How to Create a Business Blogging Plan

By Linda Dessau
Published May 12, 2014

Do you have a business blog?

Are you ready to start publishing blog posts, but don’t know where to start?

Before you start a blog to support your business, you need a comprehensive plan.

In this article I’ll show you how to create a business blogging plan in six easy steps.

People who “wing it” when they blog are only setting themselves up for failure. If you are going to put the time and effort into writing a business blog, you may as well make it the best it can be.

Follow a blogging plan to ensure success. Image source: iStockPhoto.com.

That means do your research, build a solid foundation and blog on a regular basis. A blog can take some time to build momentum, so stick to it and enjoy your blogging success!

Let’s get started.

This first step is especially important for those starting a blog for the first time. Before you start blogging, find a blog role model. See what a blog you like does well, and conversely, what a blog you don’t like does poorly. This will help you figure out the best way to present yourself.

If you’re going to model your blog on someone else’s approach, be sure they’re blogging consistently and that they’ve been publishing for at least six months. (A year is even better.)

To find a good blog to use as a role model, check out the websites of other companies and search for their blogs. You can seek out the blog of a company in your industry or a complimentary field. Or just go with a company or blog you respect.

Blogs aren’t always filed under that name on a company’s site. For example Coca-Cola’s blog is titled, “Unbottled.”

Note: Sometimes this area will be called something other than “Blog.” You may find it under “News,” “Articles,” “Tips” or in the case of Coca-Cola, “Unbottled.”

As you explore blogs, find 3-5 blogs to analyze.

Ask yourself why you like them and jot down notes. Be precise in your observations, and highlight things they’re doing that you could improve upon or customize for your own business blog.

Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute has a simple, three-part process to define the mission statement for your content marketing, which obviously includes your blog. “The why must come before the what,” he says.

To help you focus, answer these three questions for your blog and business:

Who is the core target audience?What will be delivered to that audience; for example, tips, recipes, success stories, new ideas for common problems?What will be the outcome for the audience; for instance, how will their lives or businesses be improved as a result of reading this information?

People can tell when a company’s motive is to help rather than just to sell. Find ways to help your audience through your blog and they’ll keep coming back.

On their blog, Moz shares resources that help customers and draw in new leads.

For example, Moz sells products that help people “do better inbound marketing.” If you visit their blogs, you’ll see they focus on helping their customers and prospects do things on their own.

Approach your blog as a way to support your mission statement. You’ll want to keep it focused on benefits you deliver to your readers, whether they are current or potential customers.

When you strive to help your audience first, you’ll find yourself living your company’s mission.

What are your marketing goals? What are your blogging goals? Did you know that blogging can strengthen or even replace some of your marketing activities?

Overwhelmed business owners and marketing professionals can’t imagine adding one more thing—in this case blogging—to what they’re already doing to market and grow their business. But you can have your blog content do double duty.

For example, use blog content to populate your social media pages. You can also send blog articles to prospective customers as a way to follow up after meetings.

For your marketing plan, it’s essential to find a balance between paid visibility (like advertisements) and earned visibility (such as blog posts that people choose to read and share).

Blogging can help you achieve these common marketing goals:

Demonstrate your expertise and/or thought leadership in a specific industry or specialty.Educate/motivate/inform your audience.Gain wider exposure for your business.Build trusting, long-term relationships with customers, prospective customers and your business community.

Determine which marketing goals are most important to your company, and see how you can use blogging to achieve them. Add the above goals (and any others) to your hybrid marketing/blogging plan.

At this point, you should be clear about why your blog exists, whom it will help, what it will do for your readers and what it will do for your business.

Now, choose 7-10 categories that address relevant topics of discussion in your business. Keep your mission statement in mind when you do this. Remember, you want your content to solve the most pressing problems of your customers and prospective customers.

Your blog is like a trade publication for your industry. If you are stumped on categories, think of topics people would read about in a magazine for your business. Use that as a starting point. Also, be sure that each category is something you and your team have the knowledge and experience to blog about for a long time.

Disney is strategic—and sparing—when it comes to their blog categories.

The Disney Parks Blog has carefully curated its categories to help readers find exactly what they want without offering too many options.

Try to stick with this list for at least the short-term (6-9 months).

Down the line, when you’re tempted to assign a new category to a post, carefully consider whether both the post and category fit with your mission statement and marketing goals. Also figure out if you’ll have enough fresh ideas to keep that category populated in the long-term before committing to an additional category.

