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Add A Manager to Your Google Plus Page or Google My Business Page

Simple and Easy to Follow Instructions:
When You Need to Add a Manager to Your Google Plus or Google My Business Page.

Google supposedly gives the instructions on how to do this here: Add and remove page managers – Google My Business Help. 

But Google packs a ton of stuff into their pages and navigation is not that intuitive.  In fact, its downright hard to follow.

If you are having trouble, try these step by step instructions on how to add someone to help you manage your Google plus or Google My Business Page.

Step 1. Log in to your Account.

Your gmail account allows you access to many Google products. So lets get started, log in to your GMAIL account.

Step 2: Navigate to Google Plus (click the image for enlargement)

Access-Your-Google-Plus-Page

 

Step 3: Access the Google Plus Menu.

Google-Plus-Menu

You will see Google + Home in the upper left. Click there for the full menu. You are looking for PAGES.

Google-Plus-Pages

Step 4: Go to Pages and Select the Google Plus Page you Want To Manage

There will be a MANAGE button on each page that you have in your account. 

Click the manage button and finally you are at the place you need to be to grant access to another person. 

Step 5: You Are On Your Google Plus Page, Click Settings

Google-plus-settings

This will take you to your settings page.

Step 6: Now You Still Have To Navigate to Google Plus Managers.

You are on settings but these are just the generic settings. There is another menu there that allows you to select Managers for your Google Plus page,

Google-Plus-Managers

Step 7: Finally You Can Grant Access To Your Account – Google Plus and Google Business Page is the same thing in this case.

Now the interface becomes intuitive. You can click on Add Manager and just enter the email address of anyone who you need to assist you in managing your page. They will get an invite to manage your page with you.

Congrats!

Dentists Best Use of Social Media

SocialMediaIt is generally understood that the power of social media is something that any business must harness and use if they expect to get ahead of competitors in today’s busy marketplace.

However for dentists, social media is a bit more obscure. There are some age groups and activities that lend themselves very well to social media. Fashion has always been driven socially. For a business to understand how they can use social media they have to understand the two very different approaches.

First you have activies that have been driven by social pressures in the past and likely will be always driven by social pressure. Fashion, dining, most sports and many other activities are social activities. They are done with other people and driven by interaction. Any activity that is actually social can and should be driven hard with social media.

Dentists are Not Inherently Social Media Driven 

The big question looms, “how can an activity that is done alone and which is not social driven, use and benefit from this strong medium?”.

Dentists have asked me this question many times over recent years. The problem is that things you do alone are not driven by social pressure. They are driven by other pressures. Beauty can be social driven and thus cosmetic dentists can focus on beauty and create followings and engagement. The more social an activity, the easier it is. Thus a cosmetic dentist has a harder job than a fashion designer. Similarly orthodontists can tap into the beauty pathway and also into the teen age group and effectively use social media. 

The other approach is indirect and requires following your own interests to create a social media following and then use this to direct people to your specific services.

For example, a dentist who is also a tennis play can drive his social media through tennis. If you are imaginative and fun, you can gain a following and use this to direct your social circle to your services as they need them. This is a less direct path, but much more effective than just sticking to dentistry and trying to create a social following about a technical subject such as dental care.

Engagement comes first and if you have set yourself up well, this results in visibility and branding.  Learn more about social media and our related services. 

Obviously with enough investment of time, anything can be done. Any that includes building a huge following for your dental practice. But in real-life that costs a lot of money and the actual return on investment is very low. This is a case where for a dentist, social media works in reverse to say a fashion designer. A socially driven activity can get a big following very inexpensively and thus get a big return of sales on a small investment. As a dentist, the reverse is true. You must do a lot of work to get a large following and generally you will get poor sales compared to time/money invested.  So seeking a huge following and spending a lot of money on social media is not a smart strategy. What is a good strategy is finding group-driven things you enjoy and then personally building a wide following or circle and using that presence to bleed visitors to your main website. Then you get the cost way down, the return goes way up and bingo, you are mining a great source of patients for your practice. 

 

A five-step strategy to avoid being ambushed by Internet customer reviews

getting-good-internet-reviews

Pro-Active Public Relations

Fierce competition among internet consumer review sites this summer underlines the growing importance of online customer reviews to consumer researching products and services.  Small businesses can avoid being ambushed by reputation-damaging posts by adopting a five-step strategy, according to Cook Profitability Services’  social media consultant. More on Public Relations Strategy.

Increasingly, consumers head to search engines and review sites before deciding on purchasing products and services.  Customer reviews often provide the first – and potentially strongest – impression of a business and product reviews and ratings provide the first impression for potential customers. The growth of Google Places and its reviews, and the growing complaints of rival review sites that the search giant was stealing review content to boost Places, recently led to Google’s decision to eliminate outside reviews from its own listings.

Unfortunately, many business owners have not done the same research as consumers, and are shocked to discover what people are writing about them.

Public Relations Expert Wayne Baumgarten

“Many of our clients are stunned the first time they Google their practice,” said Baumgarten. “What they often find is a series of customer reviews stretching back months or years.  And the bulk of reviews are often bad – even vicious.”

