How to Show Off Your Content with Google Plus Collections

Image via BigStockPhoto.com

Google+ is taking it up a notch, for content curators and creators alike. 

With Google+ Collections, you are now able to collect content into themes. While not exactly like Pinterest boards, they are probably the closest comparison we can make.

Think of Collections as interactive magazines which not only feature content but also facilitate conversations with people passionate about a subject.

It may be the biggest release on Google+ for the past two years or so. And for many, it is putting to rest that Google is sitting on its laurels when it comes to social.

How to Make a Collection

Either from a Profile or a Page (in the case of businesses), click on “Create a Collection.”

Then, you will be prompted to give it a name and decide who can see it.

Choose “Public” if you want maximum exposure. Note: you will not be able to change this setting later on.

Once the collection is created, you will be given the opportunity to customize it by changing the top image and the color of the band at the bottom.

As you can see, your image and your color scheme can make a world of difference.

Image Dimensions

What size should your image be? One of my community members, Nicky Pasquier, asked designer Dustin Stout this question. He responded, “If you choose to add your own cover photo, you should take note that the size of the photo should be 1080px wide by 607px tall. But also be aware that the top and the bottom of that image will be cropped out. 124px on top and 123px on the bottom of the image will remain hidden until a user clicks on the cover to reveal the entire thing.”

Followers

If you already have followers on your Google+ Profile or Page, and you create a Public collection, your followers will be applied to that Collection.

People can also follow (or unfollow) an individual collection as well. This gives people the ability to better tailor the content they see from people.

Featured Collections

There is a “Featured Collections” tab, which leads you to a page of Collections hand-picked by Google. You will also find suggestions of collections to follow. In other words,Google is promoting you and your collections. As you will see, anything that “stands out” has a chance of being featured, and engaging niche content seems to be featured well.

Next, let’s look at a few geeky things.

URL Structure

If you look at the top of a Collection, you will see a URL structure similar to the one below:

Notice that it doesn’t have the prefix of a person, unlike posts within it, as shown below.

It may well be that, in the future, Google+ Collections will follow the precedent of Pinterest, allowing multiple people to share content into the same Collection. This would be great for collaboration.

SEO

All Google+ posts are indexed by Search, and the same will apply for Collections.

Google.com already shows Google+ Communities as Search results, so it may be appropriate to assume that high authority collections may well surface in Search, too.

Since “private” is the default on Google.com, your Google+ posts could begin appearing in searches for your followers, as could relevant Collections. This is pure speculation, until the evidence is in.

Curating Historic Posts Into a Collection

There are two ways to move a post into a collection.

One is to reshare it, which creates a new post. To do this easily, click the small arrow drop down on a post.

The other is to “move” the post, which doesn’t create a new post. You can do this from the menu above, or from the drop down on the upper right of a post.

You can also remove a post from a collection via the same drop down menu.

Thinking about authority, consider that collections will have authority accumulated through the posts they include. Moving content into Collections, thereby supporting the “story” thatthis collection is authoritative, makes sense in terms of long-term SEO. And of course, choosing a sensible name for the Collection is SEO 101.

Ideas for Collections

You may like to think about curating Collections that include:

• Your own blog posts
• Your infographics
• Your podcasts

You can also think about including content other than your own.

Collections are going to be a great way to support the people in your community. If you have a passion and network of people who are into marketing, or podcasting, or social selling, you will be able to niche-curate your posts in a way you couldn’t do previously.

Before you set up loads of Collections, ask the following questions:

• What would be the best title for the collection?
• What content should you include?
• How often will you post?
• What approach will you take for sharing content in the Collection?

Here’s a tip regarding sharing: You can still share to Public, as well as to circles who permit notifications. Once published, you would then move it to the Collection of your choosing. This gives you the advantage of both approaches: niche curation and permission marketing, which increases engagement.

Start Collecting

Google+ Collections have been very well received within the Google+ community, and with experimentation, we have begun to see what works best.

For every business who has been sitting on the fence, this is the time to get involved and start collecting. You never know—you may well find some nice surprises in Google Search and gain social reach, too. Enjoy collecting!

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What The Unofficial Death Of Google+ Means For Marketing

Google+ is unofficially officially dead. Now, what?

Google’s Bradley Horowitz announced on Google+ last month that the platform will be split into two new services: Streams and Photos. “Photos” are self-explanatory, and “Streams” are going to cover just about everything else.

