When Google Plus was first launched I couldn’t wait to test it out. The hype was that it would be a direct competitor to Facebook. I asked everyone I knew for an invitation to try the beta version.
Once I got in I was moderately impressed. Circles instead of followers and lists, finding people was kind of hard cause not very many of friends were on. I tweeted and posted on Facebook for friends and clients to find me on Google Plus but not very many came over to say hi. So I pretty much dropped Google Plus for about 6 months. Only going in every once and while.
It hadn’t clicked into my head yet that Google Plus is not Facebook. I was expecting the same interactions from the same people that were on Facebook. When they didn’t arrive I was bit lost. I didn’t want to start putting in a whole bunch of time and effort cultivating relationships if no one was on Google Plus in the first place. Also the media was feeding into this negativity push that Google Plus was another big failure which just made it more of a ghost town for me. But again, I had it all wrong. I was applying Facebook mode on Google Plus and you can’t do that. Just like you can’t apply Google Plus mode on Twitter. Google Plus was a dynamic change.
The beginning of this year I received a few more Google Plus friend invites from Facebook friends. So I’d thought I’d give Google Plus more effort and attention. I started following people who were interested in the same subjects I was. I interacted, connected with people who do what I do and respect, and my circles were growing and now after the redesign it is the place I want to be rather than Facebook. Why? It’s better for your business.
Business Mindset
- Google Plus is without distractions. There are no ads (yet). There are no game invites, pokes, group and pages updates, spam, promoted tweets and status updates.
- Google Plus has less high school friends and more business friends. To me there is a different mindset. It isn’t who you follow, it’s more of what you follow. The what being the themes or interests of your circles.
- Google Plus isn’t a popularity contest. It isn’t about how many that follow you.
Features
Google Hangouts. Hangouts are very useful for client meetings, team debriefs, project collaborations, business presentations. You can share your screen for presentations, videos, etc. You can use apps within Hangouts for added functionality such as sharing presentations through SlideShare. With a just a few clicks of a button you are talking and seeing up to nine other people on screen.
Google Pages. Just like in Facebook, Google Plus offers pages for your businesses. You can brand the page by added images to the top along with a large profile image. You can circle entirely different set of people from your personal profile. Here is a perfect opportunity for your customers and clients to interact with you through Hangouts and chat. The circles work quite effectively here. You can quickly send a message to your web design circles about a great new web design tool. Comparing that process to Facebook – you would share that post with everyone who has liked your page not just web designers. With circles you can focus your messages.
Google Search. Because Google Plus is a Google product, and Google is the number one search engine, items that you share for your business are indexed a lot quicker than your corporate website or blog.
So if you are not on Google Plus, I highly recommend it.
If you don’t see me on Facebook look me up on Google Plus and let’s Hangout together I’d love to chat with you.
