You know about Tweets and Likes and Pins, but do you know about +1s? You should – they are potentially far more valuable to your business than all the previously mentioned social media approvals! We’re talking, of course, about Google+ (Google Plus), the second-largest social networking service in the world after Facebook with hundreds of millions of active users interacting with other Google-owned properties like Gmail, +1 and YouTube.

Every month, 300 million Google+ customers are active in ‘the stream’ (equivalent to the Facebook news feed) – which is where your business wants to be.

To put these numbers into perspective with some Wikipedia statistics…

• Facebook now has over 1.15 billion users
• Twitter now has over 550 million registered users and 215 million monthly active users
• Google+ now has over 1 billion enabled accounts and 359 million active monthly users
• YouTube has over one billion monthly active users

Needless to say, Google+ is available both as a website and on mobile devices (which we love). In just under a single day in July 2011, the Google+ iPhone app became the most popular free application in the Apple App Store; more proof, as far as we at Academic Ads are concerned, that the mobile shift is here to stay.

What exactly does Google+ do, and how can it help your business? One of its core features is ‘Circles’ (how does Google get so good at churning out snappy names?). Circles lets users organize people into different groups for sharing content, so that work people get the work-related posts, family can see personal content, etc. Of course, content can also be available to the general public if the user wishes. The sheer controllability of the Circles feature makes it a great place for people to share, say, experiences they had with your business – with people who are likely to use your business, too.

Now for that +1 button…Google+ created this button to allow people to recommend sites, just like Facebook’s Like button. But the amount of +1s a website has, has been correlated to higher Google search rankings – which is widely recognized as a key business-driving metric. In addition, users can track trending topics on the ‘What’s Hot’ Stream, so the more Google+ users have commented on your business, the more new potential customers will see it.

Another cool business-promoting feature creating free advertising for you: Google+ Local, which allows users to post photos and reviews of locations. Additionally, Google+ Local and Maps also now feature detailed reviews and ratings by Zagat, which was acquired by Google in September 2011.

As you may have heard, Google+ is skewed to a slightly older, slightly more male membership. In our humble opinion, that’s no reason for stigma; after all, what is the business world skewed to? We’re convinced that Google+ is a great tool in the small business toolkit, but it takes effort to establish a good presence there.

Let Toronto’s leading full service online marketing firm, Academic Ads, do the heavy lifting:

• Establish an attractive profile with posts, content and byline all linked to your domain
• Track when you are capturing your audience’s attention the most so you can repeat the timing of these endeavours
• Optimize your keywords, business description and About/product content for advanced SEO
• Manage your campaigns by creating events for your special offers, webinars, sales, parties, etc.
• Get the most followed and influential people into your Circle

Get organized. Get Academic Ads to manage your Google AdWords and your Google+ account. Then sit back and watch as your business gets on the map. Get in touch with us today for a free consultation!