The social way to building business.

The Race Between Facebook & Google+

The Google+ features and benefits have put facebook in a position to make many changes to its platform. There's a lot of grumbling about the changes facebook has implemented, but as a free platform, we have to go with the flow. Often changes make things confusing, complicated or, you find the feature/tool you once had in place has vanished. Remember, change also brings welcomed improvements.

Planned Features for Google+ Business Pages

Now is not the time to create a private Google+ business account for your brand. Google advises that businesses should wait until business/brand pages are officially launched which should be Fall 2011. Google+ personal profiles are available to everyone as an invitation is no longer required.

In contrast to facebook fan pages, Google+ pages will list fans, employees and management. It's not clear at this time, what method will be used to verify business ownership so that fans can be sure they are interacting with the brand. You will also be able to add more than one location of your business by integrating Google Maps and Places. Businesses will also be able to use Google Offers to provide special offers to fans and customers.

Google+ brand pages will be able to integrate Google Analytics and Google Adwords. We strongly urge our clients to add Google+ to their social media campaign as soon as the brand pages are launched. We believe having a Google+ presence will have a positive effect in your Google search results.

Other planned features of Google+ include:

Google Meeting: Just as in Google+ (personal hangout) there will be a “business hangout” for meetings which will allow a business to organize, record and archive phone, text and video conferences. Up to 10 attendees can be invited via Google Calendar, e-mail. or Google Chat.

Google Whiteboard: Google Docs will make it easy to present, create and share documents during a meeting through which the attendees will be able to make notes on a virtual “whiteboard.” Content can be shared with others via Google+ or e-mail.

Google Screencast: The screencast functionality will make it possible to capture the computer screen output and share it with others. Think about the possibilities ... training, product demos, etc.

Google's goal is to provide the ultimate online tool for meetings. Google Meetings could become a powerful alternative to commercial products which allow companies to hold meetings outside of their offices. These virtual meetings could benefit businesses who want to reduce travel expenses and scheduling problems. Freelancers and employees, who work in-home offices and need to collaborate on projects, will also benefit from Google Meetings.