Google+ Pages can get you the light you deserve

Is this just another one of those social networking platform, or is it something more?

By: Jorge T. Armand, Contributing Writer

theedgeoftheword.tumblr.com

via Flickr Creative Commons

You might have thought of quitting Facebook, and maybe you tried. But I am willing to bet that you are one of Facebook’s 800 million members, constantly asking “what’s up?” to your buddies, creeping, and making sure you upload the right photo so that your boss doesn’t see you wearing grandma’s sweater and getting wasted.

This is where Google+ comes in.

But why would you want another social networking account?

Well, because you simply need to be on Google+ pages. Get this:

1. Take the bull by the horns

Don’t let your clients check out photos of your grandparents’ anniversary party. Google+ works with a concept of circles. Yes, just like your circles of friends. You have to categorize people into a circle in order to add them, i.e. co-workers, family, or tennis friends. To add a person to any circle you have created, simply drag their name into one.

You can control how much of your profile is visible to each circle. Type a person’s name into a box, and see what your profile looks like through their eyes.

Cater to certain demographics, the International Business Times suggests. You can organize customers by adding them to circles. Send content for different age groups, or send special offers to customers in your “Women Circle.”

2. Stick out like a sore thumb

Google is everybody’s new parent. You need to know something? Ask Google. More than a billion people search content on Google every month. In fact, businesses know the importance of Google and have embraced Google+ to improve their exposure to customers. When your business is on Google+ Pages, it ranks higher in search results.

Anyone with a Google+ profile can add your business to their “Circles,” so they can see your posts. It’s like Twitter without the fail whale error message and the cyber-prostitutes with their “I love sex. Please follow me” message.

Google also came up with a new feature called “Direct Connect.” This means that when someone looks up your company on Google and adds a “+” before your name, they will be automatically directed to your Google+ Page.

Forgot your Skype password? Relax; Google+’s “Hangouts” allows you to video-chat with a number of your friends and employees simultaneously.

3. Team work

Brainstorm ideas using Google Docs in combination with Hangouts. You can use it as a virtual whiteboard, suggests Reuters.

4. Ripples

Word spreads like wildfire online. Ripples let you see your posts spread across Google+, who’s sharing your content, and whose opinions matter. Use it to identify influencers and add them to a circle, or see how communities are formed around your content.

5. Social analytics

How do +1′s affect user behaviour? Google Analytics suite of social reports make it easy to find out. Analytics measures +1′s and how engagement on your site changes when personalized recommendations help your content stand out.

6. Who’s checking you out?

Google+ will launch tools to give you access to as much data as possible about your Google+ Page and +1 activity: who’s interacting with your page and how; your users’ demographics; and info about their social activities like +1′s, shares and comments.

7. Connect your +1′s

Help people see their friends’ recommendations, wherever they find you on the web by connecting +1s for your website, with +1s on your Google+ page and ads. Once you’ve created your page, put a snippet of code on your site, and advertisers just need to enable Social Extensions in AdWords.

All in all, the question must be made: Is Google going to replace existing prominent social media channels, i.e. Facebook?

(here’s an interesting infographic on a statistical comparison of Google+ and Facebook)

Look Facebook, I’d relax if I had 800 million members and 700 billion minutes spent on my site per month.

What about Twitter? Don’t think so. Taking on Twitter is like taking on…CNN + Steven Harper +Hollywood+ Justin Bieber + 10 million zombies + 250 million tweets a day.

Charlene Li, Founder of Altimeter Group, a social-media advisory firm, told ABC news onJune 30, 2011that Google+’s goal is not to replace Facebook.

“Key thing here is that going against Facebook directly is suicidal,” said Li. “Google has found a seamless formula with more structure. It really is the plus part. It is extending Google’s communication platforms into a unified sharing platform.”

And this strategy makes sense. The social media field will become increasingly hard to break into, without strong structural and technological foundations. Unless a new business social media business model is conceived that entirely redefines the marketplace, it will be hard for new market players to pull users away from their established networks on existing medias such as Facebook. Google, on the other hand, can avoid direct competition and enter into a specific market niche through its existing foundations, and it seems to be following this strategy by linking Google+ to its other services.

Ever heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy? Markets are divided into “red oceans” and “blue oceans.” Red oceans are known market space. There are many competitors fighting for market share. Cutthroat competition turns the ocean bloody. Blue oceans are unknown market space with few competitors who create market shares. New market makes competition irrelevant.

In a red ocean, you update status, stalk, like, tweet, and blog. That’s getting old. In a blue ocean, you fix collaboration and share across applications and across platforms. That’s Google+.

Other interesting features of Google+ are “Sparks” and “What’s hot.” Sparks helps you find interesting content based on your interests. It’s like an automatic Google Reader. What’s hot shows you what is trending.

Other possible business tools Google could be developing are business applications for Android cell phones, a Chrome-Google+ breed, and an integration of Google Maps into the social media cyberspace.

Google+ is still developing, and its success will be proven in the coming months. But besides all the new cool features and the so-called “battle” between Facebook and Google, there is something else you should start thinking about: Who owns your information? Have you ever looked yourself up in 123people.com? Do it. You’ll be surprised to know how much advertisers know about you.

I call Google Inc. the biggest monopoly of history. Not only it is your search engine, but it is also your new browser, your android phone, email, document sharing, Youtube, your GPS, and a database for advertisers. The list goes on. That’s quite a bit of knowledge and power over you.

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
Business News with BITE.

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