When you determine how often you should publish, refer back to your model blogs. See how often they post new content. Does their schedule seem manageable to you?

There’s no one frequency that’s right for every company. Set a reasonable schedule that you can follow at least to start with. You can always increase the number of times you publish when you’re up and running.

Once you have a posting frequency in mind (every week on Tuesday, or the second and fourth Wednesday of the month), put together an editorial calendar. This document should incorporate all of your categories, seasonal/holiday content and any important events that relate to your business.

Assign a topic and title to each post that benefit your reader and are designed to support one or more of your business goals.

How to Write a Blog Post

Brainstorm ideas based on the topic and/or title in the editorial calendar or a new idea that’s come up for one of your existing themes (categories). Sketch out a rough outline of the post, including possible subheadings and main points.

Fill in your outline. Make sure you get all of your ideas down on paper so you don’t forget anything.

Research your topic online to add relevant links, facts, stats and photos to your post.

Polish and finish the draft of your post, including the photo(s), as well as all of the promotional text it needs (i.e., the post excerpt/summary) and teaser messages you’ll use on each social media platform.

Proofread your post for typos, grammatical errors and readability.

Load your article text, links and photos to your blog platform. Include keywords from the article in the image “alt” text, optimize the post for search engines and schedule the post to publish on the right day at the right time.

Promote your post on social media and notify anyone you mentioned in the post. Generate engagement as you monitor and reply to responses, comments and shares.

Ideally you want to set up your blogging schedule 3-6 months in advance. Note: It’s okay to just have a 4- to 6-week schedule, especially when you are just starting out.

At the beginning of each month, you can review that month’s content and then add the next month into your schedule. Before you know it, you’ll be adding blog content to your schedule like it’s second nature.

The only way to know if your blogging is working is to monitor whether you’re meeting your business goals.

Here’s something to think about in determining which measurements are most meaningful:

If your goal is to demonstrate your expertise and/or thought leadership, you should be receiving requests for media and speaking opportunities.If your goal is to build trusting, long-term relationships, you should see a rise in subscriptions.If your goal is to generate new leads, you should be booking new clients or selling products.If your goal is to gain wider exposure, you should see an increase in blog comments, as well as shares, likes and comments on social media. Track the metrics that relate to your goals.

You may not be able to directly attribute these increases to one specific post or even blogging in general, but there are ways to quantify the benefits of blogging. Track important blog metrics like visitors, page views and social shares.

As part of your blogging plan, schedule time to collect and analyze these measurements, and figure out how you might tweak your blogging strategy accordingly.

Over to You

Starting a blog for your business can feel like an overwhelming prospect. But the benefits clearly outweigh the challenges.

Follow these six steps, and you’ll find that it’s easy to move from planning to publishing. You’ll be blogging before you know it!

Do you have a plan for your blog? What kinds of things did you plan before you started your blog? Did you over-plan? Under-plan? Alter your plan? Please share any tips you have for setting up a business blogging plan in the comments.

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Crisis Management: What to Do When Your Business Makes a Public Mistake

By Michael Stelzner
Published May 16, 2014

Is your business ready for a social media crisis?

Are you wondering what you should do if you or a colleague makes an embarrassing public mistake?

To learn how to handle a social media crisis, I interview Gini Dietrich for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Gini Dietrich, author of the brand-new book, Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age, and founder of the blog Spin Sucks. She runs Arment Dietrich, a PR agency.

Gini shares common mistakes businesses make when facing a crisis, and the best ways to deal with these situations when they happen.

You’ll discover the first steps you need to take, how to handle the situation throughout and when to seek legal advice.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

What happened with Applebee’s and the challenges they faced

Gini explains how approximately 2 years ago, a waitress at an Applebee’s in St. Louis left a check at a table that included an automatic gratuity of 18%. When she returned to collect the check, the customer had crossed out the 18% and had written, “I give God 10%, why do you get 18%?” The customer left a 10% tip instead.

One of the waitress’ friends took a photo of the receipt, which included the customer’s name, and posted it on Reddit. This led to it going viral and the whole world saw it.

Applebee’s response was that they were going to fire the waitress and her friend, because it was against their policy to show pictures or talk about customers. Especially when a name is included.

What happened next on Applebee’s Facebook page added fuel to the fire.

Applebee’s didn’t handle the situation well on their Facebook page.

Applebee’s replied to every person’s comment on Facebook with a canned PR response. You’ll hear what the response included.

Applebee’s customers were in an uproar.

