Google+ Communities should be a critical part of your strategy to build an audience for your content and by extension your business. Building and nurturing relationships has become major trend in marketing strategies for 2014. Using G+ communities a key way to build trust and authority in your business segment which attracts an audience that is interested in what you and your business values and provides. Through that trust, authority, and relationships, your audience can become your business evangelists.

2. G+ Communities
Nurturing Relationships and Building
an Audience
Presented by
RightStartWebsites.com
SonicWebTech.com
Web Technology for the Small Business Community

3. Event Sponsors
● SonicSpider LLC
o RightStartWebsites.com
o SonicWebTech.com
● Oceanside Chamber of Commerce
o Oceanside, California
● Creata Computer Networks
o Responsive IT Solutions

4. This slide deck is the companion slides to the event:
Google+ Communities - Nurturing Relationships and Building an
Audience
We welcome your feedback!
John Moore and Marilyn Moore

5. Presentation Topic Areas
What are Google+ Communities?
Relationships and audiences - The chicken
and the egg story.
An audience - a business asset.
How do I build an audience and relationships
in communities?
Understanding the process: Commenting,
Posting, Sharing and Re-sharing.

6. Is it Relationships vs Audience?
● A “forest vs trees” issue
o Finding the right balance
o Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses
 Build on your strengths
 Strengthen your weaknesses
● Unique needs in your business type and
environment (local/international/cultural)
o Audience centric vs Individual relationship centric
● All businesses need both, it is not a
question of “vs” but a question of the right

7. What are Google+ Communities?
● Launched in December of 2012.
● A group or forum that allows you to connect with an audience
with well defined interests.
● A place to learn, help, share and engage, thereby building
relationships and authority with that audience.
● Engage via commenting, posting new content, sharing tips and
advice and re-sharing (promoting) others content.
● Communities are NOT for self promotion. They are about being
helpful and providing value to that audience.

8. Audience - A Business Asset
● Before G+ and Communities
o Physical networking - travel, money and time.
o Speaking engagements
o Limited opportunities…
● Now…
o No travel, no money, efficient use of your time...
o Built-in audiences of well defined interests
o Blogging format for sharing and demonstrating your expertise
o Relationship opportunities

9. “Proprietary Audience Development is now a
core marketing responsibility
If you embrace this responsibility, you’ll be a part of the team that
turns audiences into long-term, profitable assets for your company.
However, if you neglect it, you will fall behind competitors with less
dependency on paid media thanks to their development of audiences
that they—and they alone—can access on demand.”
Jeffrey K Rohrs - Audience

10. “bigger audiences = more revenue
You may think that this equation doesn’t apply to you if you work
outside of an audience-centric industry, but it does. Do you pay for
advertising? Then audience matters. Do you have a website? Then
audience matters. Do you want to grow your business? Then audience
matters…”
Jeffrey K Rohrs - Audience

11. Building an Audience
● OPA - Other People’s Audiences
o Find audiences that can relate to you and your business’s core
principles
o Find audiences that share your passions and interests
● Where do you find OPAs
o Popular blog sites - work to become a guest blogger there
o Special interest forums - Help and contribute
o Conferences and Events - Be a speaker, contributor
o Online groups and communities
● Google+ Communities

12. Eric Enge’s OPA Strategy
1. Size - big is nice but quality is better
2. Relevance - interests and topics that relate to your
business
3. Ease of getting started - Nothing works unless you start.
4. Quality of Existing Content - You are the company you
keep.
5. Authority - the quality of the group members
6. Quality of YOUR content - It must measure up or you
will be ignored
7. Opportunism - Get out there, the apple won’t fall on your

13. G+ Communities
● Designed for deeper engagement
o Conversations and formatting
o +1 = I like what you said or thanks for the comment
o +Mention = directing the engagement
o Comments = join into the conversation and become “familiar”
o Contribute - sharing content of others
o Posting - Add your unique voice and ideas
● Multi-media - most all forms of content
o Post video, images, infographics, podcasts and long form content.
o Visual is powerful and attention-getting

14. Begin Gently

15. Attracting an Audience Strategy
1. Find one or more communities to join (see OPA)
2. Begin by being an observer
a. Watch the conversations
b. Make note of the influencers
c. Zero in on the etiquette and guidelines of the community
3. Start commenting - come out of the shadows
a. Always add value
b. Circle those that engage with your comments
c. Become “familiar”
d. When in doubt - keep your comments “lite”

16. Attracting an Audience Strategy
1. Another venue - Hangouts On Air - Join the audience
a. Try and join the live broadcast if possible
b. Post questions and/or comments
c. Become “familiar”
2. Re-share new content INTO the community
a. Add value to the share
b. Summarize an HOA, or blog post from a reputable source
c. Engage in comments
d. +1 all comments
3. Posting new content - sparingly - no self-promotion

17. Be Visible - Find a Vantage Point

18. Parts of a Re-share

19. Viewing Post Activity

20. Post Activity

21. Plus Mentioning

22. Effects of Plus Mentioning
● Used in Posts and Comments
● Triggers notifications to those users
● Can be linked to an email address (outside
of Google+)
● Ties and links users to the conversation.
● Can bring in users not currently involved
● Can be abused.

23. Searching for +Names

24. The Perfect Post
● Engaging Content
● Title and Description (Formatting)
● Give Credit generously
● Plus mention
● Carefully edit and format
● Citations, if appropriate
● Photos and Images
● Encourage Engagement (questions?)
● HashTags

25. Ripples

26. Ripples

27. Nurturing Relationships

28. New Tools, Old Rules
● Find and circle those that interest you
● Become visible and be familiar
● Approach and be approachable
● Engage and respond
● Be consistent
-Wade Harman

29. “Don’t force it. Be yourself and the people that you want to
surround you will come with time. You can’t rush anything
that’s worth doing right. The relationship is the foundation on
which you can build your online business. After a while, you
begin to understand that it’s not the links, not the traffic, not
even the money that make your business run perfectly, but it’s
the people with whom you have cultivated a strong bond with
over time.”
Wade Harman

30. Thank You!
G+ Communities
Nurturing Relationships and Building
an Audience