Here are 5 strategies to help you get more exposure for your community:

1. Share posts from your community into your personal stream.
A great way to build exposure for the community you want to support is simply to share interesting community posts with your personal stream.

For example, I shared a post from our LinkedIn for Business community with people who circled me. I also included a link and invited everyone to come join.  This one post has three links directing people to the LinkedIn community.

If you’re part of a public community that you would like to see grow, make sure and share an interesting post with your followers (and invite them to join in). If a bunch of people in your community share posts regularly, you should see an increase in membership.

2. Post useful content often (so that it’s visible in public search)
If you moderate a public community,  your posts are indexed in the Google+ public stream. Simply by posting more about your topic will help your community get more attention in the public stream.  

Posting regularly also notifies members of your community that there is fresh content to be seen, so that will encourage members to come back. Just make sure to add useful content for your community. Don’t add content for the sake of having more keyword-rich content; that’s how you’ll lose your community.

3. Set-up a community event and host a live hangout.

Hosting video hangouts with your community on a regular basis can help you build a stronger community.  And if you create a live hangout, you can ask members to share a link to the streaming YouTube video in their personal stream.  Live hangouts can provide your community great exposure – and help others learn more about the community and members.

4. Share useful content from your community with a relevant community.
Another way to get exposure with your target market is to find communities where they already spend time, and share a post from your community into relevant category of that community.

For example, I’m a member of The Social Media Strategy community and one of the categories is on using LinkedIn.  I shared a post about conversion rates of LinkedIn groups from the community that I’m part of – which soon earned 4 +1s from that community. Only share posts from other communities if relevant and useful to the community (and only post if you’re active in that community). Don’t spam or annoy anyone.

5. Promote on your Google+ Page.

If you manage a Google+ page, make sure you choose your page as the owner of the community you’ve created.  Once making your page account as the owner, your Google+ page will have a “Their Community” section highlighting the community on the right-hand side. This can help bring awareness to page followers about the community you’ve created.

There are many other ways to bring awareness to your Google+ community. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Each skill you’ve listed will either be validated and endorsed or ignored by your peers.

So now is a great time to start reviewing the skills you’ve listed on your profile. Think about listing all the skills that actually matter to your career – and the skills that others can validate.

The more skills others can validate, the more endorsements you’ll receive.

Here are 3 simple ways to find popular “skills” listed by professionals in your industry:

1. Find “Related Skills” in Your Industry

LinkedIn has a “Skills & Expertise” section that allows you to find related skills of other professionals in your field.  For example, I was curious what skills are popular among people working in social media.

LinkedIn provides a list of related skills shared by people who work in this field:

As you begin clicking on the skill tags (on the left), you’ll find dozens of other related skills you might want to consider adding to your profile.

After spending just 5 minutes clicking through these keywords, I discovered many skills shared by my colleagues that I never thought about including in my profile until now.

As you research, make a note of all the skills that you share and  consider adding them appropriately on your LinkedIn profile (e.g. job description, summary, skills & expertise section, etc.).

2. Review Your “Suggested Skills”

Have you reviewed LinkedIn’s suggested skills for you?

To find your list of suggested skills, click on one of your skills you’ve already added on  your profile and then click on the hyperlink provided in the pop-up box:

Next, click on the “See Suggested Skills” button.

You’ll then be provided with a list of “Suggested skills and expertise for your profile” you may want to add:

The list can be very long and will help you discover other keywords that you may want to include in your profile. This list is also important because it highlights growth for each skill, which can help you see trends and skills you may want to start acquiring.

3. Review LinkedIn Skills of Top Colleagues

As you hunt through lists of popular skills in your industry, make sure to view the profiles of your colleagues that rank well for those skills.

If you know your industry well, you probably already know the thought leaders, so start there.  However, check out the list of other LinkedIn members closely linked to you.  Read their profiles to find out if you missed mentioning a skill they list.

Adding skills to your LinkedIn profile  is not something you do once.  You should refine and add to this list as you improve your skills and knowledge.

