TJ35 – Google Plus Your Business Reach: Engagement Strategies For Your G+ Circles with Martin Shervington

Hey what’s up there listener? Welcome back to Traffic Jam, the podcast show that teaches you how to get more traffic, leads and sales and build a profitable audience online. I am your host James Reynolds and this is episode#35. Jamming with me on today’s episode is Martin Shervington from PlusYourBusiness.com for surprisingly, a conversation all about Google+. Following of course Martin’s interview we’ll have all of the regular segments: this week’s news in traffic, the one minute traffic tip, and of course, to play out the show, the Traffic Jam jam chosen by Martin.

So what have we got in the agenda in today’s interview? We’re going to be talking about Google+ etiquette, effective content creation for Google+, using Google+ communities, personalized search, building an engaged Google+ following, some super ninja Google+ circle tricks and a whole lot more.

There will be no fancy introduction from me this week. I am going to instead leave it to Chris Brogan who was our guest on episode#10 of Traffic Jam and of course the author of the book Google+ for Business. Here’s what he says for Martin and why you should absolutely listen in to everything that Martin says on this interview. He says, “I love that Martin Shervington fellow. Follow him to know a lot more about Google+. Between him and Mark Traphagen, I have no interest on telling anyone a single thing about the platform. They have got it handled.” When that comes from Chris Brogan, you know that Martin knows his stuff. So on that note, let’s move in to today’s interview and warmly welcome Martin Shervington.

James: So welcome listeners! You’re tuned in to episode#35 of Traffic Jam. This is of course the interview section and joining me across the airwaves in sunny San Diego today is Martin Shervington. Martin, welcome!

Martin: Thanks for having me James! It’s great to be here and it’s good to be talking to another Brit who’s not even in his own country.

James: Yeah, well us Brits we tend to escape, right? We’re trying to find a warmer, hotter, more interesting environment we seek it out, I think like you and I have done.

Martin: We’re doing okay.

James: We’re doing okay. Martin, you’re a pretty big deal on Google+ and you’ve got a significantly larger following than most – I think currently somewhere around the 340 thousand mark as of today. And not only that, you have a very high level of engagement on the platform. I think according to a report that I saw you are somewhere in the top 500 of five hundred million Google+ users in terms of post engagement. What would you have to say to those critics who say Google+ is a ghost town only used by Google employees?

Martin: It’s been a miss for a while, other platforms are getting so much more engagement and Google+ is almost like the poor relation and having just been in the social media marketing world and heard Mike Stelsna who’s the event organizer stand up there and say, if you think this still, then why don’t you go on Google+ and find out for yourself because what people tend to do James is they go to Google+ and they tend to post there, and they go, nobody +1’ed it, nobody commented, nobody shared. This place is quiet. Okay, you don’t understand what’s going on. What happens is that as your network builds, more people start to see your content. And when more people see your content, more people can engage and get the opportunity to engage because they see that content in their streams. If you just turn up your posts and not building your network, then you’ll find that it’s a very quiet place. So to reverse the thinking and give first before you start moving your content in to your profiles and in to your pages, you’ve got to go and build your engagement through your network with other people. It’s a busy old place to get started but people have to understand it is slightly different from the other platforms.

James: Yeah, that’s good! I don’t want to talk too much today about getting started on getting on the platform and setting up the profile because we have covered that pretty well with the likes of Chris Brogan and Ryan Hanley on past episodes but I am very keen in talking to your about this topic of building an engaged following on the platform. What do you think are the biggest mistakes people make in creating content on Google+ other than what you just said of just putting something out there and hoping that people react to it? What mistakes do people make on Google+?

