There has always been mixed-emotion around Google+. The user experience, in my opinion, is superior to anything in the social space. It’s insanely easy to navigate, filter, view posts. Recently there have been a lot of articles about how brands are using Google+. There are releases like from our partner, HootSuite, who allows companies to manage Plus Pages from HootSuite and a recent write up about how about 75% of the 100 major brands now have Plus Pages. But there is the recently-acquired-by-Google Wildfire who doesn’t support it on the social marketing platform and according to a recent meeting we had with them, they don’t think there is user support on the Plus Platform – I think that will be changing.
Why the move? Personally, only my tech friends are on PLUS. BUT, what I do know is that people who aren’t on Facebook ARE on Google+ – exclusively. There are people fundamentally against Facebook as a company and a social platform but find Plus an acceptable alternative. There is also the thought that a brand shows up better in Google with a Plus Page – I don’t think that will ever be confirmed by Google.
I think the main reason is that the social ecosystem is vast (still) and people are loyal to a platform like Plus or Facebook or brand communities and it is part of a growing targeted plan by brands that they can’t be everywhere but they need to be where people are that are influential to their brand are. Its no easy task to manage a social profile of a brand across every space so the decision is likely a very deliberate way to reach a growing population that are either on NOT on other managed spaces or to to reach group that is MORE ACTIVE on PLUS than other areas. It isn’t rock-science anymore that brands can’t control what happens socially but they can be present for the conversation. That is likely what is happening here with PLUS.
