7 January 2012
Google’s latest venture into the world of social networking may be experiencing teething troubles, but Google+ could still be worth considering for your business.

Launched in September 2011, Google+ was the successor to Google’s heavily criticised (and now discontinued) social networking platform, Google Buzz. Rather than creating a direct competitor to Facebook and Twitter, Google are now attempting to integrate traditional social networking features into all of their existing products and services. Creating a Google+ account gives you access to a personalised page, similar in function to Facebook. From here users can communicate with each other and share content with friends and colleagues who can be organised into ‘circles’ rather than groups. While Facebook utilises a ‘Like’ button, Google are implementing ‘+1′ buttons next to their search results and enabling webmasters to place these buttons on websites. A G+ user who clicks ‘+1′ on your web page will automatically broadcast their positive review of your content to their G+ circles. As well as being able to include +1 buttons on their sites, companies can also create a G+ business page that functions in a similar manner to Facebook business pages.

Despite a large advertising campaign and widespread media attention, G+ does not appear to be living up to the expectations of all its users. Google have recently announced that their user base has now reached 62 million which, despite equalling the entire UK population, pales in comparison to Facebook’s 800 million. This slow uptake has resulted in some account holders regarding G+ as a ‘ghost town’ – a social network lacking in social interactions. Google are remaining optimistic, with an estimated 400 million users by the end of 2012. Google+ has been integrated into all new Android phones so there will not be a shortage of account signups.

There are several reasons why you may wish to start using G+ now rather than waiting to see what the future holds for the platform. While it can be beneficial to be an early adopter of technology, the services Google provide can also be useful to your company in their own right.

Ease of Use

Google+ business pages are remarkably simple to setup and update – Google’s immense experience with customer interface technologies is more than evident. An account and business page can be setup in less than ten minutes and anybody who has used Twitter or Facebook will feel perfectly at home creating status updates on G+.

Google+ Hangouts

A hangout is a video conferencing tool for up to ten people that takes place within G+. Users owning either a webcam or an Android phone with a front-facing camera can communicate in a group video session, with iPhone support coming soon. Hangouts also allow users to share their screens, which makes them excellent online presentation tools.

Google+ Chat

Private one-to-one text and video conversations can also be held within G+, similar to VOIP services such as Skype.

GMail Integration

If you are using GMail to handle your business email hosting, Google+ is integrated into the mail browser to allow you to view G+ activity related to the email you are currently reading or writing.

SEO and Digital Marketing

As with Facebook and Twitter, G+ is likely to turn into a valid digital marketing tool. The SEO benefits are not widely understood yet, but the extra exposure can only be positive. We recently launched several specialist websites alongside related G+ business pages – the G+ pages appeared very quickly, with the website showing in searches faster than we’d expected. As with the majority of SEO exercises, this is non-conclusive as there are always governing factors of which only Google are aware. However due to the low investment of time needed to setup a G+ page we feel it would be unwise to ignore the possible benefits of G+ for your SEO campaign.