With 327 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) as reported on December 18, 2013 by Business Insider Australia, Google+ is not quite the size of Facebook with its 1.15 billion MAUs. However, Facebook has been around more than a decade, while Google+ was launched just three years ago in 2011. While it currently sits behind Facebook, Google+ has already outpaced Twitter in terms of MAUs.
Consider this: Approximately 95 percent of global Internet users use Google to search for what they want, whether it’s a nearby restaurant or a how-to tutorial. Considering Google+ is a Google product, then the likelihood of Google+ overtaking Facebook in terms of MAUs, along with every other social media platform, is as enormous as the search engine itself.
It might not be the most popular just yet, but we already know that Google+ is the single most powerful social media tool small businesses can use to boost their online presence. Why?
- Google+ is a Google product, therefore if you use it effectively and link it to your website, it has a spectacular impact upon your Google rankings! Google favours businesses that use Google products to promote their brand, funnily enough…
- It can be integrated with other powerful Google products such as Google My Business and YouTube which will boost the online presence of your business even further.
If we personally had to choose just one social media platform to use, it would be Google+. Whether you “Like” it or not, using Google+ is more beneficial for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) than Facebook. By all means use both, but please, we urge you to get on Google.
Tips:
- You must set-up a PERSONAL Google Account and Google+ profile first.
- You should then set-up a Google+ page and My Business profile for your business in the same account – similar to setting up Facebook Pages, you should have a personal profile first in order to set-up a business profile – you can then “switch” between profiles seamlessly.
- Check a listing for your business doesn’t already exist – many Google business listings were created using old Yellow Pages data. You should be able to claim and manage the listing in your existing Google Account, or request admin rights.
- Remember – one account for ALL OF GOOGLE.
WAIT – what is My Business?
Google My Business recently replaced what used to be known as Google Places for Business as well as the Google+ Pages Dashboard. If you already had a Places for Business account you were automatically upgraded to My Business back in June when the changes occurred. So you do not need to sign up again or do anything other than use My Business to manage all your business information in the one place as it appears in Google.
This includes your information as it appears in your Google+ profile, your business’ address on Google Maps, phone number and business hours. Make sure the contact information in your My Business profile matches the information on the contact page of your website – Google will recognise the two match and acknowledge your efforts to provide consistent information by boosting your website’s rankings!
Based in Geelong, GOOP provides online marketing strategies and assistance to help small businesses achieve success with their online presence. Contact us for enquiries about how we can help you navigate Google+ and other online marketing tools.