Google+ is a social network powered by the search engine giant Google and has 2.2 billion users.

Google+ is similar to other social media networks when it comes to marketing, but it does have its own strengths and weaknesses. To get the most from your Google+ Business Page in terms or traffic and leads for your business, follow these best practices.

1. Share LOTS of Photos
2. Add Recommended Links
3. Promote Your Google+ Page on Your Blog and Website 
4. Encourage People to Share Your Posts 
5. Use Circles to Segment Your Messages

Google+ allows businesses to create pages and develop relationships with prospects and customers on multiple levels. Individuals can add a brand to a specific Google+ Circle, share a Google+ page with their network, and interact with the content posted by that company. For instance, users can +1 (or in other words, endorse) the updates a company publishes, leave comments, upload photos, and tag the brand in them.

1. Share LOTS of Photos

Photos are very important on Google+. A quick look at a Google+ feed will tell you that lots of individual images are shared by users. This is slightly different from Facebook, where users might upload an entire album of images at one time. Think about your business and marketing visually. Which images, charts, or slides can you share on Google+ to ignite conversations and increase the viral spread of your content. Google+ is built for sharing images, so take advantage of it.

2. Add Recommended Links

Under the ‘About’ tab of your Google+ Page, you have the option to add recommended links in the right side bar. Don’t let this space go to waste. Instead, add links to important blog articles and lead generation offers to drive more traffic and leads for your business.

3. Promote Your Google+ Page on Your Blog and Website

To get real business value from Google+, you have to have a community of people there to consume and engage with your content. In order to get people to add your Google+ Page to their Circles, you need to promote the page in places where you are already attracting visitors, such as your homepage, blog side bar, or other social media accounts. Cross-promotion is key to building a strong Google+ community.

4. Encourage People to Share Your Posts

Sharing on Google+ is a catalyst for increasing the virality of your content. When you post a message, photo, or link on Google+, be sure to ask your subscribers to share your content with the people in their Circles. This is similar to asking people to “please retweet” on Twitter.

5. Analyze Traffic and Leads From Google+

So is this Google+ thing actually working for your business? To determine this, you’ll need to look at the traffic and leads that have been driven from Google+. You can do this by looking at referral traffic from plus.Google.com to your website.

6. Use Circles to Segment Your Messages

One of the biggest selling points of Google+ is Circles. Unlike other social networks, Google+ was built with the unique idea that different groups of people prefer different content. Think about it this way. The same messages you share with your family might not be the same messages you want to share with your boss at work. Google+ solves this problem by using what it calls Circles. Circles are no more than groups of people that users can create and label. For example, you might have different Circles for friends, family, and coworkers, and you would place new connections into their respective Circle. And yes, people can be added to more than one Circle. Once you have Circles created, you can then decide to share a Google+ message with one or multiple Circles.

Google+ is not just any network. It is a social media marketing platform that is directly impacting search results and reshaping our experience of doing research in Google. Try it yourself... do a few searches on Google and watch how many Google+ results show up.