Possibly the most misunderstood social media platform is Google+. It’s a lot like Facebook in that people post text and pictures of all kinds. But it isn’t like Facebook, really.
Google+ has the conferencing capabilities of Skype, the chat capabilities of Facebook, and the distinct advantage of being owned by Google.
While Google+ is perhaps misunderstood, certain users can amass a huge following. Evo Terra, who has appeared in my podcast to speak on Google+, has collected nearly 1.4 million followers. So, people do use the platform.
Google has stated that Google+ shared links do not impact search rankings, but Google+ activity can impact rankings. For instance, according to searchenginewatch.com, followers on Google+ will see your results in search more frequently than other people. They show other evidence that Google+ posts can rank more highly than other content.
This should come as no surprise. Google+ is the social media platform completely under Google’s control. That means Google is in a unique position of visibility they don’t get with other socials sites. This makes it imperative for any business to have a presence on the platform, and that presence must have content.
Many businesses have a default, automatically generated page which can, and often does, contain information that is completely false. An example of this might be categorizing a pizza place as a plastics manufacturer based on the name of the business.
Creating the business profile page and owning the content is the first step. After that, it’s up to you to add content. It can come from cross-posting blog content, or content specifically for Google+, but it must be added regularly to be effective.