The number of social mediums can be overwhelming, and while it’s important to create content and engage with clients and prospects somewhere online, it’s not necessary (or even feasible) to be everywhere.

Before you begin, it’s important to create a plan. There are many ways to do this. Here’s a simple and effective method from Forrester Research known by the acronym POST.

People: Your audience (clients and prospects) and how they use the internet and behave online.

NEED IDEAS?

1. Look at the demographic (age, gender, occupation) and psychographic (values, beliefs, motivations) characteristics of your customers and prospects.

2. Think about what your clients and prospects do online. Do they fall into any of these seven overlapping categories of social technology participation?

• Creators: posting photos and creating videos
• Critics: reviewing products and services, commenting in forums
• Collectors: gathering photos, products and ideas they like and sharing with their network
• Joiners: actively participating in groups and pages, providing feedback and offering solutions
• Spectators: using and watching social media without contributing
• Inactives: not using social media

3. Follow customers and competitors on various social media. Listen to what they are saying and look at how they are using the various technologies. This will help you brainstorm what might work for you.

Objective: What are you trying to accomplish through social media? Figure this out before you begin. Then, figure out how you will measure it.

At least initially, focus narrowly and choose one main goal, such as,

• Build awareness
• Improve retention
• Increase sales
• Boost loyalty

Strategy: In this model, strategy means the result of your activity. How will your relationship with your customers have changed? Knowing this ahead of time will help you create an action plan.

• Do you want to improve your relationship with your best customers?
• Do you want to more people talking about your products?
• Do you want a place where people will test your products, provide feedback and offer up new ideas?

Technology: Based on the people you want to reach, your objective and your strategy, or end game, decide what social technologies to use and how much time it will take.

• Should you start a blog?
• Do you want to develop your Facebook or Google+ community?
• Should you be more active on Twitter?
• Should you be posting photos and videos to Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest?
• And finally, how will you measure your success–Google analytics, Facebook insights, Hootsuite, blog subscribers?

What do you think? Are you ready to start using Google+? One benny of being a (sort of) early adopter–you will have a head start on all the other companies currently rolling their eyes over another social media site.

So, obviously, the first step is to create a profile and set up a page for your business. Google provides simple instructions to get you started. 

REMEMBER

• Include your business keywords in your tagline and introduction.
• Include all your other social site links. 
• Include your website, and location (especially handy if your place of business exists in the non virtual world.)
• Add a G+ badge to your website by adding the code provided. That way, visitors can  click the badge and land on your G+ page.
• Find people to connect with by clicking on People under the Profile tab. You can search for people by name (Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Uncle Pete) or by topic (marketing, social media, entrepreneurs).

Circles allow you to share certain information with specific groups of people.

• Create circles around relationship type: prospects, current customers, colleagues, etc.
• Create circles around themes: social media, professional development, sales.
• Once you have created circles, you can tailor the content you push out to them. Maybe potential customers are interested in an upcoming sale. Current customers want to read your latest blog post.

Create valuable content with images.

• Delete auto-generated thumbnail images and replace with larger screenshot images.
• Create how-to resources that link back to other sources (like your blog). 
• Format longer posts, so they are visually appealing. 
  
• Mention people in your posts.
• Develop repeating campaigns and make it easy for users to participate and contribute. (Use #hashtags!)
• Ask and respond to questions and comments.
• Participate in trending topics found under What’s Hot?
• Use #hashtags on all your content, so your it is searchable and trackable.

Join and participate in communities.

• Find communities through the search function. Search on areas of interest, keywords, organizations and people.
• G+ will recommend communities you may like, based on your posts, contacts and other communities you follow. Join a few!
• Be a good community member. Follow the rules, don’t spam and don’t incessantly talk about yourself. (Everyone hates when you do that.)
• Similar to the way you would engage with people at a dinner party, ask and answer questions and contribute with interesting information, facts and ideas. 

Have more questions or need inspiration, circle me on Google+

Once upon a time (like six months ago), most of us  thought of Google+ as a ghost town. Maybe we had a profile, as a result of having a Gmail account. But we didn’t click on that “View Profile” button at the top right corner of the page very often.

Sometimes we would be alerted to the fact that someone had added us into a circle. We usually ignored this notification and checked our Facebook newsfeed for the 47th time that day.

But listen up, folks, Google is making moves. They are integrating several  Google products (YouTube, Drive, Gmail, Maps) into Google+ and thus increasing the number of G+ users worldwide.

Ultimately, this integration will lead to a better user experience. Imagine a version of Yelp where your friends’ reviews or places nearby move to the top. Picture a video chat with your friend or potential client. Except, you don’t have to download Skype. It can all be set up through Gmail and then stored on your YouTube channel afterward.

For businesses using G+, this integration means access to more prospects across several mediums. It can also serve as a way for companies using G+ to communicate amongst themselves.

The low-down on some Google+ features:

Circles

When you add a contact, you assign them to one or more circles (in-store customers; online customers; partners; industry leaders; business friends; coworkers; etc.). You can create targeted messages for each of your circles.

You can share circles publicly or privately. Publicly, you could share a circle of team members on Google+ to help customers. Privately, you could share a circle of people to attended a recent webinar or event, so they can then all follow each other. You can also invite an entire circle to a Hangout to collaborate.

You can literally create whatever circles you want. And no one can see what circle they fall into. So “People who talk too much” will never know how you really feel.

Communities

There are public and private communities that allow you to join or create groups around interests, or even brands. Unlike on Facebook, you can join a G+ community as a brand and interact with influencers and experts, as well as current and potential customers.

A great example: Ford Motor Company has a Ford Photo Community where members can share their Ford-related images.

Hangouts

You can hold video chat sessions with an unlimited number of people, broadest in real time and saved to your YouTube channel. You can slide share, collaborate with clients and colleagues and broadcast events and interviews. 

A great example: Veterans United uses Hangouts to educate veterans on how to use their VA benefit to get a home loan. It also partners with a nonprofit to create “virtual walks”where able-bodied citizens record their visit to different locations acting as the virtual eyes and ears for disabled vets.

Ready to get started? Read about how to set up your profile, create a business page and optimize your account to reach the greatest number of people.

If you’re struggling to see how your organization could benefit from using Pinterest, here’s a little inspiration.

Create boards with helpful, visually appealing content. Bonus points if its user generated.

Lowe’s: Build It

Lowe’s pins DIY projects from bloggers that can be made from products found at Lowe’s–an ideal balance between product promotion and engaging the Pinterest community.

WSJ: WSJ Graphics

WSJ engages users with these impactful, original graphics, conveying information and building readership.

GE: That’s Genius

This is a great example of a B2B company thinking outside the box to create something inspiring . The board includes quotes from GE founder Thomas Edison displayed in a visually appealing way. 

Sephora: Nailspotting

In his book Youtility, Jay Baer talks about the importance of creating helpful marketing in an age of information overload. Sephora does this and one better by featuring helpful how-tos from its community. And each pin links to a Sephora product.

Chobani: Fit With It

Chobani is a great example of a brand that is creating useful content tailored to its audience that isn’t directly tied to any particular products. The company understands its customers and gives them a reason to follow its boards.