Google Plus for Business

In Issue 555 of the Tribune I wrote about Google+ and how they had only recently launched. They originally only focused on personal accounts, and there was a bit of controversy over Google not wanting brands to use Google+ at the start, however great news: Google+ Business Pages were launched last week,

Similar in a way to Facebook Pages, Google+ Pages are business profiles. Whilst I set up my company page the morning it launched, I really haven’t had much time over the last week to look at improving it.

A few odd things stand out at the start. Firstly, there is no authentication process at this stage, which means anyone could theoretically set up a page for any brand, irrespective of they are actually involved with it or not.

Unlike Facebook – which makes you upload business documentation to confirm your details – and even Google Places – which sends postal mail – Google+ seems to be completely open to potential fraud. For an example, look at all the results for the search on Coca Cola pages.

The second was a negative in my opinion when Facebook first launched their business pages too. Ridiculously long URLs are just so last century, so why insist on handing out horribly long ones for all users, personal or business?

Here’s an example for my business. Instead of having something like https://plus.google.com/bam-creative they end up handing out addresses like https://plus.google.com/107729622872696221067 which, to be frank, isn’t something I’ll ever remember in a million years.

On the plus side (excuse the very intentional pun), I like the Google+ interface, which is a lot cleaner than Facebook. The new Google +1 buttons have started appearing across the web on company websites, and now they have launched a Google+ icon for your website which will soon have more features.

They have some great features rolling out, and according to my unofficial chat with someone involved in the project, have already had over a million user feedbacks submitted since they launched in July.

To see all the differences between Google+ Profiles (people) and Google+ Pages (businesses) see the official list here.

We’ll wait and see where Google+ will head for businesses. However at this stage, they are still way behind Facebook and Twitter for adoption levels. Perhaps this time next year may be a different story.