Google Plus For Business - Second Annual Virtual Bloggers Conference

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to our third session of the day of our second annual Virtual Bloggers Conference. Everything's been going really well so far, so good. I still have my voice, but I think I see a cup of hot tea in my near future. And right now we're going to talk about Google+ and its applications for business and why you really need it, what good it's going to do you, and what you can do to make it a better experience for yourself. We're all businesses one way or the other, we're brands, and just give you some insights on it. We have the master of business design for Google+ and that's Martin Shervington. He's going to talk to us. He's got his Plus Your Business community and he's been really narrowing his ideas towards this, towards business use, which is really the future of Google+. I'm going to turn it over to Martin. If you have questions please put them in the comments section and we will get to them. So good to have you here, Martin.

Good to be here, Chef Dennis. And hello everybody, and thanks for watching. It's, uh, it's 11 AM in California. I've moved up from San Diego this week to just north of Mountain View, south of San Francisco, so it's all been changed for me. It's good to be here.

So how's California treating you?

I love it. I'd like to move full-time to California. I mean, San Diego, the lifestyle is amazing. It's got to be quite a change in weather for you, isn't it? Sorry?

Quite a change in weather for you, isn't it?

Yeah, I saw rain once, I think, in 3 or 4 months. Just once? If you go to a day in Wales, you're like, oh, that was nice.

OK, good. Well, we see rain pretty much every day here in Florida. And right now it's coming between 4 and 6 o'clock. And it's almost biblical rain every day. Yeah, but it's beautiful now, so we'll enjoy it. So I'd love to hear more of what you're doing on Plus Your Business and talk about how we can use this for growth on Google+ and how other businesses can use it. So I'm going to just let you start off, and if you guys have questions, put them in the comments section.

Yeah, well, that's the first thing to say. I gave a presentation to North California Toyota dealers, and there was about 170 people there on Thursday. That's why I came up. To this particular area. I'm going back down to San Diego for Social Media Day on Monday. Now I'm going to give you a— just to put into perspective, the last time I spoke at the Social Media Marketing World conference was in March, and that's in part why I moved to the States, in good part. And that was to around about 250 people. On Monday they've put me on at the end, they've given me my first keynote., and that's to 1,200 people. So let's put together a few of the bits here. So we had Toyota last week, and that was an event which is booked a long way ahead from some very, very smart people, by some very smart people, and for the dealers and for the general managers and the owners of the dealerships. So I'm seeing increasingly that people are getting interested. And people are coming up to me time and time again and saying, we're getting clients come through who want Google+ page management, understanding what's going on, support, consultancy, everything. So I think on the third anniversary— which is wonderful you putting this together, Dennis Littley. I think it's now getting to a point where people realize it's not going away. And any time people see articles and they pick up on very small things, A lot of people haven't started yet, don't want to be doing it. Because it's another thing. It's hard work. It's another— but actually, we've got to start looking at the benefits. So as soon as people realize it's not going anywhere, they've got to go, why do we want to do Google+? So what I was going to say is the comments, please direct this. And this is what I've been doing on a lot of presentations. I've got the comment tracker on. So if you're writing questions and particularly want to know tips or whatever, let me know. So I'm just repeating what Chef Dennis said, because you'll help me to know what you would like to get out of this. So what I would say is that regularly the relationship between Google+ and search results is something that is one of the main easiest ways of explaining. And because I have case studies, and because at Plus Your Business we've been creating these over time, we can show a direct relationship between social activity leading both to website visits there and then on the day, and also the amplification into Google Search where people will then be able to access that, that aren't just in the circles, aren't just people that are looking at it within the Google+ platform, but also then in the future. So I think that's the starting point. Regularly I have with conversation, it's very good for search, particularly when you've got content. If you haven't got content, there's still things you can do, but it's easier if you've got content. OK, the next thing that I'm regularly saying to people is Google Hangouts and Hangouts on Air. Now, this is why when I said to you, you're all watching, I'm going to layer this out, but ask for more advanced, ask for whatever you want. I'm yours for the time. So the next thing, Hangouts and Hangouts on Air. A lot of people don't realize it's not just about the ability with the Hangouts to have a one-to-one chat or even a group chat. It's actually to do with how easy it is to be on Google+, to ping somebody either a message or straight into a Hangout, "Hey, do you want to hang out for 5 minutes?" And from a comment thread into the Hangout face-to-face as a connection, it's just done so quickly. It's not a case of send me your Skype address and then adding the person in and then back and forth, "Yeah, I'm not ready yet." There's an emotional thing with those sorts of things. Whereas with Google+, it just happens so quickly. So I think that the next bit really is about connectivity, about relationships, and about building a network and actually connecting, getting into the house and really feeling that it's just ease in relationships. So I think that's that. Then the next thing— oh, and one of the things I was saying at Toyota, customer service. If people are using Google+, and leaving reviews on a particular, let's say, car dealership, or it could be on anything, then those people are saying that they've got enough time, care, and attention to put things that they are either pleased about or concerned about into words, into a review. And that's a great way for a person to go and engage with them and have a conversation with them and say, hey, thank you so much, or I know we can do better, let's see if we can work on this. And I think that's the other side is we're able to connect with people where they're at. And again, with local reviews, that can turn into presence in search. So we start to see how Google+ isn't just the social destination. It's also about the social layer as everything goes across. OK, what else? Google Drive. Oh no, let's stick with Hangouts for a second. So Hangouts, Hangouts on Air. Not only are we able to streamline, but also we're able to record private ones as well, and we can download them, we can put them— I've just done 3 videos on personal branding that came from a Hangout that Eric Eng did. So we can ask other people when they've interviewed us, for instance, and say, hey, can you send me that MP4? And I'll then do the top and the tail, add some intro and outro to it, and then put it on my website and share it again. So we've got content. This is great for content. We've got the ability to create it. OK, what else? Google Drive, collaborative working. We're doing this, and we've got so many projects in Plus Your Business that are all driven by Drive. And if we didn't have the ability to share the links with the right people at the right time, then we wouldn't be able to work so quickly and produce as much, hopefully, content that people relate to and and will hang around. So I think Drive's another big thing. And when you start to put all of these pieces together, and then you've got Google Play as well, and then you've got Google Wallet. And do you know what? I was in the airport the other day, and a message came up on my Google Now on Android, and it said, flight delayed 15 minutes. But it didn't know that I checked in. And it had drawn the information from my Gmail. And it was just that it recognized that there was a flight that was featured on a particular time, and it was in there. So that was pretty cool. So all of this is starting to fit together. And when you experience it, you realize that Google+ is a social layer, not just a social destination. But really, what makes it different, and for businesses, you can build communities. One of the things that I look at is find 100 people that love what you do and make it about them. Support them, nurture the relationships, just flow, just allow your content to connect and do your best to engage with them and make them feel part of it. And we're not talking 10,000 people or 100,000 people. 100 people, because then if it expands out— and I have a way of looking at it— there's probably 250 people who are around, and some come and some go, but there's probably a core. In fact, I know there's a core of around about 100. I think mine's up to about 125, 130 people now because I've been applying this for a while. But if a business has that, then the amplification that they will have on their content, in particular the sharing and the re-commentary about it, That makes a big, big difference when it comes to search. But it comes from the relationships. And this is why regularly I put campaigns on and make people part of it. And sometimes the campaigns are just experiments. And I say, this is just for play's sake. Let's see what we can do. And I know that's one of the things that's helped with Plus Your Business, that people have gone, do you know what? They're having a bit of fun over there. That's good. And then we teach people, and it's all put on the website, exactly what's going on and why we do these things. I've spoken for a long time. I'm going to read the comments now.

