If you’re promoting yourself on Facebook and Twitter, do you really need to be on Google+? Absolutely! 

With more than 350 million active users, Google+ recently edged out Twitter as the world’s second largest social network. If that’s not a good enough reason to get onboard, here are nine more.
1. Google Pays More Attention to Its Own Network
Fair or not, your posts get noticed and indexed more quickly in Google when you put them on Google+ than when you post to Facebook. If you think about it, why wouldn’t they? Google+ is GOOGLE! If you also maintain a YouTube channel, you can give yourself a huge boost in Google’s search results because the search engine integrates its content and looks at your presence as a whole. If it sees you everywhere on its network, it’s going to pay more attention – and pass that information on to searchers.
2. Google+ Hangouts Let You Host Virtual Meetings
If you’re on Google+ and you own a webcam, you can do free live streaming video chats with multiple people simultaneously. Best of all, you don’t need to hold the chat on Google+; you can host it on YouTube or even your own website! Everyone gets to see the other participants in the video chat as well, as long as they all use their webcams. Think of the potential here. You can conduct business meetings, give presentations, do a workshop with your customers, and so much more!
3. Google+ Circles Let You Divide and Conquer
Yes, Facebook offers certain features that let you share your posts somewhat selectively. But Google+ Circles stands head and shoulders above Facebook for its flexibility and ease of use. You can give your circles any name you wish, and add people to more than one circle. When you make a post, you can easily select exactly which Circle or Circles get to see it. So if you’ve created a Circle for clients who bought a particular software package, for example, you can post directly to them – and only them, if you wish – about bug fixes and enhancements. But I’m sure you can come up with many other ways to use this great tool!
4. Google+ Lets You Write All You Want
Do you feel limited by 140 characters as it is with Twitter? Google+ won’t put the squeeze on your words. You can make a post of any length you want, and even format it and add graphics. You can disable comments to your post if you want, or simply moderate them. How’s that for letting you communicate with your audience?
5. Google+ Gives You Wings, er, Mobility
Do you prefer Android or iPhone? How about BlackBerry? Or do you use a Windows-based phone? It doesn’t matter; Google+ offers specialized apps to cover them all. This means you can post from anywhere, and your audience will see you from anywhere. It’s more than a matter of convenience. With more than half of adult Americans owning smartphones these days, you definitely want to reach this audience.
6. Google+ Ripples Let You Track Your Posts
Throw a pebble in a lake, and you see ripples coming out from the center. Put a public post on Google+, and you can use Google+ Ripples to track it. As Google explains, Ripples will show you who has publicly shared a post and the comments they’ve made, and how that post was shared over time. Use this feature repeatedly, and you may be able to spot trends. Depending on what you learn from using Ripples, you could get inspiration for your next post, a new feature, or even a whole new product line!
7. Google+ and YouTube, Great Together
Remember what I said about Google paying more attention to its own network and looking at your presence on it as a whole? It’s easy to share from YouTube to Google+, and vice versa. Check it out; YouTube gives you a Google+ tab, and you can get a YouTube tab on Google+. If you’re even thinking of posting videos to YouTube or starting a channel, this feature will make promotion that much easier.
8. Tell Google+ Your Content is Yours
If you maintain a blog, you want Google to know that what you wrote belongs to you — not the so-and-so who copied your content and posted it as their own. All you need to do is add your blog to your Google+ Profile, and you’re set. Even better: if you included your picture in your Google+ Profile, that image will appear next to the link to your blog posts whenever they turn up in a Google search now. This will add an air of authority when your posts turn up in a search, and make searchers more likely to click through. After all, wouldn’t you be more likely to read a post if you can see who wrote it?
9. All This, And Google+ is Only Two Years Old
Google never stands still when it comes to improving its services. Granted, it will remove services that aren’t doing well, but the social network’s integration with other Google services is a good sign that Google+ will be around for the long haul. That means it’s going to keep getting better. The service even offers a dedicated site for businesses trying to get the most out of the social network.
I hope I’ve convinced you that it’s well worth your time to check out Google+’s features. Give it a try; you will be very pleasantly surprised! Leave me a comment below on something you picked up that you did not know…
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9 thoughts on “9 Reasons You Need To Be Using Google+ NOW!”
Great article Kim. As usual, you keep up with the latest developments and generously share them with everyone. I will be utilizing these tips. Much appreciated. Thanks.
Thank you Jim! I can’t wait to hear about your results!
I keep saying I am going to post more often on Google+ but forget. Fortunately I have a social media assistant who is happy to do it for me…just need to remember to tell her 🙂
I think G+ is becoming more important, except it still is a ghost town when compared to facebook.
I really love the hangouts. I’ve used it several times for webinars and they work out great.
Hangouts are a lot of fun! I have done many interviews through them too…
I would think it would depend on what you are trying to build out over there… many people are not concentrating on their business page as it is more difficult to connect so they build out themselves personally and the community instead.
Great article Kim! Okay it’s time to roll up the sleeves and dig in this week. It’s “Conquer Google+ Week” 😉
Great article Kim. Google+ is awesome! Any growing business needs to be taking advantage of this tool. My company develops software for truck drivers and we have found that there is an overwhelmingly massive community of truck drivers on Google+. Besides the great SEO and exposure benefits the “Circles” feature is great. I can put clients in one circle, co-workers in another, and friends in another!
YES! Exactly, Bryan! Love how you are leveraging Google+…the segmentation capability is so huge!