Google announces Google Plus brand pages
by Jim Dayton
November 8, 2011
One of the most highly anticipated features of Google’s new social network, Google+, was the ability for brands to create pages much like they do on Facebook. Monday morning, Google answered by unveiling Google+ Pages. And although many knew demand for brand pages would be high, only 13 launch partners were announced. Among them were Angry Birds, CNN, Fox News, the Muppets, the Dallas Cowboys, Pepsi, Toyota, Macy’s, X Games, WWE, Train, Barcelona Football Club and Save the Children. This left many to speculate that it would be some time before the service was open to everyone.
Only six hours later, the exclusivity was over and Google opened up Pages to all brands, businesses and organizations. Monday’s announcement also puts to an end the practice of many companies creating Google+ profiles, a practice that accelerated Google’s plans for business pages shortly after Google+ launched. Intouch is not aware of any pharma companies that had created profiles, as this was a practice Google officially frowned upon and went so far as to issue a video statement asking brands to stop. As of this writing, there are no reports as to how many Pages have been created, but many industry observers expect there to be thousands of Pages crop up overnight.
Creating a Google+ Page?
Much like many other social media sites, creating a Google+ Page is straightforward. And, according to Google, “Creating a page brings you closer to your customers, fans, and followers on Google+.” To view the process, Google has created a section in Google+, Create a Page, pictured below. Once a user has chosen a name, selected a category and decided on their target audience, they can publish and start adding content to their Page.
The Google+ Create a Page section. Note that there is no healthcare or pharmaceutical category at this time. However, companies or organizations can categorize themselves as such, much like many pharma companies are doing on Facebook.
Should I Create a Google+ Page?
As with any social network, creating a brand page only makes sense if your customers will use it, if it meets your business objectives and if you have appropriate resources to manage the page. Google+ is no different in that respect. Google+ has far from proven itself as a social network with traffic wildly fluctuating since it’s launch in July. However, Google does have the opportunity with Pages to more closely integrate a brand’s social media presence with search results and other web services like YouTube and Gmail.
Intouch will definitely continue to monitor the growth of Google+ and the new Pages offering to help clients expand their marketing initiatives and meet their social media goals.