We have a couple questions actually. Jeff C has one. How important are Google+ communities for businesses to be involved with in creating?

I think that's a good question, Jeff. I think that— let me explain how I perceive community on Google+ because prior to 2012, December 2012, there weren't Google+ communities as a feature. They launched at the start of December. So there was a Google+ community that you built on your profile or your page. So when I talk about community, that's usually what I'm talking about, is, is a general sense of people connecting with you. Now, with communities, they are silos of attention, essentially, which because other people can post in there, then they are shared conversations. Whereas on your profiles or your page, you've got a degree of control on the content and the conversations, whereas in communities, it's very much about other people. So the question is, why would a person, or why would a business want to have a community? And I think it's when you want to bring people together so that they feel free, they can share within respect to the guidelines, which I'm going to come on to, what they want to, and begin conversations with other people within that environment. So it's a bit like a community center with lots of different tables, lots of different things going on within the context, within the frame of, for instance, social media marketing, or it could be on cross-stitching or knitting, whatever it might be. And that's— the purpose is to engage conversation or to allow the environment, the that says it's OK to talk here on this particular subject. I mean, I regularly will see Star Wars stuff in my stream that comes from those communities. And it's fascinating to dive in and to see some of the deep conversations that's going on. Now, I wouldn't have that on my profile. So as a brand, if you want to focus and deepen the relationships, I think that's a really good thing. Now, interestingly enough, the guideline side of it— so for Plus Your Business, We're very much focused that the Main Plus Your Business community is now a home base and the level 1. Because we're finding so many people coming through, we want to make sure they've got the basic level, and everyone gets it for free unless they're a business and they want to put 10,000 people through, and then we've got to charge something. But also a home base where people feel the events are, and we're going to be building that up more and more. Now, this has gone through an evolution. Because we found out what works and what doesn't, and we want to make sure that we're nurturing the relationships that are there. Different communities are going to be appropriately run— well, rather, it's appropriate to run different communities— it's appropriate to run communities differently. Yeah, I'll get a sentence out eventually. It's appropriate to run communities differently based upon the need of a business. So if I look at Cadbury, for instance, they're delighted that lots of people are posting pictures of the chocolates, and it's a very obvious thing. But I would say, Jeff, that my view is the first thing to do is to work with a client on understanding profiles, pages, engagement, and then start going, do you need a community? Do you want other people posting stuff? Do you want to be managing the threat? You know, what's managing the threat? You want to be moderating, actually, more than managing. You manage the environment, though. But do you want to spend your time doing that? Does that add value? Is that good for brand recognition? Or not. Now one of the big things, and this came out of the Toyota gig the other day, and I said private communities for business internally, they're great. Emails back and forth drive me batty because there's a better way. Put it on the comments thread. Everyone can see, and people generally don't write quite so long, and you just get— just everything flows a lot quicker. So I think businesses as well really would benefit if they looked at that, using those internally.

