Google Plus (G+) is a second tier social network today but, don’t discount it for long. With the recent incorporation of Google Places into Plus – this social network is gaining clout. Fast.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and depending on the nature of your business, Yelp and/or Pinterest are the primarily SMB priorities right now. However, the smart people at Google are coming on strong as they begin to enhance the feature set of Google Plus.
You may have seen the news that G + was the fastest growing social network in history with nearly 100 million members in a span of just a few months. While the data is accurate it is out of context. If you have a billion email accounts to begin with (Gmail has something in that neighborhood) it’s not that difficult to convert 10% of them into members. So, are 100 million people actively using G +?
No.
How many are active?
Only the team at Google’s Mountain View campus know for sure but today, it is a tiny fraction of the total members.
Regardless, Google holds a lot of the keys to the internet and marketing your business or organization. As they migrate their hugely important Google Places into Google + this is one really big step towards relevance and paying closer attention to the opportunities it presents your organization. And if you still think social media marketing is not that important you may want to ask yourself why Google is spending so much time and resource building it out. Why? In addition to the competitive threat of Facebook, they see the power and future of social in the evolution of marketing.
Social Jumpstart is in touch with the team at Google and we’ll be keeping a close eye as new developments roll out for G+. For instance, here’s something you won’t read about on most other social media blogs because we were allowed a beta sneak preview. We’re closely watching an under the radar stealth project that Google is experimenting with called “Schemer” that makes it even easier for friends to share plans and recommendations. This will likely be another step in making G + critical for your business.
If you’re interested in learning more about Google Plus today here’s a good write up from Decisive Minds that gives the service a deeper overview.
Google +, now more than ever – a place for everything and everything in its place.
