The launch of a pages function for Google+ allowing businesses to create a profile on Google’s social media and identity management service is welcome.
What jumps out immediately is there is no integration with Google Local, meaning that businesses will have to create another online profile and learn the nuances of it.
Right now big and small businesses are being confused by the proliferation of online tools and the problem is made worse by advisors maintaining you have to be on each service actively talking to your customers. That’s nice for a corporation with unlimited funds and resources but a tough ask in the real business world.
By adding another service – that doesn’t integrate with Google’s myriad of services let alone outside platforms like WordPress, Facebook and Twitter – Google are making it hard for businesses to allocate the time and resources to the online world.
What’s more, the terminology is confusing; Google’s rebranding of Local to Places started this and now we’ll see business owners and managers confusing Google+ Pages with Google Places.
That confusion will be understandable as right now the terminology between the two overlaps and it will be difficult to explain the difference to business people who have many other issues to worry about along with this.
One thing we can be sure of is there will be a whole range of strategies tied into Google+ Pages that might, or might not, affect search engine results and – given the ongoing nymwars debacle and the similar mess with Google Places listings – there’s a strong likelihood this program is going to get bogged down in opaque bureaucratic procedures.
It seems different divisions within Google are running their own races; Adwords isn’t talking to Blogger, Analytics aren’t talking to Local and the team running Google+ are taking advantage of senior management’s obsession with social at the expense of Google’s core competencies and their advantages in the local and mobile sectors.
Right now businesses are struggling with the plethora of online services and how to use them in their organisations, Google have to break down their own silos and start integrating their services to make it easier for managers, entrepreneurs and proprietors to use these platforms.