It is, it's a great tool for businesses to use, and once they see it— I think there's a commercial that Google has now, it says, "Oh, I'll ping you." So you ping me now, we'll do a follow-up, because what's there to follow up with? We just did it now. I mean, and that's with our chat kind of thing, and in the community yourself you can have a chat going too. So I mean, to use an internal tool like that is just really mind-boggling that you have it. So, and we have another question here from Kim Boltman, and Kim wants to know, how important is the visual versus the verbal? Is the rise of HOAs indicative of wanting to see more than to read?

Yeah, I think that the visual is the initial impact, virtually. So if I just look at the comment— sorry, look at the stream. You can tell I moved this week. Get to Saturday, and my mind's still working. I think the comment— sorry, the stream— the amount of visual engagement that we are experiencing just by whether it be on the phone or that is tremendous now. I think that Google have done a great job at making the environment beautiful. And if you have your circles well managed, then the content that you see regularly, it's like bam, you get that. I think with HOAs, it's actually about connection. I think it gives people the ability to have that conversation, whether it's just like happened there where the comments come through and we're able to connect. I'm just having a quick look where the comments— so could you bring that comment back up for a second? Sure. Okay. So let's look at this. So Kim, you've got your image on there. I can see— I know you've asked that question. We're in a Hangout. You're not in the Hangout, but I know you from comment threads. So the visual aspect in its own right is then there's a connection from a comment thread because I recognize your photo, and it's great because you're smiling. And this way allows us to connect further because I'm able to talk directly to you when you've asked me a great question. That gets me thinking. So I think that enables everybody to feel there's access. And I think for a brand or from a business point of view, that's wonderful. And the point comes— I don't know if Chef Dennis Littley wants to open this up, but you can invite lots of people in. I wouldn't say that for today, Chef Dennis, but you can. And that's the thing, is you can just go straight to the Hangouts, invite somebody, and bring them in. So I think it's all about the connectivity. And I do think for businesses, there's often a standoffishness that is there with customer service. I think that that's something which could easily be bridged by using this sort of technology. This is why I tie back to, for instance, reviews. Let's say somebody leaves a review and it's not quite ideal, you send them a private message. Actually, on that, I would actually just do a private message and say, hey, it would be great to hang out and have a conversation because I can see that you're really into this, this, and this from your profile. 'And that you're based in this area, and I'd love to talk more about it.' Straight away, it's all part of the ecosystem that allows you to connect.

I know I find it more difficult now when people send me emails and they want to do phone conversations, or if they want to physically meet somewhere, I'm going, 'Do you do Hangouts? Right now we could do it in 5 minutes. I got to drive 45 minutes to meet you somewhere?' —It's also about text.

