Strategies for brand to leverage Google +

If you haven’t already heard, Google is in the middle of an impressive phase of development with the rollout of its Google+ Project. If you’re lost and confused in the midst of all this excitement, you’re not alone, so let’s put the spotlight on what this all means for brands.

With the launch of the new social platform Google+, now with over 20 million users, many companies and brands are scrambling to find out what it means for them and how they should be integrating this new platform into their overall marketing strategy.

Google+ is currently only available to private individuals, and Google has asked companies to be patient until the business pages are officially launched, which is estimated to be later this year. The business pages will include a range of additional features that are relevant to brands. According to Google’s Product Manager, Christian Oestlien, how users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands, and Google is trying to be sensitive to this difference by creating separate experiences for the two groups. From what we already know of Google+, ‘Circles’ and the ‘Hangout’ are two features that could be useful on company pages.

Google+ Circles: For segmentation

One big advantage of Google+ is that it allows companies to segment all their different connections into similar ‘circles’ or groups. This could be as basic as having a ‘Customer group’, ‘Staff group’, ‘Supplier group’, or more customised to categorise circles based on customer type, age or geographic location for example. This offers companies the opportunity to distribute highly targeted and relevant content to specific groups of people in a fairly easy manner.

Google+ Hangout: For engagement

Using the ‘Hangout’ feature to organise, record and archive video conference meetings with up to 10 people has many exciting applications for companies. This feature could be used internally between staff or between a brand and their customers, enabling a two-way interaction that can’t be experienced via platforms such as YouTube. For example it could be used as a mini focus group, or an opportunity to give select customers the opportunity to view a new range of products and get their initial impressions. This has the potential to open up an easily accessible avenue for brands to engage their customers like never before.
But some of you may be asking how this differs to the Facebook video chat feature? The main difference is the amount of people you can include, with Facebook you can only organise a one-on-one chat, whereas with Google+ you can have up to 10 people.

Industry experts are also predicting what other features we may see rolled out to the business pages and what their benefits may be. These could include elements such as:

Google Places: For location-based offers

For companies or brands with physical locations, the Google Places feature could display within the Google+ page, and direct users to the nearest store to them, or tell them about a special event in the area near to where they are located.

Google Sparks: For targeted content

Sparks is about sharing and consuming content with people who have similar interests. There are two aspects to Sparks, the sharing; you find something you like and you share it with people that you know will like it as well, and the consumption; where you receive content from around the web based on interests that you specify to Google. On a business level it potentially means that any content you’re producing could be more likely to get in front of individuals that Google know are interested in a topic relating to your product or service offering. There is even the potential that Google will monetise Sparks by allowing paid Sparks sponsorship, offering highly targeted advertising opportunities.

Google +1 ‘I think this is pretty cool’ button: For influence

The word ‘Google’ is already a part of our every day vernacular, but what about ‘Googlefluence’? With the ‘+1 button’ gaining adoption quickly, soon users will treat the ‘Googlefluence’ score as an important factor in making decisions on the web. Similar to a Facebook ‘Like’, the difference here is that when you ‘+1′ something, your name becomes associated with that link and is visible to everyone in search results. So instead of a standard website listing appearing in the results, it will display with a personalised endorsement or social approval at the critical point when you are deciding on which site is more relevant to you.

There is also discussion that over time Google will rate the influence that individual people have on specific topics. Therefore a ‘+1′ from an expert in a related field may hold more weight in affecting the ranking of that listing than a ‘+1′ from a random customer. So what does this mean for you? It means that it’s not worth getting everyone you’ve ever met to ‘+1′ your website, you need to ensure you make your content relevant and engaging so that individuals deemed by Google to be ‘influencial’ ‘+1′ it because they feel it is worth it.

And then there are the Google products many businesses already know and currently use. These are likely to be integrated with Google+ to provide an easy way for you to manage your online activities.

Google Adwords

It would make sense that Google would extend the Adwords display network to include Google+ pages to compliment the current offering. In a similar way to Facebook ads, companies would have the ability to customise ads to target specific groups of people based on profiling data.

Google Analytics

The ability to integrate multiple platforms into the one analytics account will be an attractive feature to companies. Connecting a company’s Google+ page up to their standard website analytics account allows them to collate their online intelligence in one place.

Despite the challenge of keeping up with all the developments with Google products, it’s worth understanding the options available to you, so that you can make your own informed decision about if they might be relevant to you.