Google+ business profiles include cutting edge features

Businesses expected to benefit from new Google+ features

Via Ed Yourdon, flickr

UPDATE: As of November 7, 2011, Google+ launched their new service Google+ Pages, for businesses and personalities to use for promotional purposes.

(In fact, the Arbitrage Magazine launched our own Google+ page. Join us now and help us grow: Arbitrage Magazine)

Our initial reaction: While we were initially excited about creating a Google+ Page, that excited quickly turned into frustration. At first, we couldn’t create said page, as it apparently wasn’t “ready for everyone.” That said, these issues were temporary. But that doesn’t make that first impression any better. For now though, the Google+ team highlighted a number of key advantages their pages (will eventually) have over normal Google+ accounts. Some interesting ones include (republished from Google+):

Ripples: Word travels fast online. Ripples let you see your posts spread across Google+, who’s sharing and resharing 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.

Social analytics: How do +1’s affect user behavior? 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. Also see aggregate, anonymized demographic information about the Google users who have +1’d your site.

Analytics on a Page: Data trumps guessing every time. That’s why 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 — all to help you learn how social campaigns affect your bottom line.

API integrations: Ready to start building for the Google+ platform? This first release of the Google+ API, which includes read access to public data and a hangouts API, should be helpful, but we’re just getting started. We’ll be keeping a close eye on your feedback and will release more APIs into production as soon as they’re ready.

Google+ badge: Let people know you’re here by connecting your company website to your Google+ Page by adding the Google+ badge to your site. The badge is a new format for the +1 button that connects your site to your page. This enhanced version of the +1 button contains the ability to +1, see personal annotations, and add your page to a circle, directly from your site. Or, just install the Google+ icon. Whenever someone who likes your site clicks the icon, they will be taken to your Google+ page where they can add your page to their circles, and be able to follow your posts from then on.

Google+ Direct Connect: People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands. Google+ Pages can help users transform their queries into meaningful connections. A new feature called Direct Connect makes it easy — even automatic — for people to connect with you. Direct Connect lets people enter ‘+’ followed by the name of your page in Google search to get directly to your Google+ page. Direct Connect works for a limited number of pages today, but many more are coming. In the meantime, you can learn more about Direct Connect in our help center.

Launch Hangouts: Hangouts let you set up one-click video conversations with customers and colleagues alike. You can get face-to-face product feedback, help customers solve problems or simply get to know them better, and collaborate with remote colleagues on shared documents in real time — all over high-quality, easy-to-use video chat.

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, you need to put a snippet of code on your site, and advertisers just need to enable Social Extensions in AdWords.

+1 on display ads: People tend to trust recommendations from people they already know. Adding the +1 button to your display ads lets you, for the first time, run social-enabled campaigns across millions of sites in more than 40 countries around the world. Even better, +1 buttons on display ads work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads and your website; a single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.

——————————  

Original article published on September 14, 2011

By: Jorge T. Armand, Staff Writer

www.theedgeoftheword.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Jorge__Armand

You were busy updating your Facebook status and tweeting about it. In the meantime, Google plus is getting ready to launch their new business profiles. Christian Oestlien, Group Product Manager at Google, wrote a blog post noting that Google has accelerated its development work on Google plus for business. “Your interest has got us very focused on accelerating our development plans,” Oestlien wrote on July 14.

In response, Facebook launched ‘Facebook for Business.’ It is nothing too different from the old fan pages; you still have to pay for ads, obviously. Facebook’s quick launch of its business page is a serious indication that the 750-million-member monster of social networks is taking the arrival of Google plus quite seriously.

[pullquote] [The Google+ business profile] encourages and enhances conversation, it doesn’t just put things in the stream.” [/pullquote]

Initially, Google planned to prohibit commercial, non-individual use of Google plus. But things changed very quickly. Many businesses ignored the rule and created pages anyway. It’s the internet age, duh! The company’s social business head, Vic Gundotra, told TechCrunch that the exclusion of businesses from Google plus was “probably a mistake.” But don’t throw your business into Google plus just yet! Google said you won’t be able to automatically convert a personal profile into an official business profile. “Doing it right is worth the wait,” said Oestlien.

So what’s going to be so special about business profiles in Google plus? Google is keeping it secret, but a representative of the company told VentureBeat that users should expect “a level of analytics and measurement that you’d typically find in Google products, as well as a nuanced approach to how things are shared. It encourages and enhances conversation, it doesn’t just put things in the stream.” What else is up with Google+ business profiles?

Advertising & search

Google’s crème de la crème. It’s still secret how advertising will work in Google plus. On the search side, PC World showed how Google low-blowed Facebook and Twitter  by not showing their content in its search results; PC World authors suspect it is a strategy to catapult Google plus content into light.

Privacy control

Don’t let your clients check out photos of your grandparents’ anniversary party. Privacy flexibility is certainly an advantage Google plus has over Facebook. The Circles feature in Google plus allows you to choose who you share information with.

Business tools

Like everything else, what’s in the bag is still a mystery. Many businesses rely on Google for many services including email, document drafting, video hosting, and instant messaging. Hangouts is a group video service offered by Google plus that can revolutionize how businesses interact with their clients. Google plus also offers Sparks, a social bookmarking tool that can prove to be very useful to businesses.

What’s possibly in the pipeline?

Other possible business tools Google must be thinking about are business applications for Android cell phones, a Chrome-Google+ breed, and an integration of Google Maps into the social media cyberspace. ARB Team Arbitrage Magazine Business News with BITE. Liked this post? Why not buy the ARB team a beer? Just click an ad or donate below (thank you!)

Liked this article? Hated it? Comment below and share your opinions with other ARB readers!