Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [67]
• Think of your business page as a mix of a TV station, a magazine, a telephone, and a business card. As a starting point, frame it like this. You have the opportunity to entertain, to educate, to serve and support, and to convert on your site.
• Consider encouraging more than a few people from varied departments to participate on Google+ and to collaborate on the business page. Sales, marketing, PR, and customer service are easy and obvious choices for people to tap for communicate, but don’t stop there. Do your designers want to share some of their inspirations? Could your office manager share a funny story or two about the team? Who else could add flavor to your business pages? And don’t forget HR/recruiting.
• Make your customer the hero. Most pages I visit are still focused on themselves. If you make your buyers and users the hero, it’s always more compelling. Note how Intel shared “The Sartorialist” as an example of someone using its products. That’s a great model.
• Make your About page more about conversion. Make it super easy to point your would-be buyers toward the page on your own site that you feel can best convert them. (And use conversion however you want.) Invite people to subscribe to your email newsletter. Give them simple contact information for follow-up.
• Maintain a Team circle that you will share with the people who circle your business page. Share this circle and update it regularly so that people can circle the individuals in your company that represent the brand, as well. This won’t be the right advice for everyone, but leave that to your discretion.
• When posting links to your site or blog, add something to the post on Google+. Don’t simply post links. Instead, invite even more interaction by summing up the article or post with some more information. People want more than your rehashed website. They want a unique interaction with you on whichever social platform they use.
• Be the #1 voice in your comments section. Thank people, where appropriate. Respond to questions or requests for help. Realize the multipurpose nature of comments and how some people will ask purchasing questions, whereas others might challenge your policies and methods, whereas others still might be interested in customer service concerns. If you have your marketing team answering all these different needs, the team must be educated about how to help manage the various communications that might arise there.
• Participate on a personal level and not just a business/brand level. Just because you have a business page doesn’t mean you have to steer that ship all over Google+ to comment. Use your personal account frequently to comment and respond to posts by those who have circled you on their pages. Be you, a representative of the brand, and not the brand itself. Use that kind of last experience sparingly. People respond much better to other people than they do to a corporate logo.
As I’ve said at many other points in the book, realize that these bits of advice work differently for different groups and depending on your strategy. Not everything I recommend will be useful to your model, but with a little work, you can modify it for your needs.
A Robust Business Card
As I’ve said since Google+ launched (and had to say quite often before business pages were implemented), the business page doesn’t make you a business person. It’s a robust business card. YOU do business by being a human, by representing the brand, and by encouraging interactions of value to both you and your customer or prospect. Camping out on your business page waiting for people to come and interact is like owning a shop and never setting foot