Are you a marketer or business who’s trying to figure out how can Google plus change the social media marketing?
Don’t worry. You aren’t alone.
To get you the authentic answer I asked the following question to the top social media pros.
How can Google plus change the social media marketing space for businesses and marketers in the coming months?
I am really thrilled and appreciate all the social media experts below who took time and responded to my question. I hope all of you find the mixed points of view from the industry experts interesting.
Do not forget to add your thoughts in the comments section below to join the conversation.
# 1 Michael A. Stelzner
Michael is the founder of Social Media Examiner, author of the books Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition and Writing White Papers:
“I think the role for business remains to be seen. I don’t see Google Plus offering much right now for business at all”
# 2 Brian Clark
Brian is a CEO of Copyblogger Media, a serial entrepreneur, and a recovering attorney. Brian built three successful offline businesses using online marketing techniques before moving to a completely online business model. The result of that move — Copyblogger Media — is an innovative company that provides the advice and solutions that empower people to successfully grow their businesses through social media and online marketing.
“For marketers, the most interesting thing to watch as Google+ develops is the integration and impact of the platform on Google Search. People have already noted that content from people you have in your circles is showing up as highlighted (and possibly more prominently) in the search results. If Google+ continues to grow at the current rate, Google will have another huge set of usage data that provides reliable “indications” of content quality and relevance, which will continue to complement the classic link-based approach to ranking.”
# 3 Leo Babauta
Leo is a simplicity blogger & author. He created Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog (according to TIME magazine) with 200,000 subscribers, mnmlist.com, and the best-selling books focus, The Power of Less, and Zen To Done
“I hope Google+ doesn’t become a great space for marketers. They usually ruin social space with spam, hype and promotions.”
# 4 Kristi Hines
Kristi is a social media enthusiast and blogger at Kikolani which focuses on blog marketing topics including blogging tips and social networking strategies. She also contributes to many other sites as a freelance writer covering online marketing topics for businesses including search and social marketing optimization. When she’s not on the computer, her personal hobbies include photography, tennis, and salsa dancing!
“What I would like to see Google+ do is create a network where people must be present to engage. I think there are tools available (or in the works) that will allow people to push the same update to multiple networks, including Google+.
I hope that Google+ will steer clear of allowing things like tweets and Facebook updates to automatically feed through their network, that way when you see an update from someone you are following, you won’t see the same thing in more than one place.
Not having these auto feeds has so far meant that people really are engaging more with each other instead of methodically updating and moving on. This will make followers on Google+ more valuable to marketers and businesses because they know their audience is actually active on the Google+ network itself, more likely to see their updates, and more likely to respond to them.”
# 5 Ruud Hein
Ruud works for Canada’s largest SEO company, He wrote How Search Really Works.and helped us peak behind the curtains of How Google Plus One Works For Ranking.
“Everything Google will continue to function the way that it does — but publishers, advertisers, and individuals, will increasingly be confronted with the benefits of being on Google+ and/or getting Google +1-ed. To partake in the game is to play the game, whether you mean it or not, and so Google, with it’s tremendous market share and offers, will grow out to be The Default Social Search: Google+, not Like’s or tweets, will be the most visible on Google.
So, for marketers it will be really important to get those signals, both for traditional ranking as well as to get those trust signals showing on the search engine results pages.
That’s a watershed. Facebook Like’s will show on people’s own pages but Google+ will show on the world’s most used search engine… It’s the beginning of the marginalization of Facebook.”
# 6 Corina Mackay
Corina is a freelance writer, and Social Media Manager for singer/songwriter Emmy Bryce. She is a QR Code and geo location enthusiast, and often writes about web apps, social networking, and developing technologies.
“The aspects of Google+ that set it apart from other social networks (Hangouts, Circles, Sparks) can revolutionize the way individuals share with others, which is what I love about it.
For a business owner, I see these attributes offering better ways of individuals connecting as a team, to use social media sharing in the most beneficial ways for their company. Hangouts, for instance, offers an easy and more true-to-life way to interact with colleagues and customers than anything we’ve seen integrated into a social network so far.
Circles is a particular favourite aspect of Google+ for me, as it enables full (and easy to understand) control over how items are shared, and to whom. The integration of other Google products such as contacts, photos from Picasa, and search results listed in Sparks, make Google+ a great contender for an all-encompassing hub of our online identities.”
# 7 Nichole Kelly
Nichole has been an in-house corporate marketer for over 12 years and a CEO/Founder of Full Frontal ROI Consulting. She has worked for small, medium and large organizations and helps marketers overcome the barriers to success through accountability.
“Google + is going to allow us to view conversations in a whole new way. It is no longer a linear discussion sorted by time, now we can sort and prioritize based on the relationship we have. This is something that neither Twitter or Facebook do well. This will bring a whole new meaning to the value of relationships in social media because if you aren’t part of the right “circle” no one will be listening to you.”
# 8 Jane Sheeba
Jane started blogging/writing articles on 2007. She is passionate about writing on self improvement techniques, personal development and motivational stuff. She runs a multi-niche blog which features high quality articles on Blogging Tips, Relationships and Self Improvement.
“Due to the lesser annoying nature and better privacy of Google plus (than Facebook) more and more people, including marketers are joining Google plus. Google plus’s crowd expands much faster and is approaching Facebook’s number quite fast. Given this scenario, both the people who sell and people who buy gather at Google plus making it a great market. Not to mention, since this social network is backed up by the big G, it will surely affect search results. Search traffic is the buying traffic.”
# 9 Tamar Weinberg
Tamar is a tech geek with a passion for internet, social media, blogging, and gadgets. She is the author of “The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web,” which was published in July 2009 by O’Reilly Media. She is also on Mashable’s business team
“I think it’s really dependent on Google+ getting those business pages ready. Once that’s made, the businesses that get started will have a leg up on their competition. If you snooze, you lose. Early adopters always see a lot of success.”
# 10 Sherryl Perry
Sherryl is a Strategic Planning Consultant & Coach for Small Biz Owners and Entrepreneurs | Chief Blogger at KeepUpWithTheWeb.com
“I believe that Google Plus is positioned to fill the unmet needs of businesses that are seeking a social networking environment that is conducive to building brand awareness while forming mutually beneficial relationships. I anticipate that Google+ will evolve into a marketplace for B2B whereas Facebook will continue to attract consumers and be the place for B2C. Ultimately, there will be room on each network for both but I predict that if you were painting the landscape with a broad brush, this is what we’ll be seeing.”
# 11 Rich Brooks
Rich is a president of flyte new media, a web design and Internet marketing company. Enjoy killing zombies and long walks on the beach. Also have a web marketing blog
“Online visibility is about search and social these days. The more Google+ can connect these two, and show marketers how to integrate these two visibility tools, the more marketers will take to it.
That being said, there’s got to be outreach to the general public, who aren’t as interested in online marketing for online marketing’s sake. As more people join G+ it will reach it’s true potential.”
Your Thoughts
What do you think? Do you agree with the experts or you may have a different opinion about Google plus?
On April 2, 2019, Google shut it down the consumer (personal) version of Google+, a social network by Google. If you have a G Suite Account, as part of your work or school, you can continue to use Google+ within your organization.