the same as the ones you post to Twitter, depending on who is following your business or brand on those two online networks. Plus, the information you deliver via those different platforms will vary based on how you want people to interact with it. Twitter users tend to have conversations with immediacy, in near real time, whereas Facebook discussions tend to take place over a day or two, with threaded comments in one easy to read place for further reflection and analysis (which Google+ also has).

Two features that are unique to Google+ (more or less—Facebook has similar capabilities but they aren't consolidated like they are in Google's social network) are "hangouts," or live video-chats with small groups of people and "circles," which in business terms is nothing more than the ability to have detailed audience segmentation.

Circles, called Streams on Pages, let you group people into clusters based on whatever categorical structures you want. Streams can be an especially effective tool for smaller businesses and brands—imaging grouping contacts in circles called "business partners," "potential clients," "existing clients," and messaging to them differently—but perhaps less useful for very large organizations that don't necessarily know their constituents by name.

By default, all new Page creators get a few pre-named Circles to help them get the drift, including customers, VIPs, and team members.

It's hard to tell just yet how communities on Google+ will develop, seeing as the site is less than six months old, so leveraging the social network might take some trial-and-error at this point. But you can still see some of its strengths in its present form.

 

Google+ Challenges
Google+ still faces some major challenges to meeting business' expectations. Patrick Farrell of Sniper PR points to the lack of branding capabilities: "When setting up a brand page, you can't create a customized URL in Google+ like you can in Facebook or Twitter."

Another oddity is that identifying a Google+ "Page" as opposed to a user's page ain't easy. A brand Page looks almost identical to a user's page, save for a few identifying marks. Look for the green "share this page" button as one sign as well as a square icon at the top, just to the right of the name, that says "page" when you hover your cursor over it.

John Haydon, blogging for Huffington Post, points to the lack of Edgerank on Google+. Edgerank is a tool that gives businesses feedback regarding user engagement. "[W]hen someone puts you in a circle," Haydon wrote, "they will always see your Google Plus posts in their stream. On Facebook, Edgerank determines if your content is seen in news feeds." If your most recent post had a poor Edgerank score, it negatively affects your Page's overall ability to show up in news feeds. So while Google+ eliminates the problem of consequences, it also eliminates the pressure to post engaging and provocative content as well as positive feedback when it occurs.

Creating a Google+ Page doesn't take much, but creating a good one that people will explore takes a little more effort than the bare minimum that Google requires. It's worth putting a little time in upfront to make sure you have all the major components in place before launching the page. There's not "preview/publish" buttons. Once the site is registered, it's live immediately. To help you prepare, I've created a quick checklist for what you need before you start (it's on the first page of this article; you can also use the "print" button at the top of the article to view everything on one page). Good luck!