Recommended Reading:

• 5 Ways to Get More LinkedIn Endorsements

Here are 5 ways to get more endorsements (aside from just asking):

1. Move your “Skills & Expertise” Section Above the Fold

If your “Skills & Expertise” section is at the bottom of your profile, it will be more difficult for people to see your skills and endorse you. Consider moving your “Skills” to the top of your profile so that it is easily visible.

The easier it is to see your skills, the more likely you’ll get endorsed.

2. Add “Skills” That Are Easily Endorsed

Audit the list of skills you’ve added for  yourself and make sure others would endorse your work in those areas.  Consider adding generic keywords that might be easily endorsed by others that only read your blog – or by people that you’ve worked with in previous companies.  If the skills you’ve listed are too specific, it might be more difficult to get endorsements in those areas.

3. Arrange Your “Skills” in the Order Important to You

If you don’t have any endorsements, make sure to edit your skills and arrange in the order important to you.

For example, you might list photography as a skill – but it’s not an important skill for your career.  You might want to keep photography at the bottom of your list (so that the important skills are more likely to get endorsed).

You can change how the list will appear simply by editing your profile. However,  ranking will change based on votes you receive for each skill.

4. Endorse Colleagues

Take the time to endorse people that you know. Review their skills and endorse the topics they are proficient in.  Don’t simply endorse every skill unless it’s true.

Also consider adding other skills they might have missed.  Each time you endorse someone, they will receive an email that you endorsed them.  And this can help you earn endorsements from them.

Email they will see:

And if you receive an endorsement, message them back to say thank you.

5. Remove “Skills” That Don’t Impact Your Career

You might have listed skills that are interesting, but don’t impact your career in any way.  Think about removing any skills that will not help you earn endorsements (or too difficult for others to endorse).  You’ll build more credibility on your profile if each skill is endorsed by other people.

Let me know what you think of these strategies by messaging me in LinkedIn.

Here’s a look at some great Google+ pages with small followings but getting tons of engagement and will continue to grow:

Photoshop Disasters

Photoshop Disasters has under 4,000 followers at the moment, but each posts on average gets over 120+ shares and dozens of +1s and comments.  This shows the power of an engaged picture-sharing community.

Amazing Sharings

This Google+ page is in less than 1,500 circles at the moment and averaging over 100+ shares per post. This page mostly shares random photos.

Infographics

Even with only 3,500 followers, Infographics often averages over 30+ shares on posts and provides a great variety of infographics for their community. I started following this page about a month ago – and have really enjoyed getting their content in my stream.

Fragile Oasis

Fragile Oasis shares photos, videos and info about the scientific achievements accomplished on the International Space Station. Average posts are getting 20+ shares, along with dozens of +1s and a good assortment of comments from the community. Definitely follow this one.

Philosoraptor

This page has less than 2,300 followers, but is averaging +20 shares and +20 comments per post. The tagline says it all: People think I’m the best meme on The Internet. I agree.

Let me know of others that should get added to this list.

Google+ for Business

Chris Brogan shared his awesome infographic to help businesses with their efforts on Google+

Who’s Using Google+

The Search Engine Journal shared this infographic that visually breaks down the Google+ demographic.

Google+ Facts & Figures

This recent infographic provides updated Google+ stats on top occupations, cities, pages, people, and other nifty facts.

SXSW Fireside Chat with Vic Gundotra & Guy Kawasaki about Google+

A clever visualization of a fireside chat between Vic Gundotra and Guy Kawasaki taken at the 2012 SXSW event. Vic is in charge of Google+ and shared how the product has grown since the initial launch, some lessons learned, and challenges the Google+ team faced along the way.

Facebook vs Google+

This infographic was originally posted in July 2011, so some of the data is not accurate anymore. However, it’s still a great chart showing how these social networks compare.

Google+ Reaches 100 Million Users Faster Than Facebook or Twitter

It’s estimated that Google+ has 100+ Million members and this infographic breaks down Google+ growth vs other popular social networks.

Google’s Long History of Forays into Social Media

This infographic is a timeline showing all the social Google products from 2003 to 2010. It doesn’t mention Google+ because it didn’t exist in 2010, but it’s still a great chart showing Google’s diligence to creating a social web from the start.

