Google+ maybe a late entrant into the phenomenon that is social media, and like many people you may initially wonder why you even need to use social media in your business, but the problem is can you really afford not to?
As an example – is there a day that passes when you do not see a company advertising its facebook page? Commonly it is more unusual to see an advert (Even on television) without a social media link of some form on it, than one with it. The ubiquitous twitter and facebook icons can also be found on nearly every website you come across.
And for business networking, we have seen LinkedIn make large inroads and carve out its own niche in the past year.
So why does your company need Google+? Well make no mistake Google has not entered this market with the intent of just being a bit player on the peripheral of things.
Get There Early
Now is the ideal time to start building your business pages on the service, as it has been proven time and again on other forms of social media that those who get onboard early reap the biggest benefits. Although the service has been public for a few months now, it’s still not too late to be one of the early adopters and biggest benefiters of the new social platform.
Firstly if you wait then you may find that by the time you go to register your business page on Google+ that someone else has already registered it, and by then there will be little that you can do about it, unless they have blatantly abused your company name, but if your company name is generic you will not be able to wrestle the page back off the other party.
Increase Your Company’s Visibility In Search Results
Also various parties on the Internet all seem to agree that Google+ can have an impact on your search visibility, with those pages that are rich in content appearing more frequently in search results, thus resulting in more traffic.
Also when you sign up for a Google+ badge, it automatically signs your company up into its “Direct Connect” program, so that if anyone searches on your company name with a + sign in front of it, they get directed straight to your Google+ page, making your company immediately accessible with just one click and no scanning down pages of search results.
Whilst it has many similarities to Facebook, such as Facebook has a like button; Google has a +1 button.
Google+ has ‘circles’ allowing you to just share information with certain friends and not all of them, whereas facebook has ‘smart friends.’ You can also create multiple circles of friends, which is a big advantage.
They both also feature options enabling chat between users.
Why Google+ Works – A Core Of Integrated Users
Where they differ is that Google+ is an application, and it has been designed to integrate with the vast amount of Google applications people already use, such as Google Apps For Business, which includes email, calendars and document sharing. And you only need one Google account to access everything, this means that you only need to login once to access your email, schedule a meeting with a client, and place an update on your Google+ business page, and of added benefit for businesses is Google checkout, which can be used as payment processor.
You can also link business pages to Google Maps, which show up in search results whereas facebook places (Maps) do not.
So as you can see whilst Google is a late entrant into the market it potentially has a lot more to offer to businesses as a one stop shop, and thus it well worth considering joining Google+
Awesome post on Google+. It really cleared things up for me, I wasn’t to sure how important it was to jump on the new social media band wagon but at the same time if the giant like google is launching it will probably do pretty well (Lets not thing of Google Buzz). I would have to agree that I think it is a great way for Google to be able to see what people are talking about and able to customize your searching and better ranking for blogs.
Thanks for the comment! I would definitely get on the ‘G+ Bandwagon’ asap – Google have been pushing their service quite hard recently (The ‘Search Plus Your World’ search results for example), and no doubt that they’ll continue to do so. If they continue their pursuit of social media, in other words it doesn’t fall on its face like Buzz, then in my opinion those who aren’t involved with G+ will really get left behind.
Google Plus has been floating around the Internet since July this year, and was quickly taken up by those mainly in the tech space. The rest of the world, well, they are still on Facebook.
I think having a Google+ today is not just important but a must for every people who are taking their business into the next level 😀
Hi Kostas
Thanks for this good info about G+ , you help me a lot to use G= better so i will work on r\that ASAP.
Regards
Theuns
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the advice. I’ve been avoiding using Google+ that much since it’s just one more network to manage, but I’m finally getting going since I see some of my colleagues using it. You’ve spurred me on to go get a page set up also.
Sharyn
Ok Andy, you have convinced me, I’ll look into it and give it a whirl. I’m just like Sharyn above; I’ve been avoiding it. I accepted a couple of friend requests or whatever they call it and started getting spam so I stayed away from. On the other hand, I sort of figured that their had to be some good reasons to get involved with Google + and your post spelled them out.
Thanks for the great advice.
Nathan
Google+ did not allow me to sign up because I had used google aps and had an administrator. It took me several months, a lot of attempting to reach someone at google+ to no avail. Then suddenly, one day, my GMail was accepted. In the meantime I had received numerous friend request but was unable to respond and join. So since then I have only intermittently checked in with google+, not sure what to do there. Thanks for the tips about creating a Google+ business page. I will check that out.
Hello Andy! I’ll confess I’m a late comer to Google+. But better late than never, right? And you’re right, we can’t afford to party only on FB and twitter and ignore G+. Even though it’s not as fun to socialize on Google+ (and that might change with time), there are many things I like about it — many of of which you’ve outlined.
Right now is not really an early point. I’ve been in G+ since a couple weeks after it was first announced. However, it is important to join, and not just establish your personal profile but also at least get a business page going for you.
Thanks Kostas:) I’m a huge fan of Google + and am always surprised more people aren’t leveraging it. I’ve found that people share a lot more of my content on there too plus it’s fabulous for SEO.
Hi Andy:
I have to admit that I am very late to the game with google +. I was an early entrant into Facebook, Twitter and now Pinterest but google + has not been on my radar yet. I guess I am going to have to spend some more time on developing my presence there.
Thanks!
Kevin
Andy,
I’m going to go against the flow here and suggest you NOT sign up with Google+.
It seems there is an outcry that Google is using those on Google+ to skew organic Google listings results. Is nothing sacred?
Read this article by Ken Evoy of Site Builders. I consider him an authority as his business depends on pure SEO. Then, reconsider Google+. You won’t find me there.
https://www.facebook.com/SiteSell/posts/314460885266054
RICK
Hi Rick,
Google are in such a strong position that I think for a business, to ignore Google+ would be allowing your competitors to take business away from you, especially if Google continue to push their new service as hard as they have been. With such a high market share in search, I think as a business you have little choice but to play Google’s game. It’s different for a personal account, it’d then be totally personal preference as to whether you joined in with Google+ or not – but in my opinion, as a business, you need to get involved or you’re leaving yourself open to competitors taking advantage, even if you don’t agree with it. Frustrating that a single company can have so much power, but it is what it is.
Unfortunately, Andy, that is exactly the kind of thinking they are counting on. Are we such sheep? One must draw a line in the sand, take a stand. David did OK with Goliath, ya know? RICK
Also wow, thanks for the huge amount of comments everyone, wish I could reply to everyone individually – glad to be able to help.
Hey there Andy! Great post! I’ve been on G+ about 3 months and I love it. As you pointed out, my visibility on Google search engine has increased without question… And I contribute it all to my activity on Google+.
We’ve got a google+ account for our business page, not a lot of followers yet, but I know that the articles we post have received some love from the search engines. I’ll continue to post for the SE sake, but also because once it does go mainstream, like that of Facebook, then we already have an established account versus those who only are getting started. Plus using it helps me become an expert at it!