Once again we’re seeing a gold rush mentality on the internet, as brands rush to claim their social identity on Google+.
AdAge Digital reports on the rush, and the motivation behind this latest lemming-like stampede:
Google has long told marketers that though buying AdWords won’t help them in natural search results, creating great, well-linked content will.
But some marketers are preparing for another shift: Google’s incorporation of social signals from Google+ in its rankings. Brands aren’t waiting for the giant to make it official, which is a big reason they’re investing in Google+ pages. Their worry is that early adopters will reap the search benefits, while others will be buried by those who have collected more +1s.
Google is already “experimenting” with making a click on +1 buttons one of the more than 200 signals informing its search algorithm, according to a company spokesperson. But it could go much further and factor in the number and size of a “circles” — the pools of Google+ users following a brand — as well as how widely its Google+ content is being shared. That could give brands an incentive to be active on the platform and get fans to engage with content there.
“Google’s trump card in social is if they make Google+ an extremely strong signal in their ranking algorithm, and basically they can force every brand to push it because of the impact it would have on Google search results,” said Group M Search CEO Chris Copeland.
