What does Google Plus Mean For Your Business?

Last week Google rolled out Google Plus in limited release.  I was one of those that it was released to, and had the opportunity to take it for a test drive.  If you are interested in an invite please send me an e-mail at James@AltosMarketing.com.

Google Plus is not open to business pages yet, but plans are in the works for later this year.  Christian Oestlien put out the official message in an unlisted YouTube video that can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_azOmh69A&feature=player_embedded

1. Google Meeting: Just like there are hangouts for personal pages, Google Meeting will allow you to videoconference with up to 10 colleagues.  This will allow you to have staff meeting with multiples office.  You could also use it for presentations to clients or prospective clients.  This would be integrated with Google Calendar and Gmail, making the invitation process a snap.
2. Google Screencast: Google Screencast will allow you to record the computer screen output and to share it with others so that participants can show or demonstrate things on their computer.  This combined with Google Meeting will give you the functionality of GoToMeeting.
3. Google Whiteboard: Leveraging Google Docs, you will be able to pull up documents during a meeting and collaborate on them.  These edits can be done by multiple people, all in real time, for true collaborations.  Recaps of the meeting can then be sent out over Gmail or posted to Google for viewing.
4. Google Picasa and YouTube: Google Picasa (soon to be renamed Google Photos and YouTube allow you to seamlessly integrate media into your business.  Whether it be for customer presentations or internal use, all media that is associated with your company on those two platforms will be available to anyone you choose to expose it to over Google Plus.  With the use of Google Plus’s Circles feature, you can choose how much to share and with whom.
5. Market Segmentation: One of the chief differences between Google Plus and Facebook is the introduction of what Google Plus calls circles.  Circles allow you to segment your friend into different groups, and then communicate with just those folks.  Facebook has lists, but that only affects privacy settings.  It can turn someone on or off in terms of being able to see your posts, but there is no way to selectively post different items to different groups.

This has incredible implications for businesses.  As a brand, you may serve many different market segments.  Currently on Facebook, you must deliver one message that goes out to everyone.  This is not  be ideal, and does not mirror how companies behave in traditional media.  For instance, Coca Cola will run a very different ad in Cosmopolitan magazine than it does a commercial on MTV.

Circles allows you to do this.  You can segment your market and deliver unique messages to each.  This is great news for companies and consumers alike.  Companies can spend their energies in a more focused way, not being required to appeal to the masses.  From a consumer perspective, we will be receiving messages that closely relate to us, a far improvement over the blast approach.

If your business is interested in being one of the beta testers, you can register here http://goo.gl/zq95C.  You may be chosen to be part of this test.  If not, you will be notified first when it is rolled out to everyone.