Other Honorable Mentions

• How the Airline Industry Uses Google+ [Infographic]

• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and the Social Sharing Avalanche [Infographic]

• Pinterest vs. Google+ and Other Social Networks [Infographics]

• What Does it Take to Get a Job at Google [Infographic]

• How to Use Google Search More Effectively [Infographic]

These businesses are also having a lot of trouble networking and engaging their target audience.

So I thought it would fun to bring together some of the best Google+ coaches and strategists together to offer their advice to help a struggling business page with a free Google+ Page makeover.

Free Google+ Page Makeover

Our Google+ A-Team  will provide business strategies to help a struggling business page with their:

• Content Strategy
• Networking
• Engagement strategies with their target market
• Getting into more relevant circles
• Photo Strip & Photo Album Advice
• And much more . . .

These strategies will be featured here on this blog so that other businesses can study and apply to their own page on Google+.

Here is a peek at some of the amazing people that will share their business expertise with us  . . .

The Google+ Business Page Makeover Team

Denise Labelle - Google+ Business Coach

Jaana Nyström – Google+ content curator, social media writer, consultant

Yifat Cohen – Google+ Marketing Expert

Thomas Morffew – Google+ Marketing Coach and author of gplusresource.com

Ryan Crowe – Google+ User Experience Enthusiast

Mark Traphagen – Social Media Marketing Director

And we’ll also have some surprise social media experts offering their advice on the final blog post. Stay tuned to our circled.us page to find out who else will be sharing expert tips.

How to Apply for the Free Google+ Page Makeover

A Google+ page will be chosen at random during a live hangout on Saturday, March 17 @ 10:00 a.m. (PST) where I will pull the business or organization’s name out of a hat. Yep, I’m going old school with names in a hat. To get your business name into the hat, here’s what you need to do by next Friday:

1. Leave a comment on this Google+ post on the circled.us page (so that we can verify that the  page admin would like a custom Google+ strategy for their business).
2. Complete this simple form to provide us contact information and business goals 

Deadline to Apply

If you’d like to apply for a free Google+ page makeover, please apply by Friday, March 16, 2012. That is the deadline because all the names will be dropped into my hat and one will be selected at random during a live hangout the following day.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message or email me in Google+.

I think this will be fun and educational for all involved — and think the principles and strategies shared by this expert team of Google+ coaches can be applied across many types of businesses.  Sign-up today.

So how do you get noticed?  And how can you promote yourself to your target market?

I shared 12 strategies to help you get your Google+ page circled in a recent blog post, and want to continue this series with 4 more ways to get noticed and circled:

1. Ask people you respect in Google+ if you could interview them in a hangout.

I mentioned hangouts in the last blog post, but here’s an actual strategy you can use today.  Use your personal account to email or message someone in Google+ that you respect.  Ask him or her if you could set-up a time to interview them in a Google+ hangout about a particular topic. If the person agrees, let him or her schedule a day and time in advance so you both can promote the interview with your followers.  You can further promote the interview by asking your followers in Google+ and other social networks what types of questions they might have for that person. Record the interview so that after the interview, you can post it again and possibly even share a transcript. This is a great way to network with people you respect, and a great way for people to get to know your business.

Photographers +Trey Ratcliff, +Thomas Hawk, +Scott Jarvie have hangouts to talk about photography, and there is no reason why you can’t start hosting hangouts on topics important to your business.

2. Find shared circles about your niche and ask the owner to include you.

Find shared circles that you think you belong in and ask to get included in a future shared circle.  Check out this public Google document with hundreds of circles (organized by category) and look for relevant circles for your business.  Comment on the shared circle and ask if you could get included if you think your business page fits.  If the circle is very important to your business, email the author directly and ask politely to get included. Please don’t spam in comments. Only ask if the circle is relevant to your business – otherwise you might get flagged.  You can also find relevant circles by searching “shared a circle with you” in Google+ or by checking out this awesome G+ Business Page Directory maintained by +Matthew Rappaport.  Paul Allen even asks is there are other VCs that he should add to his circle:

