As a relatively wet-behind-the-ears social marketer, I’m often awestruck by the overwhelming amount of information available online that seeks to educate people in my position on the ins and outs of social media best practices.
To be sure, experts abound, and I don’t say that sarcastically. There truly are countless social marketing experts doing what expert social marketers do: broadcasting their messages via all available social channels and convincing people such as yours truly to follow them, receive their newsletter, subscribe to their blog, etc.
Simply skimming the headlines delivered by the numerous email newsletters, RSS feeds and Twitter streams that greet me each morning is a time-consuming activity, but one I enjoy greatly. Sometimes, though, mental gridlock happens when I’m barraged with so much content and need to pick out a point of focus to help guide my own writing.
All this boils down to a long-winded introduction to a topic I’ve noticed gaining more traction lately: the rise of Google+ as 
a—perhaps even the—de rigueur social marketing platform. (I can’t believe I just used the term de rigueur in something I’m about to publish. Oh well, c’est la vie.)
There are many reasons why your small business should consider using Google+ as the beachhead for its social marketing presence. Here are just a few, as provided by one of my most trusted sources of all things social marketing, copyblogger.com:
- Google+ now has the second-most extensive reach of any social network, behind only Facebook.
- The “Author Rank” component of SEO algorithms has the power to dramatically improve your website content’s search engine page rankings.
- Google Hangouts let you facilitate live chats with up to nine others, and invite your followers to participate.
But maybe the most important reason Google+ is poised to slay Goliath is because every bit of content marketing you publish in that arena becomes part of the vast Google ecosystem, whereas anything you publish on Facebook is confined within the walls of that silo, and the search results therein.
While Xerox currently has a Google+ presence, we haven’t devoted the time and resources necessary to tap into its impressive power. That’s about to change, so please stay tuned.
As always, your comments are encouraged.
Thanks for reading.