Consumers’ power tools

Today’s consumers have  powerful tools, to have their say and even strike back by posting reviews and ratings on  Google, City Search, Yahoo Local,  Yelp and hundreds of smaller or local directory sites, bulletin boards and online forums.  And the ability to read and post reviews on the fly is enhanced on rapidly spreading mobile devices, with some apps and sites even encouraging interactions while at the business.  A customer upset about a long wait may well spend the time complaining about it online while sitting in your waiting room.

Public Relations and Social Media

“This is social media too,” Baumgarten said. “It’s powerful, with real-world consequences, and it may not be warm and fuzzy.”

“Social media strategy isn’t just about having a Facebook page or Twitter account,” he continued.  “Social media is the whole range of tools that help people share ideas, information and common interests online.  Some things you can control, some you can’t.  A company may not need a Facebook page – although I strongly advise it – but it can’t opt out of social media.  A business almost certainly already has a listing on a review site, whether they asked for it or not.”

“Even big companies have been blind-sided by social media, and most now have some type of social media strategy and dedicated people to monitor, respond and use social media in their customer relations,” Baumgarten said.  “The big hurdle for our small-business clientele is to convince them that they involved, whether they know it or not.  And if they don’t participate, angry customers may be in charge.”

Five-point public relations strategy to control internet reviews:

While they may not have the budgets to hire social media/reputation management experts, Baumgarten says, small business can work on their own reputation with a five-point strategy:  acceptance, awareness, analysis, approachability and avoiding shortcuts:

1)      ACCEPTANCE – Accepting  the reality that your company is on the social media radar, willing or not,   is the starting point in addressing online reputation problems.  Denial and failure to act is devastating.  On the other hand, it doesn’t have to mean surrender – for those that engage, there are positive aspects.  Many companies – even those initially smeared online – have learned to turn social media into an important company resource that has dramatically improved their customer relations.  A dedication to being transparent online can build your reputation for paying attention to customer concerns.   And unhappy customers may be more inclined to talk things out.

2)      AWARENESS – An essential first step is   an immediate inventory of major review sites to find out what people have already said about you.  Then you must develop a plan for  monitoring of your listings regularly.  It’s important to know about any new bad reviews immediately; the more quickly you can take action, the better.  At some sites, you have the option of subscribing to any new comments on a listing.

3)      ANALYSIS – It’s natural to get angry or panic when someone blasts your company in an online review.  But it’s important to be dispassionate and to do “triage.” Your only options for action on a particular review are 1) let it slide, 2) post a response, or 3) appeal to the review site or take legal action in extreme cases. (This is a long shot; review sites generally don’t have the inclination, resources or legal liability to verify or review customer opinions.)  Questions you should be asking include:

    • Is the criticism valid? Many have discovered real problems in their office by reading bad reviews.  If the complaint is valid, set things right.
    • Is the criticism bogus?  Do you recognize the complainer, and feel the review is just out of spite? You may need to set the record straight,  in a professional manner.
    • Is the reviewer blasting your business on one site, or across multiple sites? Are you the victim of an organized campaign
    • Is the review visible?  If it’s extremely old, or is buried, it may not be worth effort.

 4)      APPROACHABILITY – Often people turn to an online review site because felt they couldn’t speak out at the business, because they were intimidated, embarrassed or were dismissed.  “Rude staff” is a very common complaint online.  The best place to deal with customer dissatisfaction is at the office, where the customer  should be encouraged to share their feelings and handle disputes on the spot.  Customers should also be invited to share feedback on the business website.

On review sites it’s critical that businesses respond publicly to as many reviews as possible, good or bad, valid or not.  Many review sites allow businesses to “claim” their listings, and then reply to reviews as the owner.  Or at the least, the business can create a consumer account clearly labeled and transparent, and use it to participate on the forum.  The message to people reading reviews is that your business is transparent, welcomes feedback, and pays attention to what consumers are saying, even if they don’t always agree.  Even on a site with multiple complaints and low rankings, this gives your business credibility.  While peer reviews are a powerful influence, most people understand that every business has a certain percentage of dissatisfied customers.  A business can deliver an overall impression of credibility and care for customers on social media sites, even if it doesn’t please everyone

5)      AVOID SHORTCUTS – The real solution to online reputation management is a long-term commitment to customer service, and a willingness to create a social media presence that puts individual complaints into perspective.  For those unable to devote the time, a social media strategist can analyze the current situation, set up monitoring, and even handle ongoing customer interaction.

But businesses should use caution in hiring reputation management consultants promising quick and easy fixes.  While many use legitimate strategies, others use questionable methods, misleading sales tactics, and even actions that may backfire on the business.  Companies promising to remove bad posts or post large numbers of good reviews to drown out bad reviews through special relationships with review sites often are misrepresenting what they can do.  And both review sites and the growing number of  verified and trusted regular reviewers are quick to identify and take actions against businesses faking accounts or reviews.