Social Media Marketing has been a focus of marketers for a few years now. They've become comfortable with how to use Twitter and Facebook; however, many are still in the dark on how to use Google+ for marketing. In today's guest author article, +Greg Trujillo of CT Social discusses how Google+ Communities can be used to grow your marketing reach.Google+ is an ever-expanding powerhouse for content marketers. Google has been working very hard to integrate Google+ into the majority of its services, while still providing value to the user. Although the integration into other platforms is powerful, the most powerful feature of Google+ still remains within the platform: a place where you could meet other industry professionals, local business owners, fans of the same sports team, or people who love space exploration. Google has made this possible with their addition of Google+ Communities last year.
As it stands right now, there are two basic types of communities: public and private.
Public Google+ Communities
A public Google+ community is searchable on Google+ and may or may not require a request to join. I view a public community much as I would a conference or seminar. Like a conference, a Google+ community will have a central theme. If you were to join the Google+ Updates community, it would be reasonable to believe that you will see others sharing updates that Google+ has recently rolled out. In addition, the community may talk about updates they would like to see in the future or maybe how they are individually affected by new updates. The point is engage with others in the community about this specific topic.
When you attend a conference as a participant, you don’t aggressively hand out sales material to everyone that passes you. It’s the same in communities-- this would constitute blatant and unwanted self-promotion. Of course you want to put yourself out there sometimes, and become known within the community, but it is much better to spend time engaging with the people around you. Try to expand what you know about the person through conversation. This is the way you build lasting relationships, whether you’re online or off.
In a Google+ community, posting a link to your blog or video with little to no explanation of what the content contains will garner almost no response. Instead, you may want to consider using a Google+ community as a microblog. The audience is already available in a public community, so instead of just posting a link to your article, you could write it directly into the community. As you become better known throughout the community and build relationships on communication and trust, you will find that marketing your message is as simple as talking with a few of your internet friends.
Private Google+ Communities
Later on, as you grow and develop your Google+ friendships, you may find a need for a private community. A private Google+ community may or may not be searchable on Google+, but it always requires a request or invitation to join. A private community is a little more like an exclusive party. There are many uses for private communities, though I believe Christine DeGraf does a great job of illustrating how to use a private community to grow reach and influence. Here is her original post:
The types of relationships that can be built through your private community experiences can help to grow your reach far beyond the small amount of people you get to know. As people learn who you are and what you stand for, they will advocate for your causes, helping to spread your message beyond your following.
When it comes to communities, real human conversation is the way to go. We don’t market to robots (yet), try and keep that in mind.
How have your experiences been using communities?