Google +1 and Your Social Strategy

Last Wednesday Google officially announced a new foray into social media with Google +1. Google +1 is very similar to the Facebook Like button. It allows you to publicly give a search result (an soon, specific pages you visit) your seal of approval or recommendation. For instance, if you search in Google for protocol 80, you will see that I have forced our staff to +1 our blog :):

There are a few elements to notice with a +1ed listing:

1. Because I +1ed the listing, there is a little, blue +1 icon to the right of the title.
2. Folks in my social circle that have also +1ed the listing show up across the bottom with their Google Profile photo.
3. If I'm not in your social circle (shame on you :)), then you won't see that I +1ed the page.

Who's +1's Will I See?

For now, only the people in your Google Social Circle which can be viewed in the Social Circle and Content section of your Google Dashboard. The plan however, is to incorporate sites like Twitter in the future. So, if we aren't associated through one of the many Google properties now, you won't see my +1s and I won't see yours.

+1 Button Coming To A Website Near You

With Google's announcement, they also informed the world that yet another social action button (e.g., Like on Facebook, Tweet on Twitter, etc...) the +1 Button would be released soon so that you can +1 more than just search results. If you land on a news article or a product page that you think is terrific, you can click the +1 button to show that you like it.

+1 Button on Google Ads

Although you may rarely click on Ads that Google shows you, you can also +1 them, giving your social circle a heads up that the ad is worth checking out. This will likely be a huge value to Adwords advertisers like some of our clients, because it will provide more credibility to their ads.

Social Strategy Impacts

For now, the biggest impact is that your search results and content are even more important than ever. You need to rank well, and you need your high ranking content to be valuable so users +1 it. This opens a whole new element of viral marketing to the Google search results.

Much like the integration of social elements that I wrote about before, this addition to Google search will help validate search results based on what your social circle thinks of them. We are all much more likely to click a result that a friend or colleague has +1ed than one that they haven't.

Growing your social circle is going to become even more important because the larger your reach, the more potential to show up as a +1ed result when someone searches for your products or services.