Viewpoint: Why Google+ Pages Isn't Good for Business

i have never used google+ just got some great fact about google+

SEO value, my friend.

Appreciate you taking the time Mikal, and sharing the information about Google+  I have been spending much of my time on Linkedin since the beginning of the year and have seen tremendous results because of my efforts.  I did have a personal profile on Google+ but really didn't do too much on this platform.  I recd all kinds of 'circle' requests and added people (actually my VA took care of this social site).  When Google+ for business was announced I added my profile again.  I believe that it depends on the company, their marketing plan, purpose and how any social platform will be effective for their specific business. For me, my results are coming from my blog, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.  I didn't see any real advantage to Google+ right now.  I know that too many small business owners, up-coming entrepreneurs and industry professionals are finding social media to be overwhelming.... adding yet another platform that is proclaiming you must incorporate into your business, is causing much confusion.  Your article will be helpful for people to look at this (Google+) social site and any others they are considering when marketing their business online. 

Your points are all very valid (the fact that there is no integration with Youtube and Blogger is beyond my understanding), but you are, in my opinion, jumping way too fast on your conclusion. Don't get me wrong, Facebook is ten times better for a business, but Google + helps a company in terms of search ranking: sooner than later, Google will base their algorithms on +1s. And if you have to choose between taking time to create and manage a Google + page, or dropping out of Google's rankings, it's pretty obvious that you'll opt for the former. Now, does Google + HAVE to improve? Definitely. But it seems like Google is serious about its social media approach, and I have no doubt they will drastically improve their service over the next year. The big question that remains is: will customers follow? Maybe a massive presence of the companies will lead to an increasing traffic on Google +. For instance, I created my personal account only after creating the page for my company. So to recap, it is, in my opinion, valuable to create a Google + brand page, but it is very clear that it is not for its worth right now, but rather for its impact on search rankings!

Well, I honestly believe that Google+ is part of a greater plan. I think Google is actually more interested in gathering data from our social interactions than beating twitter and facebook.  Any business with a Google+ page will have a nice logo next to its listing in the search results (a total CTR booster). But in addition to that, if that G+ page was "friended" by the user doing the search, then the listing will have a higher ranking in the results. We are already seeing evidence of this.  I believe it's the most important thing for google in the end. It's right there on their mission statement: "organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful".They know their traditional way to assign authority and relevance to pages (through backlinks) doesn't work that well in today's web environment. So they are moving into social in order to build a better search engine.

When people say Don't use Google+ business it shows how little they've researched the topic. Forget about features for a second, you're at the crossroads of Social and Search. If you don't understand how to get followers and +1s on your Google+ brand page, you need to be figuring it out. What do you think the very first search result on Google is for my name? Let's put it this way, it wasn't what it is now 3 months ago. I wrote an article about why you need a Google+ Brand page, unless you're attached to your dogma, I suggest you read it and take the finer points with you http://adamjustice.me/why-you-need-a-google-brand-page/

I have high hopes for Google+ and the business pages because of the potential for cross-platform connection within the Google suite of tools - I would love to go back to using Facebook for personal connections.  I expect to see the functions mentioned in this post to be implemented, but the question is whether the mass of consumers have already decided against Google+ because of its lack of features that they already use in similar platforms, like Facebook.  Without wide-spread adoption, then Google+ and the business profiles won't matter.

lets put it back into consideration when facebook first came out it wasnt perfect it had big issues and it still does, the fact is Google plus does have a long way to go, HOWEVER lets look at how many users facebook have, ok well you can already write off about 30% of their users total as they are people with 2 or more accounts and all the fakes(spam) accounts as well, does it come anywhere near the amount of people who use google products every day now considering google writes the rules of seo for their search engine you can bet that by having google plus that its going to be great for seo , and that their is why alot of marketing gurus are saying its the next big thing because it will be great for seo and you cant deny that

@swagv:disqus I don't think the article or many of the comments are saying "don't use it" I think there are concerns about using it "now".  There's an awful lot of hype and everyone saying you gotta jump in to Google+ in your business. I think the article and comments here are counterpoints as to why it may not be the correct timing right now.  Google has numerous platforms that have existed for many years and the problem, that many are seeing, is pretty big shifts in what you can and cannot do. It's not just that the 'new' platform has bugs & glitches, it's that how you connect to and manage your existing google presence is being adversely affected.