3. Share your own circle of Google+ pages you like on a topic (and include yourself)

Create a circle about your niche and include your business page.  Then, share your circle with everyone that you included. You’ll be surprised how many of them will thank you for including them and will share with their followers. This is a surefire way to get circled quick. Just make sure to create and share this circle from your personal account so that when you mention other people in the post, they will be more likely to get notified. Mentioning people in your business page post won’t notify people unless they are following you. Ryan Crowe shared this circle of Google+ engagers for those just starting out in Google+, and this circle included me, which I was proud to share:

4. Write and share interesting content for your target market often.

If you really want to interact and grow a following on your page, you need to stop trying to promote your business and products all the time. Share interesting content for your target market.  The more content you write about your niche, the more likely you will show up in Google+ queries.  I just did a search for “business” posts, and +John Jantsch was right there this morning sharing some content.

Are you writing and sharing posts your target audience will find interesting every day?  Will you get found in the public stream?

Recommended Reading

• How to Get Your Google+ Page Circled Today

• 8 Ways to Get into More Relevant Circles Today

• How to Optimize Your Google+ Post

• How Brands Engage Fans in Google+ Pages

He’d like to use his Google+ page to promote his business, but he’s not sure if his target market is there.
He also doesn’t know how to find them.

So how can he find and connect with locals?  And how can he best use his time in Google+?

First, let’s address the problems of finding people based on location:

The Problem of  Finding People by Location

There isn’t a surefire way to find out where people are living simply by doing a city search in Google.  Sometimes people list their location in their about page, but not always. Many people share a variety of places they have lived, and it’s not always clear where they live now.

Sometimes I’ll notice that Google will add a blue marker on the location where the person is currently living, but it’s not always there. Besides, this strategy of looking at everyone’s “about” page is not the best use of time.

So where do you begin finding and circling locals?

Here are a 3 simple ways:

1. Circle people who “check-in” at places in your city (and surrounding area)

One quick way to find active people on Google+ is to use the following query:

site:plus.google.com “check-ins” your city

You’ll probably find a long list of people in Google+ that recently visited businesses and organizations in your city.  And, as Andrew Shotland, points out in a related post, you can narrow down your organic results to find more active people on Google+ by refining your search results by time-range.

2. Circle people who circled city-based pages near you

Look for city-based pages in Google+ and begin circling everyone who circled that page.  Don’t just search for your own city, search for cities near you, too. I did a quick check to see what local-based pages for Huntington Beach existed and found this list:

3. Circle people that “check-in” at specific places near you in Google+

Look at who is checking-into your local coffee shop, store, or restaurant based on their check-ins. If your target demographic is young families, look to see who is checking into local bounce houses or kid-friendly events. Search for popular businesses where your demographic visits.  In this example, I was curious who was checking into Starbucks recently in Huntington Beach:

If you can’t think of poplar places in your city, use Yelp to find out where people visit and then search for those places in Google+

I hope some of these strategies help you find your target demographic on Google+.

Recommended Reading

• How to Optimize Business Pages on Google+

• How to Engage People in Google+

• How to Get Your Page Circled

• Google+ Guide for Creating & Managing a Successful Page

• How to Find Your Target Market in Google+

Let me show you how . . .

1. People and Pages Spotlight Area

Depending on the query, relevant Google+ businesses and profiles appear in a “people and pages” spotlight area right area above the ads on the right side.  Here are some examples:

Scott Jarvie is one of the most popular wedding photographers on Google+. He shares amazing photos from his shoots, and is followed by over 64,000+ people. Since he has the most followers out of all the photographers that I follow, he ranks #1 for “wedding photography” when I’m logged-in. I’ve tested this query many times over the last week and he consistently ranks in this top position.

When I search for “wedding photographer,” I see Neal Urban appearing consistently in top positions (even though he has half the followers of Scott Jarvie). And what’s interesting is that Neal Urban is not even a photographer that I follow.  This shows the power of Google+ to bring attention to people and pages that you might not be aware of when conducting a generic search.  And this also reveals that even though Neal has half the followers as Scott, he can still achieve top position for a very competitive keyword.

I then decided to test similar queries when logged-out of Google+. I searched for “wedding photography” and this time Neal Urban appeared in top position along with Ben Godkin. And what’s really interesting here is that Ben Godkin’s is in 8,839 circles, compared with Scott Jarvie (64,000+) and Neal Urban (32,000+) circle counts.   This shows that even with a comparably low circle count, Ben has achieved a top position in Google+.  And I’m still amazed that Google+ gives Ben and Neal top position when I’m not even logged-in.