One of the big things— ah, do you know what? I can't remember the name of this. I learned this when I did organizational psychology. There are a few models that were really good. And one of them was talking about the level of complexity in communication. And this ties directly into the visual and text-based one that Kim's asking about. Now, if you send— and this is, I think, business context, but you think personal as well— if you send somebody a text-based message and they receive it, you're stuck without a voice tone. You're stuck without a context. Were they in the car when they sent it? Were they rushing? Were they relaxed? Did they spend 8— you don't know. And they receive it, and the person receives it, then interprets it. Now what often happens is it goes back and forth and back and forth and there are regular misunderstandings. What does that work? What do you mean? So you go back, right? So let's say that doesn't work and it fails. So what's the next thing you do? You go, you know what, this isn't working anymore. Could we jump on the old way onto the telephone? Because that would really help. And then you take the level of communication up and you take it up to auditory. You've got the tonality as well. So let's say that then doesn't work. Well, in the old way— and this would happen regularly in business— you'd go and say, meet. Let's meet. We need to meet. We need to get face to face because there's something— we need to talk about this a bit more. And so that's what you do. Now we've got this. And I think that there is a hierarchy of complexity in communication. Because I can see Chef Dennis. I can see his facial expression. I can hear his voice tone.. He can also use text, he can drop links into the site. All of this helps. Now, before anyone says, yes, but we could do that with Skype. Yeah, but we didn't. Most of us didn't. This is why it's a seamless experience on Google+ is that so quickly we can move into this higher level of complexity which enables us to connect more and understand more and go, do you know what, I quite like him. Want to get in a Hangout? I was misinterpreting. All of those comments on that comment thread. I thought as a customer you were not happy. Oh, I get it now. And suddenly it all becomes easier and the relationships build. So, and then you've got so many other things. You can be sharing the content. One of the things I find fascinating is you can share reviews. So you can go to a reviews page and you can actually share the reviews. I think this is a really underutilized tool because People want stories. They want to hear about the positive stories and also potentially how you turn around the things that weren't so positive. And I think as businesses grow and develop on Google+, I think that that storytelling and embedding those on websites and saying, hey, this is the best reviews we've had this week— this is a new idea I had when I was at the Toyota Gate— having all of that there, people relate to it and people can feel part of it. And then when you jump in Hangouts, put the Hangouts onto a website as well. And I know Mike was flanging about editing the— where was Mike's comment about editing? Where is he? There he is. That sort of thing. Well, I'm glad it was a light bulb moment. I do that all the time, Mike, regularly. If there's anything funny that I ever say— rarely, but if there ever is, I send somebody the email and say, Can you send me that MP4? I might use that. So again, it's all part of our content creation that allows everything that we're doing to potentially be utilized for storytelling, which is really where a lot of business is. It's telling people, this is how we are as a business. This is what we do. So content isn't just the information on, for instance, Google+, the how-to. It's also the why-to and the who else is working with and so on. There's so many options of what we can do.

So what are the most important—

Good question, Kim. So yes, I still do, I still write a lot, but I still use images alongside. That could have been the short version.

And she also mentioned that, uh, about HOA Connections, forgot about the recent profile pic addition to comments. She's due for a new profile pic soon.

Yes, it all helps, it all helps us to connect.

Absolutely. Well, so as a business doesn't matter what it is, I'm getting ready to jump onto Google+, what are the most important things for me to consider? What are the steps I need to take?

The first decision that people— the first, first one is actually do they want to have an Apps account? That's what I consider to be the very first step, is do they have a paid account? If they're a business, then I would say to speak to somebody. Who can advise a little more, but that's a big decision. There's advantages like support. So otherwise you have a free account. Okay, once you've made that decision, the next thing is profile and page and relationship. So it's very straightforward if you're a business and you've got a front door, like storefront or your service area, you want to be on the map, you want a page. If you are a therapist, then you've got a question: will you ever sell the business. This is one way that I look at it. Do you want a page? Because people relate to profiles better. It's as simple as that. So, and also, if you build up a page, and let's say you build up a page and you decide that you're not going to do therapy anymore, you're going to go into apricot farming. I have no idea why. Apricot farming. Then you've then got to go, oh, but my audience is built around that. Whereas if you've built it on your profile, it's you. People go, oh, I I'd love to hear the story, how you've gone from therapy to talking about fruits.

Almost the same thing, really.

I was hoping there would be a link there, tennis, therapy, and fruit. One day I'll actually do some preparation for some of the examples. You should hear some of the ones that come out. I'll tell you, I was at one presentation recently. In fact, Maggie was there, and Stephanie Garcia. And the example I gave was talking about being the best expert in baking muffins. And I've used this several— I was thinking, really got to come up with a better example, because the longer you go on with that example, it starts to get— anyway, so if you decide and you are a person, and you may change it, then profile. People relate to profiles much, much easier, and they feel they're not going to get sold to. I think that's one of the key things, is when you see a page and you see it's like OK, there's something almost potentially pushy a little bit. Now, one of the tips to get around that, if you're in that situation, is to change the profile picture, or rather your logo, to your profile picture on the page. That's great. That's a really good way of connecting with people, because people like to see people. So that's that. From that point, so you've got everything set up. You've got to get your YouTube set up, integration, which is usually One of the areas that's a little tricky. But once you've got all of those things done, then my advice is to relax and go out and find out what Google+ is about. Don't go and post loads of things and expect heaps of engagement. You've got to go out and engage first. Go and meet people. Say you're new. Go and join communities. And picking up on what Jeff was saying, the communities are awesome because they're hives of people. And they will share out information. And the energy is in them. There's a buzz. And I'm using— that's very much a Seth Godin principle. So you can find people that already will connect with you and what you do. And I think as well, adding in Circles within the first month, finding people that are within your area, both locally and also areas of interest. And I think that Circles have— that people haven't been using them as much lately. And since Communities, which is now what, a year and a half ago that they launched, I still Think Circles are very, very useful ways of bringing people together. So I think that would be my starting point. But the engagement in the first month, make it about them. And at that point, make it about the people you want to have conversations with. Go and talk. Hey, it's great that, Chef Dennis, you're doing this thing, foodie thing. You can tell how often I post on food stuff. That's great. I really like— and you go and you have a conversation which is based upon whatever other people are doing. Then after a while, people start to go, but what do you do? I'm really curious about you.. And people go to the profile and start to— and hopefully, I say hopefully, but very often add people into Circles. And when people have been added into Circles, then potentially the content flows in their particular stream. And that's the main reason, apart from the symbolism of somebody having circled you, the main thing is that the content can potentially appear in your stream, which means that potentially you get engagement. So that's almost the starting point of the journey. As I would see it. And then go to events, hang out, and like Kim Pebley talking about using baking muffins is a fine example. Good. There we go. Healthy muffins. Healthy muffins.

