Will Google+ Work For Your Business?

When Google+ launched late last month, 10 million people hopped on the digital bandwagon within two weeks, creating personal profiles on the invitation-only social networking service.

Already equipped with Facebook fan pages and Google Place pages to market their brands, some small businesses owners saw this as a new platform for their social media campaigns.

Early this month, Google officials hinted at a trial run of business profiles and asked those interested to apply. Tens of thousands of businesses, charities and other groups began vying for a new home with the nascent social networking site, according to a statement from Google group product manager Christian Oestlien last week.

Google expects to have an initial version of business profiles available for all users within the next several months. Until then, the site asks users to not create business profiles using their regular accounts, promising to disable such pages when they come up.

While the response was overwhelming, some small business owners don’t know what to expect, and others are wondering if the yet-to-be-unveiled features will be game changing enough to invest their time in the social media endeavor.

Although Google+ isn’t the last frontier in the social media age, the site won’t replace Facebook in the brand promotion area, says Tony Martignetti, managing director of Martignetti Planned Giving Advisors, LLC, a NYC-based organization that helps various institutions with their fundraising goals.

“If it ever does replace Facebook, that’s a long time coming,” Martignetti says. “It’s an additional burden for my social media manager. I have to weigh the benefits and the risks.”

Martignetti has already added a Google+ button to his website as a way for customers to reach out to him. But while his invites are pulling in more friends than clients, he plans to create an account for his small business once it’s possible. However, it will take time to recognize the commercial value of this move, he says.

“I would create a presence there but I wouldn’t have my social media manager actively updating the way she does my Twitter stream and my Facebook page,” Martignetti says. “Then I would make it more robust and make it something she does actively if I saw a good amount of my business contacts joining.”

For David Foox, creative director of FOOX, LLC, a fine art and custom toy products company, says although he has a personal Google+ account, joining the masses isn’t part of his business plan. His NYC-based company currently uses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and many other sharing and networking sites.

“I don’t see how it’s going to be tackling a larger or more diverse audience than we already have [on Facebook],” says Foox. “If I’m just communicating to the same exact audience I already have, then there’s no benefit.”