Since Neal Urban kept appearing in various “wedding photographer” queries, I reviewed his Google+ profile and noticed how he optimized his about page with “wedding photographer” keywords in practically every possible area.  He also incorporated city-based terms, which I think is really important especially for locally-based businesses.

I also reviewed Ben Godkin’s profile and noticed that he also listed “wedding photographer” all throughout his “about” page.

The lesson here is that incorporating important relevant keywords in each area of our profile can help you become more relevant for those queries in Google+.  Now, I don’t think simply stuffing keywords into your tag line and about section will get you into top positions because that is only part of the algorithm. These people are also active in Google+ and getting added into “wedding” and “photography” circles.

2. Personalized Results

My Dad is a plumber  and recently moved to Huntington Beach about 3-months ago.  I set-up a Google+ page for him and added his business into Google Places, but he hasn’t had time to update his Google+ page at all.  In fact, he has no posts.  Even though he has no involvement, his website and Google+ page ranks in the top 3 positions for “huntington beach plumber” in my personalized results.  He could get into even more of my personalized results if he was posting regularly on different subjects, but by just having a page in Google+ he has achieved top positions.

Now, you probably won’t see these same results because you’re not following his page – but as my dad starts posting content and getting followed more — he could start becoming more relevant and soon appear in the “people and pages” spotlight area for plumbing keywords.

3. Sharing Content

Simply by sharing content you can help you or your company gain top positions in Google+ for relevant keywords. I searched for “social media consultant” and noticed right away that Jay Baer shared his company’s website (convinceandconvert.com) and Jason Falls had shared his site (socialmediaexplorer.com).  Since I follow and read Jay Baer and Jason Falls, those two results are very relevant to me.  And further down the page, Google+ reminded me about one of my Google+ posts where I shared my circle of influential small business peeps (where I include Jason Falls, Jay Baer and many others). This shows how important Google+ posts and shares are in the algorithm.

Action Items for Your Business

If you’d like to become more relevant in Google+ for important keywords, here are some suggestions:

• Complete your “about” page on your personal profile and business site with relevant keywords
• Start networking and following other businesses and people in your niche
• Start networking with potential customers (and try to get followed by them)
• Share lots of useful content in your niche
• Be cool

Here are some of the strategies that I shared in my presentation:

1. Search for topics related to your audience or niche.

The first step is do a search for keywords related to your target audience. In this example, I’m looking to connect with ad agencies in Google+. I conducted searches for keywords like: digital agency, ad agency, advertising, marketing, etc.  I found hundreds of pages related to this topic and started following these pages as a first step in networking with them. Since I can only follow other pages, I conducted my search within the “People and pages” drop-down and also looked for the “gray box” page icon to help me identify pages (since I’m unable to follow people with my page until first followed by them).

2. Circle pages that follow pages in your niche.

To find even more relevant pages, go and follow all the pages that circled pages in your niche. This is the quickest way of finding active pages that are already following pages on your topic (and might be interested in following you). You just need to follow them first.  In the example below, I’m looking at pages that circled a relevant digital advertising agency.

3. View ripples of popular Google+ posts related to your topic (and circle those pages)

As you conduct searches in Google+ for your topic, look at the ripples of posts that have dozens of shares.  This is a great way to find pages actively sharing content about your niche topic. If you see pages sharing content related to your niche, you should probably circle them because they might be interested in following you and sharing your posts at some point.

4. Find relevant pages in shared circles 

One of the quickest ways to find pages in your niche is to find shared circles on your topic.  Add the topically-relevant circles into your personal account first, and then share just the pages to your business account. Here are some directories of shared circles to check out:

• Google+ Shared Circles Spreadsheet
• G+ Business Pages Directory
• Reddit.com/SharedCircles

Recommended Reading

• How to Get Your Google+ Page Circled Today

• How Brands Engage Fans in Google+

• Google+ Field Guide for Business Pages

• How to Get Your Page Uncircled Fast