Google Plus Reveals Google + Pages:
After an early culling of people who tried to claim “keywords” and brand names on Google +, the search giant has finally rolled out a new face to the facebook copycat with their version of “pages” that aims to give brands a voice on the social network, and allow people to build relationships with local businesses and brands within the framework of Google Plus.
How this will manifest is unclear just yet but it seems that with Google plus the aim will be to build a seamless bridge between “switched-on” companies who will benefit from an easier to reach and communicate channel, this could be in the form of a band on tour or a local furniture shop.
The amount of interaction will depend on the owners of the page but we can see voice and video chat being one simple aspect that could be tapped into with creative uses being developed to help improve or promote brands and companies.
Google’s engineering headman Vic Gundotra states:
“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people, but we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about – from local businesses to global brands – so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”
Benefits of even more connectivity with consumers?
Feedback – Sometime a good thing, though sometimes manipulated, but always worthwhile if constructive.
Loyalty – Giving more and more of your time to listen to your clients promotes loyalty, and as competitors are not getting in the way of your customers the benefits are even more potentially.
Google Direct Connect:
A new search option that will connect Google users directly to Google pages:
Using the “+” option as a prefix you will be taken directly to that brands Google + page.
This should help in bringing more people to Gmail services and Google + over time, which let’s face it is vastly superior to Yahoo or MSN in terms of Gmail and ancillary services and products never mind the actual social networking aspect which users can take or leave.
With Google banning the “+” symbol as a valid term in the Boolean search options we can now see why that was implemented.
How to add a Google Plus Page?
Giving a brands page the right to pass information on to you requires the Google + account holder to actually add that page to their circle.
With page shaving a “+1” button and an “Add to circles” button, it would seem like an obvious like to click the +1 and expect that that had given the page the right to assume you wanted to know more, but currently only the “add to circles” option will give that amount of google love to approve this type of communication from page to Google + user.
I sense that this could be an issue that was given some thought and was deemed that only the later option woudl be sensible given that “+1” buttons could be abused by simple copying of code to a popular page…..(my point being that you may not realise you are +1’ing a brands page until you start getting a stream of content, so having the only option to allow this being to actually add a brand to your circles should mitigate con artists)…got that?
How to create my own page:
Well you need to go here: Google Plus Pages and see if your Google account is eligible yet…enjoy.
Anthony Munns