Google+ has received its fair share of criticism within the digital marketing community for being the network that nobody uses. The search giant, however, has stated their network has 540 million active monthly users. This makes Google+ the second most used social network, behind Facebook with its 1.44 billion monthly active users (LinkedIn and Twitter fall below with 300 million and 236 million users, respectively).

Even though those active users include individuals using YouTube and other Google social services, it is no wonder the company is not eliminating their social networking platform. Instead, they’re adding to it, as shown by the announcement of their new feature Google+ Collections.

What is Google+ Collections?

Google+ Collections is a new feature that allows Google+ users to group their posts by topic. These posts can include text posts, videos, links, images, and more. Collections works very similarly to Pinterest in that you can create a “collection” for any particular topic. Within these collections, you can include posts you have made, images you have uploaded, links to articles, and more that pertain to that topic. This works like creating “boards” on Pinterest; you can also make your collections on Google+ public, private, or available to a custom set of people.

How Does My Agency Use Google+ Collections?

Honestly, Google+ is typically the last of the four major networks we recommend agencies integrate into their social media marketing strategies. While every agency is different, this recommendation is based on the low amount of referral traffic we see agencies receive to their websites from the network compared to others (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). We recommend agencies at least get a handle on consistently and regularly posting high-quality content on Facebook and LinkedIn before adding Google+ into the mix.

Don’t get me wrong; using Google+ is good for your agency. At the very least, we recommend that agencies get the local side of their Google+ profile completed and verified. Any time you can utilize a service of Google’s within your marketing efforts, you’re on the right path. Although Google has never confirmed that their search results favor their services or products over others, they obviously have a vested interest in their own endeavors.

If you feel your agency is ready to take on Google+, the first step is to start posting consistently and regularly. The Collections feature will be of no use to you or your audience unless you have posts, pictures, videos, etc. on your page. The categories of the collections you use will depend on the type of content you are posting. For example, if you write about insurance tips every week (think #insurancetipTuesday), then you could create a collection for insurance tips that contains all of the posts, pictures, and blog post links that you have made involving these tips. Or, if you have an active commercial partners program, you could highlight a new partner every month and create a collection titled something like “Our Local Business Partners.” If your agency is involved in events and charities within your community, then you could create a collection to categorize any posts about the events, links to the events’ websites, and pictures of your staff getting involved.

Is your agency utilizing Google+ regularly? Have any of you started using Collections? Leave your feedback in the comments!