“Google+ is like Twitter on steroids and Facebook on a diet,” proclaimed Mana Ionescu, president of Lightspan Digital.
And so began Orbit Media’s Wine & Web event in Chicago, where Ionescu dissected the social network, shared her tried-and-true advice, and kept us laughing with cat videos & one-liners.
Ionescu – whose company specializes in social media, digital marketing and email marketing – shared these Google+ tips with a packed room of listeners:
More Networking=More Relationships=More Leads
Although social media is fun in and of itself, the end goal for most brands is to generate more leads. “Google+ is like CRM,” she says. “You can organize contacts by target so you can easily connect with them.” She’s quick to point out the ‘bullhorn approach’ doesn’t work in social media, reminding attendees that social is “not instant business; relationships take time.”
“People don’t buy from brands, they buy from people they like and trust.”
The nature of social networks is real and unedited. Make sure you’re taking off your brand hat and being transparent and helpful. “Figure out what your story is,” Ionescu recommends. And then build your Google+ page around that story.
Get ‘Peopling’
Perhaps one of Ionescu’s favorite words of the night, People is what Google renamed the Circle function. This function allows you to put connections into groups to “segment, target, focus.”
“If you aren’t on Google Local, you don’t exist.”
Enough said.
“It’s all about traffic.”
And to that effect, Andy Crestodina, Orbit Media co-founder and strategic director says, “Traffic is Hope.” With this in mind, another important tactic content creators should harness is Google Authorship. Ionescu pointed out that posts with Authorship generate 40 percent more clicks than those without.
In short, Ionescu says of Google+, “It’s pretty simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple.”
Find Cision on Google+, along with Orbit Media and Lightspan Digital. Don’t forget to ‘people’ us!
