Google+ can play an essential role in your social media strategy, but if you are not managing it properly then you will not see the results you hope for. The time and energy you put into sites like Facebook and Twitter should also be divided into your Google+ community if you expect to have any success with it.

You might only have a small community, but it is still important to be actively engaged if you want to grow your following and get your brand's page to pop up more often in search results.

Here are five ways that you can form a better strategy for Google+ so that you can start bringing in the benefits of being an active member of that social community.

Stay on Top of Notifications

When you sit down to check your social media each day, make sure that you are going through your notifications on Google+. You will see who has shared your posts, added you to their circles, shares a post with you or mentions your company in a comment or post.

If they share something you post, thank them. If they share something with you or leave a comment, take time to read it and respond. If they added you to their circles, find a circle to add them to on your end.

Do a Search for Your Brand and Keywords

Another way to stay on top of your Google+ community is to keep an "ear" out for what people are saying about your brand and the industry in general. You can do a search that will bring up results of pages, posts, people and hangouts that contain your search terms. You can also filter it down so that you only get results from Google+.

Get the Ripple Effect

Google+ Ripples were introduced in 2011 and can show you how your Google+ posts are spread through user sharing. The ripples of any public post can be viewed by clicking on "View Ripples" on the drop down-menu. You will see who has shared your content and how the content is being spread. This kind of insight into what posts are being shared most often can help you know what type of content you should be focusing on to get the most benefit.

Talk About Other Brands and People

Like you, other businesses and entrepreneurs are looking for any mention of their name on Google+. To help get noticed, mention other people and brands in your posts. Link to other blogs, business owners, community members, etc. Those people and businesses will get a notification that they were mentioned. There is a good chance that they will reciprocate, leave a comment, +1 it or another beneficial action.

Set Up a Hangout

Google+ makes it easy to interact with one another and even gives you the option for some face-to-face chats with a Hangout. These offer great opportunities to have a Q&A session with customers or clients or have a casual chat with people who share similar interests.

Google+ is an important part of social media and shouldn't be overlooked. As you start to become more involved with the community, you will be able to see great growth and an increase in your brand awareness.

How have you made sure that your Google+ community is getting enough attention? What is your routine for managing your page?

Dawn Pigoni of Be Social Worldwide is a certified social marketing specialist and a social media virtual assistant. Dawn offers superb social networking, social marketing and social bookmarking to WAHMs, Small Business Owners, Internet Marketers, Affiliate Marketers, and Coaches who desire to bring stunning internet presence through social networking to their businesses. Get Dawn's free report, Social Networking today & see how she can assist you with being Social Worldwide!

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Google has become one of the top search engines used by individuals every day. When someone hears the name Google, they immediately recognize the name and know what it is. Google produces revenues over $30 billion a year and they have recognized that in order to keep producing numbers like that they must keep their services current and relevant. This realization has led to the development of Google+; it is a new social website that Google is hoping will develop the same type of following as Facebook and Twitter. Google+ is well on its way to meeting that goal; they have recently passed 250 million registered users.

Google+ has proven to be popular among individuals and businesses are beginning to notice the relevance of becoming active on the website. Many businesses have started to include the Google+ one button on their websites and other social media accounts. This button allows users to be connected with the company on Google's social media website. Adding this button to your website will allow viewers to share your content on Google+ and share it among their friends if they find it to be relevant. There is also another benefit to having your information shared among Google+ users; it shows the Google search engine that you provide quality content and this will help improve your search engine ranking.

When your company becomes part of the Google+ website, it is important that you create circles. Circles allow users to place all of their contacts into different circles. These circles can be used to group friends, business contacts and many more. Circles allow you to post certain information to different groups of people who may find it more relevant than others. This also allows you to create custom content for each of the circles you have created. Providing your contacts with information that they feel is relevant is an important way in which to improve your business.

One of the most important benefits to joining Google+ is how it can positively influence your businesses search engine ranking. Because you are constantly updating and providing your circles with fresh content, Google the search engine recognizes that and determines that your business is worthy of receiving a higher page ranking. Actively participating on Google+ also allows you to post content and information that search engines use to base their rankings on. Google+ has become an important part of SEO marketing. If you are trying to improve your SEO results, joining Google+ may be just the boost your marketing efforts need. Google+ is proving itself to be a relevant social media website. While it does require some work on your part, the benefits that it can provide your business with are well worth the extra effort.

