As Google has been saying for over 2 years now, Google+ (or Google Plus) is the new Google. The G+ buttons and interaction are fulfilling the desire that Google has to give you a unique, customized experience as you search and browse the web. (If you haven’t heard of Google Plus, or don’t know how to set up your page, we have a previous post on how to do optimize your profile).
The good news is I’m speaking from experience here. We weren’t invited to the Beta version of Google+, and have never been invited or featured as a recommended person to follow. We were starting from scratch, just like you.
Communities
The great thing about Google+ is you can join and interact with public communities similar to groups on LinkedIn. Like the groups on LinkedIn, communities are owned and moderated by individuals or company pages. There are private communities, and public communities, but we’ll stick with the public ones at this point to avoid confusion. There are currently lots of communities you can join or you can even start your own community that is relevant to your field.
Each community has owners and moderators, and if it is set up properly, has rules associated with it. I am going to use our Tech, Security & Social Networks Community as an example.
I joined this community over a year ago, when the community had around 10,000 members. It was started and owned by someone else, but I took an active role in participating in discussions and moderating the community. One of the big challenges with the larger communities is spam.
So I spent time removing spam and moving posts to the correct categories. After some time the owner asked me if I would like to take over the community, and I said yes. The community has since added 25,000+ members and is growing daily.
So my first recommendation is to join a community, and ask to help with moderating the community. Most owners will be grateful for the help.
Be Sure the Community is a Good Fit for You
At the top of the community you are reviewing, is the owner, and the “About this community”.
It’s important to keep these rules in mind when reviewing what community to join. Also, on the left hand side a well formed community will have different topic areas for discussion. Make sure one of the topic areas would value your contribution:
If you can’t find your topic, your posts will probably not be appreciated. So move on and find a community that does appreciate your input.
Interact
There’s nothing quite as cool as someone you don’t know commenting or +ing your post for the first time. You should return the favor. Pluses are free, and they tell the world what you like and are interested in. Use them liberally.
But more than that, comment on posts and mention people by name (to do this on Google+, just put a + in front of their name, like +Dave Burnett) in the comments. This will show up in their notifications when they log in, and if they have email set up correctly, will also send them an email.
I would recommend commenting on moderators and owner’s posts, to work your way up to being a trusted member of the community. Add value with thoughtful insights to all posts, add reference links to help others, compliment those who obviously are working hard to add value to others, and DO NOT just post self promotional posts. If you add value, you will get noticed, and recognition will come over time.
You are trying to build your audience, and there are only a couple of shortcuts to help with that, and they all involve investing in advertising.
So What to Expect?
First off, don’t expect the people who have millions of followers (or even tens of thousands of followers) to acknowledge your comments or posts at first. There are just too many other people out there trying to get their attention too. Eventually, if you make their life easy enough, they may just ask for your help and hand you a community that you really enjoy working with.
Final Thoughts to Put Things In Perspective
Our community is growing between 25 and 50 members per day, and we made our AOK Marketing company page the owner of our community about 2 weeks ago. Since that time as an owner, our company page is adding 2 to 3 followers per day. That number isn’t crazy, but certainly respectable follower growth and over time will amount to a lot of great people in our audience. Hopefully one day you will be there too!
Happy Marketing!
Dave Burnett
About The Author
