If you are involved in marketing your products and services do you need to keep a Google+ page updated along with Facebook and Twitter? If you have the time, you should consider setting up and maintaining at least a minimal profile and business page at Google+. Am I recommending that you spend the same amount of time and money on Google+ as you invest in exposure on Facebook and Twitter – no I am not. At least not at this time.
I am watching Google+ carefully, but have not rolled out a service offering on the program yet. Although I think that Google+ and Google+ Pages may be good for businesses, for now there is not enough mainstream consumer or business to business activity there yet to warrant a strong financial investment in maintaining your presence. I am mostly seeing professionals such as myself in the Google+ world. There is simply not a strong vibrant consumer or business selling presence on Google+ yet…
What I do see is that Google is integrating Google+ into nearly all of their properties as they continue to roll out enhancements and improvements to the application. The next hurdle will be the authorization of third party API apps that will allow scheduling of status updates. HootSuite is just one of the companies that Google has selected for testing. With the ability to schedule updates and manage multiple accounts Google+ will grow quickly.
I recommend that for many businesses starting now on Google+ to build a presence for the future is a very smart move. I have several clients who started using Twitter right when it came out and now have follower bases of over 2,500. These high follower bases have given these accounts an unusual amount of clout in their industry. Their updates are routinely retweeted reaching an astronomical number of readers. I expect in the long run Google+ will follow this same growth trend.