People didn’t take kindly to the way Applebee’s handled the situation, and started to dig deep on the Internet. Pictures were discovered that had been posted with good customer feedback on their Facebook page. Although these pictures included the customer’s name, nobody got fired for it. A Facebook page was then started to try to get the waitress’ job back.

You’ll hear what Gini’s gut instinct was on the person who was handling the corporate Facebook page for Applebee’s, and why it contributed to the crisis.

Gini advises you never to use a canned PR message on social media, because it’s about being social. You need to engage, be transparent and remain human. This means you need to show sympathy and empathy toward what’s happening.

Always take time to think about the statement before you put it out there.

Listen to the show to find out how the way you handle a social media crisis can affect your sales.

The first thing you should do once you’re aware of an issue

Gini says that the first thing you should do is understand what has happened. This means communicating with both sides to get the bigger picture.

In Applebee’s case, they should have listened to the customer, the waitress and her friend before they did anything else—whether they had a policy in place or not.

Listen to both sides of the story before you jump in with your emotions. Image source: iStockphoto

You have to remember that we live in a world of instant gratification, where people tend to react before they think the situation through. This is when trouble starts and the problem spirals out of control.

As a company, you need to step back and figure out your plan of action and your strategy before you can move forward.

You’ll hear why it’s important to acknowledge that you are aware of the situation, and the type of message you need to convey.

Listen to the show to find out what happens with communication when an attorney is involved.

A reasonable response time to acknowledge a crisis

Gini always advises businesses to respond within 24 hours when a crisis happens. Don’t ever let it go all day.

When it happens outside of work hours, make sure you respond within the next work day. Let people know that you are aware of the situation and you’ll get back to them once you have investigated the matter.

On weekends, you need to have someone monitoring your social media channels, and they need to be aware of whom to contact when a crisis arises.

Always have someone monitoring your social media channels over the weekend. Image source: iStockphoto

If it’s a case of one blogger who has written something bad, but other people aren’t aware of it, then you need to approach the blogger privately. You’ll hear what you need to look out for in this situation and how to handle it.

When you do have a crisis on your hands, you should always remain honest throughout the communication and make the effort to keep people up to date with what’s happening. People are pretty understanding when you continue to keep them in the loop.

Buffer is a great example of how to deal with a crisis. You’ll hear how they kept the situation under control and the ways they communicated with their customers.

Buffer did an exceptional job of keeping their customers informed.

Whichever platform the crisis erupts on should be the channel where keep up your communication.

When two of Domino’s employees released a controversial video on YouTube, the company CEO released an apology video on the same platform.

You’ll find out the types of statements you should make to take ownership of the situation.

Listen to the show to hear an example of a statement that was made by a CEO of a blog when scraping content was involved.

Common mistakes businesses make when dealing with a crisis

One of the biggest mistakes Gini sees is that people get defensive immediately, and this is when it can get out of control.

First you need to take a step back and look at the overall picture. It’s always helpful to have a communications professional on hand who can advise you on how to communicate going forward.

In the United Breaks Guitars story, the airline didn’t handle the situation effectively. In July 2009, the first United Breaks Guitar song was released on YouTube and immediately the media went crazy.

Before you know it, people can get hold of the story, add their two cents and amplify the impact. You’ll hear why it’s important to tell the full story, and also when you’re unable to even comment.

Listen to the show to discover how Chrysler handled a crisis when someone from an agency tweeted out profanity on their corporate account.

The type of plan businesses should have in place prior to a crisis

Gini says that you don’t really need to have a plan in place. However, you do have to practice humility and not be defensive.

“I’m sorry” works extremely well if you say it and mean it. You’ll find out what words you should never follow if you want to keep people on your side.

The words “I’m sorry” go a long way. Image source: iStockphoto

It’s less about a plan to follow, and more about being human. Know how to apologize and mean it.

When it turns nasty, it is tempting to call in the cavalry. When we received all of the negative reviews for our Let’s Get Social video, I resisted the urge to contact my friends because I knew in this particular circumstance, it was the right thing to do.

You’ll discover when it helps to call in your friends, and when you need to get legal advice.

Gini advises that if you need to get it off your chest, then write it down but don’t ever publish it.

Check out the full podcast episode with Gini Dietrich.

Listen to the show hear why in today’s world, it’s easy for any business to have a crisis on their hands.

One of the challenges I face on a day-to-day basis is with my calendar. I use an iPhone and an iMac and have found it hard to synchronize all of my calendars.

So I started to research some options that were available, and came across a really awesome calendar called Sunrise. It’s a free app, which works on iPhone, iPad and I believe it’s available for Android.

