Google+ is counting on a surge of brands to bring our followers into their platform just as we did with Twitter and Facebook. A sort of amalgamation of Twitter’s brief public sharing and Facebook’s rich media, Google+ offers brands interesting sharing and listening opportunities.

In 15 minutes and only five steps, your brand can have a page on Google+.

Step One: Log In to Google+

Log into Google Plus and scroll to the very bottom of your page.

You’ll want to have a personal account before creating your brand’s page.

In your page’s footer, you’ll find a link to ‘Create a page.’ As you scroll, Google+ will keep feeding you content, making the footer a little harder to catch than you may expect. Alternatively, you can visit https://plus.google.com/pages/create.

Step Two: Select Your Page Type

Are you a local business, big brand, institution or artist? What about ‘other?’ Take your best guess, but if you’re stumped, refer to the Open Graph protocol to ensure your pages are consistent across platforms. Ironically, you can find that information through Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol Guide under ‘Object Types.’

In this example, I’ve chosen to create a ‘Company,’ though the setup is the same for Products, and Entertainment page families. Google+ Pages for Local Businesses are even easier, and require only a phone number if you’re listed in Google Places.

Step Three: Enter Your Page Information

Complete the form provided to create your Google+ page. While it might be tempting to get in-depth in your description, anything above 60 characters is likely to be trunc… [truncated.]

You’ll be asked to upload a photo or logo following this step.

Step Four: Customize your Page

Click ‘Edit Profile,’ then the section of your profile you wish to edit. With this, you can add recommended links, edit your page information and upload pictures to your scrapbook, the row of five photos on the top of your brand page.

The Google+ scrapbook images remain in the order you post them, unlike Facebook’s randomization.

Step Five: Google+ Page Administration

Congratulations on your new Google page! Like Facebook, you can ‘use’ Google+ either as yourself or as your page. As an administrator of a page, you now have a small arrow beside your name in your profile. Clicking this arrow will display a list including yourself and each page you’ve created.

Great Google+ Page! Now What?

Like Facebook and Twitter, earning business and building relationships on Google+ will require both strategy and training to develop a ‘voice’ that fits the platform, your customers and your brand. Consider partnering with an experienced digital marketing agency offering social media marketing strategy. This strategic partner should be able to offer both tactical and technical guidance unique to your company and business strategy, including ways to profit from and promote a Google+ page.

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Tags: google, Marc Frechette, social media

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at 10:48 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.