So— Okay, we do have some questions here too. Barbara Gilbert, I could see where reviews are very important. What is the best way to ask for reviews, and how do you make it simple for people to complete the review?

So I believe the person you want to follow on this is Luis Galaza. He's putting together something for Plus Your Business around reviews. And in fact, he's going to be doing some really cool stuff with us on neighborhoods as well. Now, my understanding, the key thing is you're not allowed to incentivize or pay for reviews. So that aside, I think asking people when you've got a good relationship, would you be happy to leave a review, giving them the URL of your page that they can find you, pointing them towards the website— sorry, towards search and say, you're going to find us here. And just maybe saying over the next few days and why it matters to you. Now, I'm going to put my hands up and say that I haven't done— I've done with 1, 2, 3 clients a reviews focus, and it's been done in that way. I think there's a lot to be done, and this is why I brought Luis in, because I believe there's going to be great approaches, great linguistic approaches, like, it'd be wonderful if you did leave a review because my boss looks at those and it's a great way to show on the web. That sort of stuff. But I'm going to put my hands up and say, I think that Plus Your Business can give you a better answer within about 2 months on that, because there's things that we're working on. But it's just a case of asking. That's it. But I will. In fact, I'm going to put it on my list and make sure. Do you know what? Did I tell you this, Jeff, Dennis? Everything— I have this with me. This has been going now since the 17th. I tell everyone this. I have one of these. 17th of June, this one is. And that's how far in it. I make notes on everything. And it's the only way I can remember to do the jobs. But I'm going to check out on the reviews thing. So thank you. Barbara?

Barbara. Yes, Barbara Gilpin. Yeah. And the great thing about reviews is they can't really be anonymous, can they? They have to be—

Well, you can do them via a Blue Hat account, for instance. Right. You could. But you do have to have a Google+ profile. But what I'm assuming is reviews that don't have the level of trust, reputation, authority are tending to go down. But that's, again, something which is not certain. But that's just as simply as logic. It would make sense. If you see the most important reviews for you from people within your circles, really, if you think about it, because it's a recommendation.

Very good. Okay, we have another question here. Laura Williams: I'm using a Google Community in tandem with my HOA on the business of writing. Do you have any tips on how the two can be used together? Well, sounds like you're doing it.

Sounds good. I would say that One of the challenges of HOAs, if you take that it's an event thread, one of the challenges is once it's done, the energy kind of goes out of it. Whereas in a community, you can sustain the energy. If people move their attention from that sort of like the peak of activity, and then you move into a community, you can have threaded conversations. So one of the things that we're doing a lot with Plesk for Business is playing with pinning posts. As this is the topic of today, this is the thing that's going on here today. So I think that's one tip for you, is think about how you utilize the space, because they're psychological spaces, communities. And if you are almost positioning what you want to be the main thing of the topic of the day or topic of the week or featured member, I think that's another really good way of approaching it. And pinning it to the top, you're then saying, this is what I'd like to talk about. Who else would like a conversation? So that's then sort of a moderator's job, or the community owner's job, to guide the attention. And it works.

It does work. Excellent. All right, here's a comment from Lila talking about that's what she does. Did a screenshot of how to find how that review, always give it to happy clients and make sure we thank them for doing it. That's great.

And that's it in this relationship, isn't it, Leila? It's— I mean, that's what you're doing is by them putting their name to review, they're publicly stating that's how they feel. And that's great for you, but it's also good for them because you then— you've been rewarded essentially for your good practice and doing a good job. And the next time, you've got that as a public statement.. And I think that that's good for relationship point, and they're going to feel connected to the business more.

