by samDeveloped under the codename Emerald Sea, Google+ is search engine giant Google’s social networking platform. Google has chosen to call it a project rather than using the term application or product. This project aims to streamline how users share and connect.
This project is still in its early days, but one thing is for certain: the close integration between Google’s social networking media and search engine will redefine the rules of online marketing. Everyone associated with website marketing will have to rethink and rework the strategies of this complex online marketing game, especially how search engine optimisation needs to be performed.
Google+ is making an effort to consolidate information generated from all its products, such as Gmail, contacts, Google Maps, and Picasa, and integrate it into Google+. This will benefit users who can easily sign into different Google+ services with a common user name.
Google+ profiles will play an important role in this integration process. It is quite similar to a news feed. Profile typically consists of four core elements: circles, hangouts, huddles, and sparks.
Circles are compartments or folders. Users can simply drag and drop their contacts into these compartments depending upon the type of information they want to share. It is really a nice little feature. Google+ wants users to experience real life scenarios where all the information cannot be shared equally. Users can grow their circles by adding contacts directly from Gmail. Circles make it easier for users to filter mail and contacts, which makes it a joy to view your social connections.
Sharing photos and automatic profile updates are yet another set of features. Profile is updated as soon as you add someone to your circle. This information is fetched from the information provided by the user while creating a profile. As far as photo sharing is concerned, a user just needs to upload images to Google+ photos, which will be viewed by circles that he/she chooses to share with.
Effective marketing requires communication and collaboration, which Google apps fulfil to a large extent. These are touted as the next set of tools for online advertising. The time has come for every social media agency worth its salt to create company profile pages for their clients. It is too early to say the impact of such business pages. But it cannot be ignored.
If Google+ becomes successful in terms of the number of users that join its social media platform, then the rules of website marketing will change dramatically. The reason is because tools such as +1 play an important role in Google’s search criteria and ultimately a website’s listing on the search results page. It is a recommendation flag. When people like some content, they can simply click on the +1 button to make it popular. It is a kind of endorsement that others will follow, backlink to, and recommend.
Only time will tell of its success. But meanwhile, marketers need to be aware of the impact it will have on internet advertising, especially in the coming days.