Continuing their bounding onslaught into social networking, Google have today launched Plus Pages. Although boasting around 40million members already, Google have played to their strength by allowing Pages to now show up in SERPs and have also introduced a feature called Direct Connect which reconfigures of the + operator as a way of following Google Plus Pages directly from the search bar. Displaying a logo and taking up twice as much space as the auto-complete results below it, there’s a huge incentive for brands to get on board with this from the off.
Though a fair effort at adding value to Google+ for brands, which before this launch were kicked off with the promise something was coming soon, there are a number of features Google have yet to implement. Most importantly, there’s no analytics to allow the optimisation and reporting of page performance. However, they do launch better targeting options and the opportunity to rank Plus Pages favourably in search, as they do some of their other products, gives them some advantages over Facebook. There are also benefits to be drawn from features Google+ had from the start, such as Circles and Hangouts, which are yet to be realised on Facebook Pages.
Google+ Hangouts for Businesses
Although it’s easy to compare Google+ to Facebook Pages, it’s clear they both follow unique strategies to draw in content. As Google looks to bake in a number of their own products, Facebook relies on apps and their ‘Like’ button which is spread across the internet. Whilst the user base of Google Plus is only around 5% of Facebook’s, it’s still very much recommended to get in there, have a look around and register relevant IP as your own.
Check out some of the current brands taking part:
