Google+ opens to the public – what does this mean for UK businesses?

The rapidly growing Google+ social media network is now open to the general public. After attracting an initial 20 million users in a capped role-out where you had to apply for and receive an invitation to join, the service has now been opened up to everyone.  No coincidence perhaps that it comes a day before Facebook are due to make announcements on enhancements to their social media site at their f8 developers conference in San Francisco (22nd September 2011).

As Google+ is expected to rapidly rise through the 100 million users or ‘joiners’ mark by the end of the year we will be bringing you updates on what the service means to small business owners and tips to help you make use of the service productively quickly.

Pages for businesses are expected to be announced shortly.  Business owners and consumers can also use the video ‘hang out’ service to hold group video ‘meet ups’ with their friends or collegues providing they are all using an android phone.  Live broadcasts are also imminent, in the way that webinars and certain events are currently broadcast live via  You Tube.  There is real potential here for small-medium sized businesses to bring video marketing, search, social media marketing, paid search, analytics and online PR under one umbrella.  A mix of developers producing tools to make life easier and simpler to publish your business information on Google+,  together with tools developed by Google themselves will no doubt hold the key to making life easier for business owners, entrepreneurs and marketeers.

We look forward to keeping you posted so check back regularly…