The Sunrise calendar app has many capabilities.

What’s really cool is that it integrates with your social media and all of your other networks. It integrates with Google Calendar, Exchange and Facebook.

It also shows you what the weather is going to be. In addition, it synchronizes with iCloud, LinkedIn and Twitter.

I’ve just started to explore all of the capabilities of this app and I’m blown away with how well it works.

I strongly recommend that you check it out.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

What do you think? What are your thoughts on crisis management? Please leave your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, founder of My Kids' Adventures and author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers. He's also the host of the Social Media Marketing podcast. Other posts by Michael Stelzner »

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How to Get Your Business Started on Instagram: 5 Tips

By Stuart Elleray
Published May 14, 2014

Are you looking for ways to get your business started on Instagram?

Do you have an Instagram account, but are unsure how to use it?

Instagram is a wonderful platform to use to provide your audience with unique visual content, while encouraging community engagement.

In this article I’ll show you five tips on how to use Instagram for your business.

As the popularity of photo sharing apps continues to rise, more and more businesses and marketers are using Instagram.

There are a variety of tools and apps you can use to enhance your social media presence—to increase awareness and engagement, as well as develop community. And Instagram, which allows you to share short videos in addition to photos, is on top of the list for brands like Nike.

First things first. Sign up for an Instagram account through email or Facebook. Then brand your page by choosing the username consistent with your other accounts and adding your profile photo or logo, bio and website URL.

Next, connect your Instagram account to your other social media accounts: Facebook (if you haven’t already done so), Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr and Flickr.

When you integrate Instagram with your other social media channels, you’ll easily be able to share content simultaneously on multiple social networks. Plus your followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc., will see that you are on Instagram and follow you there too!

Connect your other social platforms to your Instagram account so you can easily share your photos and videos.

By simply adding a few channels to where your photo or video is posted, you raise your visibility and can gain new followers. This tip will also result in increased engagement.

Visual content gets an excellent response on social media. And if you really want to make a splash on Instagram, choose a diverse mix of content that combines different elements of your business.

Your business is not about just one thing—it’s not just about a product or a service, it’s about the people, location and industry. Make a list of the multitude of aspects that make up your brand so you have an initial plan for the types of images you can post. You can also post up to 15 seconds of video on Instagram.

Get started with these examples. You can post images or videos of:

Products you’ve releasedTeases (sneak peeks) of new products and servicesOffice location or tourEmployees and fansClients in a causal settingEvents you’ve hosted or attendedArticles/blog posts

Follow the lead of Williams-Sonoma and combine elements that are formal such as a new or upcoming product release with a fun office activity, behind-the-scenes look or piece of trivia.

Williams-Sonoma shared a pic of the photo shoot for their upcoming cookbook. This type of post illuminates your business’ human side and helps the audience feel more connected.

Restaurants, don’t just post food deals and your specials of the day. Encourage your diners to share their favorite food pics.

Marketers, post more than client images. Share photos of your team actively participating and interacting with customers.

Publishers/bloggers/writers, tease photos of content and share a link and call to action. Time teased a link with this beautiful image.

Time magazine posted this beautiful, artistic image from the ice dance competition to tease their Olympic coverage.

Both posts are very different in their type of content, but engage with readers. The first is that behind-the-scenes sneak peek at an upcoming product and the second is a tease to more content, complete with call to action: “To see more photos from Sochi, visit time.com.”

When posting your content, test different times of day to see which times get the most response. (Note: You’ll want to track this data.) Also remember to include a relevant call to action. Ask readers to like, comment or share the photo or visit a link.

Whenever you post a photo, it’s essential to accompany it with relevant hashtags (#) that are related to the post.

Hashtags make it easier for users to search for specific content on a variety of platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And since you are cross-posting, this is another way to get your content noticed.

Readers tend to search trends, subjects and locations.

For example, if you’re posting pics related to your social media agency, you’ll want to add the hashtag #SocialMedia. That way, when people who want to stay up to date in the industry search for #SocialMedia, your post will come up in the results. (How far down in the results is another story.)

If people are searching for #SocialMedia and they see your post, they are more likely to click on it and subsequently follow you.