Martin: For you James we’ll make it an intermediate-advanced session so I will step it up. We’re going to have to start with 30 seconds of basics; the first stage that people need to do ahead and engage with other people before they even consider themselves. And to do that, you +1, you comment, you share other people’s content. When you do that, other people start to engage with you and they start to add you back in. that’s the first thing. The next thing is you want to add in some circles and you want to join some communities and start interacting with people and their content there as well. Okay, that’s the basic stuff. Then, and this is a technique I have used for about two years, start thinking about building your own circles based upon the way people are interacting with you. What I mean by that is that if people are engaging, then start to put them in to your circle where you recognize they are the one that are engaging with you. And I tend to do a step up process where the more people that engage with me, so the more that that individual is engaging with me, the more then that I start paying attention to them because if their content is relevant, I want to build a relationship, I want to be on the radar. So I have three circles set up. I have a new engages circle – they have not engaged before, I have an increased engagement circle. So that’s when somebody who’s a new engager historically, they then keep on engaging and I say wow this person really wants to connect with me, so I put them up a circle and then, once I find over a period of time that somebody is now really engaged and really evangelizing the content that I put in to, then I move them in to the grand evangelist circle, in relation to a page, everybody is going to have their own system, they are going to work it out themselves but essentially, what I am doing is I want to find the hundred people, who when I post content, are running around telling everybody that this content is awesome. So the first stage is engage with other people, start to get them to know that you are interested in them, the next stage is start to build these circles so that when you put your content out, the stuff that is really important to you, whether it is videos or whether it is blog posts, whether you are doing hangouts on air, then it is far more likely that the people that you’ve been engaging with, will see that content, engage around it, and bit by bit, start to get these evangelists. And it is a case of reciprocation. This is the thing on Google+. Unless people feel that you’re reciprocating, their attention moves elsewhere. We’ll pause there, because I can take this a little further as we discuss James, but that is a system that I use and that is one of the reasons why I get good engagement.

James: Now, is that all you’ve literally got set up? Is your basic profile set up in terms of circles, literally three circles or have you got it a little bit filtered down a little bit more than that?

Martin: Not quite. I mean I don’t know if I can show it through an article that I have done and if it will be useful –

James: Absolutely! And what we’ll do is we’ll do more than that we’ll link off in the show notes especially since it is relevant content so the link will be in the episode page itself.

Martin: Wonderful! There’s an article on Social Media Examiner which I gave step by step on how to find your hundred biggest fans on Google+ and that gives you that aspect on how I do my circles.  I have quite a lot of circles that have different purposes and I am going to give you more detail around that because it will help people to understand the process, but it is the foundation of it and yeah, let’s just say that this is one aspect. Do you want to go more in to my circles and how to get that set up James?

James: Yeah, I think that would be great, I mean, the nugget that you’ve just laid down there about the levels of connection is something that I have not heard of for and I am sure it is getting a few ears pricked up from Traffic Jam listeners, so yeah, let us dive a little deeper in to it.

Martin: Okay, so this is all within the context of how I get the engagement that I get and I think you’re going to like this one because the next one is I build opt in many email lists using Google circles. The way that I do it is ask people would they like to be in a circle in relation to a subject matter. I have lots of different branches but let me give you one example, and this isn’t to be done as a beginner’s thing, this is to be when they are further along but let’s say you want to build two lists because you have 2 types of content, I might have personal development content and I have Google+ hints and tips. On the personal development content, I might say, who wants to join my notification circle, where I will give you some special content and notify you that on a weekly basis? And people opt in to that and I then build a circle, and when I have that special content – let’s say a blog post, an email video and what that, I can then share to public and notify that circle because they have agreed by email and you do that by checking the box when it is available as long as it is not too big and a few other factors that appears when you have the option on the share in box having added that circle in alongside public. As it happens in the article I mentioned it’s got a little bit more information on that particular feature but what this does is move your content, not just the notifications, you don’t just see the notifications in Google+, it moves that in to Gmail or email, and they can then receive it in a way which is likely to punctuate their attention because often notifications is a busy old thing and might get missed so this is a mini opt in list and I use that regularly. So I’ve got two different approaches, one personal development and one Google+ hints and tips. It means it can be different people receiving that as opposed to clumping them all in to one place. There is another thing that I do with circles if you probably want to take it to the next level up which is I build circles for campaigns. And I say to people – who wants to be in a circle for – and I did this for a rubics cube campaign because I have become friendly online with the rubics cube called earn a rubic. And so we ran a campaign for a day and we have about 60 people that said they want to engage around that and would share images and the thing is, it becomes a seed in circle. By getting involved and putting out a post, other people then receive that post, they get in their email notification, and they say, hey I am going to join in quickly. They share the content, and because I use a political hashtag, they are propagating that hashtag across Google+ and that trend to that numbers 8 to number 5 for probably about nine hours a day. So this is when you start to take circles as a seed in method and bringing people together and again I do all of this very much in permission marketing where if you ask people’s permission and you keep to that promise, then people seem to be quite happy in receiving those notifications.

