BREAKING NEWS! Google+ as we know it is being broken into smaller services, namely “…communications, photos and the Google+ Stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area,” Google’s senior vice president of products Sundar Pichai said.
This clickbait-worthy announcement means Google+ is dead and we don’t need to worry about it anymore, right?
WRONG.
I don’t know what part of this misunderstood announcement bugs me more: the people (particularly social marketers!) who are now gleefully running in the opposite direction of All Things Google+ as fast as they can disconnect their Google+ business pages from their HootSuite accounts, or the belief that there aren’t still lots of very valid reasons to stay engaged with your Google+ page.
For starters, Google+ is being broken down into smaller services. That is very different than saying – poof – Google+ is gone forever. This tactic of breaking down a larger platform or app into smaller services has already been employed with other popular social media accounts, so this isn’t different. Remember when FourSquare before Swarm? Or when you didn’t need 4 different Facebook apps to manage your personal profile and business pages?
Second, we have yet to see what this really means for Google+. The specifics with Streams and Photos (and we’re all presuming the communications piece relates to Hangouts) are still to come. Why would anyone vacate their presence before seeing how it may change? We all valiantly stick it out with Facebook despite being pummeled with bottoming-out organic Reach and the now-required ad spend. Let’s give it some time to see what is actually going to happen.
Third, whatever Google+ becomes, it’s still Google. If you’re a brick and mortar business (with a physical location on the map), you will still have that business presence on Google. And you should want to have that presence. Business listings are shown preference in search results. With at least 5 Google reviews, you get your average star rating shown in search, too.
As of right now and until we learn what really is going to happen with Google+, we should still keep posting to our Google+ business pages and interacting with those in our Circles. The chances are very, very good that Google+ isn’t your only social media profile, so why not at least use content that you are posting on a different profile, for it? You can even set up an auto-posting service (go ahead and reconnect your HootSuite account) to handle it for you if you don’t want to take the time to copy/paste a Facebook or LinkedIn update, or tweet, over to your Google+ business page.
Businesses with lots of photos have long been faring well on Google+, and we do know that photos are going to be a big part of the next generation of Google+. Also, we have yet to learn what functionality may or may not be a part of Streams.
The only constant with social media is that it’s always changing. Vacating an active profile is never something to be taken lightly. So don’t be foolish and jump ship with Google+. Be patient and stay the course until the next generation of Google+ comes into being.
As much as I want to engage on Google + I find it difficult.
Contrary to your statement, I don’t find too many people of my ilk on google+ that engage, OR if they are there, I haven’t found them yet, and I am apparently ill equipped to find them.
I’ve been informed that the etiquette is different. One must make comments, not just post or share; and it’s vital that you +names of people to whom you are responding in a thread. While I appreciate the improvement in discourse, it is one more awkward thing to worry about, like being a tourist in a strange country. It looks great, but I can’t seem to feel at home.
Perhaps once Google decides their direction, a post could focus on “how-to” engage or point to some (short, informative) tutorials.
Hi Sara,
Yes, you aren’t going to make any headway with Google+ if you just post and run. 🙂
Along with using your Circles in an organized fashion, be sure to include some hashtags in your initial post. Definitely tag people as appropriate since they will be notified. It’s very similar to FB and Twitter in that way.
Good luck with G+!