Why You Should Engage with Google + Communities

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While you are sitting at your desk, pondering the ways to break into social media so you can make that conversational mark for your business or company, you should think of  Google + Communities, Robert Frost, and his famous poem, The Road Not Taken. Maybe you first saw the poem in an English classroom in high school, or on some motivational poster that was hanging like a beacon of hope for all to see; and just maybe you remember the last few lines, the ones that strike home, the ones you won’t be quizzed on but should write down in your journal for rainy-day reflection:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,/

I took the one less traveled by,/

And that has made all the difference.

As a social media strategist (and literary lover) I find extreme value in these lines and see them as more than simple words written by a simple man traveling in a lonely forest. You see, for me these last few lines speak directly to Google + Communities, and the social opportunities that these communities can provide your budding business.

In the grand scheme of things, Google + has valiantly tried to keep up with platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but has not received anywhere near the same recognition (despite being a fantastic social media tool). The semi-recent addition of Google + Communities drastically helps to increase engagement, but are like hidden Pinocchios in the back of social media’s workshop, shiny and new and awaiting eager Geppettos to make them real.

On the whole, there are plethora opportunities for businesses to become forerunners in Google + Communities. Unlike Facebook Groups, where trying to solidify your company brand amidst the colossal current of businesses and corporations may seem like trying to reinvent the wheel, Google + Communities are like blank slates free of smudges and eraser marks, are open lanes on a highway that is usually inundated with traffic, are like all the untraveled roads Frost took on his way to poetic success.

You are free to make your mark on Google + Communities, and chances are the competition is quite slim. In conducting searches for “social media” and “blogging” communities, I found that there are very few groups out there that provide quality content for their followers. Interspersed with scattered posts here and there, these Google + Communities are fighting to find the life that make them socially real. And there are many more examples of inconsistent groups out there spread around topical interests, from “automotive” to “fashion” to the wide world of sports.

And why, you might ask, is this a positive thing? Because now is your opportunity to do it right! Now is the time to become the expert in your field by creating your own niche, your own Google + Community that can bask in the advancing limelight of user engagement. Google + users out there are waiting to follow a brand that can lead them into the conversation, like a battle-born general who has a billowing voice and a white stallion, who trumps down the line offering motivational quips and tactics that are sure to inspire.

So if Facebook and Twitter have been less than friendly to your company, take a gander down the road of Google + Communities, where footprints come few and far in between despite the social sun that is shining above; where there are groups of active users that can add interactive glimmer for businesses who are willing to take the road less traveled by…