Here are a few other hashtag recommendations:

Local businesses: hashtag your city (#LosAngeles, #NewYork, #Austin)Products and services: hashtag your niche type (#Makeup, #Shoes, #Dentist)Experts and websites: hashtag your industry (#Marketing, #Travel, #Fitness)

Do you want to follow hashtags that are related to your industry or product? Use a hashtag tracking tool like Tagboard, Keyhole or Nitrogram (a paid service). This is an excellent way to keep track of what other people in your industry are posting and get ideas for unique hashtags. Plus you can find others in your field to follow and connect and converse with.

This will help you reach new communities and gain more engagement and followers.

Encourage your readers to post their own photos with a call to action related to your business. It’s an effective way to develop a community like Starbucks has. The trick is to ask your readers to post and tag, then you respond with a reply and #regram.

Starbucks encourages their readers to post their coffee pics. Then Starbucks #regrams and responds.

Post your own pic with a question. Ben & Jerry’s asked a simple question to promote their latest flavor: “Everything but the…” The question “Did we leave anything out?” received nearly 600 comments.

Ben & Jerry’s promoted their new flavor by asking: “Did we leave anything out?”

You can also try an Instagram photo contest. It’s a fun way to develop your community by engaging with your readers, encouraging them to post their own pics, getting feedback and growing your followers.

In order to continue to refine your post and your strategy, you must monitor your Instagram analytics.

Analytics tools such as Curalate and BlitzMetrics help you check how your posts are performing, monitor their analytics, assist with Instagram management and help generate revenue through ads, among other functions. These are both paid services, but if you’re serious about your business’ Instagram strategy, they’re definitely worth it.

Curalate provides a dashboard of your Instagram activity, similar to how Google Analytics has website data.

The Curalate dashboard includes metrics, such as how many people viewed, liked and commented on your posts. You’re also able to update your account from the site, engage with users and manage any Instagram photo ads you might want to promote. Plus you can compare how you’re performing against competitors across many key performance indicators.

All of this data enables you to make informed decisions about the type of Instagram content that you post. If images with questions on them get more views and comments than product competition photos, you know that’s where you need to focus.

Take the Leap

Instagram is an excellent tool to use to share visual content with and engage your audience.

iHeartRadio used Instagram to drum up excitement and anticipation leading up to the #iHeartCountry show. They used a behind-the-scenes pic, hashtag and call to action.

Remember, in order to get the most out of your Instagram account, integrate it with your other social media networks, make sure your content is varied, use relevant hashtags, create community and use analytics to identify and evaluate Instagram metrics.

As with other social platforms, to get the best results you should have a plan, follow through and try new things until you figure how to get the most followers and the best engagement.

What’s your experience with Instagram? Do you use Instagram for your business? What’s your best advice for new Instagram users? Which strategies have you found most effective? Please share your favorite tips in the comments.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Stuart Elleray

Stuart Elleray is a Social Media Manager for the UK's leading ethical water and soft drinks brand. He blogs, tweets and researches everything to do with digital marketing world. Other posts by Stuart Elleray »

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How to Create a Google+ Community to Grow Your Business

Are you looking for a way to get the most out of Google+?

Does your business have a Google+ community?

When you bring conversations to a central place and encourage collaboration, you provide value for your audience.

In this article I’ll show you how to create a Google+ community and how to connect with people and keep them coming back.

Google+ communities are one of the most flexible tools available in social media, and they’re free for Google+ users and brands.

Communities are easy to set up and a great way to develop a loyal following. That sounds pretty good, right?

Communities are a place to chat about the business of the day.

Then let’s kick off with how you can create a Google+ community for your company. (You can also create one for your personal account, but this article focuses on brand options.)

To create a Google+ community, log into your Google+ account, go to your brand page dashboard and follow these steps:

1. Move your cursor over the Home button at the top left of the page and choose Communities from the menu.

You’ll see the screen below.

Creating a Google+ community is easy.

2. Click the blue Create Community button on the right side of the screen.

3. Choose either a public or private community.

Public and private communities each have their benefits, but there’s a catch. Once you’ve established a community as public or private, you can’t change it. Private groups stay private and public groups stay public. Definitely consider which option will serve you better.

Decide whether you want your community to be public or private.

If you already have a larger following, I suggest creating a public community. In a public community, people can share content outside of the group (e.g., to their own stream).

In a private community, you can’t do that. In my experience, the energy in a community implodes when members can’t share valuable content from the group.

Having said that, private communities are great for conversation, so they definitely have a place. You just have to decide what’s best for you and your audience.

But let’s roll with a public community for this article because they have the greatest reach and are the most popular. You’ll most likely use the public setting for your community.

4. Name your community, set your preferences and click Create Community.

You’ll end up on this page:

Tell your members a little about yourself.