Here is my two cents.  Since we do all our marketing with either no budget or really small budget, I figure that being on G+ can't hurt our presence.  I will say it took me a little while to figure it out (and still have some concerns) but I am still focusing on the FB fan pages rather than being on G+.  Another point I'd like to make is that if you don't have a website, then you can't be on G+, where as on FB you don't absolutely need one (a factor in some of the people that I know and use said FB fan page as their website which I don't advise them to do).  I think G+ has a long way to go, but I'll use anything I can get my keyboard onto.  Thanks for the post.

Oh! I came to know some important information regarding Google+ by reading this post. Thanks for sharing this post.

Amanda, Great thoughts, and you are on the right track. I do not advise clients to make G+ a priority at this time. Facebook is still King. Start on the platform, claim you page and buy Chris Brogan's G+ book when it comes out within the next month. (Or learn online from other sources) Thinking of G+ as a Facebook killer or replacement is the most common thing I hear. That thinking is off base. It is a social layer to the Google product line. Google crawls your G+ posts, the +1 button adds a social element to search, and you will be able to add people to circles from SERPs soon. All cool, and different from facebook. People will like you on Facebook, but discover you from Google+ in an organic way. G+ will be a powerful discovery engine.

As a small business owner, I've been hesitant to invest time into Google +. It's hard enough to update my blog and facebook page. However, I don't think it hurts to try all channels in order to increase brand awareness as long as you have a strategy to go with it. 

The same *can* be duplicated a continuously with the same title; there could be hundreds of eBay Google+ pages. However, what tells Google+ which eBay is the official page is the code Google+ provides page admins. The admins take that code and embed it into the official site (i.e., the eBay Google+ Page admin would put the code on eBay.com). Google+ then knows that your page is the real page and puts emphasis on yours for search.

Will Google + pages enable multiple pages to exist with the same title/headline? If not, it seems that companies would be scrambling to get Google + business pages for products they sell in order to grab the page name before a competitor does. Does anyone have insight into this?

OMG! An initial release and it doesn't have a full suite of features! And yet places like Facebook has made it oh-so-accommodating for things like agency representation for company pages and the like. My business will shrivel up and die if I use this service! The sky is falling and it's only a v1.0 release! What unspeakable horrors await us in v1.1?

@bernardmartin I completely agree. Google is playing catch up, and quite honestly, they don't even know where to begin.

@pearlhosell:disqus Great points about having to sign in and sign out of multiple accounts. It'a actually gotten worse not better.  I've noticed that Google has actually gone backwards. We had set up some gmail accounts for clients to manage a number of their Google properties including Blogger & YouTube.  When attempting to create the branded page Google+ gave us a warning that the gmail name looked more like a company name than a person so we needed to tie it to a person's name. Although that 'may' change in the future and it's "on the product roadmap" it's not THERE now so in our view it's not a viable marketing platform.  @EricPaulA:disqus it would be a disservice to our clients to put them into a platform that's not complete and is subject to change . Time energy and money would need to be invested in creating the brand page and then portions of it could be lost or disconnected. Good business's develop plans and strategies to move forward in the long term. So although an evolving platform may be ok for personal use 'as it develops' it's just bad business to invest in a product that may or may not work as 'road mapped' Chris Poole – aka “moot” from 4chan summed up nicely the problem that Google has at the web 2.0 Summit in October. To paraphrase "Google (and Facebook) are making a mistake in requiring personal vs. anonymous accounts." Moot may or may not be right about it being a mistake but it warrants and understanding of WHY Google wants personal data. Here's the reality: Facebook sprouted up and all the sudden presented a massive dilemma for Google. Although Google's core biz model was to create the biggest index for search (which then becomes data that is monetizable via AdWords) Facebook  was able to index data down to a personal level which is a much more powerful data mine for rifle shot target marketing than Google's shot gun method. So now Google want's to get to THAT level of data. In theory that sounds good, they already have tons of data that just need to re-indexed and associate with new fields. But  as anyone who has ever done work with databases and data field standardization and conversion knows that's a HUGE task especially when scaled up to the sheer volume of data that Google has already accumulated. From that perspective, and given the volume of properties Google owns (chrome, android, orkut, knoll, maps, Youtube, etc etc) you quickly realize that whatever 'may'  on the product roadmap and built as a roadway today, over a bridge say, could turn into a filled in valley and a hole blasted through for a tunnel tomorrow...even though the 'road' is newly paved; Thats just going to be the nature of this evolution no matter how well 'road mapped'  The devil is going to be in the details and therein lies the problem for small business. As we saw during the development of railroads and the highway system the most valuable property is the one at the rail station stop or the interstate off-ramp. The problem right now is that Google probably isn't sure where those "places" are yet themselves so investing in the 'off-ramp' property for a small business at this point is probably not a smart idea. imho

