Dear Google,
We’ve been very good marketers this year. We’re really excited about your most recent toy, Google+. Do you think you could find a way to include the following features in your upcoming rollout of Google+ business pages?
Start with Places Pages — Many businesses already have robust profiles built on Google Places with photos, videos, and more. Presumably these would morph into Google+ business pages in a similar manner to how your Google account profile seamlessly became your Google+ profile.
Circles for Business — Since circles first emerged as the defining feature of Google+ many marketers started dreaming about segmentation possibilities. Just as this feature has been a key differentiator when comparing Google+ to Facebook at the individual user level, it could offer the same value for business pages. Imagine being able to tailor your brand’s Google+ page updates by circle rather than the broad blasting of Facebook page updates.
Integration with Google Analytics — Sitting at the axis of search and social sharing, the building blocks of our online brands, Google+ is in the catbird seat. Let’s drive this home by kicking the already robust Google Analytics up a notch with enhanced social integration. Perhaps Google could even provide in-page insights like Facebook.
Something with AdWords, Right? — We can’t forget about Google’s business mainstay, their AdWords pay-per-click search ad platform. In theory, they should be able to take this successful model and apply it to Google+ in a way that fulfills the behavioral/affinity targeting promises Facebook has made. However, Google will need to approach with caution. Many early adopters love how clean the Google+ interface is. Ads could certainly change this. This has to be the subject of some interesting debates in Mountain View between the business and UI teams.
Baked-In Content Creation via Blogger & Picasa — Google has already hinted that child brands Blogger and Picasa will become Google Blogs & Google Photos presumably in a piped-in Google Plus-feeding approach. This brand-driven move makes a lot of sense and helps us tie all of this together into a new, Google-driven content creation and sharing experience.
Collaboration via Google Docs — We love using Google+ Hang-Outs for quick video chats but what if we could all edit a document, spreadsheet, or presentation together as we talked? Just think of the opportunities for enhanced online collaboration.
We know that business pages are coming soon. We’ve been patient like you asked. But in the meantime, if you could find a way to add some of these items from our wish list that would be great.
Warm regards,
Nick Westergaard
P.S. What do you think should be a part of Google+ business pages? Please add any items to this wish list in the comments below.