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Ever since July 2011, Google+ has very well made its presence known in the market. While many hesitated to opt for the change, several jumped at this new introduction. The only problem was that Google+ was new to the whole system of networking and social media, in spite of the fact that the moderators tried to introduce several pages similar to social networking sites.

The Advantages of Google+

The biggest advantage of using Google+ is that; the results found have been made vigilant in the search engine as well. The ultimate advantage of this is that there will be an increase in web traffic and the publishing of your content in Google+ will be displayed as the top results of the search engine.

Though the whole procedure is still in its initial phase, it is apparent that several developments will take place in the coming future. The new system has also made room for several participatory actions which echo a certain social networking site a lot. Such features are like, comments and shares. For the most part, it is advised that a business page is launched on Google+ as soon as possible.

A comparison with Facebook

There are several features in Google+ which will duly enable you to see the whole outlay of Google inside out. Since some changes in the trend of search results were seen some time back, the Google algorithm makes the significance of the customs somewhat easy.

Not that the same is possible with Facebook. Neither the Google search engine, nor surprisingly Facebook itself can actually revert back to the topic that is relevant to access. The best that can be done on Facebook is to post new and different creations on the wall and at the most choose an update on the status.

Google Plus, to some extent follows the same trend. Several posted points of those who follow you on the new system can be seen, somewhat similar to Facebook. Nevertheless, Google+ will beat Facebook hands down when it comes to the order of the results published in the search engine.

This practice will also enable you to interact with the people who follow you on Google Plus. In fact, it is safe to say that such technique will help you to target the type of messages that will be popular and needs to be sent. Overall, Google+ has done an excellent job in tracking, segmenting and following up with the list of followers.

Moreover, there is a new method of following pages and people who are related to what you are related. Apart from an opportunity to expand your business endeavors, this is a street smart way of learning more. Gaining of information from the Google+ page which exists in Google is an advantage.

A good advice would be to make the content SEO rich. It is rather important that the keywords are placed in the exact point needed, like the subtitles and the introduction.

Ruhita is a passionate writer and she likes to write about different types of online business

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If you have a church and are looking for a method by which you can keep your congregation abreast on news, prayer requests, and schedules, the social networking service, Google+, has some great ways to manage information and filter communications.

If your church staff doesn't already use Gmail or Yahoo Mail, the first thing to do would be to sign up for a free account to either, as a valid email address from one of those services is required. Once this is done, you'll want to connect with members of your congregation. If your church had been using Gmail or Yahoo Mail in the past to communicate with the church body, Google+ will use your established email address book to show you those individuals that already have a profile. For everyone else, you are allowed to invite them to join. You will want to give your congregation notice beforehand that you will be inviting them to follow you on Google+ a couple services before starting the process, and pass around a pen and sign-up sheet so you can gather their email addresses. You may also want to briefly explain the benefits of connecting on such a website by highlighting how it can offer a new way for church members to interact.

After you have set up your profile and invited members of the church to join, you'll want to start organizing folks into circles. Circles on Google+ are groups of people who have something in common to distinguish them apart from others. Certain individuals can be sorted into more than one group. For churches, some ideas on circles you might want to include are for the youth group, Bible studies, the board of trustees, the outreach team, and the general congregation. What these circles allow you to do is filter your profile posts so that only relevant friends can see a given post. Suppose one member is in the youth group and the worship band. By dragging and dropping his profile icon into those circles on your profile, he will receive any news and updates regarding the youth group and worship band, but not be bothered with posts regarding the Bible study.

Google+ also features hangouts. Hangouts are video-chat rooms that allow you to meet with people on a page of simultaneous, live video feeds from all participants. This face-to-face group chat might be a great way for a Bible study to meet, particularly if some members are too far away or have challenged mobility. This also might be a way for prayer groups to share testimonials and ask for support in a community setting while not having to travel to the church or another house. You can also share YouTube videos in hangouts, which might be a great way for foreign missionaries to show you the work they've accomplished, all while maintaining live interaction between participants.

If you would like to get ordained to start an online church, or want to expand the options for your congregation to connect with one another, Google+ has quite a bit to offer. To read more tips on growing your internet ministry, browse the free blog at the Universal Life Church.

