Jeremy Victor touches on a great high point that brands need to be on Google+ to protect their name and their business.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 or not you are joining the network, your initial reaction may 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, social media fatigue (and overload) is a very real problem companies deal with; 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. A new network shouldn’t change anything relative to that. It may 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 may just be too important to ignore.
For the 42% of you that 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.
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+.
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Sabrina Espinal
Sabrina&Company