James: Yeah, and I guess this is all down to segmentation as well. I mean as you so rightly said, making sure that you do divide up your audience into relevant circles and then making sure those people only get the relevant message to the topic they are interested in as you’re likely to do with email I guess. I have got a follow up question which you kind of glided over so I am interested to get the exact strategy. How do you go about approaching those people for their permission? Is it literally a one to one message once you see people starting to engage with your content a little more?

Martin: There are several options, I can tell you how I do it, but this is only one method, in fact, I am going to give you several different versions of this. When I started, what I used to do is have a new engagers circle and then there are about 50 people in it, so these people are interacting with me and particularly sharing my content. I would then send them a private message saying thanks so much I am going to share a public circle and I would like to know privately, would you like to receive notifications from me in the future? They would then opt in at that point so this certain percentage of people, let’s say 10 to 15 people would opt in out of 50, and I would keep doing that process to build up the lists. So that was one method that I used. When I am like that publicly, people do not realize that I had that conversation with people essentially. Does that make sense? That was one method I used. Another method might just to publicly say, who wants in? and people will opt in directly on the thread. I know that other people do the one to one, would you like to be a public circle conversation. I happen not to have used that it’s a good way to do it, it’s just a slower way to do it, it’s just a slower way potentially but if it works then it is the right thing to do.

James: Yeah, I think since you have a sizeable audience, it makes more sense for you to do a broadcast approach where you publicly give the people the option to that.

Martin: I can do that now, and I think there is a certain point where you can do that in the early days. People don’t want to be a number on Google+. They want to feel that you are engaging with them and I make sure that I give things to the circle that is special. I have private conversations with them. They may get advanced content and if there is a new video collection they may get it a week ahead of everyone else and that sort of approach makes them feel special, makes them feel respected and boost the relationship. Everything has a phase in Google+. I actually have a course around this because there’s tremendous amounts in the system about what I think is ultimately we’re using the system in Google+ circles in a way that allows people to think and feel special,. And everybody has to find their way on it. This is the great thing. There is not going to be one restaurant marketing approach. What I am hoping is that the methods that I am using, the methods that I am communicating and showing people, I am hoping that they can be rolled out across the board. And this is why I give so much content, because I want Google+ to work for marketers as well as just the general persons there just to have fun.

James: Yeah, good. And there are similarities between Google+ as a platform and what you can do with it is very much aligned to what you can do with a very sophisticated contact management or email management system where you can tag segment people with the tags that are relevant to what they are interested and to give them special information that is going to build rapport and build that connection with your audience and it is all available on Google+! Wonderful Martin! Now a little bit around content just to dive in to that a little bit more now. I think Google+ as a platform is a little bit more business orientated than other social networks. However, I have observed you quite a bit and I noticed that you are putting out a lot of non-business content; pictures of sunsets, cats sliding around on wooden floors. Is it important especially in this kind of people driven semantic web that our friend David Amerland who talked about so much to bring a kind of a balance to your content on Google+?

Martin: Is it important? My content strategy is to build relationships using the content and if I just post business stuff all day long, I know a large segment of my audience all around the Google+ are going to get turned off. Because some people want all the Google+ tips and they don’t want to see how to use it in business. So I have to understand, my content represents me to the whole of my audience when I post it publicly. So let me give a show around to how I approach it. I will post something in the morning to start the day and I will post something in the evening to end the day. That means that its caps. Everyone knows that I have done that and I have left, and it’s usually early, usually 7 in the morning and 9 o’clock at night. Everything else in between is just whatever I do, whatever campaign I am running, whether it is Google+ tips, social media, whether it is a little bit comedy, whether it’s a tutorial, all of that is contained within that and it means that if people are following me, that’s what they get from me. If I just post business stuff all that time, the people in to personal development, the people who want me to be vaguely amusing, they will just go elsewhere. They certainly won’t have me on notify and they may not have my content on full blast in their screen either. So my approach has been formed by the network. There is a lot more to how I run the campaigns and when I am trying to build community engagement around content that will then run on that, there’s a lot more to that. David Amerland is a great friend and we talk about it and he knows i’ve got to keep it human otherwise it gets a little bit tacky and we’ve got to be a little bit broader than that. So that’s why we get cat clips on weekends.