And we have a couple of people asking for Luis's last name and his spelling. Lena Spooner is looking for it.

L-U-I-S. Yes, Luis. Galaza. Now, if I get it wrong now, Luis is going to kill me. Yeah, I got it right. There we go. I'll put it in the site. Should I put it in the site? I'll put it on the thread. Sure, sounds good. There you go. Look how organized is that. In fact, I'm going to do even better than that. Someone has to tag Louis and tell everyone that I'm talking about him. There you go. There he is. Live TV, folks. OK.

Good. Kim Baltman just threw up another one. Would you please speak to the importance of images, such as the food photos that I put up and your surf photos? We eat with our eyes. Any tips?

Yeah, with images, the ones that don't work are the ones that, for me, unless they're stylized and they're sort of artistic black and white stuff, dark grays and greens and dark yellows and things, and just stuff that is just a bit drab. What works is vibrant. You want to be exciting the mind with the images. And sometimes it's playful. I did Fido Friday and Cat-a-day back to back with just funny stuff because sometimes people need to relax. I'm talking about business a lot, so this is an interesting one. From a profile point of view, I will share whatever I want to share. From the Plus Your Business page, you know you're going to get social media marketing, Google+, content marketing, that sort of thing. Plus Your Life page, there's going to be inspiration, personal development quotes, and so on. But for my profile, whatever goes. And I will play and experiment. And sometimes it's not a written down, okay, I'm going to test stuff, even though I do that. Sometimes just, let's see, let's just see if people like this. And that's great because you get the feedback. So I think it's whatever works for people who are connected with you, Kim. I think with Chef Dennis and the food, I always joke, I'm not— I went to— in fact, the friends I'm staying with here, they took me to the French Laundry. Do you know what the French Laundry is? Oh yeah, absolutely. So the French Laundry was a Michelin, 3-star Michelin hotel, wasted on me. Or restaurant, wasted. It was in, I think, Napa Valley. And they're taking pictures of the food and so on. I'm just not that into food. It's okay, I eat. It's alright, if people know me well, I love curry. Curry isn't the best thing to be seen on the screen. Yeah, it's not that exciting. How excited can you get about chickpeas? But I love, and I am passionate about curry, and I love Thai food as well, and sometimes Italian, but it's whatever. Actually, here's the principle again that I look at: relatable content. It's about the people that you have in your network and whether they relate to what you're putting out. So Chef Dennis could be posting things on surfing, for instance, and people go, why are you doing that? That's irrelevant, you don't surf, and you never talk about it. I've done it because that's been part of this journey. I've spent the last 3 months surfing 3 or 4 times a week, so I wanted to share that because that's what I'm doing in this world. And therefore the bridge is there. So I think a lot of it goes down to the storytelling as well, because the visual just begins the story.

Absolutely. If they saw me on a surfboard, they'd be going, what the hell are you doing on a surfboard?

I know, there's still time though. Still time. We'll get a surf trip together.

Not for me. There's another comment from Laura Williams. Thank you, Martin Shervington. That's a good way to think about it. I'm trying to consider my HOA as an educational resource that can be used in a very evergreen as I create content. In other words, I can use it as a reference to direct people to in conversation. That's great.

That's a great way of creating content. I think that's something with HOAs. I mean, I'm aware because we're still working on the Plus Your Business Show, and David Antman did a wonderful job the other day, so he's going to be doing it again. But I'm aware that sometimes if it's in the moment and we're talking about things that are there this week, it isn't evergreen. A lot of people have a certain number of views and then that's it. I think that seeing, even to be able to extract sections, I do this with featured members, and we extract that, we put it back up on YouTube. The Hangouts enable content to be created that wouldn't have otherwise been created. It's not difficult. We're just talking. If you've got people asking you questions and coming in, as this is great because it's on the comment thread. You're guiding, and we can then answer in a way which is— the content can have legs. So I think that's a great application. Very good.

Here's Roxanne Davenport. If I have a YouTube for my community use, use it for members? Use the page's YouTube for information? I guess she's asking if you can use that that way.