Google has to simply implement what is missing, using all the feedback similar to this one, and with good marketing to this new feature. Success exists. 

I think it will take time, no doubt facebook has captured the market and google+ have to struggle more.

Wait, you don't already have a gmail account? What planet have you been living on? You complain that plus.pages don't integrate with Analytics or You Tube and you also complain about having to set up (yet another) email account - surely you already have a gmail account for those other services already? Even if you don't, why not? Gmail if the best, most functional, most customisable web based email platform out there. Yes, the google development team appear to be crackheads on a caffine high; pushing everything out early and keeping it in beta forever but they usually come good if the product is important to their users, just look at gmail, look at analytics. Google have tried the social thing before with google messenger, google buzz and google wave and they all bombed. This seems to be their strategy; push out a beta, if it gets popular, feed the dev's some more crack and improve the feature set. So I think, its up to US good google plus gets. Either we jump on board and watch as google blows facebook out of the water, or we don't and it doesn't. At this stage, anybody on google plus can be considered an early adopter - and early adopters tend to become evangelists; meaning you can't always trust what they say but this I do know: there's a lot more buzz about plus than there ever was about wave, or buzz for that matter, which is probably an indication of plus's potential for growth. (So I'm with Eric, get on board now). +Daniel Romani Subtle Sensor Photography http://subtlesensor.com Corporate Photographer | Newcastle upon Tyne

More points i want to discuss that why some people not like to use the g+ for the business purpose : As we know that g+ has the huge business platform and many such features like badges which allow people to do their business with the g+. But as all people think of the benefit for their website that get from the g+ , and in such case competition is going to be so tough. And it will be so hard for you to get the more people toward you. Second major thing is that if any company has many google accounts and want to work with all the accounts for the same time then he/she can not. As one time company or person can access to only one google account. So it will be so tedious for them to sign out from one account then log in for another and so on. So again time wastage process.

IMHO Facebook have left Google+ for dead with respect to business pages. With Facebook it feels like everything is only ever 1 click away, want to update a business page? Just click the shortcut in your profile and start typing - can't improve on that. Google though is click city these days. I can't believe the number of clicks it takes to get to my Adwords account, or my Analytics account. And when I do the pages are a minefield of complexity. For all their money, Google just can't come up with the magic required to dominate social media. Maybe Google+ will be Orkut 2.0?

I completely agree that it’s too early to consider Google+ a success or even the next big thing and a lot of the hullabaloo has nothing to do with the tool but is more related to people trying to get attention. However, by telling people that a Google+ page isn't good for business (whether you mean in its current form or ever) you're doing the same thing but you're just taking up the other side of the argument.     It’s very possible that if Google makes smart development decisions, G+ could end up becoming a thriving social media platform. It could be argued that the missing features you’ve pointed out are not considered basic, might not be issues for all businesses, or might be added at some point in the future   - Some companies might not need multiple admins - Some companies don’t use Google Analytics - Users have the option of posting links to Blogger and YouTube content and much like Facebook, G+ gives you an option of selecting an image to appear alongside the link - Not all companies offer promotions but for those that do, they could use other channels - Issues with traffic would largely depend on the company’s target market (this would be like complaining in 2006 that Facebook wasn't open to everyone) - Whether or not you need a Gmail address (or Google account) isn’t important because most social networks require some kind of login credential and there’s no mandate that says you must use Google’s other tools   Basically, businesses should jump in when they’re ready and not because someone tells them they should or should not. For some, that might mean jumping into G+ now, for others when G+ adds whatever features they need, and the rest shouldn't bother its never going to be for them.    Great discussion topic!

