3 Things I learned while creating a Google+ nonprofit Page

While the importance of GooglePlus for all nonprofits has not been determined for sure, the advantages of its effect on SEO seems pretty clear. As an organization who works in the realm of nonprofit technology, it makes sense that NPower would have it’s own Google+ Page. Here are a few things I learned while creating ours and some links to the resources and tutorials that helped me out along the way.

Check out our very new Google Plus page and follow along as we dive into this new social media channel

No Page without a personal Profile

Just like Facebook, you can’t create a public Page without first having a personal Profile. Thankfully, these two accounts won’t be linked publicly and even more important to nonprofit orgs, you can add additional managers to the public Page once you create it.

You can’t circle profiles until they circle you first

However, once you do make a connection with an individual, the information you can learn from them tends to be much richer than what you can learn about individual Facebook fans (that information only extends to what the user is willing to share publicly). Also, you can also circle other Pages and connect with fellow nonprofits without them circling you first.

Google Plus brings with it SEO benefits

One of the biggest reasons for the nonprofits to be on Google Plus is new personal results section of Google Search. If a user has enabled Google Plus, they will see an option to include the information from their circled friends in their regular Google searches. Now, obviously this improvement in SEO is determined by two things:

• How much of your nonprofit’s audience is using Google Plus
• If you have built up a significant Google Plus community.

Don’t think that you can just create the page and forget about it though, you must post regular content (if not daily, than at least weekly) if you want to be found by people (and being found by people is how you get the SEO bump.

Extra Resources

Whenever looking into a new service, social media channel or tech software, I love me some research. Fortunately, as is typical in the world of nonprofit technology, there is a lot of great information out there. Here are some of the links that I found especially helpful:

• Gideon Rosenblatt makes a strong case that Google Plus is for “Information Networkers” and that it more than most of the other major social networks rewards content curators. For more explanation, check out his excellent presentation “What is Google Plus? (Really)”
• Beth Kanter is the queen of content curation and can always be counted on to provide a great one stop shop on many issues in the nonprofit technology world. Her post Google + for Nonprofits, Invest Time or Not? Nonprofit Starter Steps, highlights the reasons why (or why not) your nonprofit might want to experiment with Google Plus.
• Heather Mansfield is another savvy source of nonprofit tech tips and tricks. Her How To: Create a Google + Page for your Nonprofit tutorial provides a good overview of how to actually set up your Google Plus nonprofit page. While the layout of Google Plus has had a few changes since this was published (mainly the addition of the cover photo), her set of screenshots will get you up and running quickly.
• Speaking of cover photo, the fine folks at Social Media Today, have all the cover photo dimensions and more for your Google Plus page.
• Last but not least, Debra Askanase curates a bunch of smart Google Plus resources and helps break down two big considerations for your nonprofit before jumping into Google Plus: Summarizing Google+ Pages: the Good, the Bad, the Possible.

- Abby Nafziger