Google+, the search giant's new social sharing project, looks like it's going to be a blockbuster.
In beta phase by invitation only or by request from the Google+ page, beta user numbers shot up to 10M before Google temporarily closed the platform to new requestors.
Most beta users have GMail accounts, a rich future seam of (currently) 170M consumers worldwide.
Econsultancy report that several thousands brands are said to be extremely keen to get involved early.
There are two aspects of Google+ that excites me as a marketer:
- Google Circles enables the user to categorise groups of connections or friends according to interests. This compartmentalisation makes sense from the user perspective and may encourage more mature consumer groups to use social media in a more widespread sense. From a brand marketing perspective, it permits a higher degree of segmentation and targeting, should make it easier to tap into the long tail.
- Google+ takes an important step to evaluating the relative behavioural strength of social networks. Just because you're highly connected on Facebook doesn't mean that you're friends with all of them, or that they have any influence over the things you decide to do or buy. Functionality within Google+ opens up possibilities to sift and separate the relevant from the irrelevant. An individual may have lots of apparent connections, but how many of them have significance?
Understanding these nuances should help brands determine who is influential within groups and what recommendation strategies are likely to be most powerful in kicking off purchasing journeys.
July is shaping up to be a good month for Google. On the back of tremendous quarterly results showing a 36% jump in earnings, could Google+ represent a major new marketing channel, where the undoubted power of trusted recommendation takes a further significant step in capturing a material slice of online marketing spend?
