As someone that is often short of time, I use Youtube a lot to learn and sometimes prefer it to reading long posts. So for those of you who feel the same, I plan to do some Q and A videos from time to time.
Here is the first one, inspired by a great question I got from a reader today. I think it is a question a lot of people are asking so I am sure some of you will find it useful.
If you want your Q answered, you can send it to me. If you would like a shout out let me know, since, unless I get your permission I will not name names when publicly answering questions.
Don’t limit yourself to general questions, you can send tutorial requests as well. So let’s jump straight into this:
Here is the transcript of the video:
“Hey guys, this is Brankica from Bloglikeastar.com.
I got a great question this morning from one of my readers and I thought “It’s amazing question and it definitely deserves a video”.
The question is: “Should I start writing my original post as a Google+ post, then repost that to my blog with the Google Plus post link. I’m considering this because I thought I read that Google Search was aiming for social engagement more so then websites and blogs. I have much more interaction on social networks than I do my blogs.”
OK, so I answered this email via email but here is my answer for everyone that’s considering doing the same thing.
To start with “No don’t do it”. You should not do that because you want to post your best content on your own blog. Everything you post on Google Plus is hosted on someone else’s site so instead of sending traffic from your blog to Google Plus, you should do it the other way around.
So what would I do, is write a blog post, post it on my blog and then go to Google Plus. Write a teaser, like just a part of your blog post in different words and put a link to your blog post in it and this will give you the opportunity to, of course, get a link to your blog; you will get people from Google Plus to your blog; you will get interaction and people can leave a comment on either one of these two (they can leave a comment on your blog or the Google Plus post). you’re not losing anything there and you can add an extra tip to your Google Plus post, so now you have something to get people interested in following you closer on Google Plus.
Just make sure that you leave your best piece of info out of the Google Plus post. You write that teaser but tell people there is more information on your blog so they would click and go and read it. Of course don’t do that unless there is more info on your blog post because people don’t like to be tricked.
I understand the worry and a lot of people have the same question weather it is about Google Plus or Facebook or any other social network, but definitely one main thing about this is that you need to try to get people from social media to your blog and not the other way around.
I would love to hear your comments on this. Leave a comment below this video and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel. Bye!”
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Couldn’t agree more Brankica!
I was also wondering about the same thing sometime back, but then I realized it’s makes no sense to work the other way, where you want the traffic instead coming through the social medias to your blog. Some people do wonder still and prefer putting up their posts in the notes section of Facebook or using G+ for that. Guess that really has no meaning and doesn’t work.
Thanks for sharing, and I love your videos- you are getting to be quite a natural now
Thanks so much, Harleena
I simply prefer to have my own content in my hands, which is my blog. I sometimes use Facebook notes, but that is like one note a month, lol, and only to share something that would not make a whole blog post, where the whole information is a few sentences long.
Brankica,
I wondered about this for a while because I have seen major bloggers actually post what seems to be a post on Google+ but I think, like you said, it was actually a teaser to get them back to their blog.
It is a great idea to write a great teaser.
Love the video!
~Allie
I know there are some people focusing on Google+ a lot but I kinda feel like they don’t really care about bringing traffic to their blog since they can spare it
I completely agree with your answer. I have been thinking about writing posts for Google+, in order to get more engagement and to test whether it would work or not, but like you said, most of the time, we don’t have much time.
I’m seeing my blog as my home, and I want people to visit me in my home, and many times I visit my friends in their homes, and doing this makes it more personal. But, to me, social media is like restaurants, pubs etc.. and we’re there to have short conversations and to meet new people. When we meet someone we like, we invite them to continue the conversation back home along with all of our other friends, or we visit their home and do the same there. That’s how I see it
Great video.
That is a perfect comparison!
The time reference is what I agree with too, I will always find time to come and answer the comments here no matter what. But if I am short of time, Google+ is the one that will be left out. Just my priorities I guess
Brankica,
I agree with you 110% on this. Google plus is great, but you want people to come to the site YOU own. Using it to get people to your site is smart. Using it as the final destination…really is not. It is important to have that control.
Google plus is a road…not a destination, in my opinion.
Absolutely agreed, Steve. We need to make social media work for us, not the other way around
Hey Pit,
Well to be honest I don’t even log to G+ unless I see I have some updates there.
I use it mainly to post a link back to my site and if somebody engages me there, then I do go back and start engaging as well but that’s about it.
Never even crossed my mind to write content exclusively for G+ but a teaser would be good, as long as it drives people OUT of G+ and on to my site.