James: Yeah, and I certainly picked up that Rubics campaign posts a few weeks ago and enjoyed watching the videos there and I think that too is testament that the more fun content certainly puts together all of the business related stuff and certainly builds rapport that otherwise would be very difficult posting business content day in day out right?

Martin: Absolutely! But there is another bit that people may not realize. For instance, when I run a campaign like the Rubics cube campaign, it is very structured. And that structure then gets written up and then the social analysis will happen by at least more than two promo decks and we will then publish that and this is how we did it so all of the campaigns have an intent which is yeah, let’s have fun, but I’ll then be writing that exactly how it happened so that is a business case study because you can understand that the levels of seed in required to getting trending in Google+ at this time without people – I can tell you exactly, I can show you the bottom of the post. So there is a lot of insight to be had from having fun sometimes and just playing and it brings the community together for that period of time. So there is a lot of intent to why I do things as I do it and I do enjoy those campaigns and I get more creative every time because you can’t just repeat the same thing again. We did a plus on that one and trended #1 for two hours and then #2 for about nine hours and that was about a month ago and that has three thousand people involved. So the air is fine and that is great but then the case studies are being looked at by pretty serious people because nobody else at the moment has taken this approach and that of course is great plus your business is getting the attention.

James: Active users in Google+ seem to be very respectful generally and there seems to be a few unwritten rules of etiquette like for instance always acknowledging the originating source of the content that you share. What Google+ etiquette should our listener can ready to double down on Google+ are you aware of?

Martin: I have never done a post on Google+ etiquette and now I get quoted for all the things so I think let’s look at the origination of the source. Very often, you’ll find that somebody shared you’ll want to share it and somebody will hashtag which just says that you found it via somebody that’s what that one is, and I think that is an important thing because it give a little shout tag that somebody else found the information and credits that one. The next one is communities. If people drop links without context in to a community, that’s more likely than not, based on the community guidelines, to be considered a sham. So that’s another one. Do you know what the big thing is? Google+ shapes you and essentially for people to think and to see that it is better to be nice than not. So when you tend to find the culture to be different on Twitter. I noticed on Twitter when events are going on, make comments and it’s just whatever thought that comes in to their head it’s got a hashtag and it’s becoming wild then. On Google+ you can edit comments after because there is no hurry; it’s not this fast running stream that is based in the moment in time; its post is a URL on their own. It lives in search potentially for a long time so people tend to be little more considerate and I think that’s something that when people arrive they are quite surprised about. There really is a different culture based around the system that Google have given us so I think just consideration to think that you want to build relationships, so what would be good in the situation? So I have another big one since we are talking about circles, don’t click that notify by email unless you have permission. That’s my biggest one. It really does wind people up to receive unsolicited email from people. There you go, there’s a few there James.

James: Fantastic! I’d like to expand a little bit on this concept of link dumping on Google+ because in along itself Google+ generally favors that longer form style of content just purely by its nature of design and I think since we are talking on a traffic show here called Traffic Jam, what advice would you have for moving people from Google+ to your website because for many people their intention will be to move people to their site itself that isn’t just involving dumping a link and then hoping that people will click on it.

Martin: Well, we’re going to bring the whole lot together in this bit so let us now look at the value of engagement on the content that allows it to circles in search. This is what it is all about, this is what the strategy I use with circles – building niche circles around topic areas, when those people engage on your content and the circles are just a way to make sure that it gets attention, when they engage on the content, if they have authority in that area in particular, then that authority starts to move towards you and your content. So that engagement can flick the content in to search in a way which no engagement is less likely to, so engagement will allow your content to surface in Google search in higher positions than no engagement. Now what this means is you can use this for social SEO which from a traffic point of view, is awesome. So I have done this in people search I can say but if people search for what is Google right now as a search engine, I think they’ll find that one post I have written has either the top spot or certainly within the first few for what is Google. That has brought me a hundred and twenty-three thousand links from that post so we are talking traffic and the methods that I used are built around getting engagement that will signal to Google search that this message here is important based on these people that are interacting with it that then turns in to the search position which leads to your traffic so the approach is social, search, site. Those are the things to be thinking about. And then the final is to press that one button so that people can share that back and the Google +1 sharing it back, allowing flow back in to Google+ which allows it to get back to this engagement. So that is the process, that is the model that I have been working on consistently and it is awesome!

