Understanding Google’s Approach to Businesses on Google+

At its heart, Google+ is all about people and the relationships between people, and Pages is no exception. Although you create a Page for an organization, it connects your organization with customers (which is one reason businesses are so excited about it). You can connect through posts and comments in the Stream as well as uploaded photos and videos, but what has got businesses really excited is Hangouts. This Google+ feature allows representatives of a brand or organization to have live video conversations with their customers, just as you can join in with live chats with your friends.

As Google says in the Pages introduction video, “Businesses don’t make people happy. People do.” Google+ Pages is about connecting brands with people. For example, Figure 16-1 displays the Google+ Pepsi Page, which promotes Pepsi products.

There are some key differences between individual profiles and Pages:

+ A user can create multiple Pages for a variety of entities.

+ The default privacy setting on Pages is public.

+ Pages cannot +1 other pages on the web (although you do get a +1 button for your Google+ Page).

+ Pages do not have a link to Games (although you can still play them from your personal account profile).

+ Pages doesn’t support Hangouts on a mobile device.

+ Pages can display a physical address in the contact details.

So there are some differences between individual profiles and Pages, but they’re the sort of things you’d expect from a service that’s representing a brand rather than a person. Aside from that, and providing some special sauce you can use to add code to your website, using Google+ Pages is very similar to using your personal account.

One really great thing about Google+ Pages is that you can use Hangouts in them (as long as you are not working from a mobile device). This enables brand representatives to communicate with up to nine people at a time with the same real-time video chat that you get from your individual account. In other words, you can hang out all day on video chat while your customers come and go, just as you would have many conversations with customers or clients in a physical business environment.

In this sense, it’s great for small businesses looking to form intimate connections with their customers. You can post messages, make announcements, show off products with photos and short videos, and chat directly with people.