Marketers are already having a hard time finding their way through the social media maze. And now Google has added another pathway that is certainly worth exploring.

Google+ is Google’s social media project that, they say, is not intended to compete with Facebook but is designed to make the entire Google experience more social. But clearly, it is intended to maintain Google’s web dominance in light of the Facebook threat.

To give you some insight, so you can determine if Google+ should become part of your social media marketing strategy, here’s what it offers…

In an effort to closely mirror “real life,” it is designed around social circles. Users create separate circles that include only selected friends, family or colleagues. You can have family in one circle, co-workers in another, social connections in another and so on. You can even have a circle of one person that is your boss. By posting to one circle at a time, you can send messages that are private to each, and not seen by all your connections at once. You can interact with your circle of co-workers on work issues and connect separately with your circle of friends to plan a Saturday night at the cinema. Or post the photo of you at a late night party for your friends to see without worrying that an HR manager would see it when you’re looking for a new job.

Google+ also offers “hangouts,” where, as they say, “the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time.” You can let specific people or entire circles know you’re hanging out and see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat.

To solve a frustration many of us have, they’ve included “Instant Upload” which automatically takes photos and videos from your phone and posts them to a Google+ album. I haven’t tested this yet, but am looking forward to seeing if this is as easy as they make it sound.

By leveraging its immense search capability, Google+ will aggregate content based on your interests. I wrote about LinkedIn Today last week, and the Google+ feature called “Sparks” works the same way. You tell it what you like and it comes back with things to watch, read or share. And it gets smarter as you use it.
Finally, group texting is offered in the “Huddle.” You can text chat with a group of friends, saving a lot of time and giving your thumbs a rest.

What do you think? In a future blog, I’ll compare it to Facebook.

Tags: Google+, Social Media, social media marketing