As the lines between search engine optimization and social media continue to blur and form one synergistic effort, it is critical that both small and large companies stay up to date with new opportunities for spreading brand awareness and connecting directly with their audiences. When Google makes a move in the social space, it’s important to pay attention to, understand, and identify how the offering can and should be leveraged for your business.

With the recent announcement of Google+ brand pages, many people may be saying “My business is already active on Facebook and Twitter, why should I bother with yet another social media channel?” This is a valid question due to the amount of time and resources that are required to effectively manage each social media channel. At the surface, Google+ brand pages may seem like just another Facebook with a fraction of the user base. However, these are a few unique elements that you should consider before writing it off:

Smaller User Base

While it’s true that Google+ does have a much smaller user base than Facebook (estimated at 40 million vs. 800 million), it doesn’t necessarily mean you should ignore it and focus all of your efforts on Facebook. With fewer users, come less noise and more focus in the space. Facebook is packed full of updates from the recent integration of services like Spotify and The Washington Post, as well as games, “happy birthdays,” and pictures of friends and family. Google+, on the other hand, seems to be driven more by content of a professional, informational, and industry-specific manner. Because of this, brands may be able to create a much more direct and personal relationship with their audiences.

Unique Functionality

Google+ offers very unique functionality with its ability to host “Hangouts,” or live audio/video chats, between itself and its audience. Hangouts provide an opportunity to directly engage in discussions, receive immediate feedback, and/or provide exclusive content. One example of a brand already using Hangouts is The Black Eyed Peas, where they hosted a session backstage prior to one of their concerts. The Hangout allowed them to connect with their fans, give some inside information on the band, and thank their fans for their support (watch the full recording here).

Another creative use of Hangouts can be seen with Dell. Michael Dell mentioned the possibility that the company may soon leverage Hangouts as a place for face-to-face customer support and sales rather than requiring customers to call in.

Future Integration With Other Google Offerings

As Google continues its recent effort to unify its products and offerings, Google+ is ripe for deeper integration with services such as Google Places and Maps, Web and Image Search, and YouTube. Google has already begun this process in several ways. One of the most recent is the addition of Google +1s into Image Search.

This could become beneficial to increasing a brand’s visibility, socially and via organic/image search, where the brand frequently post images to their Google+ brand page (such as artists or photographers who sell a product or service), and have an audience that is likely to share that content.

Ultimately, whether or not using Google+ brand pages is right for your business depends on your target audience and your level of creativity to use the service to its full potential. In most cases, businesses must fully understand what types of audiences they have, where they are spending their time online, and what types of content they want to consume from each service. Finding the right balance of social interaction and commercial promotion is critical in creating that connection, positively affecting other marketing initiatives such as SEO, and ultimately generating the next sale.

Are you using Google+ for your brand? If so, in what ways are you engaging your audience? And if not, why did you decide against it?

This article originally published at ClickZ here.

Over the last 12 months more and more of my clients are asking about Facebook pages and how the can create them as a extension of their website marketing activities.  Facebook fan pages have become an essential weapon in the online promotion of business, starting initially through their friends and family and subsequently through their existing and new customer base.  Facebook fan pages allow businesses to:-

1) Communicate with your customers.
2) Gather valuable insights into customer behaviours and interests.
3) Help customers advertise their business services throughout their own social network.
4) Run online marketing promotions and special offers to targetted groups.

Here’s how to create your own Facebook fan page:

Spend some time comparing other Fan Pages

First of all, make sure you’re an individual member of Facebook. Then try a search for a fan page. For example, do a search on “Coca Cola” and click on “pages” when you get the search results. Click on “Coca Cola” to view the Coca Cola fan page. Examine how the page is structured.  Next try and search for your competitors or businesses in a simialr industry to yourself.
TIP: Take a look at Facebook’s gallery of pages which follow best practices for their business category – here.

Create your very own Facebook fan page for your business
Facebook pages allow your customers to become deeply connected with your business or brand. Customers can express their support by adding themselves as a fan, writing on your Wall, uploading photos, and joining discussions with other fans.
Try: Before starting, read how to create a business presence through a Facebook page and Facebook’s guide to creating a page. Then create your own fan page, When you create a new Facebook fan page for a business, you select either the “Local Business” or “Brand or Product” option (unless you are an artist, band, or public figure). If you select “Local Business”, choose your business type – cafe, store, bank, etc. Then click “Create Page.”

Add some basic company information to your page

Initially, add basic information such as website, company overview, contact details and products. Add your logo or another picture that represents your business. After adding info, make sure you publish your page.
Start promoting your page through your immediate social network
Now that you have your fan page up you have to attract potential fans without annoying them — and that’s more art than science. First see if some of your existing customers are on Facebook, and become Facebook friends with them if you haven’t already. Then, invite them to become fans. Also let all of your customers know about your fan page through existing media campaigns, and encourage them to show their support by joining Facebook and becoming fans. Once you have some fans, it’s easier to get more.
Try: Keep your fans happy by offering them useful and relevant info. For example, send special updates just for them. Facebook recommends messaging fans no more than twice per month. Remember, the more users interact with your page, the more News Feed stories for users’ friends are created, magnifying awareness of your page.

Promote Your Page Off Facebook

Promoting your page externally helps spread the word to new customers and fans.
TIP: Facebook provides guidelines on promoting your page outside of Facebook. They also provide a Facebook Page Badge graphic that you can download for use on your own site that says “Find Us on Facebook.” Hyperlink your badge to your own page’s URL.

Now off you go!

Social bookmarking is one of the marketing strategies that you shouldn’t miss. Aside from it being the best way to bookmark all the websites that you are interested in, you can also meet other people with the same interests and build a business network amongst those who share your interests.

Of course you’ll probably think that making use of social bookmarking may be abused due to spamming because people can just submit their own blogs, sites and lenses so they could obtain more interest from their audience. It is not bad to submit your own content as long as it is in moderation. However, it would be better if you can also find relevant content which is not yours but is useful for you and to others.

Now, you also have to keep in mind that if you are to participate in posting to social bookmarking sites, you should be able to maintain a friendly environment and relationship with other people. You probably would like to share as many bookmarks you can each day but you might end up being ignored not unless the content is really relevant to what they are looking for. To resolve this, you will have to submit a sufficient number of links and try bookmarking some links from your circle of friends or reference their site on your blogs.

It is not necessary to make use of your real name when registering to a social bookmarking site. However, it is essential that you still get some popularity out from this Internet marketing tool. Of course you want to be able to share these relevant links to people but the question is how you will be able to get their attention. By having your own identity as well as good reputation, you will surely be able to establish good online presence and more followers as you wish.

Aside from this, you should also establish your own personality to get more friends and acquaintances through social bookmarking. To do this you have to completely fill up your profile so people can get to know you more. You may also update your bio and put some interesting information that will make people want to check out your posts and links. You can actually include links to your site in your bio but make sure that those links work.

There are a lot of social bookmarking sites out there and some may not be relevant to the information that you would like to share or links to what you may want to offer. Make sure that you find those which compliment your interests. This is necessary to assure you that you can make the most of those social bookmarking links which you have submitted.