Google’s Christian Oestlien gave a presentation at ad:tech New York today discussing Google+ for business. Obviously this is a hot topic now that Google+ Pages have been launched.
During his presentation, he introduced the #gplusbiz hashtag for marketers to give feedback about Google+ for business.
He said he thinks we’re in a similar revolution to the “video killed the radio star” era, with musicians doing things like Hangouts. “This isn’t just about music. It’s about marketing,” he said.
Google wants to do something different and make positive changes to address five issues marketers face, he said. These are:
1. Fragmented marketing
2. Recommendations that lack staying power
3. Comments, not conversations
4. Impersonal messages
5. Limited insights
“Google has never had a place on Google where you could connect with all of our customers and directly communicate with them,” he said. You can do this with Google+ pages. He references the ability to connect all of your +1’s and put these recommendations “in a lot more places.”
Direct Connect is something that he suggested marketers use to promote themselves. Tell people to go to Google search, and type in + and your brand name, and they’ll automatically connect them to your brand page.
“It’s not about Google. It’s about + and your brand and that’s it,” he said.
It’s hard to find recommendations when you need them, he said. 84% of people are online doing research before they make product decisions. “If you can unite those two things, I think you’ve got a really winning combination there. That’s why we introduced the +1 button.”
He said the button is already on over a million sites, and is doing five billion impressions a day. And clickthrough rates go up when people can see their friends’ Faces next to results from that.
To the third point, he says 95% of posts go answered. He again brought up the Hangouts to connect live with customers. “Brands have latched onto this really quickly.” He mentioned Macy’s talking to fashion bloggers, and Disney doing one with the Muppets.
He also talked up the Circles concept as a way for brands to address different groups of people to deliver the right message to the right people.
“We see two to three times more sharing through circles than we do to open posts to everybody,” he said.
On the point of Insights, he said 77% of content around brands is being shared by users, and not brands, and that the brand’s job is to find the influencers. “That’s why we introduced Ripples.”
This was launched late last month:
Ripples is really just the beginning. He noted that Google+ for Business is just a week old.