Start-Up Guide

Google +: Strengths and weaknesses

The highly anticipated social network Google + is making a splash in the social networking community. But how will it fare against established social networks? Social networking often becomes part of a daily routine, and whether Google + can integrate into that routine will have a hand in determining its success.

It has some advantages over Facebook, especially when it comes to privacy. By organizing friends and connections into Circles, you can easily control who sees what content. This makes it easy to use one Google + account for both personal and business networking. You can share work-related content with business contacts and associates, while posting vacation pictures and weekend plans for friends and family only. Facebook has similar controls, but they can be difficult to find and manage, giving Google + the advantage on this point.

The open networking of Google + allows you to follow people that you don't necessarily know, similar to the way you would on Twitter. This can help you follow other thought leaders in your industry. Another advantage of Google + is the Hangouts chat feature. It gives you the opportunity to do a live webcam chat with any of your Circles. That makes it a great virtual office tool for businesses who want to stay connected on one simple platform.

The biggest disadvantage to Google + at this stage is inertia. The site is so new that it is not yet ready to scale to the billions of users already seen on Facebook and Twitter. As it opens its doors to everyone, it can take some time for your friends, family, and contacts to migrate to this new service. It helps if they already have Google accounts. But you may also find some resistance from people who already feel like they are managing too many social networks; they may think they do not need another account to deal with.

The key to the success of Google + will be overcoming this resistance and quickly growing its member base so that it can compete with the well-established existing social networks in the long term.

Using Social Media To Help Grow A Business

Small businesses today should take advantage of the latest social media trends to help grow their customer and client base. Setting up profiles on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook is free, making these profiles great ways for small businesses to market themselves. Of course, if you have a large advertising budget, you can always pay for your business' profile to be promoted with ads, which can help you reach even more potential customers.

Many businesses make the mistake of being too formal on Twitter and Facebook. While you should always try to maintain your professional image, social media lets you connect with your customers in a somewhat casual environment, and you should take advantage of this opportunity to build relationships with your customers. Encourage your social media marketing team to engage and interact with customers, and make sure that your business only posts interesting, informative, or funny updates.

Another mistake some businesses make is to create social media profiles but then rarely update their content or monitor their activity. Social media is all about interacting with customers, so you need to have an active social media presence. It is also important that you respond to any customer complaints right away. Try to show your other social media fans that you take your customer service obligations very seriously. If they see you resolving problems that will know that you value each customer's business and want their experience with your company to be positive. Also, any spam that is posted to your business’ profile should be deleted.

You can attract more social media fans if you give people who follow your company online something of real value. Let your Facebook fans and Twitter followers know about special sales and offers. You should also consider giving special coupons to your social media contacts. This will give them a reason to keep following you, and because they are getting a real benefit from your company, they will be more likely to tell their friends and family members that they should follow you as well.