If you’re fond of Google Hangouts, don’t worry — the video/messaging service survived the fallout as a separate offering. However, Hangouts is just about the only part of Google+ that has a clear future.

It seems to be full-on transition mode for Google, with Google+ seemingly “still there” (at least in name) for now. That’s probably why a lot of people haven’t realized one of the leading social media platforms in the U.S. is essentially gone.

In the world of marketing, though, industry experts agree that this whole restructuring approach is just stretching out the inevitable: Google+ and anything like it is dead, and Google should just let it go.

It’s possible that Google may have a successful social media platform in the future, but it likely will bear no resemblance to Google+.

A Timely Passing

It comes as no surprise to digital marketers that the Google+ run has come to an end. It never gained the traction or popularity necessary to make it succeed. The rumors that it was slowly gaining on the likes of Twitter and Facebook were more likely dreams instead of predictions steeped in statistics and facts.

While search engine optimization (SEO) gurus and others encouraged people to fill out their Google+ profiles because it was fast, easy, couldn’t hurt, and might help with SEO points, it was far from being a priority for just about anybody.

However, that doesn’t mean Google+’s existence was in vain. There’s a lot to be learned from it — in fact, there’s often more to be learned from failure than successes.

The biggest lesson? It’s a huge risk to put 100 percent of social media efforts into any single platform, whether it ultimately succeeds or not.

After all, you can baby your social media campaign until you’re sleep deprived, but you never have any control over what the platform itself does. A social media platform can suddenly undergo a massive makeover, die, or become a realm that doesn’t complement your goals.

What if Google+ Was Your Facebook?

From a numbers perspective alone, it’s very unlikely that any business used Google+ extensively and exclusively. However, businesses may use a platform like Facebook exclusively.

What would you do if tomorrow Facebook were wiped out? You may have spent a lot of time, money and research pampering your social media platform of choice. It could be sucking up quite a big chunk of your marketing budget. Yes, social media management can have a great ROI, but it comes with zero guarantees. The reality is you have no control over the network itself.

Google+ as we knew it is gone, but other networks are also undergoing huge changes.

For the most part, it looks like the future will be monetizing user bases. Many marketing experts think that the future may be paid social media, especially for businesses, and that can put a huge damper on your budget.

So, what can you do? The same thing you do with your personal finances: diversify.

Don’t Discount Google+ Communities

One of the biggest areas of value within the G+ social network has been communities. I’ve found immense value in growing Marketing+, a marketing-related community on Google+. Every day, 40 to 60 pieces of content get shared within the community, and we see a fair amount of interaction within the group.

Even though the rest of G+ is dying a slow death, communities are still a vibrant place with lots of value. Hopefully Google, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t kill communities.

You can search all of the Google Plus communities right here.

What Killed Google+?

In my estimation, it was never easy to share content on Google+. The egos behind the social network thought it best for people to log into the site and share from the desktop or their app. They never allowed personal profiles to share content via Buffer, Hootsuite or any easy-to-use Chrome extension.

Since they never allowed that, I stopped caring and sharing on Google+. And I was a HUGE proponent of Google+ in its early days.

Google+ dropped the ball on forcing us to have unwanted usernames. It demanded that you use your real name. No thanks, G.

I use @teedubya or teedubyaw everywhere, but on Google+, I couldn’t be https://plus.google.com/+teedubya. I would have to be https://plus.google.com/+TravisWright. But they would never give that username to me because there are other Travis Wrights, so no Travis Wright could have it! I even had connections who worked at Google try to make it happen, but no dice.

People like to have a vanity username that coordinates with the rest of their social identities.

So, Google, the next time you decide to create a social network, you’d be wise to allow for some actual social sharing and let people be unique with their usernames.

Gimme More

Put all your eggs in one basket, and you know what might happen. Don’t be faithful to just one social network for your digital marketing efforts, even if it seems foolproof. You should focus on creating content that works on a variety of networks just in case one of them goes under.

The demise of Google+ also underscores just how critical owned media is. Focusing on your own websites, or those of your clients, is a safer bet than having tunnel vision on a site that you don’t own.

Will the restructuring of Google+ lead to a more improved network? It’s doubtful. Instead, consider this a tough lesson learned. Put those digital marketing eggs in a variety of baskets, because if they’re in one and it catches fire, what are you going to do?

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Introduction to Google+

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What is 'Google Plus'? The social layer explained!