5 Things Marketers Should Know About Generating Leads on Google+

Google+ boasted an audience of 29 million unique visitors in the U.S. in November, according to comScore.

This puts Google’s social network behind Facebook (150 million), LinkedIn (41 million) and Twitter (40 million), but ahead of Pinterest and Instagram (25 million each). This is a solid position for Google+, one that’s even better when you take into account that it’s now impossible for any Google account holder to avoid creating a Google+ profile and that the social network is so ingrained into Google’s other services.

So for marketers, the case for having a Google+ strategy is easy to make. But how should they approach Google’s social network to generate leads? We spoke with a few experts to get some ideas:

Search, SEO and user experience
Jesse Stay, author of “Google+ For Dummies,” says the focus of Google+ should be on search. “It is not a typical social network like Facebook, or even Twitter, although it could be argued the audiences of Google+ would be similar to that of Twitter’s more than Facebook’s,” he says. “Google+ is simply a social layer on top of all Google properties. Therefore, when developing a strategy on Google+, marketers need to be thinking about how each post will reflect Google search via Google.com, even more than they are focusing on engagement, +1’s, and other typical social metrics.”

“The beauty of Google+ is that brand SEO is optimized for Google+ Circles,” says Steve Goldner, senior director of social marketing at Ryan Partnership. “If a given person comments on a brand’s post or mentions that brand, their Circles will see referenced URLs listed first when they do an applicable search on Google.”

Goldner also notes that Google+ offers a more palatable venue for brands engaging consumers. “The Circles features also allows users to see brand posts when they want as opposed to being mixed into their personal networking and communication.”

Integrating the ‘+1’ button
“Integrate the ‘+1’ button everywhere,” just as you would with the Facebook “like” button and the Twitter “Tweet” buttons, says Ian Smith, director, engagement marketing at mOcean. He cites the benefits to search rankings, lending support to the focus Stay recommends. “The idea is that the more you use it, the higher your business will appear in search results,” Stay says.

Trending terms
As with Twitter, Google+ has trending terms, which are visible to the right of a user’s stream. “Marketers should take advantage of this, and find non-spammy ways to insert themselves into the conversations around these terms,” Stay says. “The potential to influence the terms yourself is also greater, at least so long as the audience on Google+ is smaller than Twitter’s, because there is less competition for those terms than on Twitter. All of this, of course, increases leads and interest for brands for specific marketing purposes.”

Hangouts
Casual Google+ users probably know how fun and engaging Hangouts can be. For the uninitiated, Google+ Hangouts are essentially video chats that can host up to 10 participants. Marketers should consider how this unique aspect of Google+, one that sets it apart from the other major social networks, can be used for engaging prospects and customers.

“Hangouts can be used to hold open forums or discussions with a business’s consumer base,” Smith says. “Disney did this with the film ‘Lincoln.’ They held a Hangout forum that was invite-only and included Steven Spielberg.”

It’s about people
The foundation of interactions on Google+ must be that the social network is more about people than brands, according to Stay. For brands, this means finding a person within the organization to bring a personality and face to its Google+ presence and conversations.

Stay adds that Google’s emphasis on “Author Rank” in its search results is a part of this emphasis on people. This means employees should have their names and content on the brand’s website linked back to their Google+ profiles.

For more on the importance of authorship and how it relates to Google+ along with other important things marketers should know about Google+, see this video from Christopher Penn,