The business space is Google+'s BIGGEST opportunity. Linkedin (which I use daily, and despise) is dominating...and you know, they really are not great.  In an effort to monetize, they are selling primarily to service providers and recruiters who want to peak the interest of users who came to the site to network with peers, etc...not to be sold to.  They're doing this more aggressively now, because their public and accountable for consistent and large amounts of growth. Considering, almost everyone in my circles has been a business contact that added me, and almost nobody is a personal friend.  I wonder if Google gets that killing Facebook is probably not realistic...but killing LinkedIn is completely realistic.  

You dont want to over use a good product like youtube because over use leads to being over advertised and will ruin a good product Ie myspace. This also could be a test phase of google+, get all the kinks out of the beta product like video games before going to the full release or intregation with marquee products like youtube googlemaps/google earth and google search. Three products that dont really need to be changed.'

maybe Google+ will become the social network of choice one day, but I just don't like using it. http://www.nickkringas.com

I found this article very interesting and I will certainly take your advice.

'Get on Google+ and get used to it?' Hm... Why should I spend my time and energy (read: Money) to get on a bandwagon what doesn't have wheels yet? There may be a reason Facebook reached critical mass - it worked. And was easy to use. Getting on Google + in 'hopes' that it may one day be what I need it to be just doesn't make sense for a small business owner with limited resources... I'll stick with what is already working, Thanks.

Hi Mikal I mentioned the beta aspect as your review of G+ talked as if it was a finished service. Features continue to be added, and I have little doubt that the missing functions you list will be addressed in due course.  The current G+ attention has been caused by the release of the pages feature, and I think it is prudent of businesses to stake their claim on their own page now as when the deeper integration of Google services (search, YouTube, Blogger, Analytics, Docs) does come along the user base will without doubt expand. In stead of "Stay away", its a case of "Get set up and watch this space..." A "Google Account" is definitely not the same as a "Gmail account" - my business has two Google accounts which use business email addresses, we have not needed to create a Gmail email address and use other google serivces such as analytics and docs perfectly well. We do not have an email account associated with Gmail, our Google account will not let us log into Gmail, if we try we are invited to set up a Gmail account (which we decline as have no need for the service) Good discussions :) Tom (Not the same Tom as comment 363790474 about FB)

I set up a Google+ account early on and remember to visit it once every few weeks. We are - at least, I am - experiencing social media fatigue so unless an outlet can offer me something new, what's the point?

I love this line, "Don’t be confused by the rhetoric. What they mean is Google+ is their next big thing, their way to attempt to establish themselves as experts and try to command more of your attention." And will add an "AMEN!" to it.

Adam, See my reply to the main blog. Google+ will be rich with features of the Google network. Google does not have a timeline, but it will be "soon". Use Google+ to connect with interesting people and use it to tell great stories. It's not Twitter or Facebook. It's a connection and people engine. Use video and rich images. If you ever want to talk about ways to use Google Plus hit me up on twitter. -EricPaul

Tom, Actually, you are allowed to use Facebook for contests but you have to do so using an approved/authorized app. Moreover, you can talk about and promote offers and promotions all day long using Facebook, whereas Google+ Pages terms explicitly rule that activity out.

