Facebook and Google are two of the major players in social media and online search; full stop.
But Google has one monumental advantage over Facebook…or several hundred million, or quadrillion, or an s* load.
Due to a recent (and impending future) major Google update, intrinsically personal social info will now be mixed into the search engine results pages along with the historical norm of what Google determines to be most relevant results relative to our search keywords.
Makes sense right?
It really goes soooo much deeper than that, but we’d lose ourselves and the weather is too nice outside to waste time reading Carlsbad local marketing blog posts. And you’d probably rather undergo a root canal than continue reading about the historical functionality of the search engine giant.
So what does all this social search your world business have to do with acquiring more new local customers?
How we (local consumers) go about finding, researching, and ultimately connecting with our chosen local small businesses (you) has certainly evolved over the past few years.
Imagine if you will; a prospective customer slams a keyword search on Google – at a computer or on a phone – “Carlsbad {insert your product/service here}.”
To take a cue from Dr. Barbay, let’s just say we’ll call them widgets…
OK, back to the hypothetical keyword search…now along with the normal array of generic search results displayed to the local prospect (in which you’re still probably trying to gain additional visibility), personal content (relative to the person searching, judging they are socially active on Google+) will also be made available within the search engine results pages.
Things like customer reviews, photos, videos, and status updates from people in your local Carlsbad business’ social Google+ circles.
What impact does that have on your business digital word of mouth?
In case your ears are tuned to actually conducting business rather than constantly trying to capture the next best digital marketing tactic, listening to your customers, or having some semblance of a personal or family life, we’ll go ahead and highlight some important considerations about getting your business profile in the relatively new Google+ social search environment.
Wait, you mean to tell us that your small business is not represented in the Google+ social network?
Here’s a quick super easy 5 step program to getting started with your DIY Google+ dental profile:
1. Access the Google+ for Business sign-up page here Google+.
2. Be sure to use a BUSINESS GMAIL ACCOUNT to create your Google+ profile, if not create one and use it as the administrative account associated with your Google+ profile.
You will want staff to have access to this account, and all associated Google properties that evolve out of the Google Skunk Works…keep this in mind always when building any profile.
3. Choose your business classification – for most businesses (much like Facebook) this will be ‘Local Business or Place.’
4. Build out your profile – this is as easy peasy, follow directions and choose accordingly but no matter what do not skip the step of adding your tagline and logo or appropriate business photo.
Be concise and succinct on the tagline (what people want to know about your business, products, or services), and be mindful of the cropping of images.
Don’t waste time hemming and hawing, this info can always be updated later just get through the process and give yourself a gold star.
5. Skip all the steps to ‘notify friends’ or invite contacts to connect with your page…etc. For NOW.
Basically you’ll have an empty page right now but no use telling the world you’re on Google+ if there’s nothing valuable to share – yet.
Familiarize yourself with the functionality and all the attributes of Google+ profile; they do a great job communicating these business benefits through their videos.
Now go connect with 1LocalBusiness on Google+ and add us to your Circles and maybe we can start a Hangout and virtually discuss all this SoLoMo digital marketing!
No matter if it’s Facebook or Google+; timely, relevant, and engaging customer communications are essential to success. And the only way to define success is to track, measure, then adapt to changes within the digital landscape relative to customer communication, shopping, and buying habits accordingly.
Get familiar with the layout, functionality, sharing, circles, hangouts, and profile attributes; we’ll cover optimizing your Google+ business profile in another social centric, probably confusing DIY digital marketing blog post.
Here’s a great article to mull over for the Google+ power users out there, courtesy of PCWorld.com.
Here’s another from Reuters.
What is your biggest pain in the you know where when it comes to effectively using social media to gain new local customers?