James: And this also is affected by your connections right? I mean I’ll actually use an example here which I tested out prior to the interview, I logged in to Google search for Google+ for Business so your website is showing to me at #5 position I think because I am connected to you on Google+. But when I am logged out and I search in an incognito window, you appear I think at #10, clearly showing that the fact that we are connected on Google+ does influence where your results appear to me within the search results. That’s also what we’re talking about here right?

Martin: Yeah, that’s then another bit it, personalization is so effective which is why building your network is so important. Because, you are absolutely right, us being connected means that me and you influence search results.

James: Yeah, I got it. I think we’ll also link back to what is I think 2 episodes prior to this, an interview that I did with Mark Traphagen which was also around the topic of author rank and authorship using Google+ because this is very relevant to the conversation we are having here and I think will add a lot more value to listeners who have not checked out that episode yet. Now, for our conversation Martin, I’d like to leave and wrap things up asking you about tools because everyone loves a good tool that might help them improve productivity on Google+ and help manage their profiles a little better. What little tips have you got that might be a good add on for what people are doing in Google+.

Martin: I have got a few of these because this is one of my favorites is using our page, you can look at our profile at the moment so I love that and what I use that and then one called friends + me to distribute from the page directly to for instance LinkedIn. And if people are not using Buffer, then I can tell you it will transform how you manage your day because you’ve got content ready to rock and roll. Some people use Suite but I use Buffer. Now for my profile, the one that I say if you are looking for something slightly more advanced approach to things, then check out Nodex which is Nod3x.com. That’s a social network anlaysis tool which I mention that we use to rank campaigns. Now that is a step up. That is getting in to the advanced territories but if you want to know what reach there is on Google+ for everyone’s content or hashtags and far beyond, then that’s going to be all inside.

James: Fantastic! Well Martin, I am going to give you the floor back for one last time, is there any passing final tips or tricks that you’d like to pass on to Traffic Jam listeners just before we close out this episode. Any last comments from you?

Martin: Thanks James! I think let’s just return to that model – social builds your network. Find people that are the most important people for you to connect with that are potentially already influencers that you want to build a relationship with and in turn they will then start to see you as an influencer when they engage around your content and realize the value that you add to that. So that’s the social. Then, using the circles, think about getting the engagements up on your posts that will allow the search to indicate that you are an authority in this particular subject area. Then, when they come to your site, make sure that you’ve got that +1 button so it allows people to engage in the content directly in your site to float back in to social. And it really will transform how you view getting traffic when you use this kind of process.

James: Martin, that’s absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for your time and your expertise I really have felt this is a thoroughly enjoyable episode and I am sure listeners out there are getting a huge amount of value from it so thank you for appearing on Traffic Jam. Hopefully sometime again in the future we can revisit this topic and bring you back on board again.

Martin: Absolutely! I’d love to come back James. Thank you!

James: Fantastic! So listeners that was episode #35 of Traffic Jam or at least the interview section of episode#35. You’ll find the links to all the resources and training that Martin mentioned in today’s interview in the show notes page of Traffic Jam episode#35 so head on over there to find that. We’ll now move in to the next section.

This Week’s News in Traffic

For the first story this week, we head on over to Twitter who’ve announced a new look for their web profile. This is actually a story I have picked out on today having checked out someone else’s Twitter timeline and seen a wide cover photo style picture at the top of their Twitter feed. According to Twitter, this new update allows for a larger profile photo, a customizable header section, and also a section where you can show off your best tweets. Here are some of the main features. Firstly, pinned tweets and this is the ability to pin one of your favorite tweets at the top of your page so it is easier for your followers to see what you are all about. The second sort of big update is best tweets and this is where tweets that received more engagement or interaction will actually appear slightly larger so your best content is always easy to find when someone checks out your profile. And the next major update is filtered tweets. This gives you the ability to change the view by which you look at someone else’s profile and you can select from these following options, tweet only, tweets and photos and videos, or tweets and replies. This kind of new look can certainly seem Facebook page-esqued. I don’t know if Twitter is trying to follow suite on what Facebook are doing but the look and feel certainly has some similarities. Go check it out on your own profile. I do believe the functionality is available already and perhaps post a comment in this week’s episode show notes page and let me know what you think.

