Eight Social Media sites that can help your business.
Part 2 of 4 – Google + and YouTube
There are many more than these eight social media sites but these eight have caught my attention and should every business person. Just understand that they aren’t for every business. I’ll explain in each. I’m also looking for comments to let me know what more they can each do and other social media sites we should be letting business people know about.
Google + – Building your brand and being found on search engine sites
Google + started out to be an alternative to Facebook. It has some additional features to it that many businesses love but the big downside to it is that not as many people are on it. The big plus is that everyone that likes you gets to see your posts currently. This can change as we have seen with all of the other social media sites.
Google + does put things in order of when they were posted. You can have both a personal and business listing. For sole proprietors, it is more important to have your personal one and also do the business. For businesses with multiple people online, use the business and repost or share on your personal account.
G+ integrates very well with YouTube. Because YouTube is owned by Google, Google+ is all about promoting with video and especially YouTube. It still works with the other video providers but there are benefits for using YouTube – Instant play being one of them. By promoting on Google + and have a YouTube video attached, it will help your Google organic search. Some people have found that they are getting greater positioning on Google by having a video and a post with that video on Google +.
While not as popular now, Google + is building users and it is worth posting to it for nothing more than the boost with your website ranking with Google.
YouTube –Video is now the big Social Media Sensation!
Google is the number one search engine in the world. YouTube is number two. The big advantage to YouTube is that people love to watch music and how-to videos, not to mention all the silly, funny, serious and personal videos. When you put something on YouTube and make it public, it immediately is available and optimized to Google.
I know a Chamber that creates a video for each event they do and then posts it to YouTube and then to their other social media sites. They now have quite a following on YouTube and sometimes get as many as 800 views for some of these videos. They do some funny things and are not afraid of showing off their goofy side and other times they are very serious. One of their big posts was their awards banquet. One of the award winners was the head of a very large corporation. He posted their YouTube link in their company email and the views went through the roof. So did their participation with the Chamber from that company.
I know an auto shop that has done a series of videos of how to maintain vehicles and give step-by-step instructions. Some told them they were cutting off their livelihood. Instead they have increased the amount of people that are coming to them for these services. The reason? People want to know what is going to be done and they know they are the experts in this field and are willing to share. Yes, they have some people that do their own maintenance, rather than bring it in to them, but when the customer needs more extensive work done, they are the shop that they trust.
I can’t impress how important video is in today’s world. I read an article last week that again confirmed that a video will be watched 300% more than an article with the same information in it. In fact, I will be moving some of these articles to video in the near future (This series is getting ready to be filmed). The main reason you may not want to do video is the reason I don’t: People love to print the article out and review it later. Consider if you do both. That is what I will be doing soon.
Here are some examples:
One idea is to use the voice over or music with printed words type of videos. These tell a story with a storyboard and drives home the point or message without the cost of actors. I use PowToon and Explaindio Video creators for animation and chalkboard illustrations. For a great video editor, I use WonderShare’s Video Editor 3.
For more information on any of these services or products, please contact me.
Next week I will discuss Twitter and InstaGram.
May your business thrive.
Boyd Petersen
Certified Marketing Coach
If you want to get your social media going, contact me for a package that will bring more business to your business.