When it comes to implementing marketing strategies, understanding that Google has a large amount of control over what goes on in terms of your website’s visibility, credibility and search engine optimization is half the battle. After all, consider these shocking statistics:

• Google owns 85.78% of the global search market share
• There are 87.8 billion monthly worldwide searches on Google sites
• 620 million people visit Google daily
• 7.2 billion page views for Google.com are recorded, daily

The war continues. How can you win? Only if you continue to stay up to date on the various social media and marketing strategies that change often, will your inbound marketing strategy reign supreme. We’ve discussed Google’s acquisition of YouTube and what that means for the social network; now let’s talk about the benefits of Google Plus for your insurance marketing strategy.

YouTube Marketing Best Practices

For Google, the requirement of Google Plus identities is an obvious step in the right direction. Here is what happens, in terms of the user experience, when this occurs:

1. The user is able to find videos to watch based on what the people and pages followed on Google Plus are sharing
2. Users are able to quickly and easily share content from YouTube with people who will like that same content – using Circles
3. Using hangouts, users are able to watch content live with people they feel will enjoy the same videos they also are watching
4. It becomes easier to be found on YouTube by enabling a YouTube tab in a user’s Google Plus profile

How can this also benefit marketers looking to have engaging marketing strategies that set them ahead when it comes to things such as inbound marketing and search engine optimization? Google outlines two reasons, although there are many ways this can benefit your strategy, as long as you get a jump on it, take advantage and leverage it the right way… today.

1. Google Plus allows you to reach more users with your videos. Once you upload a public video to YouTube you can choose to have it automatically posted to Google Plus as well. This means that you can find new fans immediately.
2. Using Google Plus’s hangouts feature, you can live stream for free. This means you can broadcast your marketing message to the world and on your own website – for free!

Additionally, with Google Plus you will get a recording of your broadcast afterward to share.

He Said, She Said

Finally, let’s talk about the latest Google Plus and YouTube news: the requirement for all users’ commentary on YouTube videos to be linked to Google Plus.

Here is Google’s reason: This will make it easier for relevant conversations that matter to a user to appear higher in the comment stream. Therefore, this will make for a more engaging user experience.

The problem Google has found is that spam (Google’s enemy) is taking over in the comments section of videos. Under the new feature, comments from friends and relevant sources will rise to the top of a user’s YouTube comments feed. A user will see posts at the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, any relevant engaged discussions about the video’s content, and people in the user’s Google Plus Circles – relevant conversation is king – spam is not. This is similar to the way Facebook’s news feed’s algorithm works.

This means one thing for marketers who are taking advantage of video marketing in their digital and social media marketing strategies: you need to leverage the power of Google Plus … as of yesterday.

Here is what I recommend you add to your to do list as you develop your marketing strategies going forward:

1. Establish your Google Plus identity
2. Link your Google Plus identity to your YouTube account
3. Follow relevant Circles
4. Note relevant communities
5. Engage in conversations that are relevant to content

At a high level, Google is trying to surface meaningful conversations. You have something to say, and you are a marketer, which means you know exactly how to say it. Use now to develop your marketing strategies and get out there and beat everyone else to saying it. Establish yourself as an expert in your circle and rise to the top… literally!