Google+ For Business [Ebook]

On the day Google announced the release of Google+ business pages, hundreds of media outlets covered the story and drew attention to its importance, while many reporters and bloggers viewed it as a great improvement to Google+’s feature set, some decided to take a more controversial angle, viewing the story through the lens of a Facebook rivalry.

PCWorld, for example, led off with a story about how, in Mark Zuckerberg’s words, Google “is trying to build their own little version of facebook.” It has long been discussed that Google seeks to penetrate the social market, which it previously attempted to do with Google Buzz (which has now been shut down). will Google+ be the key weapon the search engine giant needs to achieve its goal? can this new network, with its improved feature set, beat Facebook? These are all questions we don’t quite have the answers for yet. But one thing is clear–marketers are provided with a completely new platform to explore and leverage.

Google+ is a social network powered by the search engine giant Google. Many see this platform as a challenge to Facebook’s domination of the social media space. With more than 40 million users and a growing influence on search, Google+ has definitely emerged as a key player in the online marketing ecosystem.

Google+ allows businesses to create pages and develop relationships with prospects and customers on multiple levels. Individuals can add a brand to a specific Google+ Circle, share a Google+ page with their network, and interact with the content posted by that company. For instance, users can +1 (or in other words, endorse) the updates a company publishes, leave comments, upload photos, and tag the brand in them. An interesting aspect of this platform is that its Hangouts feature enables companies to engage with fans, prospects, and customers through video conference calls.

Video chat is definitely the element that distinguishes Google+ from other existing social networks.

In this guide, we will help you make sense of this new environment. We’ll give you step-by- step instructions for how to set up and optimize your Google+ business page as well as the best practices to use in order to generate more buzz around your company. Finally, we will touch upon different aspects of Google+ that will impact your search engine optimization and blogging efforts. welcome, and we hope you enjoy the read!

– Maggie Georgieva