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Google's social network hasn’t provided Facebook with the competition that
many thought it would when Google+ was first announced, but its importance as a social media
avenue towards Web success cannot be denied. Fortunately, some best practices have begun to emerge in recent months.

Below are some of the strategies that may give your Web enterprise an advantage over the competition when utilizing Google+, which should be a priority for any online company that is not yet doing so.

Circles
Perhaps the biggest difference between Google+ and competing social networks is the Circles feature, and the most successful brands have been
able to optimize the management of their Circles. The purpose of Circles is to organize contacts
into helpful groups based on different characteristics, and by segmenting a company's contacts into Circles, that business is able to manage who sees what messages. This provides one way to establish trust and loyalty with
users, and you will most likely find
them more involved with your content and engaging with your company's G+ page more often as a result.

Segmentation can be
done by location, interest, relation to your business or any number of other criteria. The important thing is to make sure that you manage your circles in such a way
that content will be relevant to one or more
of these groups.

Connections
Social media is an important part of every business' Web presence in 2012, but the ultimate goal is to get users back onto your company's website. This is especially important if you’re
connecting with users on Google+ because the site doesn’t yet allow
vanity URLs, making certain sites difficult to find through this channel if
the user is not yet familiar with a company.

Google+ does provide a simple set of codes and
buttons so that users can link to your site through G+, and you can easily access this
information by going to the “Get Started” option beneath your company's name and/or avatar on
the Google+ home page.

Links
One underrated feature of Google+ is the
ability to add links to your “About” page and that they are highly customizable. Business owners can add links by clicking the “Edit Profile” option and going to the "About" tab.

When
you add a link to the “Recommended Links” option, you will be able to also include a title that tells the user
where they will be directed. You can use this space to send users to your other
social media profiles, your primary website or other relevant sites that they
may find useful, and you can tag these links however you’d like.

Scrapbooks
The only design elements that companies control over their
brand pages on Google+ are profile pictures and the five Scrapbook Photos at the top of the page. This allows brands to express their creativity, share a little about the company and, most importantly, build an online identity.

Some good examples of companies that take full advantage of
this feature are Starbucks, BMW, Pepsi and Google’s own Android.

Engagement
The
most important thing a business can do with any social media campaign is to provide
meaningful information to users by inviting interaction. This means posting engaging content
that will both interest and inform users while creating a sense of trust and familiarity
with the brand or company. Website owners should also be interacting with users and
responding to their comments, good and bad.

Another way to invite engagement is by establishing a voice as an expert in a particular industry. Share your own content and other valuable information via links, photos and videos on Google+. With Circles, website owners can create a “Suggested”
group of important people and companies around their industries to share with
users. Whether these methods garner attention from colleagues or customers, they will likely provide business owners with insightful feedback and
information.

Google+ wants to know who the 50 most important people in your company are; or, at least, the 50 most important people related to social media.

As a present to its users, both brands and regular Joes, Google+ pulled out a few last updates for 2011 in preparation for what should be a pretty successful 2012 for the social network. Arguably the two biggest changes to the product are those that will affect businesses and users: stream noise controls and clearer notifications.

Let's be honest, the Google+ homepage can get really cluttered. Luckily, more observant members of the Plus team noticed this and resolved to do something about it; the result is a stream noise control feature that allows users to determine which of their circles they're most interested in, giving them more control over what is seen in their streams (and how much of it). Circles now come equipped with sliders (think volume control sliders) that let a user determine the amount of material that each circle includes in the general stream.

Also, they company has added sneak previews to the new "Google bar" that sits atop Google-related pages. Now, when users click on their glowing red notification indicator, they'll be able to see what's happening on the social network and determine how interested they are in the material without having to leave the page and go to the content. This notification tab has been upgraded with some other "meaningful improvements," such as letting users see +1s and shares to posts received since they last time they were on.

For brands, Google+ Pages are getting some pretty notable enhancements, as well. Brands can now let more of their employees socialize; before, just one user was given access to a brand page, which can be a big hindrance to some businesses, especially larger, enterprise-level companies. The latest update allows up to 50 moderaters for each Google+ Page.

In addition, notifications are changed so that all of a brand's administrators are aware of activity taking place on the page, including a new metric displayed on the page that tells both administrators and visitors that shows how many people have engaged with the it through +1s or by encircling it.