By Chris Crum at WebProNews.
This article assumes you already have a Google+ account. If not, go get one of those first.
1. Go to the “Create a Page” page.
2. Pick a category. You can choose from:
- Local Business or Place (hotels, restaurants, places, stores, services)
- Product or Brand (apparel, cars, electronics, financial services)
- Company, Institution or Organization (Companies, institutions, organizations, non-profits)
- Arts, Entertainment or Sports (movies, TV, books, sports, shows)
- Other (use if your page doesn’t fit in another category)
3. Fill in the info it asks for. This will differ depending on which category you select, but is basically just basic info. It’s probably a good idea to fill out as many of the fields as possible, because the more info you give, the more Google has to work with when it comes to associating your brand with different things. This can’t hurt when it comes to search rankings.
4. Customize. Add your tagline, profile photo, etc. You can add numerous photos. It shows six at the top of the profile page, so it’s probably a good idea to fill in those at the very least.
At this point, you’re pretty much done with the set-up, but there are certainly more steps to take to promote it and make it more engaging.
5. Add content. For one, you don’t want just an empty profile. Start sharing. It’s probably a good idea to share some content even before your page has any followers. This will (hopefully) make people want to follow the profile once they do come across the page. Show people that you have interesting content worth sharing. If you’re not creating the content, this is still a good place to curate relevant content as it relates to your audience or industry.
6. Add photos and videos. Go beyond just filling in the six photos at the top. The more you add, the more engagement there is to be had. If people can look through your photos or watch your videos, that’s more time that they’re spending with your brand – especially if these photos/videos are your own content.
7. Add some Circles and Follow others. Google+ Pages don’t have to be, and quite frankly shouldn’t be one way communication channels. Follow others and get involved in conversations. You can interact with other profiles and pages as the brand.
More and more people are setting up Google+ pages all the time. I suggest looking at different ones and seeing which ones are doing things that you like, and keeping these things in mind in terms of how to apply strategies to your own business.
Think of how big Facebook Pages have been for businesses, then consider the potential search ramifications of Google’s counterpart. As I said in a previous article. You’re probably not going to want to ignore Google+ Pages.
Google+ also offers the Hangouts feature, which will let you talk face to face with people on the page (and use the various features associated with that). Your Google+ Page may become an important hub for customer service.
You know Google is only going to continue to add features and functionalities to these pages as well. As I said before, the Pages feel a bit rushed on Google’s part. They don’t even let you enable others to administer them, but that stuff is coming.