What is the Value of a shirtless dancing Google plus follower?
What if I told you that I could get you 250 brand spanking new followers on google plus for five dollars? Well I am sad to report, you can. I will embed the post at the bottom of this blog so you can read the full discussion later.
What if I told you it takes work and is a long term investment to build a loyal following?
Well, it is, so if you are looking for a shortcut, sorry no silver bullet here.Growing followers on Google Plus is like comparing fast food to a home fine dining, you get what you pay for, whether it is time or money.
Let’s start with a story about one fan. Do you remember the story about the one guy at a music event that was dancing by himself, shirtless and shoeless? Most looked on him as pretty foolish and even laughed. Well then another person decided to dance with him, then a third, then two more, until there were hundreds of people dancing. This is what growing a following of engaged active and relevant users is like.
Watch this Hangout on Air that discusses the meaning of the first followers and why your new followers matter. (30 mins) – TimeStamped Version
You are the first dancer. As a leader, you must be the first one to dance to your personal or business brands tune. As others start to follow you, they will attract more like minded people, until they become a throng of fans all spreading your message.May you be so lucky that you get just to a few real shirtless, shoeless followers dancing around your brand!
Note in the above story, one fan (engaged follower) attracts a lot of other like minded people that grows into a sustained massive follower base that Google itself can understand like a computer.
Recall. Google knows all the details about every user using their products. So this information is relate-able back to your business especially if you engage with them.
What about Google Plus why is that so important?
That is a discussion worthy of many blog articles, and here is one, two, three… Ok a fourth about that subject.
Let’s start by defining where Google plus started.
In Eric Schmidt’s book, released in late 2014 “How Google Works” he reactants a tale of how Bradley Horowitz (who was in charge of social) and Vic Gundotra (who was in charge of Google’s mobile first vision) were at lunch one day and started talking about a new plan to reinvent Google for the social web and bring about innovation for consumers. The byproduct of that meeting was to become code name “emerald sea”, now known as Google plus.
To put what Google Plus is into the simplistic of terms, and I quote Eric Schmidt “Google Plus is the social fabric that weaves together Google’s various platforms from Adwords to YouTube.”
So, to put that all into perspective, a Google plus follower is exposed to your brand on all Google’s products in one way or another.
Well let’s see what the benefits are of an earned engage and active follower.
- Brand posts show in personalized search
- Comments from YouTube.
- Increased brand page views.
- Increased engagement on posts.
- Recommendation engine , new followers from those who know your engagers
- Semantic relevance, new followers help Google understand your business better.
- Authority and influence.
- Buzz, no not Google Buzz, the product.
But imagine people all over recommending you when someone asks for an expert in their field? Would you benefit from that? When Google Plus followers are added to a overall marketing campaign, we can see the results!
34SP.com is a Local, UK hosting company. They went from 0 to 1000 engaged followers in 2 months. Here is what we found when comparing August (the date we started) to October 2014.
**Note: No other new marketing activities were added except G+**
- Reached over 1000 followers from 0
- Grew from an average of 19K views to 77K view per day on Google Plus Brand Page
- New Website Users +2.98% 49,687 vs 48,250
- Bounce rate improved: -5% (71.03% vs 74.81%)
- Goal conversion rate: +320.32% 29.05% vs 6.91% That is completed goals
increasing from 332.83% 14,435 vs 3,335 - Pages per session: +5.63% 2.07 vs 1.96
- Average position in Google Search Queries: +88.27% 3.5 vs 22
So what about other social networks, I can buy crazy shirtless dancing followers there too right? Yup, you can. As a matter of fact you can buy them in the thousands. The problem with these guys is they dance alone even though they are part of a big number. Sure, if can be seen as “social proof” *cough* vanity numbers *cough* but they are still for the most part dancing alone, and when they do attract another dancer, the dance is short lived — if even seen!
So therefore, before you think about taking a shortcut, and buying followers. Try and think about the impact those followers will have on your brand and business. Marketing your business is a marathon, not a sprint. Go for quality over quantity and you will have a following that, at the end of the day, is dancing to your tune!
Here is the debate that started this article, read the comments for even more insight.
Then please share your thoughts in the comments.
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