BMEA

I recently wrote a Blog about Google+, Google’s challenge to Facebook on my Marketing website (http://www.easimarkeing.com ).  I said that with 40m profiles so far, there is healthy debate about who is actually using Google+ outside of the social media and technology sectors. I said that Google would have great difficulty in switching the average person’s allegiance to their new platform. However, this week, Google has introduced new pages allowing organisations to set up business pages to interact with their customers which might just change my thinking.

The one thing that has changed my mind about Google+ is that its pages will be given higher priority in Google search results than its other social media counterparts… which really isn’t that surprising. I definitely feel it is worth ensuring that for the small time it takes to populate a profile (before someone steals it) to add your own page, a little bit of content and then see what happens.

In addition to this, Google is launching a new feature called Direct Connect, which allows users to connect with brands or business by searching for ‘+’ followed by the brand name. This is only in a development stage at the moment and is only being used with mega brands such as Toyota, YouTube and Google itself. So if a user wants to follow Toyota they would simply type ‘Toyota’ in the Google Search box. This brings up a direct link to the Toyota Google+ Page that appears directly under the search box. 

Another tool in Google’s arsenal is that Google+ can integrate with a number of even more useful services, not least of which is Google Search and YouTube. Over the next couple of years this integration might see it become a serious contender to Facebook and LinkedIn.

Obviously, Google+ Pages needs to be part of a wider social strategy and how much the platform grows to be used by consumers remains to be seen. I would advise you to sign up as soon as possible and see how it all pans out.

For more online tips, click on Internet tips to help grow your business. 

Ian Lockyer
www.easimarketing.com