5. Finish setting up your community by adding a tagline, image, About section and discussion categories.

Click Done and you’ll see a pop-up window that lets you invite new group members.

6. If you want to invite members to your group, type in a friendly message at the top, then add the people you want to invite in the To field and click Send.

If you created your community for a brand or company, you’ll have a Follow button in the Created By section. (This option isn’t available to general users right now.)

In the image below you can see that I’ve assigned our brand as the community creator instead of myself.

Use your company’s logo and name for the Created By box.

It may seem like a small thing, but it encourages more people to follow your company’s Google+ page instead of your personal page, and it reinforces that the community is owned by your brand.

You’re done with creating your community. Now let’s get people to find you and join.

A group is always better with more members, but they have to know about you to join, right? There are a few ways to get the word out.

It’s a given that you’ll share your community via your Google+ page and your own profile, but go ahead and send personal invites to people on Google+ in case they miss the announcement.

Once you’ve clicked on Invite, you have the option to choose an existing circle.

The important thing to remember with personal invitations is don’t be spammy. Instead of inviting everyone in your circles or even people you haven’t met yet, I suggest you contact only those people who have indicated some interest.

Google+ is a great start, but don’t forget to share across your other social profiles as well. Many of your followers have cross-platform accounts just like you do and may miss your announcement on Google+. Give them the opportunity to join no matter where they are.

If you run a live or recorded event (e.g., podcasts, hangouts or webinars) include a call to action in your promotion and during the event asking people to join your community.

Two things that have worked very well for our company are adding a link to email signatures and adding a community badge to our website. These small efforts have resulted in a steady flow of people joining our community.

Sometimes the perception of exclusivity can be a big motivator.

If you created an open public community (i.e., anyone can join without asking permission), consider changing your settings so it’s closed. When you close the group, people have to ask to join.

We did this with our Plus Your Business community and membership and engagement have skyrocketed. In the past six weeks alone, we’ve met 1000 new members and introduced them to each other.

Here’s how to change your group from open to closed in three easy steps:

1. On your community page, click the settings icon and choose Edit Community from the menu.

It’s easy to edit your public Google Plus Community settings.

2. On the next page, scroll to the bottom of the left column and you’ll see Who Can Join. Click the Change link.

Find the Who Can Join option at the bottom of the left column.

3. In the pop-up window, choose Yes, Anyone Can Ask to Join and click Confirm Change.

When you make a public community closed it’s still public. That means non-members can still see the community’s content and +1 or share that content, but they can’t comment.

Engagement is a key component of any successful community.

You’ve probably created communities and groups before, so you know that moderation goes far beyond you or your members sharing a post in the stream and clicking the +1 button. It’s important to meet and greet each person.

Encourage Discussion

To build a loyal community, you really need to be present. If you want people to interact, take the lead and start the conversation—be available, accessible and friendly.

Exclusivity can help you grow your membership.

When someone asks questions privately, suggest that they drop them in the main community stream. This not only allows others to offer advice, but it’s a way for you to share resources with everyone (rather than just the individual).

Ask people’s advice and involve them in the future direction of the community. Listening to your members’ suggestions and discussing in the main stream builds trust and loyalty.

Keep Categories Up To Date

Every once in a while, review your community categories. If you find people aren’t posting in the categories you’ve created or people are posting in the wrong category, try changing up the topics.

You can have up to 20 categories in a community. If they’re used well, people will post the right content in the right place.

An important note about categories: If you delete a category, it will also delete the posts in that category.

Reward Super-Engagers

In any group, there are always a few people who are the most vocal and helpful. Reward them by including them in a special circle and sharing it with the group members. The circle gives everyone an easy way to keep up with these super-engaged members.

Make it about them and give back by bringing people together into circles.

If you want to further reward your top contributors, you can create a Google hangout for the top 100 members of the community (you can have up to 100 people in the text portion).

Not only do you want to retain your existing members, you want to entice new members. One way to keep everyone interested is to offer regular community events.

Look to have events, including hangouts on air, as ways of bringing people together.

If there’s a topic that keeps popping up, a hangout is a great way for everyone to connect and discuss it. It’s likely that the conversation will continue in the group after the hangout is over.

Conclusion

If done well, Google+ communities can change your social experience forever.

Even if your community is large, discussions can be very intimate—members get to know each other. They share questions and answers, industry developments and more. Your community page becomes the gathering place.

What do you think? Are you already using Google+ communities? Do you have any tips for others who want get started? Please leave your comments below.

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