I'm not too sure. If you have a YouTube for your community,— not sure what you mean, Roxanne. Profile versus page YouTube channel? The big advantage of having the YouTube channel connected to the page and running Hangouts from there is that you can have 50 people access as page managers. That's the big advantage. I would say, because I know with what you're doing with your page, Roxanne, I would say that You build the community of people around you, and they will follow you to the content, as opposed to necessarily just creating the content. So whether you look at the page or the profile, it depends on how people are relating to you and how people are moving their attention. Now, I know that you've been building this for a while, so you may well have found that people will quite happily go, because the YouTube channel is still there. If you want to ask a bit more, I can see if I can answer a bit clearer, because I'm not absolutely certain about the question. But it comes down to thinking about— I think that the tip, think about sections of 3 to 5 minutes that help people. Because Hangouts and hours Hangouts, for somebody to sit from A to B on a conference like this, it's great, because that's the purpose. But day to day, there's a lot going on. So people often go, tell me what he actually said. Tell me the good stuff. Don't tell me the stories about the muffins and the surfing. Tell me what— and you can extract that. So I think that's another way of looking at it, Roxanne. Here we go. Here's a task for you if you want the challenge. Look to create 5 key videos that are 3 to 5 minutes long from content that you're creating. There's no deadline on it, but just think about it that way. That's what I'm doing all of the time, and people seem to relate to it.

It's a great way to get your message out there and for people to find you because those videos start to circulate and they get more attention, more engagement.

Yeah, and 3 to 5 minutes, the investment is low.

Lila Williams posted, "Your community would be a great resource to send folks who have not yet discovered your community in G+. Have business cards made up with the URL of your community.

Great growth potential." Yeah, I think that's something again is, it's like having a community badge on your website. I know I put the badge on martinshearington.com. In fact, even before there were badges, I created one just because I recognized that that was a great way of building the relationships. And I think if you're not rushing to sell something, then communities bring you together They build trust because people see time and time again you're providing content and how you're replying to comments and stuff. It all helps with relationships. So I think a community attached to a brand page, attached to the website, that is run by several individuals, I think that's a really good stacked-up approach.

Here's a question Betty Page is just asking. Speaking of communities, I've been tasked to revive a somewhat dead one. The owners of the community never did anything with it and put the responsibility on me to fix it. I'm doing what I can, but I'm only one posting anything. Any suggestions on how to grow it and get more engagement?

Now I've done lots of different things with communities. I haven't thought about this for a while, Betty, so that's a great question. So what I would say is why not find 20 to 50 people outside of the community, so from your profile, and find those that are interested. So I would recommend posting and say that you've got— either give people the idea. I don't know the subject matter of the community. As long as it doesn't— I don't know. I mean, assuming that you can from your profile, there's no reasons why not, like a conflict of interest or anything. I don't know. But assuming that you can, then look to build a circle. Ultimately, this is where it ends, with 20 to 50, even up to 100 people who are keen on that subject matter. Do it from your profile, and then you can invite them saying, hey, here's the thing that I've got going on over here, and then move the attention from your profile to that community. That's what I did— I've done it several times, actually— but that's what I did in particular when +YourLife launched. Was built a personal development circle first and then said, well, it seems like quite a few of us are into this, let's now move into this particular direction. So that's what I would do, is focus on conversations. It's easier to have those public conversations to start with and then move. Very good.

Barbara Gilbert would like to know if you could please speak to circles again and go into a little more depth. As you can see, I'm fairly new to Google+ for OK, Barbara.

So circles— I'll see if I can do the basics upwards. So if you know the basics, then stick with me. Circles are ways of grouping people so you can differentiate your contacts. So you could have a circle of people who are based in California, and you can have a circle of people who are based in San Francisco, and then you could have a circle of people who are people in San Francisco who love food, and there's going to be an overlap between. Now, because you can share those circles with other people, and you do that by going to people, go to your circles, and then when you click on a particular circle, it comes up and there's a little arrow, and you can click and you can share. So you can give a whole circle of people to somebody else and say, these are my contacts in this particular area. I think that's one of the brilliant things about circles on Google+. Google+. Now also, effectively, that's what's happened many times before. And if you go to circlecount.com, they've got a lot of circles, and there's lots of access to circles. Or if you search for circles and then something like foodie circles, food blogger circles, things like that within Google+, you're going to find a lot of circles. When it comes up, you can add those circles in, and you can change the name of the circles. People don't know the names of the circles when you add them. And they can be sitting in your circles and you can then see the content in your stream. Now you can have up to 5,000 people in your circles and what you can then do— I'm just trying to think which way to go with this— one of the key things that I think is most useful is building small opt-in lists. So just like I was suggesting earlier, just seeing where it was, with Betty, I would suggest that if you have a circle of people who are into a thing, build a small circle, up to 100 people. OK, let's start again. Let's start again. I'll give you the whole process. You're getting me thinking here, Barbara. The idea is that If you have niche interest groups and they've said, yes, we love what you do, we'd like to receive notifications by email, then you can, when you share content, not only share to public but also add that circle into the post box and click the little checkbox underneath it. That will send them a notification by— and they get an email. That will give you a higher level of engagement, in my experience, than if you don't do that. But let's look at the key bits. Opt-in. People need to say, yes, I want to receive that information. So when I was giving the advice to Betty, that's what I'm suggesting, is build a group of people who would love to receive notifications from you. As it happens, the notification that you're talking about is the invite in this particular way. Sort of similar idea, the invite to a community. Does that make sense, or is it as clear as mud, Barbara? There's loads on Plus Your Business on this, enormous amount of content. If anybody wants to visit, in fact, the whole process of build opt-in circles, if you search for that in Google search, you'll probably find an article I've written. We've got, in fact, the level 2 of the Academy covers a lot of this stuff, which Chef Dennis— Chef, can we tell him? Chef Dennis is involved over the coming months. So we go through all of these processes because from an engagement point of view, you want to find those 100 people all of the time that are around and amplifying and love what you do. And we're doing it for each other. This is the key thing about community. I'll stop talking now because that might be too long.

