How often do you visit your dusty old Google Plus profile? Even with Google’s handy dandy multiple accounts feature, I navigate to my G+ feed let’s see…approximately never (outside work duties, of course). And social media is my job. That means we can’t exactly expect normal folk to navigate there on their own free will.
If your goal is to collect a bigger Google Plus following, number one, ask yourself why. If there are real business goals associated, or you have genuinely great and unique content to show there, good for you — let’s do this. If not, perhaps your social media marketing resources and/or manpower are better spent elsewhere. I firmly believe that there are few things worse than a social media button or logo that invites you to visit a whole lot of nothing.
Community management lecturing aside, if you’re part of the former scenario, in which Google Plus is a real thing that you actually do, lucky you! Google has just released “a bunch of new plugins that help visitors to connect with you on Google+, directly from your website.”
New Follow Button
This one is pretty darn self explanatory. Placing it on your site will let visitors follow you on Google Plus without actually leaving your website. The only catch is, they must be logged into their Google Plus account when they click the button, otherwise the whole thing becomes a massive drag.
New Badge for Communities
If you’re utilizing Google Plus Communities, this new badge is a great way to attract new members right from your website. They can even preview the community page in a new browser tab with the click of a button.
Updated Badges for Pages & Profiles
Page and profile badges aren’t new, but they are now more customizable. You can go for portrait or landscape, change the color theme and choose to turn on elements like cover photo and tagline.
