Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/459961
32 | Boating Industry | February 2015 [ Social media that sells ] www.BoatingIndustry.com clear as possible," said DeVlaming. "If I were strictly trying to drive sales and it wasn't really about necessarily building a following or any- thing else. If it was about sales and maybe search engine optimization, I would look at YouTube and Google Plus." That's right, Google Plus isn't the butt of social media jokes anymore for a few reasons. Firstly, it's the second largest social network among English speakers. It's far behind Face- book of course, and reaps the benefi ts of every Gmail user being forced to have a Google Plus page. The demographics skew toward the boat- buying population as well, without all the noise of Facebook or Twitter. "Google Plus is kind of a stripped down ver- sion of Facebook. There's no Farmville, there's no Candy Crush, the audience is slightly older, slightly more educated and slightly wealthier," said DeVlaming. "All that stuff is right up our alley in our industry — we're not catering to 18 year olds." The roughly 300 million monthly users actu- ally reading and posting on the platform is just one part of the network's value. The real value of Google Plus is that it's connected to the all- powerful Google. "Google Plus is very, very powerful for SEO. So if you're talking about trying to rank higher in search and stay there, you should be on Google Plus," said DeVlaming. Google Plus makes your content easier to fi nd in several ways. On the site, you can use COMING TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! Call (315-692-4533) or email (liz@mraa.com) Liz Walz for more information. March 3 | Minneapolis, MN With an educational line-up designed to make an even bigger impact on your business, Marine Retail University is back for another round of one-day events. Upcoming events: MARINE RETAIL UNIVERSITY Visit MRAA.com/event/MNMRU for more information and to register. 56% » of online adults say they watch how-to-videos 58% » of all online adults say they watch comedy/ humorous videos URBAN AND RURAL PEOPLE WATCH VIDEO AT THE SAME RATE "Google Plus is very, very powerful for SEO. So if you're talking about trying to rank higher in search and stay there, you should be on Google Plus." — Lauren DeVlaming