Optimize Your Social Media

It is sometimes difficult, I know, just to keep up with posting to one’s own Facebook page. Even as I type this I am acutely aware that I have been building websites, managing SEO, creating Facebook posts and ads, writing articles, fixing email DNS problems, etc., all for other people’s businesses.  And all this is because these things are my business.  The dirty little ironic secret is that my own Facebook page and G+ page are woefully delinquent.  That’s it! If you want the long and short of it, well, there’s the short of it, plain and simple. Everyone knows you need to optimize your website for search engine consumption. And you need Facebook posts and blogs and ads, and, and, and… But most of the small business owners I know are not using Google+.

So what’s my point? My point is that I know how hard it can be to keep up with social media, let alone adding another channel to manage.  That’s one more hat to wear, one more ball to juggle, one more straw for the old camel’s backpack!  So adding G+ to your social media strategy had better be worth it, right?

It is.

Two Big Reasons to Use G+

It offers you serious SEO juice.  A well-written article on Google+ with good keywords and content (and a few of the other hidden bells and whistles the algorithms love) can score nice SEO love.  Just consider who reigns as the world superpower in the search engine realm.  It makes sense that social media channels like G+ and YouTube would help you score much better in your Google ranking.

In addition, and this was hard for me to believe, I started cold on G+ without followers and I have landed more business from it in a month than I have from Facebook. Already. Wow.  A nice article shared in the right groups can produce surprising (and pleasing) results.

There are a number of more good reasons to engage on Google+, but many others have blogged about it profusely.  So go set up your Google+ business account. Join some relevant groups. Then write a little something.  You don’t need much, just something authentic and helpful.  Share it, and be generous to “+1” (it’s a Google+ thing) some other people’s work.  Follow some whom you like, begin to get familiar with the platform and with your communities.  I trust you’ll find it a pleasant surprise, just as I have.