With the evolvement of web 2.0 social media has become increasingly popular to the point where 62% of the world’s 2billion internet users are using it frequently. Gone is the time where setting up a social profile for your business is optional, it’s now required for two reasons:

• Marketing; Social media helps entice customers to your website. It can also harness the passion of your customers which will help drive purchases and buzz.
• Support/ Customer Service; Social media engages customers directly and deals with any issues in a straightforward and quick manner. This helps drive down the cost of service and will help build a better experience for all of your customers.

Google+ already has over 250 million users proving its latest foray into the world of social networking is here for the long haul. It has some key advantages for businesses over its rivals such as Facebook and Twitter who provide a platform to promote content and interact with customers but not much else. Google+, however is a fully integrated search and social profile that will become central to Google’s future identity and how we find and share information. It has already begun this transition with the integrations of its services such as Gmail, Reader and YouTube.

So how does Google+ help you?

Integration into Search:

Google+ members can search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph. This means circles, business pages, posts and pictures will be integrated into the search engine. Members will be able to search information from their network of associates that is private and only shared with them as well as information publically available on the internet.

The popular Google Places profile for businesses has also been integrated into the brand. Now called Google+ local it allows for a simple way to discover and share local information about businesses including a 30-point rating system and recommendations. This is fully integrated into Google search and Maps allowing for all your profiles to be merged and managed on a single page.

The ‘+1’ button:

Google’s share button, the +1 can be embedded on your website and acts as a public recommendation by appearing in search results .They are tied to specific landing pages similar to tweets or likes and are tallied separately for each page. When +1ing a webpage you get the opportunity to share your +1 with your Google+ circles .Interestingly, they affect each page’s Quality Score, which could help you PPC campaigns.

The +1 button also has some SEO impact too. Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant that content from strangers. For Instance, a film review from an expert may be useful, but a review from a friend who shares your tastes could be even better. Due to this, +1’s are a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user query.

Additional Functionality:

Even after its rapid growth, Google+ is still significantly smaller than other social networks and a much lower percentage of businesses have a presence there. Subsequently, early uptake can be a distinct competitive advantage as you have the opportunity for a much larger market penetration.

It also had the advantage of monitoring its competitors to see what features work and what did not. This means Google+ is more of a hybrid incorporating functions that worked in Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and building on them with its own distinct range of functionalities that sets it apart. It has perfected the use of circles to share data with different groups of peoples as well as integrating elements of Skype with Hangouts, Zagat with reviews and ratings with Quora which has the ability to share questions and answers.

Google+ is more than a social network; it’s a social extension of Google’s search engine. If your business wants to develop both search and social strategies, Google+ is becoming a vital tool that should be seriously considered by all businesses.

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Before Google made the changes various reviews from other third party websites were automatically added to various listings in Google Places. In most of these cases these websites had not given Google the permission to use such content. After many complaints Google finally made the decision to remove all reviews taken from other websites. Also as part of this recent change, Google is instead including links to these reviews available on third party websites, and all reviews left by its users on Google Places will remain.

One of the other changes announced is that a new “write a review” button is included on all entries in Google Places. This new feature along with existing reviews left by other users is designed to help Google Places provide personalised recommendations to other businesses based on reviews left by you and your friends. This new feature invites its users’ to recommend local businesses they like and those they didn’t.

These reviews definitely can either help or hinder local businesses. Having a number of positive reviews will encourage other customers to come visit that particular business while negative reviews will encourage customers to avoid them. These reviews can have a very serious impact on any business either way. This will determine a company’s reputation which can either be good or bad.

It is very important to keep an eye on these reviews to see if there is a positive or negative trend. When a customer leaves a positive review, always make sure to thank them for that. If they leave a negative review you may want to apologize to them for the negative experience. It will also be vital to work with them and focus on managing your businesses reputation and engage with your customers to avoid any more negative feedback.

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Designed to bring more relevant information to users the +1 button is Google’s answer to the Facebook ‘Like’ button.

By clicking the +1 button on a site, blog, article, organic or sponsored listing this will convey to all of that users Google network connections that they recommend the site by displaying ‘Jack +1’d this’.

These social marketing personal recommendations are a way to drive more qualified traffic to websites.

Now completely rolled out the Google +1 button can be added to all aspects of a website, will be displayed automatically on Google AdWords adverts and can be closely monitored in Webmaster Tools to see just what effect it is having on business.

A recent study examining how prevalent social plug-ins, such as the Facebook Like Button and Boxes or Tweet buttons, are on home pages of the top 10,000 ranking sites has found that there Google +1 button has seen an increased presence of more than 28% in the last month alone. Current figures mean that it is now one more homepages than the Tweet button.

And for the future…

Google’s latest offering to the social networking world Google+ is currently in ‘project’ mode and only accessible by invitation. It has been receiving mixed reviews from those lucky enough to have access to the new network but the majority have been very positive and the industry feeling is that this is actually a breath of fresh air.

The concept behind the Google+ network is to make sharing simpler between family and friends. Will it work for businesses and brands? The initial feelings are that it will be a slow burn for businesses as there is currently no active ‘fan’ or ‘follower’ equivalent included in the design.

However, Google have confirmed that there will be a business element added to the service further down the line and this will see the introduction of pages for businesses and, by making updates public there is an assumption that they will eventually be indexed by Google.

Eventure Internet understand how important social marketing is to the success of a website and incorporate all social marketing aspects into the bespoke web design packages on offer.

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