Up until today, I knew of no way to automate Google+ posts. My position about Google’s social network  was it’s important in that it can help your search engine optimization because it is owned by Google, just as YouTube is. But, since time management is a top concern for most of us, I generally recommend Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter before Google+. These might be in a different order but I have never recommended Google+ in the top three.

Hootsuite is a third party scheduling tool that has enjoyed great popularity. Folks like Mari Smith, Michael Stelzner, Amy Porterfield and lots more have stated it is one of their favorites. Hootsuite also has a nice free level. I use their paid level to schedule posts for Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn for FBSmarty and for clients. I usually combine automated postings with manual postings to get the best of both worlds. It’s believed you get better visibility with manual postings but the convenience of automated postings can’t be ignored.

I conducted this test to see the results from a posting, which includes an image, from Hootsuite to Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Effects of a Hootsuite Posting

Facebook allows you to tie your page to Twitter so the first 140 characters of a Facebook post posts to your Twitter feed. That option is on the Resources tab in your admin panel (Edit Page). If you use Hootsuite to post to Twitter, you would not want Facebook to also automatically post to Twitter because that would redundant.

A short time ago, Facebook started allowing scheduling right from the posting status area. This really changed the game for me and I’ll bet for many who used Hootsuite as a scheduling tool. Now, we can stay in Facebook and manage two things. Is it coincidental that Hootsuite released the Google+ posting option now? It was offered at the more expensive Enterprise level but, Hootsuite posted that they were now allowing us to also manage Google+ from their free Plan up. Hootsuite is again a favored tool for me and one I’ll habitually use to monitor Twitter mentions, plan pending posts for Twitter, FB and now Google+.

The experiment above was done on July 30, 2012. What are your thoughts on automatic posting? Will you use it for Google+ now?

BEST!

Michelle Fontaine
www.facebook.com/fbsmarty