Since Google + was launched a few months ago, the presence of any business was initially left out of the equation. Yesterday Google opened up its Business Pages to the Public and our staff and myself have been creating pages of some of our clients and our own CIMA IT Solutions Google+ Profile.
We wanted to share with you 5 initial tips on quickly enhancing your Google+ Branded Company pages.
Take a look at the video we included below with simple instructions on creating a page. Below are some more details on how we set up our page.
Create a Short link for your page
As soon as we set up our page we went ahead and created a shortcut on http://gplus.to for CIMA IT Solutions Corp. We ended up getting a shorter link that is http://gplus.to/cimapr. Google + is known for having long urls to reach the profile.
Another option towards creating your own short link is if you use the Genesis Framework like we do on wordpress. By creating a Redirect url (a trick I learned from my friend @ChrisBrogan) like this one http://cimapr.net/gplus . This link will move people towards your Google+ branded page.
Complete your Business Profile
To give your profile and page some credibility, I highly recommend including as much information as possible but keep it brief. Feel free to include enough information to spark the interest of those that landed on your Google+ Branded Page. We made sure to give it the human touch and added links to the profiles of our teams and leadership.
Share Your Content
If you already have content created on a blog feel free to add a few of your best past posts. We will be sharing past posts and new ones as they become available. This is yet another way to get new people interested in the previous content you have created.
Add Some Photos
What a better way than to add life to your Business Page Profile in Google+ than adding photos of the company or organization’s events. Make sure to share the story behind the pictures. This might spark a few conversations and keep Google+ users interested in what you are currently doing or generate questions about past experiences.
We will be writing and sharing a series of posts on this new channel for business. If you need help in enhancing your Google + Branded Pages feel free to contact us or in the comments area.
Also feel free to subscribe to our newsletter to get future posts on the subject.
Additional Resources we found online
A post on Google+ from Susan Beebe
Pages are extremely similar to profiles, but they have some key differences:
– Pages can’t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned. Learn more.
– Pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people.
– The default privacy setting for elements on your page profile is public.
– Pages have the +1 button.
– Pages can’t +1 other pages, nor can they +1 stuff on the Web.
– Pages can’t play games.
– Pages don’t have the option to share to ‘Extended circles’.
– Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, or in the Google bar.
– Pages can’t hangout on a mobile device.
– Local pages have special fields that help people find the business’ physical location.
– Learn more about local pages.