Vitro Agency's vision for Google+ Brand Pages

In the race to win the social media game, Google+ has dropped to the back of the pack. Google needs to kick its horse square in the haunches, now, if the platform is going to survive. Brand participation may be that kick. Google+ Brand Pages haven’t been launched yet, but here’s one agency’s take on how Plus could be the perfect platform for brands, and the functionality that will challenge the current Facebook and Twitter reign.

COLLABORATION
The Potential of Public Circles
“A primary gripe among Facebook and Twitter users is that brands bombard them with messages they don’t want or care to see,” said Colin Murphy. “In its current form, Plus doesn’t solve that problem, but Plus Brand Pages might, if they implement Public Circles.”Let’s use MINI as an example, and let’s say you’re a MINI Countryman fan. You visit the MINI Google+ page, and you join the Countryman circle, from among the Clubman, Convertible and Hardtop circles. Later, when you’re perusing your Google+ feed, you’ll see Countryman content in your feed – not Clubman content, not Hardtop content, just Countryman.

This level of selectivity isn’t possible on Facebook or even Twitter, unless of course you are a fan or follow the specific product you’re interested in — but there’s a major drawback to that method because the user has to seek out content streams. With Google+ it’s all in one place, and the all the admin has to do is feed pertinent content to the appropriate circles.The effect of this highly selective environment is it allows brands to tip toe ever closer to the elusive one-to-one relationship, and promotes micro-communication – which, if done right, is about as close to a brand ‘being human’ as we’ve come so far.

Understanding the Participants
Selectivity is the key here, and we see the use of Private Circles playing into that. For example, if a certain group of Plus users are particularly energetic about a certain topic, the admin may organize them into a group and target specific content at them. The same applies to journalists and bloggers, influencers, product experts (ie mechanics in MINI’s case) and even negative commenters.

Additionally, like with Facebook, Google+ will be a great resource for understanding what content is most interesting to fans. One advantage Google has is the user data will be very rich because more will be know about who is digesting the brand’s content (in particular, the brand will know which of their products the user is interested in because the user has chosen to follow the circle pertaining to that product).

The primary takeaway here is that your users will give you better feedback regarding your content strategy based on how they digest it. In this way, the relationship is far more collaborative than on Facebook, where content is thrown out into the ether like a farmer throwing corn to the chickens.

GOOGLE INTEGRATION
Google searches represent about 80% of all search activity, according to Stat Counter, so it makes sense for Google to connect Plus to search results. Here’s how that might work, along with a few other ways for Google to integrate.

Unpaid Search
Last week Google announced the integration of live search results within Google+. Basically, when you search within Google+, the most current results available from the more than 40 million Plus users will populate your results. Currently, when a person searches using Google.com, and is logged into Google, search results will include content shared by their Plus contacts. We believe it’s only a matter of time before all public Plus activity appears within Google search results.

Paid Search
In the same way Google search revolutionized web exploration, Google AdWords revolutionized web advertising, and it’s safe to assume Google is working on a platform that rolls Google+ into the AdWords matrix. In our example, MINI has purchased the keyword “convertible”, and when the user hits “search” a section of the results (the blue area on the top right) has been reserved for, as we’ve called it, “Promoted Pages”. Of course, paid results are probably less effective than organic results, but if a brand is running a broader marketing campaign, a targeted AdWords buy is a safe bet with a low cost barrier to entry.

Both paid and unpaid search represent an untapped resource for bringing outsiders into the platform, and since Facebook pages and Twitter accounts don’t populate search results until a few pages in, there’s a coup in the making for Plus via these tactics.

Other Google Products
We already know Hangouts are part of the mix. Our only recommendation there is that Plus Brand Pages allow more than 8 viewers in at a time. Likewise, chat is rolled in, and what better way for a brand admin to communicate directly to someone with a question than directly? Normal customer service practices apply, of course.

But what about Maps, Translate, and other Google products? Taking the MINI example again, let’s talk Maps first. When searching for “mini” (and tons of other terms, mind you) via the usual Maps function, it’s frustratingly common to get results with lots of businesses using that term somewhere in their services. On a Google+ Brand Page, the admin would be able to enter the exact addresses of the brand’s brick and mortar locations, so when a user clicks the Locations button within Plus, he sees exactly where he needs to go, no questions asked.

With regard to Translate, countless dollars are spent on translation services for Facebook. And while Google Translate isn’t absolutely perfect, it’s a great service to get a brand off the ground, making their content accessible to people for whom English is not a strong point (or whatever language the page is written in).

Now that we’ve set up how we see Brand Pages working, let’s take a look at what automaker MINI might look like in Google+.

This is what a Google Hangout looks like. Google Hangouts allows brands to collaborate live and/or give community members an exclusive seat at events. The best part is that Google built the service seemlessly within Google+. In order to make Hangouts work really well for brands, Google should make the service available for more than 8 users at a time (which is the current limit).

Private Circles will allow you to distribute content to specific groups as well as categorize and monitor community members, based on their activity, sentiment and interests. Like the current functionality, these monikers will not be visible to the public.

For Plus, integration could be the ingredient that makes the potion. One example of the rich integration potential is search. A brand will buy Google ad space bases on keywords, and the user will see Google+ Promotes Pages in his search results. In our example, the ads show up in the top right portion of the page. Though this feature doesn't exist (that we know of), hypothetically it would provide brands an