Photo by Richard Masoner
We’ve been waiting and waiting for this announcement over at Agency Entourage and Monday, the word came out. Google+ has released business profiles, but with some limitation. Those with Google Apps for Business are the only ones who can create a profile at the moment. However, this allows users with Google’s Business Apps, which is only businesses so that provides a more ‘professional’ market (Possible threat to LinkedIn maybe?), some insight into what they can expect for their brand with these business profiles.
Setting up your business profile may be a little tricky, as you have to do it manually, but there are a few new functions and additions added to make business profiles worth something to invest in. David Amerland over at Social Media Today does a good job of breaking everything down when it comes to the new Google+ business pages:
- We all know one of the coolest functions of Google+ is Circles. You decide what information goes to what group of people so you can keep the funny stuff for your friends and the serious stuff for your co-workers (unless they’re both). Amerland writes that business profiles have the same option as normal users with sharing content via Circles and the profiles have “the same, flexible way of sharing and segregating content…plus the ability to seamlessly communicate within the company with specific groups or departments, share data and collaborate through the initial exchange of information. Essentially this is like having a company intranet with added functionality available through your Google Apps profile.”
- For those companies that already set up profiles through the personal method, Google+ is working on a migration tool that will allow them to transfer those “personal” profiles over into business profiles. (Which is similar to what Facebook previously did when they allowed personal accounts the ability to turn into Pages.) Hey, at least they’re thinking ahead, right?
- Analytics integration is also promised with these business profiles so companies can track and monitor social interactions and engagement via Google+.
For more information on the new business profiles, check out his article on Social Media Today. Although I’m still wishy-washy on the whole Google+ thing, I’m curious to see if the addition of these business profiles can help the new social network. Do you think the addition of business profiles will help Google+? Why or why not?
