The Google+ Business Blueprint – Part 2 – Duane Brumitt
Posted by Member Solutions on Thu, Feb 09, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
If you missed my last post, check it out here. I provided background on Google+ and the benefits Google+ can provide to your business.
In this installment, I’ll walk you through how to set up a Google+ Business Page step by step. While Google indicated that Google+ Pages wouldn’t be immediately accessible to all, they’re actually readily available. You are probably also eager to create a Google+ Page for your own business. The process isn’t difficult. Here I’ll walk you through it.
Before you start, remember this:
Step 1: Choose an Accessible Gmail Account
If we learned anything from creating our own page, it’s that Google+ Pages’ administrative capabilities could use improvement. Avoid creating your business page through just any old account, such as a personal gmail account.
Instead, choose a gmail account that is accessible to multiple members of your marketing team (e.g. companymarketingteam@gmail.com), and use that account to create your page.
Because Google+ Pages’ administrative capabilities currently aren’t as sophisticated as say, Facebook’s (which enable you to assign multiple page admins regardless of the page’s origins), you’ll want to choose a host account that makes your page as accessible to multiple contributors as possible.
The ‘Google+ Your Business’ Google+ Page has indicated that Google has already started working on multi-admin support and ownership transfer. For now, we recommend making your account as accessible to other team members as possible.
Step 2: Create a Page with the Desired Account
Visit http://plus.google.com/pages/create, and if you see the option to create a Google+ Page, get started! Follow the wizard (it’s much like Facebook’s Page creation wizard), and choose the most appropriate option to classify your business.
The following screenshot shows the ‘Create a Page’ section of Google+. As you can see, there are five categories to choose from:
Local Business or Place – These are pages specifically designed so users can interact with a business’ physical location. Local businesses can add a phone number, opening hours and a map of their location will be automatically added to their business page.
Think this sounds awfully familiar to pages on Google Places? Well, it does. The key difference however is that G+ pages provide additional ways for businesses to interact and engage their audience, and this is really the point of social media marketing.
Product or Brand – These are pages specifically for products or brands such as cars, electronics or financial services for example. Administrators can choose the ‘Page name’, choose a category for their product or brand and define who the content is suitable for (18+, 21+, all Google+ users etc.). These pages can also be linked directly to the business homepage to help users find the G+ page more easily.
Company, Institution or Organisation – This is the same as the ‘Product or Brand’ create a page option, except it applies to companies, organisations, institutions and non-profits.
Arts, Entertainment or Sport – Again, the same options available except these pages are for films, music, TV, books, sports, shows, etc.
Other – These can be used by businesses who don’t feel their page fits into one of the other categories.
The process of page creation is a fairly straightforward process, as can be expected from Google – but a key question is how can companies use their brand pages as a marketing tool, and specifically why would they use G+ pages over Facebook business pages?
After selecting your classification, fill in your basic information, including your page name (i.e. your company name), your business’ website URL, your category (i.e. your industry), and the classification of your page’s content (i.e. any Google+ user, 18 years of age or older, etc.).
Step 3: Customize Your Public Profile
The third step involves customizing your public profile. The profile basics include your tagline (think of it as your business’ elevator pitch) and an image (your company logo is a great option). Keep it concise, yet descriptive.
Step 4: Promote Your Page
At this point, you’ve created the skeleton of your page, and Google+ will now prompt you to promote your page. Our recommendation is to customize your page even further and start sharing a few updates before you begin telling the world about it.
Promoting a blank page isn’t a great way to convince people that your page is valuable enough to add to their Circles. So invest some time into optimizing your page and sharing a few links to valuable content before you start promoting it to the masses.
At the most basic level, these steps are really all you need to do to get your page launched. But as any smart marketer knows, the ‘basics’ aren’t usually enough.
In my next post, I’ll share specific best practices to help optimize your Google+ business page.
Happy Marketing,
Duane Brumitt
http://www.tristarkarate.com/
duanebrumitt@tristarkarate.com
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Duane Brumitt is the co-founder and owner of Duane Brumitt’s Tri-Star Martial Arts Academy in Bradley, Illinois. Duane is also a member of the Member Solutions Martial Arts Business Advisory Team.
Are you using Google+ yet for your business? Have a tip of your own? Post it below, then share this article on your social networks!