The Universal Life Church is an online church that allows anyone to get ordained for free. It specializes in using modern tools to further its religious goals. The church has an ongoing series detailing how you can implement services offered online to grow your own church and stay connected with current members. theuniversallifechurch.org can help you use the internet to your advantage.

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We all love Facebook, and more of us are starting to enjoy Google+ too. Social networking is now part of most people's daily life, and it is rare to go a day without checking your notifications or seeing how many crops have withered on Farmville whilst you were at work.

The largest right now, as we all know is Facebook. Almost a billion users, and Google+ stands at just under 200 million according to recent statistics released by the company.

So, what's the big deal? Well, Google+ is a decent social networking platform. Of course, people keep complaining about the huge amount of white space that exists on each of the pages, but the majority of people are enjoying the simplistic design and the fact there is a lack of advertisements, considering Google can make its money elsewhere, such as with it's AdWords platform.

It would seem Google is going strong, but competing against 1 billion people is no easy task. The majority still, and most probably always will see Google as a search engine. We all Google stuff that we need or want to know, and when we want to socialise what know with our friends, we don't go onto Google+, we log straight back onto Facebook and put it as a status update.

Google+ has some great features too, but in terms of games for users to play on the Social Network, there is a lack. As most of you know, games like Farmville and other Zynga top titles are extremely popular. In fact, just yesterday Farmville 2 was actually announced at an Unleashed event at the end of a press conference, so we can see that towards the end of the year, millions will be logging into Facebook not only to socialise, but to play a great social game that they can play with their friends, whether they know them in real life or not. Google+ seems to be going more for the Flash games approach, with titles that are popular as quick fixes for users to stay happy, including Bejeweled, Plants Vs Zombies and other popular Flash based titles. But, at the end of the day we know that the social gaming isn't everything, and as long as Facebook can continue to stay social in every way, Google+ may not stand a chance.

Of course, like MySpace, Bebo and countless other Social Networks, they all die eventually, but will Facebook hold out long enough for Google+ to die with it?

This article was written by Ashley Pearson, Editor in Chief at Suck My Trend. http://suckmytrend.com/ - Are you following us on twitter yet? @suckmytrend

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Google+ has made a mark in the social networking space. Definitely, Google+ is going to compete with Facebook in the social networking space. This article tries to answer how Google+ is different from Facebook. Reports, indicates that Google+ account base has already crossed the 1 million mark, in the first 16 days of its launch. This figure should have increased many folds by now.

What makes Google+ so popular? In my opinion, one of the outstanding features of Google+, is the concept of circles. In fact, it is nothing more than the "groups" concept available in Facebook. Google+ enables, the management of groups easier and natural. The concept of organizing groups as circles is very thoughtful. It is very difficult in Facebook, to organize your friends in groups.Using the circles concept, Google+ has provided an intelligent solution to this complexity.

Hangout feature is another innovative offering from Google+. Using this option, we can hold a video conference with all our friends at once. But Gmail also provides the capability of video chat. How is hangout different from this? Gmail video chat does not have the capability of video conferencing multiple participants. Hangout provides this flexibility. It has the intelligence to identify the speaker and can switch focus accordingly.

The integration of media on Google+ is very appealing. Photos are large and captivating when they come through your stream. The entire interface looks great.

Another nice feature provided by Google+ is the Instant Upload.Use Instant Upload to automatically save every photo you take with your phone to a private album on Google+. With the android phone user base increasing day by day, this feature is going to attract a lot of users to Google+.

Google's much promised product "Google Wave" failed miserably because people didn't really know what it was or how to use it. The reasons were very bad user interface plus poor marketing. Google+, plays it safer by mimicking, the already proven and established universe, of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter etc. In fact Google+ is a new Facebook with additional features and a simple, quick to use GUI.

Hangout may be the feature that gets the most attention and draws users to Google+. In fact, it is an awesome feature and hats off to the Google+ team in bringing this feature. But Facebook is not sitting idle. Facebook is coming up with a feature similar to Hangout in collaboration with Microsoft. The game is on.

In my opinion, both of them has enough user base and both will coexist in the social networking space.

PremKumar is a Software architect and consultant. He has over 12 years of experience in the IT Industry. He is passionate about internet, mobile phones, and computers. He invites you to visit our website below http://pickadvice.com/

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