At least that’s how I see it. (agree with Steve)
Sergio
I am at the same point as you are, with so many people posting cat gifs and funny stuff, I can’t afford the time to go through the stream and find where to have conversations with people. I post a post here and there, share new posts of mine, share a handful of other peoples’ posts and reply to mentions. It is just too time consuming to simply chat so I don’t even log in every day. Just not enough hours in a day.
So good to SEE you Brankica and great tip for your readers. We definitely know where we want them the most don’t we!
I tell people all the time, you want to connect with people on social media sites but you want them on your blog. That’s the only content you actually own so if your Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or even Google+ accounts were to get shut down, you’d loose all your contacts as well as your content. So you want them on your blog but you don’t want to be pushy either.
Wonderful tip and love the video. I’ll be sharing this one girl!
~Adrienne
Thanks for the compliments and the sharing
I have seen too many accounts closed even with no apparent wrong doing that I just love to keep all my stuff in my house here, lol.
I don’t 100% agree with this. Some of my best stuff have just come spur of the moment and turned into several hundred words of a post on Plus. Also, I have had people inquire to hire me from Facebook and Plus (along with other sources) that have never even been to any of my blogs (I actually rarely write on a blog anymore).
So really, I think this answer could go either way, if you are reliant on ad revenue mostly, then yes, if you actually offer a service (like design, hosting, SEO, social, etc…) then why not engage with people where they are? You might be surprised…..
Just my $.02
I agree regarding what you are doing. We have different goals for sure. For example, if I had the spur of the moment and wrote something that long, it would probably end up published here. Or maybe Facebook. I am just on G+ that much.
I did get a lot of people hiring me from social media in sense where other would be recommending me there. And if I wasn’t writing for the blog much, I would consider doing the same.
However, with people that are trying to do what I am trying to help them with here, which is mostly building profitable sites (not offering services) I really think they need to get everyone to the blog.
So I agree it can go both ways, just depends on the final goal
Thanks a bunch for the awesome comment!
Hi Brankica
Nice video. You really work very well in front of the camera I think. I do exactly like you suggest. Post a link and a teaser or the blog title to my posts and leave a link. I would of cause like people to come and visit my blog. I think Google+ have some advantage over Twitter when it comes to making a teaser because you can add images and write more than the 140 characters.
See you around Pit.
Thanks for the video comment, I am starting to enjoy it a lot, just need to do more of them and get better
Oh, you are 200% right about the advantage over Twitter, it is so much easier to write a good teaser on Google Plus
It is only a matter of time before you “YouTube like a Star”
Hey Bran,
Awesome video
Hope to see more of these in the future 
I agree with you. Google Plus is a great platform to promote your blog – and you should use it very well. But, I think writing posts on G+ is also important (I advocate this yet, I don’t follow it). Here are some scenarios in which I would use G+:
You could revisit some of your old posts and rewrite those for G+
If you have a quick tip to offer to your audience, you could post it in G+
What do you think?
I hope to do more of these in the future for sure.
I think that is a great idea, but when rewriting I would make them shorter (teaser like) and still post a link to the old post. Kinda middle ground between my idea and writing the whole post.
I know you will do it great once you do, so let me know how it worked for you, I think I might do something like that
Yeah, we can also do that.
I will spending lots more time on G+ and Twitter next week. Surely going to try these techniques and see how those work.
Thanks for the reply, Brankica!
Amen, Bran. I always raise eyebrows when anyone mentions they’re considering moving their content over to a third-party platform. There are too many things that can go wrong – give me the security of my place, my content every time.
However, having said that, I’m going to be trying a little experiment soon with regards content marketing on G+ – we’ll see how that pans out.
nice initiative on the video blogging! agreed that social media should be used to drive traffic to our main websites, not the other way around. not to mention that yesterday friendster was the place to be, today it is facebook, tomorrow it may be G+ and day after tomorrow it can be XYZ
You gave the correct response of course. No one really wants to read full blog posts in G+; not only that but it would make the page way too long, which is already is in a fashion.
I’ve noticed a lot of people posting really long posts on Google Plus, but I just never read them. I can read a very long post on a blog but on Google Plus or any other social network, I just want the digest, lol
Excellent answer. We all should be writing for your blog.
All your sites should link wheel back to your blog. What you put on other sites is to bring visitors “home” to you.
If Google decides to pull the plug on Plus, you don’t lose anything. (Pull the plug? They have done it before.) Also, if the sites are ‘nofollow’ the social media has minimal value. I am pretty certain Facebook and Twitter are nofollow sites.
I like the fact you included the script of the video as well.
Wonderful.