That was good. I think the Academy is a great idea, and it's going to help help people understand and be better prepared for using Google+ and grow through it?

Well, the plan is a journey. I think that's the thing, you know, just the same as we've all been going on a journey. It's a personal brand building, it's authority building, it's relationship building. And so what we're looking at is giving some competency structures, and this kind of talk is very much around the level 2. Type content, which is getting everything in order that enables you to then start building. So Barbara says, "I'm going to have to bring that up." That's good. See? There we go. I'll take that. That's good. I'll stop talking now. Thanks, Barbara. That'll work.

It's great when you have those aha moments, those little epiphanies when all of a sudden something makes sense to you, because then you know you've completed something very important. You've gotten to a certain part of your life where that journey has finally taken you somewhere where you're going, "Uh-oh, now I understand." Yes, it's good.

And some of us have been doing these things for quite a long time, and if you missed out on when all of those conversations were going on a year ago and people are just arriving now, then you don't know it, you know, unless you work it out yourself. So it's great to have those questions. I'm always happy if you want to come see me in the community and ask any questions. There's lots— not me, I'm Mike Alton. I've got David Hamlin, I've got Lisa Warwood, and Ronnie Binzer. And everyone's around. We will do our best to help. Because it's layering that initial understanding. It's one of the most important things.

Excellent. And I think that Betty Page put a link in.

See, that's all good. Yeah, that's got a video in there as well that will help with communities and circles.

Very good. Alright guys, it's been a great— we've just spent almost about 50 minutes talking. Martin, you have shared a lot of very insightful ideas and helped us a lot and answered some questions and I think everybody's gotten a lot out of this. You do have your website that has a lot more information on it.

Yeah, the main site is plusyourbusiness.com. There's a free quick starter guide. Check out the Academy, check out what we're doing in Neighbourhoods. That's going to launch pretty soon, which is very exciting. We've already launched, but we're in a very soft launch. But the Academy is coming up very soon, and most of all, come and see me in Plus Your Business Community, because— and Plus Your Life. Plus Your Life, by the end of the year, will start to fly. It's actually where things began, and I spent 6 months putting most of my effort in, and then I have to say Plus Your Business has taken up quite a lot of time lately. But between the two of them, that's where I am, as well as my profile. They're great questions. They were really good. So yeah, thank you.

And you'll also be found speaking at various social media events.

I'm speaking, apparently, at 1,200 people on Monday about Google+ for Business. Cool.

And did I hear you already signed up for next year's Social Media World Day or whatever?

What was it? I had a tweet. Being told that I should book it in. So that was cool. So yeah, so that's— Film Motion booked me in. So yeah, I'll definitely be in Sunday. It was an incredible event. And that was actually one of the— that was the pivotal moment for everything starting to come together. That was when— and I moved to the States for it, essentially. So— and it has. It's been great. It's all coming. And just to reassure everybody, if you're Google+ is going to fly this year. But it's going to take another 2 to 3 years of building and the fruit to start to come. But it really is going to start to pick up. You can see it already. With Google.com/business, that was a very strong signal to people that Google+ isn't going anywhere. Google+ is going to thrive.

It's going to change and it will keep changing and you have to adapt to those changes.

That's like the wave, you know, the wave changes in front of you. Because I've been surfing for 3 months, the wave changes and you adjust and you don't complain that the wave is changing. The wave is what it is.

I think that's the biggest problem I have when I go to Facebook is everybody just whining and complaining about the changes. There's nothing you can do about it. Get over it, enjoy the ride, and then when you wipe out, get back on your board and try again.

There you go. See, we've made a surfer out of you in 51 minutes.

There you go. Alright, Martin, thank you so much for stopping by today and joining us on our third session of the second annual Virtual Bloggers Conference. I'll be back in about an hour with session number 4, which is on podcasting. And so I'm going to take a little break, and I'll be back to see you guys later. So thanks again for coming, Martin. And have—

Thank you for having me. Thanks, everybody, for watching and for the great questions. Very cool. Bye-bye.