Staying firmly in the Twitter table, Twitter UK has created an own-the-moment tool to create real time marketers. When you call it real time marketing, news jacking or joining the conversation in a marketing event, marketers are always looking for opportunities to insert their brands in to online banter out current events. To help with this task, Twitter’s United Kingdom and island small and medium business teams created an interactive creative tool called Own the Moment Planner. I’ll make sure that planner is linked off to in today’s show notes if you want to check it out. It is very much your own focus with reminders for things like world snooker championship coming up this Saturday and the Euro Vision song contest final on May 10^th just in case you want to check it out. I don’t believe there is any US Version right now or a UAE version or for anywhere else in the world other than the United Kingdom but still worth checking out. Should you be looking to hijack new stories, that’s a question you might have to answer yourself? I would certainly recommend acting with caution there are some stories which are certainly inappropriate to jump on such as the Malaysian Airways missing flight which a company I saw sort of trying to promote at the back of a few weeks ago certainly did not do themselves any favors so be careful which stories you get up on. Certainly make sure that those stories are aligned to the target market that you want to attract to inject your own stories in to those events.

To the third story of the day, I go to a report that I have picked up from Marketingland.com and that is that advertiser revenue from Facebook ads rose at 191% year on year versus a 21% increase from paid search. While page search does still dominate ad budgets, Facebook ads are growing faster than ever both on a quarterly and an annual basis. Spending on page search rose 10% versus the 37% increase on Facebook advertising year over year. So the story is here of course that both channels are still absolutely and if you are not utilizing one or both channels, you’re probably missing out on a lot of available traffic. Certainly look in to Facebook advertising if you’re not looking in to that yet because I do believe there is a lot of available opportunity still existing on Facebook.

A big tip of my hat and a general nod of appreciation in the direction of Ralph who’s left a quite awesome Stitcher review this week and he says James never ceases to amaze me with every episode. He’s got the top guns in the industry as his guests and he does his homework by doing the prep work really well.  I love the tiny tidbits about each guest. Marketers need not look further, James has got the most important topics covered on every episode. Well, thank you Ralph that is quite awesome. I really, really do appreciate you stopping by and leaving your support for the show and as I say, as always, the best way to show your support to Traffic Jam is by leaving a review on iTunes or Stitcher or indeed by leaving a speak pipe message over at TrafficJamCast.com if you want to leave an audio recording with your comments about the show and perhaps some suggestions for me as well, you can do so by heading over to TrafficJamCast.com, strolling to the base of the site and then clicking on the leave a voice message function. So there, or Stitcher or iTunes really is the best way to show your appreciation for Traffic Jam.

The One Minute Traffic Tip

I am going to call this week’s tip speed up your site and speed up the ranking. Sites that take many seconds to load make a bad experience for users and because of that Google demotes any website that is slow loading. So one of the easiest ways you can increase your website’s load speed and therefore it’s ranking is to get faster website hosting. If you are currently paying less than 200 Dirhams per month, about $50 or so, then you’re probably not paying enough to host your website. To get top rankings, you need performance hosting such as a dedicated server which will set you back probably a hundred and fifty dollars or perhaps a little bit more or better still, get a specialized hosting provider for WP Engine for Word Press which we use on the veravo.com website and that will set you back about $100 per month.  We went through this exercise recently and noticed about a 15% increase of search traffic as a result of faster web hosting.

Thank you for listening in to Episode#35 of Traffic Jam. I will of course be back in about seven days from now with episode #36 where I will be joined by Mr. Utility Himself from ConvinceAndConvert.com so another not to be missed episode. Remember to subscribe via iTunes and Stitcher radio and for a direct link for all Traffic Jam episodes go to TrafficJamCast.com where you can join the discussion on this episode and get links to all of the resources mentioned in today’s show. Also head on over to veravo.com for more traffic tips and training and try to see how I can help you get more traffic, leads and sales from the search engines.

We end this week’s show with a little bit of thievery corporation and it is chosen by the fantastic Martin Shervington.