Calm down Mikal, We are both adults and work in this space. We have a different opinion. It's cool. Your "tone" sounded like you we telling people to focus on other things UNTIL Google+ roll out all it's other features. Those features are coming, and I think people should be on G+ first, and take advantage of the product roll outs as they happen. The "mad scramble" has not happened in Social Media terms. You talked about their lack of traffic in your blog. "Disservice" was harsh. I apologize. I still disagree though. I spent all morning talking with a Google+ team member. They don't make the information about roll outs available to everyone, so its understandable to be frustrated. I will talk with you anytime about the meeting I had today. You are a smart guy and my intent was not to discredit you. I was typing quick between meetings on this not moble friendly site. I would love to talk more with you about G+. EricPaul

I believe the search tie-in will make having a profile inevitable for most businesses and brands, but at that point, its only purpose will be for -- drumroll please -- the search tie-in. And maybe that's all the folks over at the Googleplex care about right now. Google is notorious for launching products with an entirely different endgame!

Thanks, Amy, for the sentiment. I'll have a look at your posts here shortly. 

I spoke with Tae Kim from the Google+ team in person this morning. I asked him about all of these concerns. Google+ will very soon have multiple page administrators, Google Analytics integration, AdWords, and a full roll out of all Google Services offered in their network. Google rolls out products in stages. Google will implement, test, and improve. We are at an implementation stage of Google+. All of the elements of Google+ are not in place. Back in the early stages of Facebook it was a far different place. It has been an evolving product, and it changed quite a bit once it reached critical mass. It is a disservice to tell small businesses "avoid Google+ until it gets better". My advice: Get on Google+. Get used to the platform. The mad scramble has not started yet for Google+. It will happen like it did with Facebook and Twitter. Be ready for it.

It's likely that they will, but with such little time or attention span available, I believe many marketers and others will look at the lack of functionality and hold it against the service. If it doesn't scale, why bother, is what I'm hearing and seeing.

Carlos, Thanks for the feedback, and you are correct (about the email address), however, you now have -- whether you like it or not -- a new email account associated with Gmail; therefore, it's compulsory.

Tom: Thanks for weighing in. You're correct about Google+ being in Beta but that has no bearing whatsoever on the criticism. Beta doesn't mean a product is exempt from saying it's not good for business.  And since when has a 'Beta' release drawn this type of attention, this many so-called experts rushing to say it's a must have for business, and this many users (many of whom are scratching their heads after their own 'land grab'). Call it whatever you want but 40 millions users sorta takes it out of the Beta or Project world where I'm concerned.  As for the Google account vs Gmail account... a Google account means a Gmail account, and while you can forward or set it up for POP Mail or IMAP, it's still another email account and part of Google's strategy to get more people using their products (no blame to Google for this, it's just annoying and has been proven time and again to be unnecessary). Marketers have such little time on their hands that I felt it was important to dive right in and warn them off. That's my perspective and I'm sticking to it for now. Mikal

You're not allowed to use Facebook for contest either...

Reading my mind... or my blog posts Mikal:)  If no one's there, no one can hear your company.

Mike, do you think these features will come out later?

I think you are right that Google + Pages is bare bones right now.  There just is not a lot of value right now for business to business organizations like mine - http://www.businessplanexecutivesummary.com  I created a Google+ Page, but don't really know what to do with it now.  To be honest my business relies on Search Engine Optimization on Google, and it seems that a Google+ Page should be good for SEO in the long term.  Not sure if Google will be able to help us more long term, or if Google+ pages will just end up with a bunch of empty non-active pages.

Google Plus may be "not ready" for business, but it isn't "not good for business". You make two significant omissions, it's a beta product, so is still in development and you don't need a Gmail account, you need a Google Account, that's quite different. Your piece boils down to "it's missing some features" which I don't think anyone is denying. Your criticism over the integration is exactly why many people predict G+ will be important for business - direct integration into the biggest search engine, video sharing and blogging platforms at a level no one else is capable of has huge potential. Influence of search engine results alone is enough to get business's attention, and is why many companies are creating pages and watching cautiously. Articles like this which launch with attention grabbing headlines like "Why Google+ Pages Isn't Good for Business" are just as bad as the confusing rhetoric you criticise agencies of. Like dozens of other articles, all this piece needs to say is "Google Plus is improving, but it's not there yet, watch this space"

Hi, Good post. Just one comment: you can create your google account and a google + profile and page with a non-gmail account. I created one with the same email I use for twitter and facebook page management.