Three tips for making the most of your page

Posted by +Kristoffer Sorensen on behalf of the Pages team:

1. Engage, engage, engage

Google+ is about engaging with friends, family, colleagues, people who share your interests, and now customers, clients, and companies. This is a great opportunity for you to share with your clients news, product launches, campaigns, and promotions. It’s also an awesome way for you to talk to your fans, learn about them and get feedback from them. In short, it’s a great opportunity for you to engage.

1) Be responsive

Look out for +mentions and messages sent directly to your page. See them by going to the Notifications stream on the left side of your home page. Make sure to set expectations around when people can expect to hear back from you – hold up your end of the bargain.

2) Don’t be afraid of negative comments.

While it’s not nice to read negative comments about your business, take it as a great opportunity to turn a negative customer experience into a better one. But, if there’s a comment you need to delete, hover over it and select the “x” mark at the bottom of the post.

3) Post relevant, interesting content but don’t spam your followers!

Share content that’ll be interesting to your followers and that you believe will add value to their stream. Test out what works best for you but keep it fresh and keep it a little unpredictable. If you have great posts, people will make sure to seek you out even if you post in the middle of the night!

2. Hangouts are awesome!

From hangout concerts to a conversation between Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, we have seen a remarkable range of uses for hangouts. As a brand and a business you should be thinking about how hangouts can add value to the way you communicate with your followers. You should also be thinking about who should be hosting them on your end – it’s a great opportunity for you to show the human face of your brand/company. Host them from your page by clicking the “Start a hangout” button on the right side of your home page. Some ideas to get started with are:

• Product demos
• Customer service office hours
• Hangouts with key individuals within the company
• Hangout to share financial results
• Q&A/feedback hangouts about a product or service
• Free, public tutorials and lessons, and classes

We envision that company/brand hangouts will be more successful if they have a set topic and people know what they’re joining – so rather than ‘Company x is hanging out’, you’d share a message prior to the event ‘Company x is hanging out out to share thoughts and get questions on product y.’ Plan ahead and use this feature to come face-to-face with your customers in a new, exciting way!

3. Manage your Circles

Managed right, circles can be a great tool for ensuring that you get the right message to the right follower. For example, a clothes brand might want to send one message to their fans interested in soccer and another to their fans interesting in running. It allows you as a brand to tailor your message and increase relevance in your messaging. While we’re working on ways to help you manage circles better, there’s a number of ways, in which you can manage your circles:
Create a post that you reshare regularly; have it say something like ‘we want to make sure we get the right messages to our fans, so +1 the comments below to let us know what circles you want to be part of. Comment on your own post with a comment for each potential circle (for instance, football, soccer, running, tennis, dodgeball, and barrel rolling). People can then indicate what circle they want to be in by +1’ing that comment – you can follow up and add people to circles based on their choice
We’ve seen Pages get creative and use photos to do this as well – have them +1 the photos that refer to the circle they want to be part of
Alternatively, you can encourage people to privately message your brand with their circle preference and add them that way.

As always, we want to hear what you’re thinking and doing! Check back regularly for the latest tips and tricks about how to make your page work best for you.

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