This poll analysis was written by Jeremy Victor, editor-in-chief of B2Bbloggers.com. For more of his writing, visit B2Bbloggers.com and follow him on Twitter and Google+.
SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues.
Last week in a post on Google+, Larry Page opened for business Google’s latest leap into social networking, Google+ Pages. In the announcement blog post, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra wrote that you can “build relationships with all the things you care about — from local businesses to global brands.” Gundotra continued, “The initial launch of Google+ Pages brings us a little bit closer [to our vision], but we’ve still got lots of improvements planned.”
So, in our poll this week, we asked: Will your business be joining Google’s social network? The results:
- Yes: 58%
- No: 42%
These are exciting times if you are Google. But what if you are the person responsible for your brand’s social media strategy and management? Irrespective of whether you are joining the network, your initial reaction might be, “Just great, yet another social media outpost that I need to monitor and manage for my business.” Honestly, how many of you are feeling that way?
While I agree that social media fatigue (and overload) is a real problem for companies, the unfortunate truth of the social Web is that you won’t succeed with that attitude. The winners on the social Web will view the introduction of Google+ Pages as an opportunity; only the losers will see it as a burden.
You have a social media strategy with specific goals. Another network shouldn’t change anything relative to that. It might affect how you allocate your resources, but it’s simply another outpost for you to execute (or not) your existing strategy. Though in the case of Google+ Pages, with the added value to search results via the +1 button, it might be too important to ignore.
For the 42% of you who won’t be joining it, I’d strongly suggest reconsidering that decision. Remember @BPGLOBALPR on Twitter during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill? It looks like the brand jacking has already begun on Google+. Don’t let that happen to you. At the very least, protect your brand’s reputation; claim your Google+ Page.