The importance of social media in the marketing mix is by now without a doubt an inevitable piece of the puzzle towards success in business. Social media continues to thrive primarily due to increased consumer demand. Companies around the globe are continuing to struggle though when it comes to to monetization. When Google+ launched a couple of years ago it was labeled as nothing more than another social media network. More accurately, a rival to the popular Facebook social network that up until then was seriously dominating the social space.

Was Google purposely aiming at competing with Facebook? Or, was it simply hinting marketers and consumers equally of the fact that search as we know it is about to change. For many marketers, Google+ still stands as nothing more than another social network to work around. Not just any social network though, but a product of the world’s largest marketing company that also dominates nearly 70% of the search market.

What makes Google+ different than other social media networks?

The Consumer

Social media is heavily saturated. Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for example are flooded with users. Even though social media presents opportunities for engagement, awareness, and brand development, it has become significantly more challenging than ever before to pursue those three areas. Google+ provides marketers and companies with increased level of interaction across the board with significantly more targeted response rates.

The Google+ Social Network Difference

• Personalization – Google+ impacts search results on Google therefore customizing the results in the SERPs that users will see. Particularly for those logged in users. Unlike its social rival, thru personalized search results, users are able to find far more relevant information on a specific topic then what’s available on the public search results.
• Link Juice Pass Thru – Status updates on the Google+ social media network that contain a link will carry thru link juice of that particular url. Therefore, interaction on the social network helps attribute to improved SEO by incorporating relevant urls within a status update.

 Google+ – Next Generation of Search?

The one thing we’ve all learned from Google thus far is the fact that they strive for improvement in their algorithm. Why? Google’s one primary goal is to satisfy one objective – The Visitor. If users of Google are able to quickly, efficiently, and accurately find most relevant information on products or services then it helps position the search giant as a leading resource for information.

Let’s break down how Google+ could potentially impact the next generation of search:

• Scenario 1 – Google will require mandatory sign-in in order to search on www.google.com By doing so, it will pull relevant information from other users in your network and return the most qualified results. Such approach improves the quality of search results simply due to one reason – Relevance.
• Scenario 2 – Google will focus predominantly on Google+ thru Google+ Authorship. Therefore search results will become significantly more personalized and the importance of a G+ Authorship will no longer be optional.

Either way, search as we know it will change within the next five years. The demand for content relevance and improved context is on the uprise. Importance of content marketing within the marketing mix still presents a tremendous amount of opportunity for brands on Google+. However unlike back in the old days, the context quality requires a stronger attention to detail.

Are you using Google+ within your digital marketing endeavors? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.