Google Plus- The Overlooked Social Media Profile for Business

Is your business on Google Plus? If not, you are far from alone. I encounter many small business owners and web marketers who Tweet and share updates on Facebook, but completely ignore other social media profiles.

 It seems like G+ might just be the most overlooked of all the social media profiles for your business. As our friends at BELIEVE Social posit in their excellent post here: "It seems like a common sense sort of thing; Google is looking for “social signals” from social media to help determine their search engine rankings, so wouldn’t they pay special attention to what’s happening on their own social media platform? "

Of course, search engine ranking is FAR from the only reason we use social media marketing. Many business owners and even "search engine gurus" use social media to add a completely different layer to marketing efforts. However, if social media does perhaps provide direct SEO benefits (or simply fortify other search ranking efforts), why would we completely ignore that?

If you can get a custom Google URL, like +YourBrand, why wouldn't you? If you can engage your audience plus social media influencers in relevant communities, do it. If you are already "doing social media," the cost to add Google Plus sharing is minimal. If you pay someone else to manage your social media marketing, they probably can help. Or if you want to do it yourself, it's probably at least worth creating a profile, linking your site, and interacting with related accounts.

Is Google Plus a little-noticed gem? We might not know the answer to that, but I'm willing to bet it's not going the way of Orkut- at least not any time soon.