Naturally, with the advent of any new social platform, brands want to be included.
Almost immediately after the Google+ launch, we started to see a few, mainly tech-related blogs, creating brand profiles there.
However, the Google+ profiles aren’t really set up for brands. The profiles ask a lot of questions more applicable to humans–for example–if a profile is male or female. This created some initial confusion, but Google VP of Products, Bradley Horowitz, quickly responded with:
”Let me be clear – and I’m sorry if this wasn’t obvious – we are not currently supporting brands, organizations, and non-human entities in the Google+ field trial.
Supporting these non-human entities is an obviously great feature – we have no allergy to it at all! It’s just not part of the system we are currently testing.”
So, while we wait to see how Google plans to incorpate brands into Google+, I decided to come up with a little concept of how that might look. Once I started to hack this together, it became clear just how powerful brand pages could be on Google+.
Click the image below to enlarge; check out my notes below, and please let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
- Inclusion of Google +1 Button: Brands have official websites, and those websites can benefit from receiving +1’s right on the profile page.
- Verification: Determining if a profile is genuine is important. Brand pages will need some way to verify a page and then reflect that status.
- Google Maps: As many brands have physical locations, it makes sense to offer some type of Google Maps module.
- Displaying Circles: Unlike personal pages, brands may want to show off their circles. Here’s a great chance to segment your audience and showcase top fans or employees.
- Canvas Page: For the middle column, (labeled ”About Us” in this example), brands would prefer a less structured module. The ability to stylize and include custom marketing creative would be great.
- Google Offers: Once Google Offers (Google’s answer to Groupon) rolls out more widely, I can see it being included here in the sub navigation. Brands may want to call out active offers even more prominently.
- Sparks: I like them and hope Google continues to further develop them. In the right column, brands could feature Sparks related to their brand or products.
THIS MAN SPEAKS A LOT OF SENSE. If Google is smart, they’ll do exactly what he’s concepting.