Social media focus: Google+

Whenever I mention Google+ in presentations or talks about social and digital tools for hotels, I get a lot of blank stares and the occasional whispered “Is Google+ still around?”, so it’s perhaps time to look a little deeper into Google’s “social networking” offerings.

Founded in 2011, Google+ grew to 500 million registered users within its first year and currently has approximately 235 million active monthly users.

Perhaps surprisingly, Google+ surpassed Twitter earlier this year and is now the second largest social networking site in the world, yet a lot of internet users and marketers still seem to have difficulties in trying to make sense of the service.

The main reason people struggle with Google+, in my opinion, is that it’s so much more than just a social network. Google+ isn’t Facebook and never set out to challenge Facebook or even replace it.

Rather, Google+ is Google’s attempt to influence the long-running power struggle between “search” and “social” and make “being social” online a little more like ‘being social’ in real life.

Traditionally strong in “search”, Google realised that its weakness was social networking — a domain firmly occupied by Facebook, which, however, until recently wasn’t a very useful service for searching for things (if you have ever tried to find a particular piece of information through a search on Facebook, you know what I am referring to).

To gain market share and capture more than just “search” users, Google created Google+. Part social network, part identity service (i.e. it provides users with an online identity for use across a large variety of platforms and services, which can also be tracked by web analytics and marketers), part “central hub for everything Google” (i.e. it integrates all other Google products, e.g. YouTube, Picasa, etc.), Google+ is still constantly evolving.

Online Connections
At the heart of Google+ are “circles” – your online connections. As an individual Google+ user, you might decide to split your online connections across circles like “friends”, “work colleagues”, or “people I went to school with” — it’s far easier to “segment” your Google+ connections than it is to group your Facebook friends. As a result, you can share updates in a far more targeted and secure manner on Google+.

This also works from a business perspective using Google+ brand pages. You could, for example, divide your followers into categories like “UAE”, “bloggers”, or “people interested in Italian food”, which gives you highly useful, segmented, marketing lists and allows you to share the right content with the right people at exactly the right time.

Perhaps the best incentive for maintaining an active Google+ brand page for hotels is the strong integration of Google+ business pages into Google search. Provided you update your Google+ company page consistently, internet users searching for your hotel on Google will be greeted by a highly visible Google+ company page box on the right side of their screens.

A lot of information is at their fingertips, from the address, contact telephone number, right through to the ability to enquire about availability and room rates. The box also shows your page’s most recent post – an added attraction for users to click for further information.

Used this way, a Google+ company page becomes a weapon in your fight for market share and considerably increases your property’s online visibility.

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Extra Benefits
Wait! There’s more! Google+ offers a variety of tools, which you might find useful. Like on Facebook, you can create events and invite people.

Unlike Facebook, such events can be “virtual” and hosted via Google+ “Hangouts” (live audio/video chats) — great for press conferences, presentations to travel agents overseas, or even live coverage of occasions like openings, festivals, exhibitions, etc. To make things even neater, you can record “hangouts” at the click of a button and upload them to your YouTube channel.

By combining your Google+ company page with other Google tools, such as YouTube or Google Local and Google Maps, you can create a vast and totally connected online experience for your visitors.

Adding a Google+ ‘share’ or ‘like’ button to your website, blog or email campaigns not only allows users to share your content with others, but also increases the search rankings of such content.

So what does it take to create a successful Google+ company page? Google+ is a lot more visual than Facebook with more space for your page’s banner photo and a more elegant and stylish way of displaying visual content posted to your page.

Not surprisingly then, you should post a large number of good quality pictures or even videos. Also make sure that you complete the “About” section of your company page fully and include as many links to other sites of interest as possible.

You can link to your other social networks and your website, of course, but also include links to recent press coverage or your listings on review websites.

Create as many “circles” as you find useful — the importance of targeting and segmenting in today’s marketing world cannot be underestimated! For example, why not create a circle for guests living locally? You could then share last minute food and beverage offers with a local audience in a matter of minutes.

Unlike Facebook, Google+ offers you the option to alert your connections about your update by email automatically and in real time, which increases the numbers of people who see and read your updates dramatically.

Google+ is a far less hectic place than Facebook or Twitter, so don’t feel forced to update your company page daily. Once every couple of days will do nicely. The slower pace does have its advantages, because it makes it easier for users to see your updates and also means that they’re more likely to read longer updates. Because of this, your hotel may be able to create a much more direct and personal relationship with its audience.

Lastly, don’t forget about analytics – Google+ integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics and makes it easy to track clicks, referrals, and other useful data. Recently, I have taken a closer look at the analytics data for some hotels with active Google+ company pages and compared it to hotels without a presence on Google+ and I was surprised to see how much traffic Google+ referred to the hotels’ websites.

Whatever you do: Keep it social!

About the Author:
Martin Kubler is owner, director and chief cook and bottle washer of Iconsulthotels FZE, an ultra-boutique hospitality consultancy in Dubai.
Email: info@iconsulthotels.com or visit facebook.com/iconsulthotels