Google+ …why?

By Author: Rohan Leo
Total Articles: 13
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Me? I believe strongly in Google and using Google+ as a social platform. It however, wasn’t always this way…

I have had a google+ profile from the very early days when Google+ was the new buzz word and Facebook was on a steady climb to social media glory. I however never really, and I mean really got into it. I played around a bit here and there and brushed it off as another social platform that was going to suck my time in. So it was mostly avoided and I never really spent the time to get to know it. At that time I was feeling a bit of Facebook saturation with all the game and app invites, groups where popping up left right and centre, people were becoming more personal with their status updates as relationships became social media drama’s that just had to be public, for some reason or the other? Sure it wasn’t all bad and I most certainly would over exaggerate a thing or two, from time to time… (all for dramatic and story effect of course) Never the less… I wasn’t feeling social media anymore. As much as people in the online marketing world were saying how wonderful Facebook was for business etc etc, my ...
... personal feelings prevented me from truly exploring that option.

I was stuck between a rock and hard place… I understood the importance of social media and what was capable with it. Being a start up I didn’t want to miss out and set myself in a disadvantage on purpose. All this actually moved me towards twitter… Sending a post here and there with the occasional retweet of content I found of value was much quicker than logging into Facebook and sending a post. A process I found took a lot of time as I was inevitably sucked into a news feed here, or a picture post there… It was very rarely a quick post, re-share, do some engagement and get out and still have time to do other things in the scheduled time.

I really “found” google+ properly roughly around the start of 2013. My mentor taught me about reverse marketing strategies that I absolutely loved. Seeing lead generation is my business and as a start up I didn’t have a lot of budget for solo-ads etc etc so free methods of generating leads was my thing. Free lead generation consumes time, a lot of it.
While going through the new leads I got the idea of adding all the gmail leads to my google+ profile and categorising them with circles. No emailing so I didn’t need to pay for auto-responders, or spamming etc etc When you dabble around in safe lists and traffic exchanges there is a danger of that and I did want to be just another email in the cue… I needed to start engaging with real people and having real conversations.

My new found strategy was working wonderfully… Majority of people I added to circles would add me back and we could start building relationships, as it turns out Google+ is a great place for creating relationships. Especially if the relationships you are building are business relationships. A major difference is that I am A LOT more serious about my businesses (more about that later) and the more I am getting into google+ the more I am realising that Facebook and Google+ should not actually be compared…
For several reasons…

Google+ is google… It is connected to the largest search engine in the world… All that lovely content you seeing on Facebook? It was probably found on google first. Also, think Google Drive, Gmail, keyword planner, Blogger, and of course Google search.
Google+ is not actually a social network as most perceive it to be. It is a platform that is creating a massive change in the way we communicate with each other online and interact with websites. The richness of features it provides should be enough for you to put your fears aside, open up and start learning. *Hint Communities*
Google+ has hangouts… Which means, no cost, video conferencing which can be linked to YouTube directly. Yes, have a live global broadcast in real time then save it to YouTube for later and keyword optimisation etc. GoToMeetings should be afraid… Once the masses understand the value of Hangouts… Things are going to change, and the change will be quick!! And yes, you can have a hangout from your smart phone. Did you know – Hangouts can be started straight from gmail or your Google+ page?
Circles… Circles lets you organise your contents in whatever categories you want. From friends to family to business contacts and back again. This then allows me to send content and information that will find that content valuable and who want to read it. There is much greater control over who sees your posts than any other platform and this for me is awesome…
I am able to do my Facebook and Twitter marketing right from within my Google+ stream. I do one post and I can be sure the rest of my social media platforms are going to benefit as well. With the help of a tool or plugin or two all this is possible!! This bonus is one that really attracts me to Google+… I am sure there are similar tools for the other networks, it just seems a lot easier and doable inside Google+.
Facebook should actually be thanking Google the way I see it… Due to the fact I am doing my Facebook marketing through the Google+ platform, my FB business marketing/presence has been rising quite considerably.

Personally I am completely hooked and convinced about Google+… Using it I have more time to grow my business, connected and in touch, with my ear to the ground wherever I am with any platform. The more I use it the more I discover and the more my businesses are growing. I am running 3 business pages with one Google+ profile and it becomes easier to manage them the more I learn about the capabilities of Google+. It makes my hard work, and smart work balance out very nicely thank you.