Google launches brand pages for Google+ but businesses told wait and see

Australian businesses have been encouraged to register their brand name on Google+ after the search giant finally allowed companies to create their own pages, but have been cautioned to take a “wait and see” approach.

While SEO experts say it’s important to make sure your business gets as big a presence as possible through social media, some acknowledge Google+ represents only a minority of social networking users and warn against spending too much time there.

“With regard to business, you would definitely want to go in and claim it, because it’s just good to get all your channels,” says Reseo chief Chris Thomas.

“But it’s really just for protection, and you should take a ‘wait and see’ approach when you’re talking about setting up a whole new online world.”

Stewart Media chief Jim Stewart is more bullish, saying businesses need to get on board.

“A lot of people are asking whether it’s between Google+ or Facebook, but I think it’s a different medium altogether. For businesses it’s a great way to communicate with an audience.”

“We don’t have a critical mass here yet… but I think it’s a medium that’s going to be around for awhile.”

Google announced the long-awaited change overnight in a blog post, welcoming businesses of all sizes to set up pages so they can start distributing news and information to followers – a key advantage Facebook has kept over the network since its inception.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about – from local businesses to global brands – so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

Google is marketing the pages as a place where customers are able to directly speak with businesses, either through chats or just through reading information. The other attraction is SEO – Google says pages will now be included in search results.

Stewart warns if you leave your competitors to jump on Google +, and you don’t, that could affect rankings.

“From a search perspective it’s very important, because Google is integrating authorship, which is the ability to identify someone who wrote a piece of content. That’s important if you are assigning ownership to content.”

Google referenced this in its post saying that, “people search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands”.

“Today’s launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections,” it said.

The announcement is sure to appease Google + fans who have been hoping the network takes off as an alternative to Facebook, but Thomas says it’s not somewhere you want to putting all of your energy straight away.

“From how I see it, Google+ is almost like a LinkedIn competitor,” he says. “I think it could resonate really well within businesses.”

“A lot of them already have Google listings, they have their Google Places listings and all that information there. So Google+ is all about taking that information and putting it all together.”

“But for now, I would still take a wait and see approach.”