Google Plus opened its doors for business pages yesterday. Far out, right?
Boom! I’m suddenly getting swamped with requests to follow new G+ business pages.
So let’s say you’re a business communicator. And you’re posting the exact same content to your Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus pages today.
Oh, uh! You’re being redundant.
Think about your audience. Let’s say I’m one of your most rabid brand fans. I follow you EVERYWHERE: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and now — Google Plus.
Now — let’s also say I publicly ask the question: where you would like me to follow you? Take your pick. If your content at each venue is mostly the same — why should I follow you everywhere? Let’s take a look at three common yet unsatisfactory answer categories:
- You tell me that if I was a real fan, I’d follow you at all three and put up with your tiresome repetition — because that’s what real fans do. I should suffer. Love means putting up with thoughtlessness and boredom. (Uh-oh. I just went from thinking you’re wonderful to thinking that you’re an abusive jerk.)
- Or maybe you tell me that I should follow you wherever the heck I want. It doesn’t matter to you, it’s really all about me getting your messages in a way that I most enjoy. (Congratulations! You’ve just revealed that your whole “it’s personal” mantra is a load of manure. Social media is a mass marketing play to you.)
- You apologize, explaining that your audience is significantly different at each venue, so you need to be redundant to reach as many people as you can. (Oops! Telling me ‘the audience is significantly different’ is saying that I’m insignificant! Also, think about it: if your audiences are indeed ‘significantly different’ — why not develop significantly different messaging to appeal to their different needs?)
Yes, none of these three responses defending redundancy seem quite correct. At this brief moment in history, you have an almost risk-free opportunity to experiment with audience messaging. Google Plus Business Pages are brand-spanking new. Instead of redundant posting, what might you do to deepen or extend engagement with your brand’s biggest fans?
- Take some time out for audience identification. What’s different about each audience? How can you appeal to different needs and desires?
- Take some time to think through your content strategy. Instead of repeating the exact same message to three unique audiences — what might you do differently to be more appealing to each?
How might you offer your biggest fans an enhanced experience with your brand or business?
PS – Yes, I’ve created a Google+ business page. But I’m not promoting it yet — not until I’ve completed an audience profile and developed a content plan. You?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for bringing up this topic – I always wonder why people send invitations to follow them? In an ideal world, we should follow people we want to follow rather than accept invites that come to our inboxes. Still love getting an email when my favorite blogs get updated — for some reason, that works better for me than RSS feeds, RSS readers, tweets, text messages, and every type of communication being “pushed”. One exception is LinkedIn and Facebook discussions — those are great!
Thanks, Geetesh.
I’m really happy to follow people I like, too. And I’m really happy when they let me know where they are.
But when the content is exactly the same at each venue: I struggle with their rationale.
As I work through my own Google+ content plan, I’m thinking about “what does a Google Plus audience want that they can’t get at other venues?”
I’m finding fewer people at G+ — but deeper and generally more stimulating conversations. Perhaps this is an opportunity to deepen relationships, as well. For example, perhaps businesses can use the G+ Hangout feature to dive deeper into conversations with fans & customers. That’s something I’m noodling with.
Another idea: the photo quality & tools at G+ are far superior to Facebook. This could be the place to highlight more photographic and design work.
Just in the incubation stage at this point — but it’s something to consider.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks Laura, that makes perfect sense. Love the photo integration that G+ offers with Picasa. But putting all my stuff into the Google stable is a little scary — holding on to my Flickr Pro account for some more years. Just read this post about G+’s photo censorship – you might want to read it too: http://fleetingglimpseimages.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/whats-in-a-name-google-censorship-thats-what/
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post.
Thanks for this Post, Laura.
I’m going to explore G+, but don’t want to jump in with too much.
Scrolling through FB and seeing multiple posts by people turns me off, and I’m sure, others.
Regular readers and those searching for what you offer will find you.
Being in too many places, too often can be a turnoff.
Great Content, and not self-promotion, is king. Too much content in too many places can be seen as self-promoting.
Thanks for the Post!